The Greatest Albums of 2017

Welcome back to the only corner of the internet where hip hop and country music rule the day in equal measure!

Against my better judgment, I’m undertaking a project to determine my top 10 albums of every year since 1960.  Instead of just picking my favorite stuff out of my collection, I intend to explore, re-visit and discover.  While I can’t promise to leave no stone un-turned, I am going to go deeper than I ever have before.  Why would I partake in a journey that will inevitably take many years and that I ultimately may never finish?  Most importantly, to uncover great music that I’ve never heard before.  Second, to boost my knowledge of music history and get a sense of what was happening at a macro scale in a snapshot of time.  Finally, I want to share my passion for music with you and, fingers crossed, generate a dialogue down in the comments.  So without further ado, here is #16 in the series.  My random number generator tells me that the next year to explore is 1983!

Check out my previous entries here.

The Greatest Albums of 2017

Whatever happened to rock ‘n roll?  That’s the question I’m asking myself as I reflect on the past couple of years, and one that’s magnified for every year that I explore between the mid-sixties and the late nineties.  Rock was the dominant genre during that whole timeframe, and while it receded a bit in the 2000’s, that merely meant that it was more equitably represented among the hip hop and R&B and other, increasingly diverse types of music that were bubbling up.  At the start of this decade, rock seemed unlikely to re-claim the central role that it had in American popular music for the better part of forty years, and that’s ok – I don’t consider myself “rockist” and it was probably time for the scene to get a little less myopic.  But good rock music was at least present.  As I look at my top ten of 2017, even my honorable mentions, the only actual rock record is Ryan Adam’s Prisoner.  Sure, there’s some rock-leaning metal like Royal Thunder and Mastodon, and Isbell’s country is sounding pretty rocking these days, but there is an undeniable dearth of “capital R” Rock ‘N Roll coming out (and what little there was, I clearly didn’t care for).  I’m not here to declare the death of the genre, or anything like that, but it definitely stands as my biggest takeaway regarding the state of the music world in early 2018.

I listened to very little current music throughout the year last year, mainly driven by the demands of this project, but I did check out more than 100 albums over the past couple months in preparation for this post.  The biggest drawback of this approach is that I don’t have the distance, or even the number of repeat listens, to confidently place this music in concrete order (not that it stopped me, mind you.)  It also makes me a little unsure of the relative quality of 2017 as a whole, although I suspect there was a bit of a regression from the past two years of stellar music.  Multiple albums sat in my top spot along the journey, before I settled on the eventual winner.  For the second year in a row, the #1 album was an independently-released hip hop record with religious themes by one of rap’s new royalty, so perhaps things haven’t changed too much.  Let’s dive in.

1.  4Eva is a Mighty Long Time – Big K.R.I.T.

I’ve always been an east coast guy when it comes to hip hop.  I listened to west coast stuff as a young fan, sure, but all of my favorite emcees and albums were centered in New York (or at least Philly) for a good portion of my life.  Southern hip hop, outside of the odd Geto Boys album, was never even a consideration for me back in the 90’s.  It’s the reason it took me an embarrassingly long time to get into Outkast, and how I missed out on UGK all together until this blog series.  That geographic bias still lurks around the back of my subconscious, which is why it took several spins to land 4Eva Is a Mighty Long Time as the top album on my 2017 list.  It’s not simply that Big K.R.I.T. is a southern artist, but his double-album opus is ultimately a tribute to southern rap music.  It’s not what the album is about, that’s a little more complicated, but it’s how K.R.I.T. frames everything that he’s trying to say.

It’s probably a little gratuitous to try and catalog every reference, but let me offer a few examples.  There are overt things like name-dropping the Underground Kings on “Ride With Me”, or “1999”, which is a clear homage to Juvenile’s “Back That Azz Up”.  Outkast gets the easter egg treatment when K.R.I.T. knowingly rhymes “gator belts” to “patty melts” on “Get Up 2 Come Down”, but their influence is all over the album, particularly on back-to-back “Miss Georgia Fornia” and “Everlasting”.  “Layup” recalls the silky flows and laid-back groove of Bone Thugs N’ Harmony, who are technically mid-west rap, but the track serves the overall vibe of the album nonetheless.  None of this is to suggest that 4Eva… is derivative of these various artists.  Hell, I don’t even like Juvenile or Bone Thugs, but I can appreciate the way that Big K.R.I.T. weaves their tradition into his tapestry.  Far from a “Greatest Hits of Southern Rap”, though, the album has a lot to say about K.R.I.T. as an artist and a person, as well.

The album is split into two distinct sides, one named for the persona (Big K.R.I.T.) and one for the man (Justin Scott).  The whole affair opens up with Scott addressing his alter ego, proclaiming that he created him to live on after he dies and immortalize his legacy.  The lyrics includes a complex allegory to God and Jesus, who are at once the same entity and creator/creation.  It’s either nifty self-mythologizing or abrasive narcissism, depending on your viewpoint, but K.R.I.T pays off the religious symbolism heavily on the second side.  First, though, he focuses on an examination of his place in the rap game, his work ethic and his motivations.  Money is a central topic, though not for the purposes of flossing or showing off.  As T.I. raps in “Big Bank”:

Can’t be no excuses, my children can’t eat no excuses My daughter can’t sleep in excuses My son he see me with no paper like keep your excuses If you ain’t producing, you’re useless

It is clearly the more akin to a traditional rap record of the two (there’s a whole track dedicated to his sub-woofer, for example), but in a year where even Jay Z and Tyler the Creator were content with navel-gazing, it’s nice to hear some bangers like “Confetti” and “Ride With Me” now and then.

Side two is where Justin Scott, the man behind the persona, gets his examination.  It is thoughtful and restrained, showing a whole new side of K.R.I.T., while still delivering dynamic and vibrant music.  Scott wrestles with the mixed messages of his output and clearly takes his faith seriously.  For all of the money talk on side one, he still joyfully proclaims that he’d surrender all of his worldly possessions for the chance to enter Heaven.  It’s a candid look into the struggles of a famous musician who is so focused on becoming a success on his own terms that he’s afraid he’s losing sight of the bigger picture:

I’ma be big momma, I’ma get rich momma, I’m sorry, I ain’t got a wife or kids momma, but look what I did momma, Got a house that I barely can stay in, a car I barely can drive, I’d be a liar if I said gettin’ money didn’t make me feel alive, Hustlin’, arguin’ about who’s better than I in tweets, But what does it matter when a new artist come out like every week?

I’m struggling to recall a double album this consistent since the dawn of the CD era*, other than Sign O’ the Times.  It’s epic in scope, but doesn’t have a superfluous moment.  I suppose you could point to the two skits, but they are well-placed and one of them is a put down of artists who release albums with a 1:1 skit-to-song ratio anyway.  Big K.R.I.T., or Justin Scott if you will, is an artist of preternatural maturity on what is only his third album, and I am thrilled to watch him grow as his career progresses.

(link)

* There are a handful of double-lps that were able to fit onto a single compact disc, once that technology was available, that are outstandingly consistent (Exile on Main Street comes to mind.)  Hence the designation.  That said, the idea of a “double album” is becoming anachronistic in an era of virtually unlimited digital storage anyway, much like the concept of artists sequencing music to optimize for different sides of the same album vanished along with cassette tapes.

1. All American Made – Margo Price

As I get older, I find myself listening to more and more country.  It has pretty much become what I instinctually put on whenever I just want some music but don’t have a specific thing in mind.  Luckily, this increase in attention has corresponded with (or perhaps been sparked by) a renaissance of sorts in the genre.  This year’s best country album comes courtesy of Margo Price, in her second studio release.  Her previous effort, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, was my eighth best album of 2016.  What’s remarkable is how much her sound has matured in the mere eighteen months between the two releases.  All American Made starts in a similar vein to her last set of songs, but it quickly evolves into something more elegant and rich.  All of the comparisons to Loretta Lynn that resulted from her debut ought to have vanished.  Price has found a voice of her own, one that is provocative (in a “voice of the artist” kind of way) and ethereal (in a more tactile sense.)

By the fourth track, this starts to feel like something singular.  The first two songs are solid fun, and the third is anchored around some classic country wordplay (“A little pain never hurt anyone…”)  “Learning to Lose” shouldn’t be anything special, if there’s one thing that doesn’t scream originality these days it’s a duet with elder statesman Willie Nelson, but it turns out to be homespun gold.  It is the point in the song cycle that makes me stop and focus my full attention every time it plays.  From there, Price lets loose some righteous indignation on “Heart of America”, about the struggles of farmers in a capitalist society, and “Pay Gap”, about you guessed it.  It all culminates in the title track.  In the hands of most artists associated with country and western music, a song called “All American Made” would be a healthy dose of flag-waiving jingoism.  In Price’s hands, it becomes a bold indictment of the government, presumably narrowed in on the current administration.  The fact that it is also the most beautiful tune she’s ever recorded gives it a dissonance that contributes to its edge.

All American Made has plenty of material about hard living and love gone wrong, as is mandated by its designation as authentic country music.  It is also political and humanistic in a way that is practically unheard of in the genre that set a pipe bomb to the careers of the Dixie Chicks for dissing George W. Bush (at a time when he was already practically a national laughing stock.)  Regardless of your politics, diversity of thought is always a positive thing, so its heartening that Price, and another artist on my list, have decided to air their true opinions at the expense of their fiscal prosperity.  It won’t likely earn them a spot at the CMAs, but it ought to earn them our respect.

(link)

1. God First – Mr. Jukes

Describing God First is tricky.  I was not previously aware of Mr. Jukes, real name Jack Steadman, or his band, Bombay Bicycle Club, before I stumbled across this delightfully idiosyncratic album.  The closest analogue is Bill Laswell, and that’s not a very helpful comparison because he is neither particularly well-known nor does his music sound that similar to Mr. Jukes.  Yet, it is somewhat apt in that they both leverage the coolest people in their Rolodex and their own encyclopedic knowledge of music history to create what amount to singular mixtapes.  God First is an album that sounds halfway like hitting shuffle on a perfectly curated jukebox, and halfway like Robert Glasper and Sufjan Stevens teaming up to tackle 90’s hip hop and R&B.  Got a clear picture yet?  No?  Ok, let’s break it down a little further.

The album kicks off with “Typhoon”, perhaps the least representative song of the bunch.  It’s a nearly unclassifiable, psychedelic track with little of the breezy soul that marks the rest of the songs.  It’s also one of roughly half the tracks that feature Steadman as the lead singer.  Other tracks like “Ruby” and “Magic” also benefit from Steadman’s charming (yet reedy) voice, though it is hardly the album’s selling point.  In what is surely a bit of a backhanded compliment, his singing underlines the joyfully DIY nature of a music nerd pulling together a passion project of this scale.  It’s ultimately the musicianship and the beats that make the album so charming and seductive.  Even still, God First shines brightest in the many eclectic collaborations.

It’s ironic that this is undoubtedly the least well-known choice in my top ten, yet it is likely the one that readers will have the highest chance of having heard before.  Buoyed by a typically outstanding Charles Bradley performance, “Grant Green” will be immediately recognizable to most as the song from that one Google Pixel commercial.  Yet even its ubiquity on television for a few months last year has done nothing to rob it of its energetic magnetism.  Every guest lends the album something special, whether it’s De La Soul dropping their signature laid back rhymes on “Leap of Faith”, or Alexandria carrying the second-person break up tune, “Tears”.  I expect that many albums on this list have the potential to be pretty divisive among the handful of you that actually read the ponderous thing.  None more so than God First, but maybe that’s the same quality that makes it sound like it was made specifically for me.

(link)

1. The Nashville Sound – Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit

Jason Isbell has long been an outsider to the country music establishment.  The fact that his masterpiece Southeastern was the country album of 2013 is as close to a universal truth as you’ll find, yet it did not receive mainstream radio play or get nominated for any major awards.  He got a bit more notice for Something More than Free, but I don’t expect him to ingratiate himself any further with his latest release.  Hip hop, pop and rock artists have been vocal in their disdain for the Trump administration (and historically any administration), with no adverse reaction barring the occasional conservative talking head.  With country artists (and lets just drop the act that “Americana” is somehow different than “Country”), voicing such opinions can be a lot more dicey.  As I mentioned while discussing Margo Price, even a whiff of material that could be considered anti-government (read: anti-American) is usually a no-no for country musicians who would like to be successful.  Isbell doesn’t mention Trump by name, but he paints a picture of inclusion that seems to be at odds with the president’s America first (read: rich white male first) agenda.  In the inflammatory and stirring “White Man’s World”, he laments for his wife who is looking to forge her own path in Nashville, and for his young daughter whose yet unknown hopes and dreams have been at risk since birth, due to her gender.  Elsewhere, tracks like “Anxiety” and “Molotov” speak to a more generalized concern for the state of the world.  It’s a common sentiment in these times, but an unlikely source.

The Nashville Sound plays like two different albums at some points.  There are tracks, like “Last of My Kind” and “Tupelo”, that recall the small-scale, introspective material that is Isbell’s hallmark.  The rest are just as much rock as country, frequently a little angry, and the likely reason that the 400 Unit are getting equal billing on this record.  That disconnect leads to this being the least cohesive of his recent output, but the material is all very good.  “If We Were Vampires” imagines the scenario of immortal lovers, and how they wouldn’t feel the need to show affection since they have forever with each other.  It’s a different, minimalist sound for Isbell, and a lovely highlight.  He closes out with two tracks that posit that no matter how divisive things seem, we’re all in this together.  On “Hope the High Road”, perhaps the album highlight, Isbell belts “Last year was a son of a bitch, for nearly every one we know,” and it becomes clear that he’s talking about the half of the country that very much didn’t want the election to go down the way it did, but also about the disenfranchised rural Americans whose lack of options and attention from career politicians led to that outcome.  He sympathizes with both, and his only request is for both parties to meet each other on the high road, because that’s the only way this gets any better.  It feels weird to call a famous person brave for airing his political thoughts considering everyone’s Facebook feed is full of the same from 200 passing acquaintances, but it feels brave nonetheless, given the context.  More than that, it feels like the latest in a string of unassailable efforts from Isbell and company.

(link)

1. Flower Boy – Tyler the Creator

I remember rolling my eyes when Odd Future started making noise and people were comparing them to the Wu Tang Clan.  At that point they had produced a handful of mixtapes and a compilation album that I still consider pretty much unlistenable.  Yet, fast forward less than a decade, and that sentiment seems fairly spot on.  Earl Sweatshirt and Domo Genesis each have releases that range from good to great, and Frank Ocean and Syd have done the same thing on the R&B side, with an even stronger hit rate.  The one successful OF member that I could never get behind was the member of the crew that had the earliest hype:  Tyler the Creator.  To me, he never matured, just amplified the obnoxious, shock-mongering elements that put me off the collective from the start.  The release of Flower Boy makes me think that maturation has been occurring all along, but Tyler just masked it to put out the music that everyone expected of him.  Thankfully, whether that is true or not, he has eclipsed everything he has released in the past with one of the most self-assured Odd Future releases so far.

It’s fitting for such a step forward that the album’s primary theme is growth, hence the garden imagery in the title and sprinkled through nearly every track.  Whether it’s the alarmingly sweet “See You Again” or the predictably misogynistic “Droppin’ Seeds”, there is a botanical through-line to the whole album. (Of course, a secondary theme which gets nearly as much play is simply “expensive cars.”)  The album really stands out for its remarkably creative production by Tyler himself.  It is wistful and disarming, while still adhering to the melancholy/faded vibe of most Odd Future works.  I wouldn’t even let “Droppin’ Seeds” bother you too much, it’s much more indicative of where Tyler is at these days that the album boasts a track that sounds like Drake at his most sensitive (“911/Mr. Lonely”). If that’s not a sign of some miracle grow, I don’t know what is.

(link)

1. Ctrl – SZA

SZA’s “Drew Barrymore” is probably my favorite track of the year.  I had to google the lyrics to find out if she was really saying what I thought I heard, and she was, which is kind of crazy for a lead single, right?  The rest of the album follows suit in the same confessional and sex-forward vein.  At her age, relationships, sex ,and drama are all rolled into one big tangle of emotions, and Ctrl is a rumination on the same.  She has a lovely, warm voice that feels effortlessly sexy, though probably isn’t (effortless, that is).  Her vaguely island-influenced patois seems authentic and unique, as opposed to put-on like, say, Rihanna, which is impressive since SZA hails from the exotic locale of Missouri.  She purrs and lilts more than belts, but her mellifluous voice never sounds like an affectation.  It is a considerably confident vocal for a debut record.  The music is hip hop as much as it is modern soul, with loping beats and assists from the likes of Travis Scott and Kendrick Lamar. Ultimately, I think what draws me most to Ctrl is that it recalls the woozy summer fever dream vibe of Frank Ocean’s 2012 masterpiece, Channel Orange. That’s a hell of a pedigree, but perhaps fitting for an artist with the balls to cop her name from the Wu Tang’s founding fathers.

(link)

1. Purgatory – Tyler Childers

Country music artists have trafficked in several common themes since the genre’s inception.  Heartbreak is the most prevalent, but not far behind is heavy drinking. Aside from Johnny Cash’s “Cocaine Blues”, however, drug use hasn’t gotten much attention from country artists, at least compared to their rock ‘n roll contemporaries.  Tyler Childers’ Purgatory may be the genre’s first drug album. (In fact, all four of the country albums in my top ten make reference to coke.)  Childers is young and reckless and fucked up, and clearly delights in chronicling such in a no-frills, bar band type of way.  Yet, as immature as his outlook on life might be, his songwriting is preternaturally strong.  That gift for turns of phrase makes it impossible not to root for his scruffy protagonists as they navigate the troubled waters of moonshine and narcotics and other vices, or contemplate going clean for the love of a woman.  The title of the album is apt, since Childers seems to figure that purgatory is his best-case scenario.  On the track that shares its name, he croons to the Catholic girl he’s involved with to pray for him, but that seems about as far as he’s willing to go to course correct for the time being.  I imagine that he has a long career ahead of him in which he’ll have the opportunity to show maturation.  For the time being, I’m happy to have this rousing document of mis-spent youth.

(link)

1. Brick Body Kids Still Daydream – Open Mike Eagle

The greatest compliment I can pay this album is that is reminds me how young that hip hop is as an artform.  Rock ‘n roll has a good thirty years on it, and compared to jazz or blues, hip hop is a relative infant.  What that means is that no matter how far afield a rap record may be, it still tracks pretty closely to the definitive texts of the genre.  In the 2000’s, artists like Edan, MF Doom and the Cunninglynguists were considered the avant gaurde, the underground.  Upon closer inspection, however, are the things that we enjoy about them very much different than The Chronic or even Raising Hell?  On Brick Body Kids.., Open Mike Eagle challenges what it means to make a vibrant hip hop record as much as any other artist I’ve heard so far.  It feels virtually distinct from the tropes that have defined hip hop since the beginning.  His rapping has a unique melodic flow to it, never becoming wholesale singing but also not hitting the hard syllables that has been the hallmark of most rhymes and rhymers since the days of Melle Mel and Grandmaster Caz.  Sometimes the beats mimic that innate musicality, but sometimes they are more like discordant sound collages.  From a subject matter perspective, he is so nerdy he makes Del the Funkee Homosapien sound like 50 Cent, yet it’s not just comic book and professional wrestling references.  There is a point of view to his lyricism, alternatingly plain-spoken or couched in surreal metaphor.  The track “Brick Body Complex” is the closest he gets to the joys we conventionally associate with hip hop, tapping into the part of the brain that gets hype for “Hypnotize” or “Rosa Parks”.  Even then, it’s pretty esoteric:

Don’t call me n*****, or rapper, My motherfucking name is Michael Eagle, I’m sovereign, I’m from a line of ghetto superheroes, I holla, I’ve got something to bring to your attention, attention, attention, attention, attention. I promise you I will never ever  fit in your descriptions, I’m giant, Don’t let nobody tell you nothing different, They Lyin’, A giant and my body is a building, a building, a building, a building, a building.

The building he is identifying with is the project tenement he grew up in, which touches on the album’s central theme.  The circumstances by which we grow up become a part of who we are, no matter how much some artists want to deny it by only talking about how many cars they have or how much money they can stack.  It’s not a unique message in rap music, really, but Eagle has found a unique way to convey it.

(link)

1. On the Rocks – Midland

I usually have a pretty good idea of my top ten before I ever start typing, but it’s not uncommon for things to shift around a bit during the writing process.  This entry represents the first time that a whole new album has jumped onto the list after it was ~90% written.  I was driving back from vacation with my family, when the song “Electric Rodeo” popped up from whatever playlist we were shuffling, and I knew I had to make the change (with all due apologies to the Secret Sisters and their very good album that got jettisoned.)  Here is the chorus from that track:

We’re paintin’ on our suits, We’re pluggin’ in our boots, We’re ridin’ high tonight on Acapulco Gold! And the rhinestones are shinin’, Just as bright as diamonds, Underneath the light, Electric rodeo!

Those lyrics perfectly encapsulate the vibe of Midland.  They are a neon-drenched throwback to the post-outlaw period of country music in the early eighties, when Alabama, George Strait and Keith Whitley were producing smartly-written, silky smooth, polished material.  Yet, while they embody that aesthetic, they heighten it, almost to the edge of surreal at times.  It is an album that I loved from the first time I heard it, but one that I would have a hard time recommending.  I think that’s why it wasn’t on my list to begin with, I just assume that many of my readers (i.e. friends on Facebook) will not necessarily connect to this.  Which is dumb, because the point of this blog series is meant to be a showcase of my opinion anyway, and who knows, maybe you’ll love it!  For me, it takes me back to my childhood, sitting in the living room in Baton Rouge while an Oak Ridge Boys song plays over the stereo.  It’s a very specific and vibrant nostalgia, which obviously wouldn’t translate for anyone else. Beyond that, the band really makes no concessions towards modern music.  There is a little Eagles and Steely Dan in the mix (yes, I’m the one guy that still likes the Eagles), but otherwise the tunes are faithfully traditional, even if the lyrics are a little more savvy. A track like “Drinking Problem” is surprising only in the fact that it never existed before 2017.  Still, these are all really good songs, performed very well, and maybe they are weird enough to be more broadly appealing than I suspect.  Either way, I will treasure this album for many years to come, both for the memories it brings and on its own artistic merits.

(link)

1. 4:44 – Jay Z

In 2016, Beyonce was able to mine an album’s worth of pathos out of her troubled relationship with Jay Z (and it was excellent, by the way).   4:44 is ostensibly Jay’s response, but he doesn’t really dwell on their marital issues.  Instead, he weaves his mea culpas in with verses about finance, race, and the music business.  It’s a muddy album, one where bracing assertions that his infidelity led to a series of miscarriages sit uncomfortably next to subtle chastising of black people for not buying his vodka brand.  It’s never less than fascinating, however. It also marks a pretty big departure from his time-tested approach to recording.  The album is barely classifiable as rap at times, with its chopped and screwed soul samples in lieu of beats, and rhymes that are much more conversational than musical.  It works for Jay, though. He has always had charisma for days, but I never bought into the idea that he belongs in a conversation about the great lyricists of the game.  Now that he’s more than a dozen albums in, the world probably doesn’t need another straight-forward Jay Z verse.  Instead, we get a rare tour of his brain, although its unclear if he is telling us what he thinks, or what he wants us to think he thinks.  And it really doesn’t matter, because he is able to detour to this weird place without sacrificing his trademark confidence, and we are fully along for the ride.  Barring his 2011 team-up with Kanye, it’s the most interesting that Hova has been in years.

(link)

Honorable Mentions

Hip Hop:  Laila’s Wisdom – Rhapsody; DAMN. – Kendrick Lamar

Rock/Metal:  Wick – Royal Thunder; Empire of Sand – Mastodon; Prisoner – Ryan Adams; Everything is Forgotten – Methyl Ethyl; Cold Dark Place – Mastodon

Pop:  Humanz – Gorillaz; I See You – The xx; American Dream – LCD Sound System

Soul:  Freudian – Daniel Caesar; If All I Was Was Black – Mavis Staples; Fin – Syd

Country/Folk:  The Order of Time – Valerie June; From a Room: Vol 1 & Vol 2 – Chris Stapleton; The Navigator – Hurray for the Riff Raff; You Don’t Own Me Anymore – The Secret Sisters; The Lonely, the Lonesome, the Gone – Lee Ann Womack

Jazz:  Marseille – Ahmad Jamal; Journey into the Mountain of Forever – Binker & Moses