Macromix 17

// songs of 2017 //

A

20. Aldous Harding – “Imagining My Man”
19. Marika Hackman – “My Lover Cindy”
18. Sampha – “Under”
17. Perfume Genius – “Wreath”
16. Lomelda – “Interstate Vision”
15. Syd – “Nothin To Somethin”
14. Chastity Belt – “This Time Of Night”
13. The Stevens – “Keep Me Occupied”
12. Arca – “Coraje”
11. Ride – “Cali”

B

10. Alvvays – “Not My Baby”
9. The Shins – “Fantasy Island”
8. Kehlani – “Undercover”
7. Vince Staples – “Party People”
6. St. Vincent – “Hang On Me”
5. Tyler, The Creator feat. Estelle – “Garden Shed”
4. The Proper Ornaments – “The Frozen Stare”
3. Moses Sumney – “Lonely World”
2. Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton – “R.I.P.”
1. Slowdive – “Sugar For The Pill”


83 minutes, same as last year. Ask me for a tape, or listen here. Words at Big Takeover.


“Fucked up, anxious, full of fear,” begins one song, to which another asks, “How I’m supposed to have a good time when death and destruction’s all I see?” There’s more of that on the tape, certainly (just look at some of the song titles), but whether or not music and I were more anxiety-prone than usual this year, I never felt like my listening was a response to anything in particular. I sought good vibrations, like Mr. Staples, and found them.

indie rock — Sorry, I guess, for so much of it, but in such a strong year I could’ve included many, many more bands: new-to-me Japanese Breakfast (whose “Diving Woman” was the biggest sound I heard at the Slowdive show and whose recorded version is a perfect containment and miniaturization of that sound, electric current in a snow globe), Vagabon (an absurdly young and self-possessed artist, à la Julien Baker, whose every line is both crisis and solution, and whose “Mal à L’aise” is a mid-album analogue bubblebath, well-earned), Jay Som, Charly Bliss, The Courtneys, Girl Ray, Tomberlin (“Self-Help”), Business of Dreams and Stef Chura, plus ‘10s faves Girlpool, Waxahatchee, Big Thief (“Mythological Beauty”), Sleeping Bag (“Affection”), Frankie Rose (“Cage Tropical”), Real Estate (“Darling”) and Beach Fossils (“May 1st”). Among veteran artists, both Spiral Stairs and The Bats were chock full o’ tunes; the former’s were immediate pleasures, the latter’s a bit slower to unfold.

pop — I’m the dummy who cited Taylor Swift’s “naiveté” in 2012 and Justin Timberlake’s “generosity” in 2013 (and those were the first times I’d thought about either artist, respectively), so there’s a reason I feel nervous and stupid when considering the Billboard charts. Still I couldn’t fail to notice this year that, as popular music becomes less popular, there are more and more Hot 100 #1s I find tolerable or enjoyable. In the case of “Bodak Yellow” there’s even one I can imagine feeling wistful about in five years, and in the case of “Humble.” the best song was the single.

other — I could offer backhanded praise of the artists’ vitality but instead I should just say that I loved Randy Newman’s “Lost Without You” (even Newman in the ‘70s would be devastated by Newman in his 70s), Alison Moyet’s “Reassuring Pinches” (I can’t think of when the “synthpop legend reclaims electronics” lane has had a more commanding traveler), Jens Lekman’s “To Know Your Mission,” Aimee Mann’s “Patient Zero” and TLC’s “It’s Sunny.” And for an album that really does function foremost as memoir, The Magnetic Fields’s 50 Song Memoir ended up having a lot of tracks I play individually. Impulsive top five: “A Cat Called Dionysus,” “No!,” “Foxx & I,” “Dreaming In Tetris” and “Have You Seen It In The Snow?” (people overestimate Stephin Merritt’s sense of irony but, even so, the entire 9/11 sequence on disc 4 is startlingly sentimental and, uh, beautiful, you know).

Older ‘17

I have no idea why someone would list the best music of 2017 in mid-December, but it’s not too early to celebrate the other music I loved most this year. The big story: after years of thinking of Technique as merely an excellent post-peak New Order album, it took over my life. I guess 30 is the magical age at which its opening line feels like an invitation, not a rejection. In that spirit, here are 20 more albums I was finally ready for this year:


Karen Dalton – In My Own Time (1971) — This year’s documentary Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World is most revelatory, for novices like me, when showing how Native American musical tradition is synonymous with the language and idioms of American music, and often planted there by solitary figures (see: thorough musicological analysis of Mildred Bailey’s phrasing, the rhythms of Charley Patton’s guitar). Karen Dalton isn’t a figure of discussion in the film but her own influence speaks for itself during the end credits. I stood outside the Uptown’s auditorium doors in shivering amazement, every night I worked Rumble, trying to soak up as much of “Something On Your Mind” as possible. Never imagined I had a date with such a magnificent song.

Judee Sill – The Asylum Years (1971-1973) — Can’t beat Laura Veirs for succinctness: “You wrote ‘The Kiss’ and it is beautiful, I can listen again and again.” I agree that “The Kiss” is The One, as they say, though I try to ration it.

Dusty Springfield – Cameo (1973) — Another amazing person whose artistry never failed even as the world worked overtime to derail her career. See below.

Minnie Riperton – Perfect Angel (1974) — “Reasons” maps her connections to the world, “Our Lives” dreams of retirement, and in between there are a hundred other ways in which it’s hard now to hear Perfect Angel outside the specter of an early death. But the dripping ice cream cone on the album’s cover is a tell: Riperton believes in the eternity of the given moment, and lives forever in these songs.

Labelle – Chameleon (1976) — A good case for studio experimentation and wizardry in a year I’ve always reserved for the Ramones.

Marvin Gaye – I Want You (1976) — Sounds like the drums and strings of What’s Going On never stopped, they just spun off in a thousand personal directions while the world slept.

Neil Young – Comes A Time (1978) — I continue to explore Neil’s old albums at the rate he releases new ones, so I’ll have to settle for keeping pace. This year I went for Sleeps With Angels (the tape, uh, haunted my childhood home but somehow it took Claire Denis’s Beau Travail to make me wanna hear it) and Greendale (a pleasant slog). I’d heard Comes A Time once before this year but its subtlety made it seem inconsequential, especially given Rust Never Sleeps was imminent. Now it sounds like his catalog’s most obvious precursor to Automatic for the People and Wilco’s Being There.

Look Blue Go Purple – Still Bewitched (1983-1988) — As charming and mysterious as any Dunedin band and I swear I’d never even seen a mention of them until this year. Cosmic injustice or my ignorance, probably both.

Alexander O’Neal – Hearsay (1987) — When I need to see Minneapolis with fresh eyes I can just keep working down the list of Flyte Time productions. “The Lovers” is lush as July, etc.

Verlaines – Bird-Dog (1987) — That old college ache ’n’ thrum is fading but sometimes the right album brings it back. This one’s better than 1987’s Go-Betweens album, and almost as good as the two that bookend it.

Close Lobsters – Headache Rhetoric (1989) — I used to think bands like this were the greatest secret in the world; now I realize the crushing ubiquity of jangly rock music must’ve made the late 80s hell and am simply grateful when a band has great songs.

A.R. Kane – i (1989) — Further evidence that human culture peaked in ’89. I loved Sixty-Nine but had no idea the follow-up would be its exact inverse, so long on grooves and hooks. I also finally heard “Anitina” this year and, well…

Prefab Sprout – Jordan: The Comeback (1990) — The Jordan songs I knew from The Collection, in high school, must’ve sounded like too much a threat to my indie rock “ideals,” as I found them tacky where “Appetite” wasn’t quite. So dumb; this is a major pop achievement.

The Roches – A Dove (1992) — Always weirdly on-trend with their album covers, impervious to trends in every other way. Still, this accidentally made for a good same-day purchase and listen with Love Deluxe, another ’92 album that risks sacrificing personality for slick surfaces, gains more than it loses.

Mary J. Blige – My Life (1994) — Hmm, I’m thinking of another artist whose second album’s second song is also called “You Bring Me Joy” and whose subtext is that sentiment, with pronouns inverted.

George Michael – Older (1996) — Far and away the album that moved me most this year. Even in death he remains misunderstood and otherized (turning “Fastlove” into a dirge for the Grammys was a hideous insult), but his love and trust of his audience is palpable on Older. The music is heavy with the burden of articulating every line and melody just right, to avoid misinterpretation, light with a sense of relief/release. The booklet’s “Thank you for waiting” is the understatement of the decade.

OutKast – ATLiens (1996) — The most overdue listen of anything on this list. I’ve liked OutKast for 18 years, what was I thinking?

Cornelius – Point (2001) — Cuts back on the hyper-allusive thrills of Fantasma and gets right on with dazzling music. Maybe I thought the absence of that Disney-Americana angle would make his music too austere, but I would’ve loved this at 14. To realize that, about music you were once on the verge of hearing but never did, is a form of time travel, or at the very least produces an eerie sense of time as illusory. See also, this year: Handsome Boy Modeling School’s So… How’s Your Girl?; Matthew Sweet’s In Reverse; The Breeders’ Title TK; Blonde Redhead’s 23. It’s 1999 (and 2002, and 2007) all the time.

Jazmine Sullivan – Love Me Back (2010) — I should’ve been on music message boards in my 20s.

Tanya Donelly – Swan Song Series (2016) — The songwriting bodes well for the new Belly album, though I suspect that one’s ambitions will be primarily soundwise, not scalewise. I listened to Swan Song across a wide swath of Wisconsin last month, but already knew it was unusually grounded in time and place (and coffee shop atmospherics) for music in the 2010s.

10,000 doors

My favorite listening moments tend to be ones in which I’m surprised to find myself thinking, about artists I love, “Oh, this is one of their best songs.” Ten of those from this year:

Patti Smith – “Distant Fingers”
David Bowie – “Red Sails”
Fleetwood Mac – “That’s All For Everyone”
Television Personalities – “Diary of a Young Man”
The Chills – “Ghosts”
The Leaving Trains – “What Cissy Said”
Wipers – “True Believer”
New Order – “Mr Disco”
The Afghan Whigs – “Uptown Again”
Sonic Youth – “Incinerate”