As always, I’ve listened to a lot of new music this year. It’s been my second year of collecting vinyl, and my second (and last) year of blogging about my monthly discoveries (2017 is likely to be a little too busy to commit to that for another year). This year I’ve split my choices into three categories – my top 10 albums by how many times I’ve played them, my top 10 vinyl purchases, and a selection of other things I’ve listened to this year that I really like.
Top 10 from Last.fm
I’ve used last.fm to track my listening habits for the past 10 years. Whilst it doesn’t track anything I listen to on vinyl (or in fact CD), it does cover everything I’ve listened to on my computer, my phone and my iPad, on a variety of different music players. The following albums are my top 5 based on that criteria, although it should be noted that I also own the Unloved album on vinyl so there is a chance I’ve actually listened to it more than anything else this year.
She Makes War – Direction of Travel
Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool
Shearwater – Jet Plane and Oxbow
Unloved – Guilty of Love
Tortoise – The Catastrophist
PJ Harvey – The Hope Six Demolition Project
Frightened Rabbit – Painting of a Panic Attack
Jesu & Sun Kil Moon – Jesu/Sun Kil Moon
Yorkston/Thorne/Khan – Everything Sacred
The Wedding Present – Going Going
What strikes me about this list is that there are a lot of familiar names there, and I’ve listened to (and written about) most of these artists a lot in the past. The two new names on this list are She Wakes War (my favourite record of the year, and one that reminds me a lot of Trouble Will Find Me by The National in both subject matter and my general emotional response to it) and Unloved (one of several “supergroup” records in my list this year, and one that I keep coming back to).
10 more that I’ve played a lot on vinyl
I started collecting vinyl again two years ago, and these are the ten records from 2016 that I keep coming back to (along with the Unloved album which I’ve already mentioned). It’s interesting to note that only one of these (Black Mountain’s IV) is a double album, and I’m now fairly sure that having something spread across more than one record does limit how much I listen to it.
Iggy Pop – Post Pop Depression
Minor Victories – Minor Victories
Angel Olsen – My Woman
Black Mountain – IV
Beyond the Wizard’s Sleeve – The Soft Bounce
Pixies – Head Carrier
Wild Beasts – Boy King
D.D Dumbo – Utopia Defeated
RM Hubbert – Telling The Trees
The Magnetic North – Prospect of Skelmersdale
This list probably owes a lot to the fact that I get sent one record a month by Rough Trade, and definitely features more newer artists, and debut records. I loved the idea of Minor Victories before I even heard the record (and hearing it didn’t change that), and I really didn’t expect another good Iggy Pop record (and certainly not one that good). There isn’t really a filler track on any of these, and all come highly recommended.
My favourite records of the year (that I’ve not already mentioned)
This is very much the best of the rest, and also a few things I’ve not played that often, but would still say are my favourite records of the year.
Brian Eno – The Ship
BadBadNotGood – IV
Conor Oberst – Ruminations
Bon Ivor – 22, A Million
Charlie Hilton – Palana
Moby and the Void Pacific Choir – These Systems Are Failing
Car Seat Headrest – Teens of Denial
Kate Tempest – Let Them Eat Chaos
Danny Brown – Atrocity Exhibition
Banks – The Alter
Melanie De Biasio – Blackened Cities
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Skeleton Tree
Okkervil River – Away
James Blake – The Colour in Anything
Steve Mason – Meet the Humans
Knifeworld – Bottled out of Eden
Blixa Bargeld & Teho Teardo – Nerissimo
Shirley Collins – Lodestar
Cate Le Bon – Crab Day
Riley Walker – Golden Sings That Have Been Sung
Childish Gambino – “Awaken My Love”
Anderson .Paak – Malibu
Anohni – Hopelessness
DJ Shadow – The Mountain Will Fall
Wire – Nocturnal Koreans
This last list is much more diverse, with a lot of rap and R’n’B, a little jazz, and a fair few things that defy classification. I think it’s a fair representation of my listening habits over the last year though.