#shoutout to him for being the most normal surgeon ever

[crippled-peeper]

I feel weird admitting this but I picked the female neurosurgeon out of the 5 other men they suggested because I feel like there’s a bigger chance she’ll actually listen to me and talk to me like a human person and not just an academic oddity

[obtusemedia]

Top 10 Albums of 2016

Better late than never, right? 

2016 was a slightly down year for music overall, with lots of albums that I found to be decent-but-not-great. Sure, there were a few that blew my mind (we’ll get to them), but it certainly paled in comparison to 2015′s sterling batch of modern classics. Lots of albums featured incredible singles but diluted the product with too much filler (looking at you, Starboy and Blank Face LP).

However, I will say this: 2016 might not have had quantity, but it certainly had quality in small doses. This year’s top album is arguably the second best of the decade (first prize is pretty much guaranteed to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, since that’s possibly my favorite album of all time). And it was certainly better than the bland wasteland of 2014, which had maybe three albums I still revisit occasionally (that would be Bleachers, Run the Jewels, and Spoon). So while the honorable mentions and bottom couple picks of my Top 10 might not have reached my year-end countdown in a stronger year like 2010, 2013, or 2015, they’re still very solid albums that deserve some praise. Let’s dig in.

(Also: Run the Jewels 3 will not be on this list. I’m counting it as a 2017 album, since it only existed for the last week of 2016, and the physical copy came out this year. My list, my rules.) 

HONORABLE MENTIONS

>Anti by Rihanna: I never expected to enjoy most of a Rihanna album front-to-back, but here we are. Ri’s got far more of an artistic vision than I realized.

>Welcome The Worms by Bleached: If it didn’t limp to the finish line with a few weaker songs, this collection of razor-sharp pop-rock tunes would’ve earned a top 5 spot easily. Aggressively Los Angeles in the best way possible.

>I Had A Dream That You Were Mine by Hamilton Leithauser+Rostam: It feels a bit like Vampire Weekend gone Americana, and it doesn’t work occasionally, but sometimes, you need some pretty chamber pop in your life.

>Atrocity Exhibition by Danny Brown: Maybe it captures the feeling of losing your sanity to drugs a little too well to be listenable sometimes, but when Danny’s on, he’s on. Aggressively Detroit in the best way possible.

>Pretty Years by Cymbals Eat Guitars: There’s not a bad song here in this Springsteen-worshiping garage rock album. Unfortunately, outside of a few standouts, there’s nothing really mind-blowing either. Consider this the #11 pick.

#10: Human Performance by Parquet Courts

Parquet Courts have written individual songs better than anything here — shoutout to “Borrowed Time” — but Human Performance strings together a collection of songs that at first seem mismatched in both musical stylings and lyrical themes, and somehow make them fit seamlessly together. “Steady On My Mind” would make for an excellent wedding first-dance ballad, and it’s on the same record as the spiteful breakup title track and “Berlin Got Blurry,” about a troubled long-distance relationship. Songs like “Outside” or “Keep It Even” are simple, catchy, almost folk-esque tunes that could’ve been written in the 70s; Meanwhile, “I Was Just Here” is a discordant, alien tune about a Chinese takeout joint disappearing that would’ve freaked out most fans of The Band. One song is about dust (yes, literally), another song is about dead cops.

The wide range of subjects and sounds on Human Performance are all tied together by both Andrew Savage’s monotone vocals, as well as the fact that life itself is random. Your brain can jump to and from many different subjects and emotions throughout even one day, let alone a year or two. Human Performance describes a vast berth of scenarios, and ties them all to catchy indie-rock tunes that merge New York cool with Texas swagger. Besides, it was about time somebody wrote a song about dust.

Best 3 Songs: “Berlin Got Blurry,” “Human Performance,” “Steady on My Mind”

#9: Still Brazy by YG

In 2014, I was mildly annoyed by YG. He wasn’t the worst, but I viewed him more or less as DJ Mustard’s house rapper, and I was sick of Mustardwave that year. Luckily, YG ditched him and got to play with some superior production that leans much closer to classic 90s G-Funk. If there was a Most Improved Award this year, YG would easily be in the running (there’s a couple other contenders we’ll get to in a bit).

The Compton rapper finds a precarious balance of gangster stories and legit issues in his lyrics. Sure, he’ll have a blast turning up and repping his Bloods, but he also has multiple tracks about his growing paranoia. Did he make a huge mistake by entering the gang life? Now he’s got a permanent target on his back, both by cops and by rival gang members, and ever since his rap career blew up, he’s had obnoxious hangers-on begging for scraps. He even got shot! 

At the same time, YG is reluctantly willing to be a major political voice in the music scene with the tour-de-force final three songs on the album. The final two, “Blacks and Browns” and Police Get Away With Murder,” are about systemic racism in general, while the infamous “FDT” is a direct shot at our new President. It’s a ballsy move, and one that I’m sure got him on Secret Service watchlists, but as a visceral expression of anger towards a broken system, it’s absolutely worth the controversy. In a year where it would’ve been nice to see more mainstream rappers tackle the toxic political climate, YG was able to step to the challenge without getting preachy. 

Best 3: “Blacks and Browns,” “FDT,” “Why You Always Hatin?”

#8: Psychopomp by Japanese Breakfast

Fun fact: A “psychopomp” is some sort of a deity that guides souls of recently deceased people into the afterlife. 

Another fun fact: I just looked that up five seconds ago. 

The title certainly makes a lot more sense now, but even without that context clue, Psychopomp is very clearly an album about the aftermath of tragedy, in this case, the death of a mother. Michelle Zauner, for whom Japanese Breakfast is a solo project separate from her old gig in Little Big League, focuses more on how that grief and trauma can reverberate through the rest of one’s life, particularly one’s love life. The music sounds like fog feels: cloudy, fuzzy, and dense. The only thing that cuts through the walls of ambient synths and chiming guitars are Zauner’s high-pitched, emotional wails. It’s quite haunting.

Psychopomp also somehow manages to be both a perfect album at noon and midnight. Nocturnal, hazy songs like “The Woman That Loves You” and “Jane Cum” are right next to sunny, more guitar-driven tunes like “Rugged Country” and “Heft.” But both the night tunes and the day tunes work in the other environment as well. Psychopomp isn’t bright or pitch-black: it’s grey with neon tinges. Just like one’s mind after being rendered numb from emotional trauma. Japanese Breakfast’s debut is a gorgeous slice of shoegaze-flavored indie pop, and hopefully a follow-up can be a bit longer than Psychopomp’s under-30 minute running time.

Best 3: “In Heaven,” “The Woman That Loves You,” “Rugged Country.”

#7: Blonde by Frank Ocean

I’m normally allergic to quiet, contemplative music with minimal percussion. My tastes generally lean towards songs with grooves, or something that features powerful emotion. Give me Japandroids over Norah Jones any day. If something is going to be low-key, it better be damn good to grab my attention. This does happen occasionally: I adored Sufjan Stevens’ Carrie & Lowell in 2015, and Frank Ocean’s Blonde also falls in that category.

The songs here are fairly formless and wandering, but it works well with Ocean’s stream-of-consciousness lyrics. This sounds like a diary being read aloud, put to breathtakingly gorgeous melodies, and backed up with music that yes, is quiet for the most part, but is still powerful. Although it does get too slow in a few points for my taste, Blonde is a total tear-jerker. It’s the kind of album you have to just lie down and let soak in. He takes some obvious influences — Prince in “Ivy,” the Beach Boys in “Self Control,” the Beatles in “White Ferrari” — and somehow makes them feel fresh and novel.

Blonde achieves something rare: It creates a sound and feel all its own. This isn’t the best album of 2016, but it’s definitely the most unique, and probably will be the one that will inspire the most artists moving forward.

Best 3: “Self Control,” “Ivy,” “Nights”

#6: Puberty 2 by Mitski

I just have to say, this might’ve gotten a bump if it was named Puberty 2: Son of Puberty or something like that. The best sequels have ridiculous titles!

Jokes aside, Puberty 2 as a title is dead-on: All of the songs here describe the period of one’s life that Mitski calls a “second puberty.” In your 20s, you’re confused, overly emotional, and everything seems to be collapsing. Pretty much the same thing you go through in your teens, except this time, you have to take care of yourself financially. Yikes. 

Mitski writes songs like a surgeon performs surgery: Precise and cutting. There were few lyrics this year that sums up one’s 20s as well as “I want to see the whole world/I don’t know how I’m going to pay rent/I want to see the whole world,” and that’s just one example out of a countless many on Puberty 2.

There’s also “Your Best American Girl,” the album’s centerpiece showstopper about racial identity and how it conflicts with both a one-on-one relationship and American society as a whole. It sounds complex, but she somehow distills it into a 90s alt rock power ballad that would make Billy Corgan cry. Puberty 2 doesn’t reach that high at any other point, but it comes quite close multiple times with other complicated subjects. 

Like Frank Ocean did with Blonde, Mitski poured out her soul with Puberty 2, and the final product is a gut-punch that leaves a lasting impact.

Best 3: “Your Best American Girl,” “Happy,” “My Body’s Made of Crushed Little Stars”

#5: The Life of Pablo by Kanye West

I realize that this album has been argued about to death over the past 11 months, so I’ll keep this brief. 

Yes, Pablo has some major flaws, like the 2nd half of “30 Hours,” a few embarrassing lyrical missteps, and how the album feels way too long. Still, at the end of the year, I kept coming back to Pablo and I realized something: It’s not without its massive issues, but it’s very, very entertaining. Love him or hate him, Kanye is the kind of person you can’t stop yourself from paying attention to, so even his weakest albums are going to necessary listening on some level. 

And for all its flaws, Pablo’s highs are INSANELY high. There’s a reason why “Ultralight Beam” is already a new gospel standard. There’s a reason why the drop of “Father Stretch My Hands” instantly became a classic meme. There’s a reason everyone loses their minds and raps/sings along to every word when Kanye starts playing “Waves” (and “I Love Kanye!”) at a show. 

At the end of Kanye’s career, Pablo won’t be recognized as one of Yeezy’s peaks by any means, but it’ll be remembered as a noble mess that contains some of his all-time best tracks. 

Best 3 Songs: “Ultralight Beam,” “Real Friends,” “Famous” (the Aziz Ansari/Eric Wareheim video for this might be Kanye’s greatest video ever, FYI)

#4: Lemonade by Beyoncé

Alright, alright, I give in. Beyoncé made a masterpiece with this one. I will always be a sucker for albums that tell a story, and Lemonade’s is a doozy. Jay Z cheated on Bey? And now Bey is going to bring out her “Irreplaceable” character, but in real life this time? And, somehow, she deigns to forgive him and try to make the marriage work? I find it fascinating, especially because Beyoncé adds details in her songs that really flesh out the whole story, both musically and lyrically. “Don’t Hurt Yourself” might be one of the best fuck-off anthems I’ve ever heard with its earth-shaking, furious garage rock sound (Beyoncé should seriously consider doing a rock album), “6 Inch” both captures the highs and lows of independence, and “All Night” captures the ecstasy of reuniting with a past love with perfect precision. 

Of course, Beyoncé ventures outside the central story for a few tracks like the country-flavored “Daddy Lessons” and of course, “Formation,” which I don’t need to tell y’all is untouchable. Oh, and she also manages to squeeze in discussing the realities of living as a black woman in an oppressive society without being overly on-the-nose. It’s both radical, yet catchy enough for your Republican parents to not care. I don’t know how she pulled it off, honestly.

Normally, I find praising Beyoncé to be sort-of obnoxious and overdone (and let’s be honest, some Beyhive people take it a bit far), but with Lemonade, Beyoncé is finally as flawless as her obsessive fans claim she is. A sterling exclamation point on an increasingly legendary pop career.

Top 3: “Formation,” “Don’t Hurt Yourself,” “Sorry”

#3: I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it by The 1975

*insert obligatory joke here about how awful that album title is*

If you ignore the title, The 1975 came through with the best pop album of 2016, and in a year that featured career-best albums from Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Frank Ocean (and a seriously underwhelming Gaga album...sigh), that’s no small feat. 

It’s crazy to think that less than a year ago, I thought of them as some C-list boy band who had a couple solid tunes, but weren’t any more special than other semi-okay pretty-boy bands like The Neighbourhood. They obviously proved me wrong: I like it... is Reagan-era pop perfection. They might be The 1975, but they sure sound like 1987.

With 17 songs (!) and a 74-minute runtime (!!!), on first glance, it seems that I like it... would suffer from the same symptoms of other overlong, filler-stuffed pop albums from this year, like Views or Starboy, but shockingly, they really did have 17 killer pop tunes. Okay, maybe more like 15, the last two acoustic-guitar ballads are audio NyQuil, but .882 is an incredible batting average for an album this long. This album stays fresh due to the band’s varied inspirations. It’s like a big costume party, where they dress up as INXS, My Bloody Valentine, Chromatics, Huey Lewis, and Blur in the 19 era. And somehow, they pull all of them off. 

Sure, the late 80s weren’t the greatest time for pop music, but Matt Healy and Co. take that spotty source material and transcend it to create a narrative about drugs, girls, religion, selling out, and mental illness that’s somehow still catchy as hell. Old-school pop music doesn’t get much better than this, folks.

Best 3: “The Sound,” “Somebody Else,” “A Change of Heart”

#2: Coloring Book by Chance the Rapper

I love it when an artist’s potential is actually realized. How many talented young rappers have started hot and then collapsed down the stretch, never to deliver a fantastic album? As much as I enjoyed “Trap Queen,” Fetty Wap is still seeking his flawless full-length project. B.o.B. lost his mind. A$AP Ferg followed up a super-promising debut with a complete try-hard disaster of a sophomore record this year. Those artists that finally meet expectations ascend to the level of greats: Kanye reached it with Late Registration. Kendrick reached it with Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City. Drake reached that with Take Care (and is currently squandering it). And Chance the Rapper, after a stellar breakout in 2013′s Acid Rap, and a slight setback in 2015′s forgettable Surf, finally became the top-tier rapper we all knew he could be with Coloring Book, the best hip-hop album of 2016.

Chance’s exuberance has already been well-documented at this point, but that still doesn’t lessen how “No Problem,” “Blessings,” and “Finish Line” (with T-Pain!!!) put a giant grin on my face. He certainly doesn’t shy away from the darkness, discussing Chicago’s violence problems and growing apart from old friends in subtle and poetic ways. Because Chance’s overwhelming chipper-ness can be a bit much sometimes, I also appreciate how he was willing to slow it down for a few songs and get a little more dour. Hell, the best song here, “All Night,” is about him being annoyed on a night out. The man’s got more range than we gave him credit for.

2016 was a dark year, which is exactly why a cheerful, optimistic, yet realistic album like Coloring Book is exactly what we all needed. 

Best 3: “All Night,” “Angels,” “Same Drugs”

#1: Teens of Denial by Car Seat Headrest

I don’t know if I’ve heard an album that’s so meticulously specific, yet bracingly relatable, as Teens of Denial. 

Like Lemonade, Teens tells one story for its entire run time. Here’s the synopsis: Singer/songwriter/guitarist Will Toledo (using the pseudonym “Joe”) has depression. His friends and parents don’t really care, tell him to get over himself, and say it’s all his fault anyways. He becomes dependent on alcohol and drugs to numb the pain, and after a while, they begin to make him feel worse. That makes his friends hate him, his family chastise him, and even Jesus himself shows up in a cameo to pile on the guy and inform him he won’t go to heaven. He makes a pledge to himself to turn his life around, then immediately drives drunk, gets arrested for a DUI, and breaks down in the cop car. He has a existential crisis that involves a lot of screaming at the universe, and his mind blocks out any comfort from others and replaces it with a raging, loud “FUCK YOU.” Overwhelmed by the stresses of the world and everyone’s expectations on him, Toledo decides to just give up on life. That doesn’t mean suicide, by the way — it means to just do whatever he wants. Roll credits.

Sounds like a long, winding story, and obviously, it’s a bit too extreme to be 100% relatable to my own personal life (luckily, I’ve never driven drunk or dropped acid), but how Toledo conveys his emotions through meticulous, reference-heavy lyrics and visceral lo-fi guitar fuzz is so cathartic, that you find yourself relating to some part of it. And even if you don’t, you’ll get sucked in by Toledo’s masterful storytelling and his indie rock anthems that cross Pavement’s gritty guitar tones with U2′s stadium-sized emotions and choruses (as someone who loves both angsty 90s music and massive 80s music, this is my heaven).

Yes, Teens of Denial is incredibly depressing, and to be honest, kind of melodramatic at points. But some people get melodramatic when they get depressed; I know I do. Toledo stated he was inspired by 90s indie rock in terms of the sound, but lyrically, he took inspiration from emo acts. This marriage results in an album with the raw, unfiltered emotions of something like My Chemical Romance or Simple Plan, but from the perspective of a down-and-out 20-something rather than a hormonal teenager (and with much better music to boot), so its a bit less embarrassing. 

I can’t talk enough about how Teens of Denial perfectly mirrors how a certain subset of recent college graduates feels about life. In a way, it represents angsty Millennials like In Utero represented angsty Gen Xers. As an angsty Millennial, this was tailor-made for me, and it’s easily my favorite album of 2016. 

Top 3: “Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales,” “The Ballad of the Costa Concordia,” “Destroyed By Hippie Powers” (but the whole album is flawless, so just listen to it all)