Made a joke to someone that if we were to come up with a best of 2017 music list, the list would start at number four, because nothing was that good in 2017. After careful consideration, we’re not even doing a list, because last year was an exceptionally shitty year for music. Hip-hop should be getting angrier and more political, filling the gap left now that punk is old/dead and incapable of regenerating — because no one under the age of thirty has the attention span to learn to play even punk rock guitar — but, with some rare exceptions, it’s not. It’s getting introspective like Kendrick Lamar, or just electronically echoing yelped, tired threats and boasts about what brand of clothing the MC’s advance can afford him. And does everybody have to rap through their nose and then filter it through Auto-Tune? And those damn trap beats…the triple-time hi-hat is the harbinger of stupid.
What’s wrong with young musicians these days? Just going to let Trump and Co. shit all over your future with nothing to say about it except that you love pills and sometimes feel guilty about disrespecting women? When Reagan funneled money away from the people and up to the wealthy in the ‘80s, it spawned anger like Public Enemy, Dead Kennedys, N.W.A, and this. Y’all got some shit to talk.
With that said, here are a few things we heard this year that were decent to pretty good:
Queens of the Stone Age – Villains
This is a pretty good boogie metal record that could be great but for the pop production. The handclaps on “The Way You Used to Do” are a good indication that QOTSA want to turn the pit into a dance floor, and that’s fine in and of itself, but sometimes it ends up feeling like metal for people who wear 200 dollar jeans and are excited about this year’s Coachella line-up. When the riffs overpower, which they do often enough, this is a dark and groovy metal album. Fun, dirty glam. There’s just a few too many moments that should be heavier.
Replacements – For Sale: Live at Maxwell’s 1986
Arguably the greatest bar band of all time giving the rough treatment to some of their best songs.
Arcade Fire Everything Now
If the Tom Tom Club wrote a record about rampant consumerism and its effects on the soul, this is what it would sound like. The bouncy disco-lite is too poppy for the often dire lyrics, but it makes for a record that sort of says, “Hey, we can dance and rock our way through this mess.” That sounds corny, and of course there is that eyebrow-raising element of a band that sells out arenas lined with merchandise booths bemoaning selling stuff, but it’s a strong enough and catchy enough pop record that you can have fun with it without actually deleting your Amazon Prime account.
Run the Jewels Run the Jewels 3
Pros: Angry, violent, funny, and sometimes political lyrics over deep bass blasts.
Cons: It’s kinda like being yelled at for an hour.
It’s fucking intense.
Mastodon Emperor of Sand
Hurling through the vortex of sacred symphonic guitar riffs, Mastodon move closer to prog metal. ‘Prog’ is what part-time hacks like us use when they run out of words for the guitar gymnastics powering throughout. “Show Yourself” sounds like the masterful minimalist desert metal of the first QOTSA album, and the whole record has a bit of that laid-back vibe, which is in contrast to said guitar work (and the drums are beating circles around everything, too).
Converge The Dusk In Us
Converge are metalcore veterans, respected elders of making the intensity go real fast, and nearly 20 years on, The Dusk In Us revels in that simple formula. The spiraling, fantastical guitar shards that poke out of the huge riffs and screams of the opener “A Single Tear” cut up what’s really a hopeful song. Relive your teenage years screaming “I swear I’m trying, but you don’t know what my pain feels like!” as feedback swirls above bursts of guitar power in a song that jerks you back and forth like an angry dad. It gets more complex, if you want it to, with songs about actually withholding aggression and loveless cannibals and dusk and such. “Trigger” with its dark groove sounds enough like The Jesus Lizard that it would have made an A&R guy hard in the mid-nineties, and there are a few other lower-gear, contemplative songs here that work well enough as breaks between the rounds that don’t suck, and many of the last few songs succeed in paying homage to the power-hook rhythmic riffs of Kerry King. Lotta screaming, which our old ears can only tolerate so much these days, but the music is heavy, fast and interesting.
Jay-Z – “The Story of O.J.”
This is the only song we’ve heard off of an album Gerhardt Popwell says is one of the best things he heard all year. We don’t subscribe to Jay’s streaming service, never got the notion to buy it, and Gerhardt hasn’t dropped by with that copy, so it seems we’ve missed the boat. Anyway, this song rolls along real smooth and drops some sound financial advice, to boot.
Radiohead – OKNOTOK – OK Computer 20th Anniversary
There are not many things here that hardcore fans of Radiohead (are there any other kind?) haven’t heard, except a cassette of noodling around you can give to a hipster with a cassette player, but we really just want to take this moment to say what the fuck is up with Radiohead suing Lana Del Rey? That’s some bullshit. Yeah, her song “Get Free” has verses where the vocals sound like the way Thom Yorke sings on “Creep,” but let someone be inspired, for fuck’s sake. There is nothing new under the sun, so so don’t bug other people about coincidence, or the rest of the world might start thinking that you think you’re so fucking special that you are creeps.
Bonus: The Best Rockumentaries
Oasis: Supersonic
This documentary actually makes you feel a bit of something other than, “Fuck off, you pompous wankers!” about the Gallagher brothers. It’s worth watching as the band goes from nobodies to playing for half a million people within three years. You don’t get to see any actual fights between the brothers, but there are a few curse words lobbed, and a sad scene where they’re trying to avoid their dad at a pub. Surprisingly personal as it tells the story of a band that got too much, too quickly.
Finding Joseph I: The HR From Bad Brains Documentary
The most intense and powerful voice of punk rock came from a man whose schizophrenia screwed up his career. What could be an incredibly sad story is saved by the, oh, let’s call it PMA, of HR as he deals with what no one figured was a serious mental health problem until relatively recently (turns out punks are really bad at diagnosing mental disorders). The condition keeps him from playing shows, ruins opportunities, and leaves him roaming the streets of LA homeless with a video recorder, but we never see a sad or desperate HR. His schizophrenia is profound, but it slips him into a childlike innocence, and he’s never seen without a smile. This is a very thorough recap of a life in music that shows the power and problems that come with being revered by your peers. Everybody wanted to work with HR, but no one would tell him he needed help…until he found love.
Double Bonus: Listenable Tracks to Start 2018
Gaz Coombes of Supergrass fame has a new single, “Deep Pockets,” with a bubbling bass line and a fiesty, glam vibe that makes for a very groovy tune. The full album, World’s Strongest Man is out May 4.
The Breeders are back! And they’re selling beanies! 
A new album, All Nerve, is coming out March 2. There’s plenty of cool left in the tank as you can hear here. All Nerve reunites band members Kim and Kelley Deal, Josephine Wiggs and Jim Macpherson – the line-up behind the iconic Last Splash record.
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