We have a pulse!
Wow, I'm back. It's been 12 months since my last post here and I had no idea that would be the case for 2017. Life got busier, I got more interested in podcasts and other things and generally spent less time poking around the Internet for new music. Hopefully, if there were awesome songs that I missed this past year, they'll turn up somehow a year (or more) down the line and I'll catch up at that point.
That being said, I did still spend a little bit of time checking in with my typical haunts (The Hype Machine, Spotify, the UK and Australian charts) as well as keep Shazam by my side when out in public (seriously, you never know when you'll hear that next special song) so I do have some finds to share with you. For whatever reason, I found myself listening to a fair amount of "Top 40" radio on the road this year (my kids have caught the countdown bug, it seems) so a few more mainstream hits than normal caught my attention in 2017.
As with the past couple of years, I've put together a youTube playlist of all of the songs on my top 100 list for the year. Click here to go listen to the whole list. The songs are organized from #100 down to #1 so nothing is spoiled by just starting at the top of the list. For those of you who are unfamiliar with my musical tastes and don't want to suffer listening through a bunch of lame tunes, I like accessible pop and electronic music with the occasional alt-rock or folk track mixed in. Strong melodies, syncopation, Scandinavianism, songs featuring male and female vocals, use of strings and fun with rhythm structure tend to score bonus points. Lyrics tend to take a back seat to the feel of a song. Metal and country tend to be non-starters with me.
My top 100 list is made up of songs that I heard for the first time either this year or late last year and figured prominently on my 2017 soundtrack. Missing from the list are two songs with no youTube presence: "Only God Knows" (#84) by Young Fathers featuring the Leith Congregational Choir and "Welcome" (#64) by Oded Tzur, Shai Maestro, Petros Klimpanis and Ziv Ravitz. These songs are sort of polar opposites too, one a punkish romp by a Scottish hip-hop band featuring a choir and the other an extended instrumental piece by a jazz quartet. If these tracks eventually surface, I'll add them to the list.
Enough with the pre-amble. Unlike last year where I just ran through my top 10, this year I'm going to highlight a few songs from the list that may be of interest. Let's get into it...
#89: "No Reason", Bonobo feat. Nick Murphy
Bonobo: disambiguation. This is the British DJ, not the monkey. I started listening to Bonobo when The North Borders was released in 2013. His music seemed to be a natural progression from the Four Tet songs I was listening to at the time. In the time since that album came out, I've gone all in on Chad Faker, a.k.a. Nick Murphy. When I saw this pairing, my interest was piqued immediately. Enjoy the trippy visuals.
#83: "Like Really", Oddisee
Another vet from my playlists from years gone by. "Like Really" is from his 2017 album The Iceberg and, as with his other material, offers some social and political commentary. I love Oddissee's flow and am blown away by the 15-second blasts at :54 and 2:12.
#73: "Be About You", Winston Surfshirt
This has very much been one of my jams lately. WS hails from Sydney and I get a mix of Anderson .paak and MGMT vibes from them. This is one breezy little number and should help get me through the winter.
#55: "In Your Eyes", BADBADNOTGOOD feat. Charlotte Day Wilson
I had the fortune of seeing BBNG play Montreal's Osheaga festival this past summer. Primarily, they are known for serving up instrumental jazz and were a good listen. But wow - those are some smoky soulful vocals from Charlotte Day Wilson! This Pitchfork review has me very intrigued to listen to some more. Shouts out to the CBC.
#44: "Not Gonna Let You Walk Away", LOLO
After I fell in love with "Year Round Summer of Love" enough to put it on my top 500, LOLO has become one of those artists that I will listen to whenever she releases something new. Just to see if I'm still in. I'm definitely in on this one. Doesn't sound like someone I'd want to cause trouble for in a relationship. This is off her debut full-length album, one that got some very positive reviews. Wishing I had time to listen to all the music. Sigh.
#36: "Best to You", Blood Orange
The sound of Dev Hynes a.k.a. Blood Orange is really tough to categorize. I find that his work is equal parts WOW!LISTEN! and WHOAnotinterested. The female vocals on this track come courtesy of Lorely Rodriguez, otherwise known as Empress Of. I kind of want to dub myself something like that. Listener Of. Seems sort of vague, I suppose.
#31: "Second Nature", Stalking Gia
I know nothing about Stalking Gia. I searched. Found a FB page. Seems like this might actually be a woman actually named Gia. So am I stalking her? Self-fulfilling prophecy? She's from NYC and "Second Nature" was sampled on a song from the recent Blackbear album.
#28: "Good Love", Zola Blood
If "Second Nature" was your cup of tea, I suspect this song might be too. A little more electronic-feeling, but a similar vibe. I'm listening to this one quite a bit right now, as well as "Nothing", another track from the London group's most recent album, Infinite Games.
#25: "Who Tells Your Story", The Roots featuring Common and Ingrid Michaelson
I am NOT a musical guy. What little I have heard of the Hamilton soundtrack convinces me that I couldn't listen to it straight up and enjoy it. Something about the affectations and enunciation - possibly with the visual performance to accompany it, perhaps that would work. But The Hamilton Mixtape...this ended up being one of my favourite albums this year. And this was the song that stood out the most. It caught my ear after "Helpless" and "My Shot", but it came out on top and I guess that's what matters. I forgot how much I used to like listening to Common. Still love his voice and flow.
#23: "Yellow Eyes (acoustic)", Rayland Baxter
This one goes out to my friend who strongly suggested that I see Rayland play the Ottawa Cityfolk festival in the fall of 2016. It occurred to me, after I picked up his Soho acoustic EP earlier this year that some of the songs from his set were performed in the acoustic style of the EP rather than the studio version, possibly to promote the EP. I remember thinking that the acoustic portion of the set was my favourite part so when I eventually got this EP, I played the heck out of it. This was my favourite of the album's five tracks.
#22: "Out of Sight", Jonwayne
This song wins the belt for "biggest comeback": going from being generally disliked on the first listen to becoming a bit of an earworm for me in the end. Is that some backwards commitment?
#19: "Elegy", Leif Vollebekk
I remember hearing this come on CBC Radio 1 in the van while driving with my wife. We had been talking about something and the song was so interesting that we both sort of latched on to it and abandoned our conversation. It's still an interesting listen to me now with some enjoyable rhymes in there (basement and face meant might be my favourite). I missed Leif at Osheaga, thinking that I'd be able to catch him at the Black Sheep in the fall but then life intervened. Next time.
#14: "Gold Angel", Minke
If "Second Nature" was your cup of tea, I suspect this song might be too. Wait, I've already used that line? Crud.
#1: "Dangerous", The xx
At the dawn of 2017, I picked up The xx's most recent effort I See You, excited to tuck into it based on the strength of "On Hold". Unfortunately, I found that I didn't care for the album as much as I had anticipated (despite the fact that it is on most critics' Best Of lists this year). On the bright side, though, the album produced my favourite song of the year: "Dangerous". A more boisterous number than 75% of xx fare, this track sounds like it would have fit in nicely on Jamie xx's In Colour album. Ergo I like it.
Thanks for listening and Happy New Year!
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