2017 round-up: music.
If 2016 was the year all your favourite celebrities passed away, 2017 was the year of finding out your faves are trash people. Or that most people are trash people considering all the horrific events that happened this year. Yey trash humanity!
It's definitely been a year of needing to escape for a while (for those of us lucky enough to be able to do so). So here's my round-up of my favourite things to watch, read and listen to as we all watch the downfall of the planet.
Music.
If you missed the sounds of summer 2013/2014, this was the year the big players from back then made their comebacks with new albums from HAIM, Lorde, Tegan and Sara, St Vincent, Lady Gaga, Paramore, Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran. HAIM, who have spoken openly about their difficulty with studio recording, arrived back on the scene with a live studio version of Right Now, the first song previewed from Something To Tell You. SZA took the world by storm with her debt album Ctrl (and earned five Grammy noms for her efforts). Wolf Alice pleaded with us not to delete the kisses and check out Visions Of A Life, the follow up to 2015's much loved album My Love Is Cool. Sam Smith became the first gay man ever to release a second album.
Winner(s)
I really, really couldn't pick just one. So here are my favourite three.
Lorde - Melodrama.
Lorde is so cool at such a young age that it would take me a full lifetime to reach that level of cool, but in a such a lovely, sincere way that you can't even be mad at her. On the first listen to Melodrama I wasn't really impressed, I couldn't get into it and it hadn't grabbed me. But after giving it another chance, it clicked, and it's an album I've kept returning to all year. There are so many songs to love on this album. That bright flash of a first single Green Light will make you want to dance in that uniquely Lorde way that only she can perfect. Homemade Dynamite is one of those songs where you try but fail to pick a favourite line because the entire song is made of gold (but that bridge though, that bridge). Liability shakes you to the depths of your core with it's heartbreakingly honest lyrics. And Supercut will get stuck in your head for days thanks to that breakdown - In your car the radio up/ In your car the radio up. It's an album that takes us back to the old days where song order mattered and it flows track to track - aka, a proper album, not just the whole "the lead three singles from the record are the first three tracks, the rest is filler" format that has become all too common.
There is sentimental value in this album for me too however, which I'm admitting to so you can call me out on my bias. Seeing the live Melodrama show was a blessing in disguise in a tough personal time and an absolute testament to the power of music. However, I will say that this album absolutely deserves it's Grammy nomination - it's reprises, it's sequels, it's highs and it's lows all come together in a beautiful sequel to Pure Heroine about talk about the perils of growing up, love, and the different ways we try to escape the world.
Favourite tracks; Homemade Dynamite, Sober, Perfect Places
St. Vincent - MASSEDUCTION.
Part of me just wants to write "This album is sexy as fuck" and leave it at that - and it would be a concise summary. But there is more to it that. St. Vincent has lived and been loved in indie circles for a number of years now, but with the arrival of MASSEDUCTION there's been a lot more mainstream appreciation than her previous efforts. It debuted at number 6 in the UK. It debuted at number 10 in the Billboard 200 and became her first album to peak in the top 10 in the US. Though she is still the smart, witty and savvy lyricist, as well as a hugely talented guitar player, that we've always known, this time she's wrapped it all up in a pop-style (and pop art style) veneer.
What is really enjoyable about this album is that it's never simply what it appears to be - it always has undertones of something else, whether it's something darker or wittier, and she employs this in both the music and the lyrics. Both are fighting for your attention, and both are executed perfectly. Across the thirteen tracks she talks about sex, power, drugs, relationships and death - often all in the same song. And that's something that makes you return to the album again and again - a guitar rift here, a whisper there, a witty line just waiting to be found... it's an album that brings immense pleasure and enjoyment, because each time you listen to it, you seem to 'get it' just a little more.
Fun fact: both Melodrama and MASSEDUCTION were produced by Jack Antonoff. Make of that what you will.
Favourite tracks; Sugarboy, Los Ageless, Pills
Paramore - After Laughter.
Anyone that knows me will know that my favourite genre of music is sad songs that sound happy. This year Paramore delivered an entire album that is just that.
After Laughter brought the pop, funk and rock to an album full of lyrics that talk about depression, anxiety and relationship breakdowns. This record has some of the strongest vocals Williams has produced (Idle Worship and 26 in particular); the new-found confidence of York's songwriting and production has been a wonderful edition (they sampled Beetham Tower in Manchester for that amazing noise in Idle Worship); and Farro's re-introduction to the band has brought exciting new influences into the mix (Told You So and Grudges being the tracks where it's most apparent)
Album five is a big departure from their earliest stuff in terms of sound, but it's been a long progressive evolution into becoming a band that's not afraid to try something new. The group, individually and as a unit, have been through a lot over the years, especially over the last 18 months, but they've taken the constant change and heartbreak thrown at them and channelled it into creating one of their strongest albums yet - both lyrically and musically. Their tour motto has been "cry hard, dance harder" and I cannot think of a better way to sum up their album.
Favourite tracks; Pool, Idle Worship, Told You So
It's definitely been a year of needing to escape for a while (for those of us lucky enough to be able to do so). So here's my round-up of my favourite things to watch, read and listen to as we all watch the downfall of the planet.
Music.
If you missed the sounds of summer 2013/2014, this was the year the big players from back then made their comebacks with new albums from HAIM, Lorde, Tegan and Sara, St Vincent, Lady Gaga, Paramore, Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran. HAIM, who have spoken openly about their difficulty with studio recording, arrived back on the scene with a live studio version of Right Now, the first song previewed from Something To Tell You. SZA took the world by storm with her debt album Ctrl (and earned five Grammy noms for her efforts). Wolf Alice pleaded with us not to delete the kisses and check out Visions Of A Life, the follow up to 2015's much loved album My Love Is Cool. Sam Smith became the first gay man ever to release a second album.
Winner(s)
I really, really couldn't pick just one. So here are my favourite three.
Lorde - Melodrama.
Lorde is so cool at such a young age that it would take me a full lifetime to reach that level of cool, but in a such a lovely, sincere way that you can't even be mad at her. On the first listen to Melodrama I wasn't really impressed, I couldn't get into it and it hadn't grabbed me. But after giving it another chance, it clicked, and it's an album I've kept returning to all year. There are so many songs to love on this album. That bright flash of a first single Green Light will make you want to dance in that uniquely Lorde way that only she can perfect. Homemade Dynamite is one of those songs where you try but fail to pick a favourite line because the entire song is made of gold (but that bridge though, that bridge). Liability shakes you to the depths of your core with it's heartbreakingly honest lyrics. And Supercut will get stuck in your head for days thanks to that breakdown - In your car the radio up/ In your car the radio up. It's an album that takes us back to the old days where song order mattered and it flows track to track - aka, a proper album, not just the whole "the lead three singles from the record are the first three tracks, the rest is filler" format that has become all too common.
There is sentimental value in this album for me too however, which I'm admitting to so you can call me out on my bias. Seeing the live Melodrama show was a blessing in disguise in a tough personal time and an absolute testament to the power of music. However, I will say that this album absolutely deserves it's Grammy nomination - it's reprises, it's sequels, it's highs and it's lows all come together in a beautiful sequel to Pure Heroine about talk about the perils of growing up, love, and the different ways we try to escape the world.
Favourite tracks; Homemade Dynamite, Sober, Perfect Places
St. Vincent - MASSEDUCTION.
Part of me just wants to write "This album is sexy as fuck" and leave it at that - and it would be a concise summary. But there is more to it that. St. Vincent has lived and been loved in indie circles for a number of years now, but with the arrival of MASSEDUCTION there's been a lot more mainstream appreciation than her previous efforts. It debuted at number 6 in the UK. It debuted at number 10 in the Billboard 200 and became her first album to peak in the top 10 in the US. Though she is still the smart, witty and savvy lyricist, as well as a hugely talented guitar player, that we've always known, this time she's wrapped it all up in a pop-style (and pop art style) veneer.
What is really enjoyable about this album is that it's never simply what it appears to be - it always has undertones of something else, whether it's something darker or wittier, and she employs this in both the music and the lyrics. Both are fighting for your attention, and both are executed perfectly. Across the thirteen tracks she talks about sex, power, drugs, relationships and death - often all in the same song. And that's something that makes you return to the album again and again - a guitar rift here, a whisper there, a witty line just waiting to be found... it's an album that brings immense pleasure and enjoyment, because each time you listen to it, you seem to 'get it' just a little more.
Fun fact: both Melodrama and MASSEDUCTION were produced by Jack Antonoff. Make of that what you will.
Favourite tracks; Sugarboy, Los Ageless, Pills
Paramore - After Laughter.
Anyone that knows me will know that my favourite genre of music is sad songs that sound happy. This year Paramore delivered an entire album that is just that.
After Laughter brought the pop, funk and rock to an album full of lyrics that talk about depression, anxiety and relationship breakdowns. This record has some of the strongest vocals Williams has produced (Idle Worship and 26 in particular); the new-found confidence of York's songwriting and production has been a wonderful edition (they sampled Beetham Tower in Manchester for that amazing noise in Idle Worship); and Farro's re-introduction to the band has brought exciting new influences into the mix (Told You So and Grudges being the tracks where it's most apparent)
Album five is a big departure from their earliest stuff in terms of sound, but it's been a long progressive evolution into becoming a band that's not afraid to try something new. The group, individually and as a unit, have been through a lot over the years, especially over the last 18 months, but they've taken the constant change and heartbreak thrown at them and channelled it into creating one of their strongest albums yet - both lyrically and musically. Their tour motto has been "cry hard, dance harder" and I cannot think of a better way to sum up their album.
Favourite tracks; Pool, Idle Worship, Told You So
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