The 100 Best Albums of 2016

Every year, when I start thinking about year-end music lists, I wonder who am I actually making a list for and why do I do this? Then I remember being 8 years old and using my parents' old school type writer to type out top 10 lists related to any number of music topics, realizing no one would ever see them. I did it for me. It was fun. Music is something I was obsessively passionate about, even when I was 8 years old. Pounding out typed lists of my favourite 10 Metal Bass Players or my favourite 10 Kool & The Gang Songs. They would end up in file folders, often never to be viewed again. It was fun for me.

Almost 40 years later, I remain obsessively passionate about music, and I still type out lists about music, but I get to share them with a few people. This blog started as a request of sorts, from friends who do not have the time or interest to track new music anymore, but still enjoy hearing something new and interesting. So I still do it for me and it is still fun, but a few other people look forward to it as well now, and that is sort of cool. I continue to be self conscious about my writing, but I do the best I can. I am a proud music nerd, who knows more about a lot of music than most and about as much about it as some. The internet is a humbling place for the creature that is the music nerd, and thankfully I have found a handful of other people with whom I share overlap in taste and they ensure I never feel too big for my boots. I am not a music writer. I am just a guy who drinks and knows things. Especially music things.

The other thing that has not changed is my voracious appetite to consume as much new and interesting music as possible. What has changed, for a host of reasons, is the ability to act on and satisfy that appetite in ways that were never possible when I was a kid. I had more records when I was young than most kids, because all my allowance and paper route money got spent on music. What is also much different is the ability to see all the different lists other people and sites come up with throughout and at the end of the year. For my part, I don't purposely look for obscure or hard to find stuff, but sometimes that happens. I do tend to not listen to a lot of super available mainstream music these days, which means my lists don't tend to showcase many popular high profile artists. It's just not my thing, so thankfully there are already kazillion other sites who capture stuff like Beyonce, for people who enjoy it and need to see it on a list.

2016 was a year where I further embraced my love for alternative music, in the traditional sense, where it used to mean stuff that was weird and unusual. The bulk of my listening continues to be UK based artists and definitely with a slant toward art rock and pop. I re-embraced hip-hop somewhat this year, taking the time to find more artists that fit in my super narrow wheelhouse of smart underground alternative styled rap. As always, I often fell back on melody based indie pop and hook driven power pop, and found a nice share of synth pop and harder driving electronic music. I still shy away from blues based stuff, or anything rootsy and folksy. Hopefully when I'm 85 and sitting on a porch, I will be listening to Bauhaus albums and ranting about what a boring old fart Bob Dylan is.

Last year I narrowed my album list to 50, in the interest of focus and brevity. This year, I was having a hard time giving props to all the wonderful stuff I heard, without taking it back up to 100, so here we are. There is a science that goes with the gathering and listening to 200+ albums throughout the year, much like the science that goes into the final list. At the end of the day though, there is probably not a lot of tangible difference between an album I put at 74 and one I put at 86. Sort of like when the arseholes at Pitchfork rate an album 9.3 rather than 9. I am hoping to follow this list, with a few blog posts that offer a bit of specific commentary around some of my favourites and what they meant to me on the music year 2016. Time will tell if that happens or not. I hope if you are reading this, that you find something you like that you might not otherwise have come across without this post. It's a lot of work to do this, but it is absolutely not work for me. It is also a lot easier than it used to be using a type writer.

	Artist	Title
100	Mexrrissey	No Manchester
99	Blossoms	Blossoms
98	Steve Porcaro	Someday / Somehow
97	Operators	Blue Wave
96	Common	Black America Again
95	Portrayal	To The Black Sea
94	Teenage Fanclub	Here
93	Maxwell	blackSUMMERS'night
92	Yeasayer	Amen & Goodbye
91	The Blessed Isles	Straining Hard Against The Strength of The Night
90	Anohni	Hopelessness
89	Witching Waves	Crystal Cafe
88	Kyle Forester	Kyle Forester
87	The Amazing	Ambulance
86	Mayer Hawthorne	Man About Town
85	Holy Fuck	Congrats
84	The Darcys	Centerfold
83	Shearwater	Jet Pane and Oxbow
82	Eliot Sumner	Information
81	Ladyhawke	Wild Things
80	Ka	Honor Killed The Samurai
79	White Lies	Friends
78	Animal Collective	FloriDada
77	Moderat	III
76	The Real Numbers	Wordless Wonder
75	Warpaint	Heads Up
74	Hooton Tennis Club	Big Box of Chocolates
73	Crocodiles	Dreamless
72	The Moth & The Flame	Young and Afraid
71	Pet Shop Boys	Super
70	Bob Mould	Patch The Sky
69	The Lemon Twigs	Do Hollywood
68	Dinosaur Jr	Give A Glimpse of What Yer Not
67	Merchandise	A Corpse Wired for Sound
66	Paper Lions	Full Colour
65	Solange	A Seat At The Table
64	Mind Spiders	Prosthesis
63	Wild Nothing	Life Of Pause
62	Kestrels	Kestrels
61	American Football	American Football (LP2)
60	Cullen Omori	New Misery
59	Suuns	Hold/Still
58	Skepta	Konnichiwa
57	Simian Mobile Disco	Welcome to Sideways
56	Soft Kill	Choke
55	The Radio Dept.	Running Out Of Love
54	Against Me!	Shape Shift With Me
53	Duotang	New Occupation
52	ABC	The Lexicon of Love II
51	Eagulls	Ullages
50	jennylee	right on!
49	Apollo Brown & Skyzoo	The Easy Truth
48	Syd Arthur	Apricity
47	Troller	Graphic
46	Denmark Vessey	Whole Food
45	Angel Olsen	My Woman
44	EZTV	High In Place
43	Light Fantastic	Out Of View
42	Toy	Clear Shot
41	Blood Orange	Freetown Sound
40	Savages	Adore Life
39	Phantogram	Three
38	Kendrick Lamar	untitled unmastered
37	Amber Arcades	Fading Lines
36	Alex Cameron	Jumping The Shark
35	Exploded View	Exploded View
34	Survive	RR7349
33	Zoos of Berlin	Instant Everything
32	Methyl Ethyl	Oh Inhuman Spectacle
31	The Field	The Follower
30	PJ Harvey	The Hope Six Demolition Project
29	Aphex Twin	Cheetah
28	Swet Shop Boys	Cashmere
27	Preoccupations	Preoccupations
26	Kristin Kontrol	X-Communicate
25	Radiohead	A Moon Shaped Pool
24	Factory Floor	25 25
23	Public Access T.V.	Never Enough
22	Xander Harris	California Chrome
21	D.D Dumbo	Utopia Defeated
20	DMAs	Hills End
19	Underworld	Barbara Barbara we face a shining future
18	Anderson Paak	Malibu
17	Jessy Lanza	Oh No
16	Jagwar Ma	Every Now & Then
15	David Bowie	Black Star
14	Diiv	Is This The Are
13	Junior Boys	Big Black Coat
12	Kaytranada	99.9%
11	Omni	Deluxe
10	School of Seven Bells	SVIIB
9	A Tribe Called Quest	We Got It From Here...Thank You 4 Your Service
8	Hockey Dad	Boronia
7	Tuns	Tuns
6	Suede	Night Thoughts
5	Local Natives	Sunlit Youth
4	Trashcan Sinatras	Wild Penulum
3	The KVB	...Of Desire
2	Field Music	Commontime
1	Wild Beasts	Boy King