dreadfully unprepared
but here are some key moments of 2016, that should give you a taste of the wild ride this year's music took us on (jk it was a monotonous mess). it's very informal, hence my lowercase, but really its all about the interesting moments of the year and how they came together to summarize it musically
On December 13, 2013, I casually logged into ATRL only to arrive in the middle of mayhem. Beyoncé, by and far the only western pop girl I care about, had released an album out of the blue
ivy. I rushed to iTunes and didn't know what to expect. It was a moment.
April 23, 2016, a little over a week before my birthday, Beyoncé released
Lemonade. It will be on the list of course, but let me talk about the MOMENT that it came out. For the first time in my life I paid attention to Tidal. With my sisters, we gathered around the Smart TV and watched Lemonade for the first time. We were shook. This is still the only moment of the year in music that really gripped me that way.
V O C O D E R
James Blake also released an album (will it appear? this one's a bit more uncertain). On it, he vocoders it up in the most heavenly way. Suddenly, I was shook (again) and decided vocoder was my favourite... instrument.
When I tell you how obsessed I was with the vocoder. Like it was weird. But it wasn't just James. Ariana did it too. And so did Jacob Collier - a recommended artist to me by atrl user Milquetoast.
This skinny cow-shirt clad prodigy came at the right time - my 2016 vocoder obsession with this cover of
"Danny Boy". A cover that is weirdly trippy in all the right parts. He's talented right? Here is him at a
recent concert . His album ****ing sucked
Rap came hard this year. In fact, if not for the Hip Hop world (and to a lesser but still substantial amount the R&B world) I would have likely dismissed anything non-Asian. What this year did for me was rekindle my love with Rap. I was suddenly so into everything - from singles to albums, I fell in deep and its been amazing.
....
but the best moment
JOSHUA
Falling deeper into the K-hole.
Throwback to 2011-2012 when friends in high school first introduced me to K-Pop. I enjoyed the songs they showed me but didn't think to keep up with it. Roll it forward to late 2013 when it started to enter my radar again. I was interested but didn't go deep beyond a few groups.
2014 was a changing period. I was now a fan. I wanted to keep up with it as much as I could but I was still new. Since then i've gotten deeper and deeper. I'd argue that 2015 was the point when I became a true full-on Kpop stan. 2016 was a year where it was ALL I listened to. I also became a SVT stan which is fantastic.
How I balance the East and the West has changed a lot, and so has my music taste. But I like it more now than ever. I feel like I get so much more out of music - I enjoy it. So look forward to the rest of my countdown!
And assuming you read this essay - stay tuned for something special in the next few days.
My Best Of's first event...
A 2016 MIXTAPE
I'm ready for you oppa