Now, have you heard about this new way to listen to music? You can subscribe to a service and “stream” as much as you want! Combined with my local library, this allowed me to listen to a lot of albums this year. Excluding those I only listened to once or twice, here is how I classify 2017’s albums:
This is remastered album sounds great, I hope they do this to more Beatles records!
- Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 50th anniversary remaster
Superb
- Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked at Me
- Lorde - Melodrama
- The New Pornographers - Whiteout Conditions
- Spoon - Hot Thoughts
Real Good
- Arcade Fire - Everything Now
- (The great songs are significant enough for me to ignore the clunky “Infinite Content” songs. For reasons I cannot articulate, like the “Chemistry” lyric, “Go to the city / Go to the store / Ask for a loan from another bank”.)
- Allison Crutchfield - Tourist in this Town
- (These are very good songs with bad production values despite distribution by a respected label.)
- Alvvays - Antisocialites
- Phoebe Bridgers - Stranger in the Alps
Solid.
- Cloud Nothings - Life Without Sound
- Fleet Foxes - Crack-Up
- Aimee Mann - Mental Illness
- Diet Cig - Swear I’m Good at This
- U2 - Songs of Experience
- (No one is going to go bonkers over this group of songs, but I’m happy that I like most of them, and very happy that they are still an operational rock band.)
- Waxahatchee - Out in the Storm
- Shins - Heartworms
Multiple good songs on these but also a song or two that I dislike enough to bump it down here
- St. Vincent - Masseduction
- (I thought this was the year, but I may be doomed to like only two St. Vincent songs per album forever.)
- Wolf Alice - Visions of a Life
- (“Beautifully Unconventional” and “Planet Hunter” are just the silliest things, and I’m sure they are not meant to be.)
- Beck - Colors
- Kesha - Rainbow
Fine but not memorable, or too one-note to keep my interest over the entire album
- Ryan Adams - Prisoner
- XX - I See You
- Queens of the Stone Age - Villans
- (Sharp downturn after the first two songs. Some of those songs really grate on me.)
- Julien Baker - Turn Out the Lights
- Phoenix - Ti Amo
- Liam Gallagher - As You Were
- Royal Blood - How Did We Get So Dark?
- (Have not decided if this is legitimately good or British Nickelback.)
- Tristen - Sneaker Waves
- HAIM - Something to Tell You
Man, I tried, but I’m just not digging it
- Real Estate - In Mind
- Father John Misty - Pure Comedy (papa johns misty May 2017)
- Texting my pal:
- “I think this new Father John Misty album is good (!) but repetitive and I lose interest halfway in.”
- (30 minutes pass)
- “And after I lose interest but keep listening, I get madder and madder about the repetition and I’m back to hating him.”
- So anyway, I much prefer Papa John's Misty
- Feist - Pleasure
- Lana Del Rey - Lust for Life
