Best Music of 2017 From My Admittedly Limited Perspective

There were a number of albums that I liked in 2017. I’m by no means a connoisseur of music, at least not on the level of a professional reviewer, and I have permanently written off entire genres of music. So this is by no means comprehensive but it’s what I liked this year.

Honorable mention. Prince, Purple Rain (remaster). Why is a 1984 album in the 2017 countdown? Not much more praise needs to be offered on the titanic original album or B-sides, all of which had been in desperate need of a remaster for years. But the new-to-me outtakes on the bonus disc were up there with the best of the year’s new music. “The Dance Electric” is an 11-minute ‘80s dance workout that should have been a single and “Possessed” is slinky and weird. Best of all is the “Hallway Speech Version” of Purple Rain track “Computer Blue.” It’s expanded into a 12-minute suite here and it’s astounding, all fiery guitar solos and intricate synths. It’s the bridge between the erotic spoken word fever dream of 1999 and the more polished rock of Purple Rain. I thought I was used to Prince’s brilliance but it shocked me how great this was.

8. Depeche Mode, Spirit. It’s frustrating that album cycles are so long nowadays that a band can take four years to make something disappointing. Some of the music was good but it’s such a negative album. It’s supposedly protesting Brexit and Trump but not giving people much to inspire them to rebel. I don’t care for the tone of the single “Where’s the Revolution?” David Gahan sings “Where’s the revolution?/ Come on, people, you’re letting me down.” Oh, sorry if you don’t approve of how we’re handling things.

7. Tori Amos, Native Invaders. I love “Up the Creek” and its feel of a wild ride through the woods, and “Reindeer King” is OK. But there’s just not much passion on this album. “Benjamin” is embarrassing. It will inevitably work my way into my rotation, since it’s Tori, but I don’t have too much desire to revisit it.

6. Beck, Colors. It seems like we’re a critical minority but I’m one of the people who likes Happy Beck better than Sad Beck. So I loved Midnite Vultures and hated Sea Change. This album is fine. I will probably often turn to upbeat tracks like “Up All Nite” and “Dreams” and the oddly melancholy “Wow.”

5. !!!, Shake the Shudder. It’s just a really fun, danceable album, with highlights including “Dancing Is the Best Revenge.” To sum up—!!!: !!!.

4. LCD Soundsystem, American Dream. It doesn’t really bother me that LCD Soundsystem went back on its claims of retirement to release American Dream. People were disappointed that they had that big farewell concert and then came back anyway but I just thought, “I could go for some more music again.” There’s nothing revolutionary here but it’s a solid album, with highlights being the sweeping “Call the Police” and the creepy “How Do You Sleep?” which sounds like the Cure from the early ‘80s. I did think the 12-minute Bowie eulogy “Black Screen” was a little indulgent and ridiculous.

3. Goldfrapp, Silver Eye. This is a fun album full of electronic sleaze, which is my favorite mode for Goldfrapp. It starts with the heavy, trashy “Anymore” and “Systemagic” and ends with the introspective “Ocean.” The solid, pulsing sounds are welcome after the quieter Tales of Us.

2. Grizzly Bear, Painted Ruins. Grizzly Bear is, for me, the sound of a lazy, serene summer day, of lying outside and watching the clouds shift over the sky. Painted Ruins is a little more charged, with a bit of an edge to songs like “Mourning Sound,” “Three Rings,” “Losing All Sense” and the flirty, sighing “Neighbors.” I don’t have much insight to offer than that I really enjoy this album.

1. St. Vincent, MASSEDUCTION. I like this album so much that I will forgive its incorrect capitalization of a word that is not an acronym. This album is a riot of rock guitars and new wave and synthesizers, criticizing shallowness and plasticity. It’s a fun album with lyrics that can sometimes be raw. Some of the tracks are peppy on the surface but have a darkness, as “Pills” criticizes our tendency to overmedicate and the title track has Annie Clark singing “I can’t turn off what turns me on.” “New York” has a definite sadness, with Clark mourning a lost loved one. When she sings “You’re the only motherfucker in the city who can handle me,” it sounds like the funny anecdote in the eulogy where the mourners laugh through their tears. My favorite is the back-to-back “Surgarboy” and “Los Ageless.” The former is a chaotic attack of sound celebrating the sweet and superficial, like “Boys Keep Swinging” mixed with “I Feel Love” with a hefty dollop of Prince thrown in. The synthesizer motif slows down and transitions into “Los Ageless,” as Clark jadedly criticizes a city where nobody seems to age, then breaks into an anguished call of “How can anybody have you and lose you and not lose their mind?” MASSEDUCTION is Annie Clark’s power move: She knew what she wanted, she went for it, and she got it.