Staff Picks: Best Albums of 2016

Coloring Book is a golden crisp mix of spirituals and the goodness of what is sweet mainstream rap. The signature trumpet embellishments from The Social Experiment’s Nico Segal and the gospel choir vocals bring an uplifting vibe that the listeners associate with Chance’s contagious charisma. Coloring Book is the promise of potential that was revealed in Chance’s 2013 album Acid Rap.

 

Mitski offers resignation can be powerful as resistance in her third album, Puberty 2. Loud as the buzz of her reverb-heavy guitars ring throughout the album, her songs are less about screaming out her problems than the struggle to keep it all to herself. Though it feels understandably exhausting to suppress her pain, it’s also a step forward into maturity. “Your mother would not approve how my mother raised me, but I do/ I finally do,” she sings in “Your Best American Girl.” There’s something profound to hear someone be at peace coming to terms the forces against your control will always be against you no matter how much you try to fight them.

Angel Olsen’s My Woman is the album we needed in a year like 2016. The lyrics are strong and self-assured, yet dark and depressing. Olsen’s voice teeters between ethereal and daydreamy to guttural and rough. She unabashedly shares her feelings, the feelings we are all feeling, of confusion and pain, of love and bliss. Angel Olsen is MY WOMAN of the year.

Brandon Paak Anderson, age 30, has been around the block, seen many things, and been many things. Among them a husband, a father, a weed clipper and a messianic rapper capable of arresting your attention with just a few flicks of his tongue, a raspy vocal run or an impossibly smooth, rapid-fire drum fill. He makes it all look oh so easy, and his sophomore album, Malibu, bursting at the seams with joyous, creative energy, is a fully formed, perfectly sequenced statement of a man who has paid his dues, sweated the details and come out on the upswing of life. Buoyant neo-soul beats on instant classics “Heart Don’t Stand a Chance” and “Your Prime” feel instantly refreshing and full of color, and for the remainder of the track list it’s as if .Paak never leaves the clouds. The hilarity of sexed-up, superficial anthem “Silicon Valley” begets the calm reflection explored on closing duo “Celebrate” and “The Dreamer,” which pay respect to the full curve of .Paak’s journey as an artist, growing from periods of extreme self-doubt to his current status as a gifted, prolific purveyor of a new brand of hip-hop. Long may he rhyme.

Four incredibly long years since the release of Channel Orange had passed. The world of music was missing and confused by Frank Ocean’s conscious absence. He cancelled a performance at FYF Fest in Los Angeles in 2015 and posted a false date for the release of his album midway through the same year. Fans waited impatiently until a riddle the form of a live stream began to emerge online at the latter half of this year, followed shortly by pop-up stores, and then suddenly came the release of Blonde.

Blonde is a gorgeous craft of pop that bends and pulls with the play of time. The soundscape is a precious engagement with space. Digital organs and bass shimmer on the track “Siegfried.” The heavy weight of Ocean’s pen is felt throughout the album. Blonde is a meditation on love and a mirror to his own self and at times of the own nation he inhabits. The line “that nigga looks just like me” on “Nikes” trembles the sentiment of Frank Ocean realizing the similarity in melanin between Trayvon Martin and himself. The romantic in Ocean is not absent but always present even after mentioning divisive issues. “I’ll be the boyfriend in your wet dreams tonight” in “Self Control” cause the hearts and body to swoon just like high school crushes.

Blonde holistically is an album that 2016 is undeserving of. Frank Ocean’s detailed and patient beauty throughout the album is one that surpassed the expectations that Channel Orange had set. Blonde is by far one of the most precious gifts that listeners have received in the year 2016.

A Tribe Called Quest returned in 2016 with a purpose. One catalyst for their reunion that hangs heavy is the passing of Phife Dawg, whose voice looms here less as a ghost than a spiritual guidance. But there’s also huge political turmoil in their backyard, and some of ours, too. They’re lost as the rest of the nation. Their jazz-inspired sounds touching upon notes aggressive as the tension of the country. But as “We the People…” sings, there’s one thing clear: the Tribe ensure the people won’t stand divided under their music.

Justin Vernon’s third studio album as Bon Iver opens with a question: “Where you gonna look for confirmation?” The whole album is ripe with symbolism that invites the listener to parse a hidden message. Whether or not Vernon intended a specific message be found is beside the point: we can find confirmation for our beliefs wherever we look.

22, A Million is Bon Iver’s first release in five years. It’s an album about love, lost love, getting lost, and trying to find meaning. There are lo-fi elements and synths and vocoders so the listener has no idea if this is an electronic take on folk music or a nu-dance singer-songwriter power ballad-type thing, and since we’re so used to classifying things, our brains start to hurt when that gets difficult. The best way to approach this album is to listen to it once when you’re sad, and once when you’re happy. Then a hundred more times.