Year In Review 2017: Music

2017 was a great year for pop music, if you like mostly okay to bad songs and very little better than that. Honestly music in general wasn't that great this year, I found it hard to find any albums that I really connected to and kept me coming back. Maybe I was just spoiled by so much great albums last year and pretty good pop music (at least compared to this year). Still there was some good stuff out there, one just had to look a little harder and try some new things to find it. So I thought instead of making a Top 10 list of worst and best songs and albums I would just sort of put everything together in one post. I'll just talk about the songs that I hated and loved and everything in-between that. I'll sort of try to put it into some sort of category, but forgive me if I stray away from it. I'll also include some albums from late 2016 that I didn't have time to listen to last year, but put a lot more time into this year.

Biggest Disappointments

Winner: I guess the most obvious choice would be Taylor Swift's big comeback album after her massive album '1989' about three years ago. Not that I'm a huge Taylor fan, but I did enjoy a lot of that last album, it had some great pop songs like "Style", "Out of the Woods" and "Blank Space". Then came 'Reputation' just a few weeks ago. It's not a terrible album, but there really aren't any standout tracks on the album. Of course there's one of the worst songs of the year "Look What You Made Me Do", which has one of the worst choruses Taylor's ever made (or Right Said Fred made anyway). Hearing Taylor complain about her "rich people" problems isn't exactly easy to relate to either, not that I could relate to her music most of the time anyway. Still her audience could probably relate to a lot of her music, but when she's complaining about all her famous friends turned enemies it's harder for anyone to relate. 

Runner Up: Then there's Imagine Dragons with their album Evolve. A very safe and boring album by a band that's becoming more and more frustrating with every release. Sadly one of the only "Rock" acts to actually get mainstream pop attention, but not really making any actual rock music. That would be okay if what they actually released was at least good, but it's all just more safe pop music for the radio that don't really use Dan Reynolds voice to it's full potential. 

Runner Up: Maroon 5 is back again this year too, and I'm still wondering how they are a 7 piece band making such bland pop music.  I wasn't expecting this to be anything more than another bad pop album like the last one they made and honestly I was proved wrong. It's actually a little better than the last album, but not really by much. I think it's about time to give up on the idea that they will ever make fun and funky pop music again or be an actual band again. It's all about Adam Levine now and that's just the way it is. (maybe it was always like that?) 

Biggest Surpises

Winner: I never in a million years thought that this person could create a good album, but it happened. Kesha released her new album "Rainbow" earlier this year and I would've have even bothered givin' it a listen considering what Kesha has made before. Thanks to this blog thing, I had to check out her first single from the album and was surprised to hear that it was actually quite good. I gave the rest of the album a listen to make sure I wasn't losing my mind or that maybe it was just a fluke, but no... it wasn't. Instead what I found was some pretty great tracks like "Praying", "Boogie Feet" and "Let 'Em Talk". If there's one thing I learned this year after hearing this, it's that anything is possible. 

Runner Up: Probably the second biggest song of the year, behind "Shape of You", is a song in Spanish by two Puerto Rican artists. I never would have thought that i'd see the name "Daddy Yankee" again in the U.S charts, let alone the biggest song of the summer this year. Yeah the song was over played and I was pretty sick of it by the end of the summer, but that doesn't take away how crazy it is to see it's success out of nowhere. Even Beyonce had to make a Spanish song to try to capture that popularity, but it didn't work out for her.

Runner Up: Another pretty surprising thing that happened in music was all the random smaller artists taking over the charts over a lot of the bigger names in pop music. As mentioned before, Despacito was a huge surprise for the summer. Lots of big name artists released music, but didn't stay on the top of the charts for very long. Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Jay-Z, Lorde all dropped albums and no single from these huge artists really dominated the charts for long at all. Instead we got artists like Post Malone, Migos, Lil Uzi Vert and Cardi B get big hits that stuck around the top of the charts for multiple weeks. Thanks to streaming, new up and comers can get big hits like this without having a big name already or a major label signing them.

Runner Up to the Runner Ups: With the slow dissolve of the boy band One Direction, this year we got many solo debuts from the boys of the popular pop act. Lots of pretty safe and predictable debuts from most of the boys, except for Zayn who seems to just want get rid of any trace of One Direction from his life. While Zayn seems to be going the ex-Disney star route and trying to be a bad boy with lots of sexual lyrics to his music, the rest of the boys seem to at least be trying to do something interesting. This is where the surprising moment comes in, with Harry Styles releasing his debut album earlier this year. Starting off very strong with the powerful "Sign of the Times", which didn't get as much attention as I think it deserved. The rest of the album was quite solid with lots of influence from good old rock, some songs reminded me of John Mayer a lot too. One of the better albums to be released this year, a good album to listen to from start to finish.

Safe Choices (Albums)

Winner: The safest of the safe choices is the 4th biggest album of the year as well, Ed Sheeran's Divide. A great follow up to the mega album "X" from Sheeran a few years back. "Shape of You" dominated the year early on and is probably going to be the song of the year. The rest of the album is full of good to great songs by one of the best songwriters around today. Sheeran knows how to make a hit, I think that's clear when he wrote last years biggest song "Love Yourself" by Bieber and this year's biggest his with "Shape of You". The rest of the album has a lot of charm, with lots of influence from Sheeran's past and his home country of England. Calling it a safe choice isn't meant to sell this album short, but meant to show respect to Sheeran's ability to make a good album. 

Runner-up: This album came out late last year, but was more dominate this year and had a bigger impact on this year than last year. 24K Magic by Bruno Mars was a very good and fun album. This was definitely Bruno's best full album, with not a single track falling short of being good. Really, the only problem with this album was how strangely short it was after a 4 year gap between his last album and this one. With lots of influences from old funk and R&B, Bruno continues to impress with his charm and fantastic vocal ability. 

Runner-up: As rap continues to dominate as a popular genre, one artist continues to drop very strong albums. "DAMN" by Kendrick Lamar is not surprisingly another great album by one of the most respected rappers of today. "To Pimp a Butterfly" was going to be a hard album to follow up no matter what, but Kendrick did a good job with the follow up here. It's an easy listen from front to back and no time feels wasted listening to the entire album. These are lyrics worth paying attention to and the music is a strong back to those words. 

The Worst Album

Winner: A band that's known more for releasing singles every two months finally dropped a new album with lots of new songs and two really big singles ("Something Just Like This" and "Paris"). The whole album is just a chore to listen through, with very little reason to replay. Really the only song that might be worth anything on here is "Something Just Like This" and it's only okay. The rest of the album is Chainsmokers phoning it in and doing what they always do. Boring songs about how every girl in the world wants to be with them, accompanied by lazy and uninteresting music. I just never really understood the love for these guys and I don't think I ever will. The closest I have come to liking a song from them was "Closer" and I only like it every other time I listen to it. The worst thing music can ever be is just plain and boring, and that's pretty much all you get here. 

The Worst Song

Winner: It was a strong year for Spanish music on the charts, and while Despactito was destroying the radio all summer long, a smaller song snuck it's way up to the top of the charts too. Mi Gente by J Balvin and Willy William (great name BTW) was the most annoying song to hit my ears this whole year. The forgettable vocals where bad enough, but what really killed the song was the annoying looping music that DIDN'T STOP THE ENTIRE SONG. It's a terribly frustrating sound that drives me crazy after less than 30 seconds in a 3 minute long song. I really don't get it, how anyone can not be annoyed by this song. Thankfully it's time on the top of the charts wasn't too long, as not even Beyonce herself could make this one good.

Runner Up: Sam Hunt compares his girl's body to a back road and most of the world is confused. But not confused enough to keep it from being one of the top 10 tracks of the entire year. 

Best Album I Didn't Listen To

Jay-Z's 4:44 was such a fantastic album. Too bad I didn't listen to it because it's on a streaming service no one really uses. 

Best Album (From Pop Charts)

Winner: When I first heard this album I was incredibly confused as to what I had just heard. Childish Gambino is known more for rap music than anything else, so to hear the more R&B funk album ""Awaken, My Love!"" was pretty strange at first. The more I listened to it, the more I understood it and appreciated it. After multiple listens I have to say this has grown to be one of my favorite albums of the year period, not just in the pop charts. The interesting music, the funky bass lines, Childish Gambino's interesting vocals and the overall difference from any of his other music really drew me in. 

Best Song (From Pop Charts)

Winner: This one is a much tougher pick, as not a lot of songs that charted really stuck with me for very long. There were some great songs here and there like "Sign of the Times", "Feel It Still", "Castle on the Hill" and "DNA.". Out of all those I think the one I listened to the most was "Castle on the Hill", so I guess that would make it win by amount of listens? It's a great song, I really love the lyrics of the song and how personal they feel to Ed Sheeran, which is the reason why I liked the album so much. Sadly my favorite song from that album "What Do I Know?" didn't chart at all, but "Castle on the Hill" is a great representation of that album overall. 

Best Album (Non-Charting)

Winner: As I said before, I found it hard to find any albums I actually connected with and kept coming back to this year. While I'm sure there's plenty of albums out there that I haven't found this year and will end up loving, but one album this year already has. I wasn't sure what to expect of Paramore's "After Laughter" when it was first announced and teased with the first single "Hard Times". I instantly loved "Hard Times", but I was also unsure of the change that Paramore brought along with it, and if it would work for a full album. The rest of the album didn't disappoint at all, bringing very interesting music and lyrics that work so well together. Paramore's Hayley Williams seems to be very open in her lyrics from every song in this album. The album fittingly starts with the song "Hard Times", a very good introduction to an album about that very subject: going through hard times. Put the lyrics alongside some of the most interesting music Paramore has done, with lots of great and unique guitar and bass lines and lots of little details make it a joy to listen to. The best albums are the ones that bring both great music and interesting/thoughtful lyrics and this one brought that.

Album Recommendations by Genre

Here is a list of some of the albums I would recommend divided by genre (as much as I can define it). 

Electronic:

TWPR - Ladyworld

LCD Soundsystem - American Dream

Lights - Skin  Earth

Washed Out - Mister Mellow

Moda Spira - Moda Spira

Rap and Hip-Hop:

Run The Jewels - 3

Vince Staples - Big Fish Theory

Tyler, The Creator - Flower Boy

Gorillaz - Humanz

Emo/Post-Hardcore:

Citizen - As You Please

Brand New - Science Fiction

Basement - Promise Everything

Movement - Feel Something

Classic Crime - How to be Human

Indie Rock:

The War on Drugs - A Deeper Understanding

Motherfolk - Fold

Acceptance - Colliding by Design

The Front Bottoms - Going Grey

Eisley - I'm Only Dreaming

The National - Sleep Well Beast

Manchester Orchestra - A Black Mile to the Surface

The Mountain Goats - Goths

Big Thief - Capacity

Pop Rock

Temples - Volcano

Phoenix - Ti Amo

Electric Guest - Plural

The Killers - Wonderful Wonderful

WALK THE MOON - What If Nothing

Paramore - After Laughter

Pop Punk/Punk

New Found Glory - Makes Me Sick

The Maine - Lovely Little Lonely

Neck Deep - The Peace and the Panic

Creeper - Eternity, In Your Arms

Waterparks - Double Dare

Alternative

Mute Math - Play Dead

Nothing But Thieves - Broken Machine

St. Vincent - MASSEDUCTION

Joywave - Content

Cold War Kids - L.A. Divine

Pop Charts

Lorde - Melodrama

Bruno Mars - 24K

Kendrick Lamar - DAMN.

Childish Gambino - Awaken, My Love!

Portugal. The Man - Woodstock

Harry Styles - Harry Styles

Ed Sheeran - Divide

Kesha - Rainbow

Rock

Queens of the Stone Age - Villians

Demons - Embrace Wolf

'68 - Two Parts Viper

Icarus the Owl - Rearm Circuits

Feel Free to comment or send me any other great albums I no doubt missed.