Eventually I plan to get caught back up on these, so I'm fully intending to get my 2016 year-end lists finished just in time to start tossing up the 2017 lists. The good news is that the content and format of the lists are done, I just need to put together the descriptions and do all the fun data entry and formatting tasks.
As has been the case, 2016 didn't really find me branching out too significantly into new areas of listening - mostly just digging more deeply into the genres that I'd already spent time with. A lot of time was spent bouncing around in the back catalog of Bob Dylan, the seemingly never-ending live archives of the Grateful Dead and poking through more off-shoots of metal and stoner rock.
Considering how 2016 played out, I'd be lying if I didn't say that death played a huge part in how I approached and absorbed music throughout the year. David Bowie's death at the start of the year meant I went much deeper than his even better than advertised swan song, I was engrossed by many nooks and crannies I'd passed by previously. The process repeated itself again in April after Prince, unfathomably, left us all stunned. And that was only the tip of the increasingly depressing iceberg. Leonard Cohen. Sharon Jones. Phife Dawg. Merle Haggard. George Michael. Paul Kantner. Glenn Frey. Maurice White. Tony Conrad. Keith Emerson. Greg Lake. Some will say this is the natural consequence of the aging of the Baby Boomers, but far too many of those names left us too soon.
As usual, the next few posts will give me the chance to run through my favorite EPs, reissues/compilations, live albums, tracks and albums of 2016. In the meantime, a brief look at the past editions...
Albums of the Year:
2003: Outkast - Speakerboxx/The Love Below
2004: Modest Mouse - Good News For People Who Love Bad News
2005: Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
2006: Mastodon - Blood Mountain
2007: Battles - Mirrored
2008: Erykah Badu - New Amerykah Part One (4th World War)
2009: The Flaming Lips - Embryonic
2010: Janelle Monae - The ArchAndroid
2011: Fucked Up - David Comes To Life
2012: Goat - World Music
2013: Steven Wilson - The Raven That Refused To Sing (and Other Stories)
2014: D'Angelo and the Vanguard - Black Messiah
2015: Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly
Tracks of the Year:
2003: "Hey Ya" - Outkast
2004: "Take Me Out" - Franz Ferdinand
2005: "Since U Been Gone" - Kelly Clarkson
2006: "When You Were Young" - The Killers
2007: "Stronger" - Kanye West
2008: "Time To Pretend" - MGMT
2009: "My Girls" - Animal Collective
2010: "Fuck You" - Cee-Lo Green
2011: "Super Bass" - Nicki Minaj
2012: "Bad Religion" - Frank Ocean
2013: "The Wire" - Haim
2014: "i" - Kendrick Lamar
2015: "Alright" - Kendrick Lamar
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