#the best albums of 2017

[bumblingest-bee]

whats the best Assassins recording?

oooohooohoo BOY that is a question!! thank you very much for asking i will NEVER pass up a chance to talk about assassins.

imo it's difficult to compare them - i have a different favorite version for each song - because they all have strengths in different areas and it depends what you prefer. the 1990 off-broadway recording has great orchestrations and an utterly incredible cast. the 2004 broadway recording is probably the definitive full version (it's the show in sondheim's finished incarnation of it with "something just broke" and the balladeer double casting) 2021 has more stripped-down, intimate orchestrations and a few really good voices that make the whole thing worthwhile. (i listen to 2021 just bc steven pasquale is my favorite booth by far lmao)

all things considered i'd say the original 1990 off-broadway cast recording is the best overall, while 2004 is the most complete (and still really really good) but it all depends what you're looking for

[mashmouths]

save me 2014 bts

[kveom]

i was tagged by @sevencoloredstar, @squishy-woozi and @wonufied to do this tag game! this was so fun thank you hehe also interesting to see everyone else's choices

i'm not sure who's done this already but tagging: @kimsmingyu @bandzboy @s-lay-ing, @zyx, @ppanghanni and @irlvernon

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[to-thelakes]

IT JUST OCCURED TO ME SPOTIFY WRAPPED SEASON IS NEARLY UPON US

[rimouskis]

that was fun:)

[music-moon]

My most played albums released in the year 2017:

SZA - Ctrl

Taylor Swift - reputation

Lorde - Melodrama

Lana Del Rey - Lust for Life

John Mayer - The Search for Everything

Tyler, the Creator - Flower Boy

Mother Mother - No Culture

Kendrick Lamar - DAMN.

Ed Sheeran - ÷

Angus & Julia Stone - Snow

Data from last.fm + pythfm.

2000 / 2001 / 2002 / 2003 / 2004 / 2005 / 2006 / 2007 / 2008 / 2009 / 2010 / 2011 / 2012 / 2013 / 2014 / 2015 / 2016 / 2017 / 2018 / 2019 / 2020 / 2021 / 2022 / 2023 / 2024

[kakanno]

whaaaats your best seeeecret you caaan trust me youre hanging beside me on the same tighttt clooothesliiine... heres my best seeecret iii keep hoping im not diiirty laundry till my tearsss alaaal soak iiiin

[lilidawnonthemoon]

[strangledeggs]

The Best Albums Of 2017

(A note that extends to all of these lists which I will attach to the top of each: if you want to see a full review of any specific album on this list, or are wondering why a particular album did or didn’t make the top 10, or are wondering why an album you like from the year in question isn’t on this list at all, send me an ask about it and I’ll try and respond!)

The Top 10

DAMN by Kendrick Lamar

Brick Body Kids Still Daydream by Open Mike Eagle

Describes Things As They Are by Beauty Pill

Antisocialites by Alvvays

A Crow Looked At Me by Mount Eerie

4:44 by Jay-Z

Oversleepers International by Emperor X

who told you to think??!!?!?!?! by milo

Talk Tight by Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever

Sleep Well Beast by The National

The Rest

Whiteout Conditions by The New Pornographers

Out In The Storm by Waxahatchee

Playboi Carti by Playboi Carti

Triple Fat Lice by Aesop Rock & Homeboy Sandman

The Underside Of Power by Algiers

République Amazone by Les Amazones d’Afrique

Resolution by The Perceptionists

The Official Body by Shopping

Drool by Nnamdi Ogbonnaya

Fin by SYD

Harry Styles by Harry Styles

Laila’s Wisdom by Rapsody

Life Will See You Now by Jens Lekman

Life Without Sound by Cloud Nothings

American Teen by Khalid

Dakhla Sahara Session by Cheveu And Group Doueh

Big Fish Theory by Vince Staples

1992 Deluxe by Princess Nokia

Veins by Homeboy Sandman

A somewhat weak year, if my (still-forming) shortlists for the years to follow are any indication – only 29 albums made the cut here. Some of the top 10 were surefire picks: “DAMN”, though not my favourite Kendrick (which remains To Pimp A Butterfly), has grown on me a lot to the point that I now see it as one of the year’s greatest achievements – a surprisingly coherent collection of solid-to-excellent songs with only the loosest of threads connecting them all in some kind of “concept”; “Antisocialites” is a beautifully-produced nonstop hook-fest of an indie rock album; “Describes Things As They Are” deserves a special mention for bringing one of the year’s most unique sounds to the table, even as it traces its clear influences back to artists as diverse as The Dismemberment Plan and Arto Lindsay (great “Prize” cover in there). Others I had to think harder on, and I switched out “Sleep Well Beast” for “Whiteout Conditions” at the last minute here, my main justification being that on revisiting each, it seemed to me that The National had never sounded better than on their moody, murmuring 2017 album, while The New Pornographers, despite delivering another worthy entry to their now-formidable discography, had.

In retrospect, this was an interesting year for hip-hop (though when isn’t it these days?) beyond “DAMN”: it marks the breakthrough success of Open Mike Eagle, the triumphant return of Jay-Z (but hold the antisemitism next time, OK?), the introduction of the chaotic Playboi Carti and the album that might stand as Princess Nokia’s most definitive statement so far. It also saw the final entry of Aesop Rock & Homeboy Sandman’s enjoyable “Lice” trilogy of EPs, a fascinating experimental effort by Nnamdi that still stands as one of the most distinct-sounding (if not necessarily consistent) hip-hop albums I’ve heard in recent memory, and the first albums by Rapsody and Vince Staples to truly impress me.

Though it might be hard to say exactly when “poptimism” broke critical establishment mainstream at this point (and I’ll probably write more on that later), this year also strikes me as notable for not including a whole lot of representative entries that would appeal to that crowd’s sensibilities – at least not on my list, meaning I didn’t see many capital-P Pop albums worth mentioning here. That being said, the top 40 stuff gets a couple victories here in the form of the two depressive-leaning albums by Harry Styles and Khalid (Khalid’s is the better one, if you’re curious).

Speaking of depressive (though the word actually feels inadequate to describe this one), “A Crow Looked At Me” gets a last word in here for being the most anomalous album on this list – I didn’t think I’d even like it until I tried it, upon which I found less of an album than a powerful, personal meditation on death and loss that somehow achieved poetry by constantly trying to avoid it. After listening to it the first time, I thought I’d never want to hear anything like it again – that is until I heard its follow-up from the next year.

[pirateboy]

sometimes i can't believe rebirth was a real album and then i'll listen to the latest lil yachty and remember that there is an argument for it being rlly influential and ahead of its time and that's wild to me. cos i love wayne but it sucks.

[pinolitas]

every song with angel in the title is about me but especially angel by juanes

[torchickentacos]

who do I have to fight to change the lyrics to the correct ones on spotify

[hozier-self-titled]

[bootyful-seventeen]

Quick question for the homies who have a bookshelf to display their kpop albums and/or mangas and figures, what kind of method or style do you like?