10. Bon Iver — 22, A Million
Courtesy of Jagjaguwar
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Undoubtedly Bon Iver’s most difficult album, 22, A Million is borne of an acutely taxing set of events which seem to have set Justin Vernon on a path to destroy convention. The tracks range from dream-like wanderings to a drunken thrashing that you actually have to struggle to hold onto. Vernon isn’t at all concerned with holding the listener’s hand here; the aim to please is all but blown out and this is the result. This album is a challenge to go through, not only for its meandering lyricism and an emotional instability that reaches through a looping base and into distorted falsetto wailings, but also because, even at its core, even at its worst, it’s exquisite. And sometimes it’s difficult to understand when you need to turn away from something so brilliant, it appears to be self-immolating.
— Jessie Weber
9. Pinegrove — Cardinal
Courtesy of Run For Cover Records
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On Bandcamp, Pinegrove tag all of their music with the label “Language Arts Rock.” The fact that they’re the only artists on the site to do so speaks volumes: among the countless aspects of Cardinal which blasted the group out from pleasant obscurity into subterranean stardom, the deeply thoughtful lyrics of vocalist/guitarist Evan Stephens Hall are paramount. With turns of phrase ranging in style and emotion from literary and heartrending (“I saw Leah on the bus a few months ago / I saw some old friends at her funeral”) to witty and playful (“I was totally nervous to go to Japan / I tried to travel once, I lost my keys”) to millennially hopeless and confused (“we had some good ideas but we never left that fucking room”), Hall situated himself as a kind of plainspoken wordsmith to rule in a scene so tied up with pithy phrases and erudition. But Pinegrove aren’t only practitioners of the Language Arts: once you digest the lyrics, you’ll realize that Cardinal is simply brimming with the types of tight-knit, tumbling post-country jams which rank it among the best rock n’ albums in recent (or maybe even distant) memory.
— Troy Sherman
8. Mitski — Puberty 2
Courtesy of Dead Oceans
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Mitski’s lyrics make me want to cry and drive really fast and trust myself and my experiences. She is a master at taking the small, mundane moments that make up who we are as we negotiate the messy, frustrating business of love and dread and being broke in your twenties, and pairing them with an awesome cathartic crash of noise and beats and at turns sharp and fuzzy guitar. The contrast of her dry, stoic wit, with the spectacular, chaotic crescendos and lush soundscapes she crafts calls for your full fucking attention. Get yourself a good pair of headphones, a desolate landscape, and a refusal to be simply sad, or angry, or happy.
The fat, unexpected blare of saxophone on “Happy” paired with “I sighed and mumbled to myself, “again I have to clean” is one of the strangest, and best moments off the album. Puberty 2 is not as even as Bury Me at Makeout Creek, but when the range of experimentation pays off, it pays off big. “I will go jogging routinely, calmly and rhythmically run/and when I find that knife sticking out of my side/I’ll pull it out without questioning why” is the kind of lyric that cuts you open and makes you wonder why you even bother listening to anything other than Mitski (pro tip: don’t). Your Best American Girl is a masterpiece, the crown jewel of the album, but here I refer everyone to columnist Jael Goldfine ‘17’s loving review of it. With lyrics like “I wanna see the whole world/I don’t know how I’m gonna pay rent,” this album left me feeling drained, exhilarated, steely- ready to fight like hell for happiness in this big weird bleak world. We feel her stretching and inhabiting every part of her remarkable voice, at once intimidating and inviting you to sing along.
— Allison Considine
7. Anderson .Paak — Malibu
Courtesy of Steel Wool Records
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While Anderson .Paak (don’t forget the dot) operates in a distinctly post-Kendrick musical landscape, his particular blend of soul, funk and hip-hop is all his own. After a long career struggling to get by in backing bands – not to mention a stint working the soil at a marijuana farm – the multi-instrumentalist finally made it big with six (!) guest spots on Dr. Dre’s 2015 career retrospective Compton. Released way back in January, Malibu presents .Paak’s many facets in all their 70s-inflected glory, ranging from soft, soulful ballads (“The Bird”) to extended funk breakdowns (“Parking Lot”). The 30 year-old’s life struggles provide the bulk of Malibu’s lyrical inspiration, but the tone is triumphant, and .Paak’s pleasantly scratchy vocals lend the album a vibe as summery as its title.
— Chris Stanton
6. A Tribe Called Quest — We Got It From Here… Thank Your 4 Your Service
Courtesy of Epic Records
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Recorded as key member Phife Dawg was dying of a lifelong battle with diabetes, We Got it From Here is not only a moving elegy for Tribe’s core lineup but a trenchant assessment of American racial and cultural affairs. Songs like “We The People” and “The Space Program” are desperately needed; this is protest music, crafted by some of hip hop’s earliest luminaries. Sonically, the album is warm and complex. Q-Tip’s perfect ear for beats allowed him to stitch together a quilt of sound that bounces from sample-based boom bap to the classic jazz inflections of Low End Theory-era Tribe to psychedelic experimentation. It’s simply shocking that, after such a long period of inactivity, the band came back this sounding this vital.
We Got it From Here… ends with “The Donald,” and “Donald” refers to both Phife (“Don Juice”) and our new President-elect. This lovely song, like the album it concludes, both looks forward into an uneasy future and backward to a friendship between musicians that spanned a lifetime. This album is essential hip hop, as inviting as it is anxious, as conscious as it is fun, and absolutely whip-smart. Their career couldn’t have ended better.
— Max Van Zile
5. Beyoncé — Lemonade
Courtesy of Parkwood Entertainment
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Do I honestly have to write a blurb explaining why this album deserves to be in the top 5? We call her Queen Bey for a reason. This visual album is 11 chapters of hurt, jealousy, pride, humility, and love. More than anything, love. The journey in this album is unique and commonplace by the same token—it’s backbreaking, and takes you far from home, but always brings you back home and into the same person’s arms. Lemonade is something else entirely from your XOvers Spotify playlist, so don’t kid yourself. It’s spattered with the poetry of Warsan Shire, women holding photos of loved ones shot by the police, the complexities of broken and unbroken families, landscapes by turn metallic, lavish, and endless. The visual album mirrors its tracks in an unbounded array of breadth and depth. Gaudy mansions, filled with discourse about self-sacrifice to the gods in search of fidelity give way to fields on fire, busses lined with middle fingers, baptism and destruction, modesty and sexuality embodied in lyrics, in dress, in movement. Beyoncé’s search for unforgiving anger, limitless apathy, and an endless space to be filled by man’s attempt at steady love has to give way, in the end, to the final notes of forgiveness, resurrection, hope, and at last, redemption. In the end, her path leads her back to where she began, enlightened, transcending, and still willing to bare the ugly moments to those who listen.
— Jessie Weber
4. Chance the Rapper — Coloring Book
Courtesy of Chance the Rapper
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How does a mixtape become fourth rated on a list of the best albums of 2016? Chance’s Coloring Book serves as a work of aural art in a time where childhood has been forgotten. Through the lullaby-like melody of “Same Drugs” to the defiance against the authority of music corporations in “No Problem,” Chance transports listeners to a simpler time to teach lessons about the complex relationships between time and friendship, maturity and love, and individuality and mainstream success.
The mixtape mainly serves as a transition in Chance’s life from drugs to religion, with the former being a common theme throughout the songs. The chorus’ outright praise of the lord in “How Great” and “Finish Line/Drown,” coupled with Chance’s more personal dealings with religion in “Blessings,” color a picture of an artist’s journey from an adolescence of addiction to a newfound solace in beliefs of a higher power.
— Jonvi Rollins
3. Jamilla Woods — HEAVN
Courtesy of Closed Sessions
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It’s a special time in Chicago music. A young crew of rappers and singers are leading a new wave of soulful hip-hop that is both socially disruptive and irrepressibly positive, and their albums are often role calls for the rest of the scene. As columnist Chris Stanton ’17 observed, we almost could have made a top ten albums of 2016 purely by Chicago artists. Of course, most of the attention this year has gone to Coloring Book by Chance the Rapper, who has emerged as the city’s leading light. The most urgent and heartfelt album from this scene this year, however, was Jamila Woods’s HEAVN. Woods came to popular attention by singing the hook on Chance’s “Sunday Candy,” a soul-rap about loving one’s grandma that somehow managed to be more sweet than sappy. HEAVN more than fulfills this early promise; it’s both fantastically listenable and uncompromising in its exploration of racial and gender politics. From gorgeous ballads (“Stellar,” “Lonely Lonely”) to fiercely political statements about police violence and systematic misogyny (“VRY BLK,” “Blk Girl Solider”), HEAVN reflects the terror and confusion of this year in the country better than any other album, without sacrificing the possibility of redemption through awareness and compassion.
— Jack Jones
2. Kanye West — The Life of Pablo
Courtesy of GOOD Music
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“This is a great year to be a Kanye West fan,” declared Yeezus himself at the Saint Pablo Tour stop in Buffalo, NY. In the time since, Donald Trump was elected President and Kanye (maybe?) endorsed him before cancelling the remainder of his tour and checking himself into a hospital for what appears to be paranoia and severe depression. Before that, it already seemed like a messy year for Kanye fans, as diehards bent over backward defending his (sometimes indefensible) statements from every manner of hostile critic. Recent revelations seem to have finally reminded everyone that there’s a real person at the center of all this.
The Life of Pablo, Kanye’s seventh and messiest album to date, arrived before this media storm reached full force. While inconsistent and lacking the bold direction of Yeezus or MBDTF, the album is a career-spanning testament to each of Kanye’s distinctive eras. “Ultralight Beam” recalls the transcendent gospel of College Dropout, while the maximalist pop of “Waves” and “Famous” (bam bam dilla, bam bam) harken back to Graduation’s stadium ambitions. Featuring a host of game-changing artists whom Kanye has influenced over the years, Pablo is a reminder of just how much the guy has given us. Get well soon, Kanye.
— Chris Stanton
1. Frank Ocean — Blonde and Endless
Courtesy of Boys Don't Cry
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Just look at how the man toys with us. After countless misleading posts, false release dates and features on other albums that only served to remind everyone of his conspicuous absence, Frank Ocean finally seemed poised to release his second album in late July, four years after channel ORANGE. Except it wasn’t an album; it was a live stream of him in warehouse tinkering around. Then it turned out it was a contract-ending, Apple-exclusive “video album,” which was really a collection of demos played over a video of him building a staircase. This was Endless, released on August 19, and it wasn’t even the new album. The actual album came out on August 20, and is called either Blonde (its name in iTunes) or blond (the name on the cover). Each development only revealed more layers, more questions, more things for fans to mull over and try to decode.
This would all feel almost inexcusably manipulative if Frank Ocean wasn’t still one of the most gifted and compelling artists music has ever seen. He makes music that seems both effortlessly stirring and full of perfectionist, painstaking effort. While a collection of demos rather than a proper album, Endless is full of some of the most strange and elegant music Ocean has made: “Alabama,” “Slide On Me,” “Rushes To,” and particularly “Rushes,” which may be the most elliptically beautiful song he’s made. Blonde itself is a tour de force that resists summary. Like channel ORANGE, it’s made up of scenes and stories that add up to something more than just a collection, and it veers from dazzling experimentation with vocal effects and instrumentation (“Nikes,” “Future Free”) to stunning, spare balladry (“Solo,” “Self Control,” “Godspeed”). Famous guests come and go, but they all contribute to the album’s theme rather than taking moments in the spotlight. And Ocean hovers over the project like an omnipresent, multi-faced deity. His elusivity is galling to fans, but it serves his music well. His songs feature his unmistakable voice and sonic experimentation, but they’re also kept at an arm’s-length from the artist himself, and as a result they’re about much more than just Frank Ocean.
— Jack Jones