HERE, Hopelessness, and Midwest Farmer's Daughter are really nice albums especially Margo's.
I've been needing to get to that Leonard album, I've heard a lot of good things about it.
It should be noted that this list was created by me ranking every 2016 release that I've heard from worst to best. Just because an album appears here does not mean that I listen to it often (or even more than once), or that I think it's a particularly good album.
5. Various - La La Land
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I have not yet had the privilege of viewing La La Land, an original musical that has essentially been this year's Best Picture frontrunner since last year's Academy Awards. However, I am blessed enough to have heard the film's soundtrack (and you can too!). Our alleged next Best Actress Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling lead the way through a half-dozen instant-classic musical numbers. Opening number "Another Day Of Sun" draws to mind the big picture numbers of classic musicals—Hello, Dolly! comes to mind—and "Someone in the Crow" and John Legend's sole contribution "Start A Fire" are equally great. Composer Justin Hurwitz also contributes a handful of gorgeous, jazzy instrumentals for the film's score.
However, the two duets between the film's leads stand out from the pack. There are three renditions of "City of Stars": a Ryan Gosling solo, a Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone duet, and a version that's just Emma Stone humming. All are captivating. It has the feel of a classic Best Original Song winner, the kind of film song that endures through time and places high on lists of all-time greats. (My immediate thought upon hearing it for the first time was "Now I need a Barbra Streisand interpretation"). Their other duet, "A Lovely Night," is another fantastic number where they agree that it would "a waste of a lovely night" to go on a date together. Emma Stone also shines on her only solo performance, "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)," a soaring number about life and dreams and generations.
Listen to this soundtrack. See this film. Seriously. I heard that Jesus rose from the dead just to experience La La Land.
4. Brandy Clark - Big Day In A Small Town
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On her sophomore album Big Day In A Small Town, Brandy Clark delves deep into a range of classic female archetypes—the girl next door, the homecoming queen, the single mother—and flips them on their heads. Look no further than the lead single "Girl Next Door" for proof: instead of trying to become the stereotypical girl next door, Brandy simply informs her man that "if you want the girl next door / then go next door."
The album is full of strong choruses and sharp songwriting, as evidenced by the standout track "Broke." In anyone else's hands, this song might have come across as a demeaning attack on poor rural white folk, but Brandy easily avoids such condescension.
However, it's the stunning closing track "Since You've Gone To Heaven" that proves why I consider Brandy Clark one of the greatest songwriters in the industry today. A heartbreaking song about how the remaining members of a family try to cope with the loss of a loved one, "Since You've Gone To Heaven" is simply flawless.
This is the only music link that I'll be posting in this entire thread. Please listen to it.
3. Miranda Lambert - The Weight of These Wings
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"There's trouble where I'm going / but I'm gonna go there anyway" is the line that opens Miranda Lambert's double album The Weight of These Wings. In writing, it seems like bravado, but Miranda sings it with resignation (a trait that reemerges throughout the album, but most noticeably on the year's best song "Vice").
It's understandable that Miranda would foresee trouble in her future, given the turmoil of her recent past. Although The Weight of These Wings is a break up album, it also seems to extend far beyond the tabloid headlines. Yet, as much as Miranda sings about other characters, she always returns to herself. Reclaiming her identity is the overarching theme of The Weight of These Wings, and it plays out on a grand scale.
With a full two dozen songs, this record is intimidating in scope and I haven't spent enough time with it yet to break it down to its various themes and tropes, let alone to have favorite songs. But what seems evident is that The Weight of These Wings finds Miranda planting her feet firmly in the epicenter of the country genre. She moves with ease between songs that skew towards what is trending on country radio and songs that are too country for country radio. I'd argue that this record also makes Miranda the first major female country artist in a decade to channel more Nelson than Brooks, more Cline than Twain. In fact, the Ashley Monroe cowrite "To Learn Her" sounds like Miranda recorded some long-forgotten lyrics originally meant for Cline herself.
On the torch song "Keeper of the Flame," Miranda sings directly about the role she has cast for herself in country music. She sees herself as country music's custodian, keeping it alive both "for the ones that came before me" and "for the little pilot lights waiting to ignite." Carrie Underwood may have more and bigger hits, but Miranda is absolutely the woman who leads the pack in country music.
The Weight of These Wings is not only a career high for Miranda Lambert, but it is also an instant landmark in the history of country music.
2. David Bowie - Blackstar
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"Something happened on the day he died," Bowie sings with absolute clarity on the title track of his twenty fifth and final studio album. The news of his death broke while I was sleeping, and I woke to tweets from friends commiserating with me because they knew I was a fan. I had not yet had the chance to listen to Blackstar, although I had heard its title track (and placed it in my top 15 singles of 2015). That song comes at the start of the album, but remains the album's centerpiece.
"Blackstar," a sprawling experimental ten minute long space epic, is one of the year's most demanding and provocative tracks. It mixes metaphors and traditions into a twisted commentary on life, death, and celebrity. Genius.com states that "black star" is term that comes from physics, explaining that although a black star is dead, its "influence becomes infinite" and "it has been transformed into something else altogether and its energy will continue to be released indefinitely." Bowie's repeated chants of "I'm a black star" imply both death, and an eternal legacy. "Yes, I'm dead," he says, "but my legacy will live on forever."
"Lazarus" contains the album's starkest approach to death, which makes it all the more fitting that the single and video were released just two days before his untimely (or perfectly timed?) death. Both verses begin with the command, "look up here," as though Bowie is singing to us directly from the afterlife. The line "dropped my cell phone down below" sticks out for its use of such a modern technology, but it can be read as both Bowie leaving behind the modern world to ascend to the eternal world and as a reminder that he is now beyond our reach. Finally, he invokes the image of the bluebird—a common symbol of happiness and freedom—to suggest that he will soon be free of the pain and suffering of his mortal form.
Although not every song on the album is themed around death, each song is elevated within the context of Bowie's death. "'Tis A Pity She Was A *****" begins with a deeply drawn breath that reminds listeners that Bowie is no longer breathing. The line "the clinic called / the x-ray's fine" from "Sue" seems eerily autobiographical considering that Bowie was in remission when Blackstar was recorded. On "Dollar Days," Bowie frequently repeats the open-ended figures of speech "I'm trying to" (as in "I'm trying to battle cancer and keep working") and "I'm dying to" (which can also be read as "I'm dying, too"). On "Girl Loves Me," he repeatedly asks "where the **** did Monday go?" to hint at the fleeting nature of time, but it becomes haunting when one considers that Bowie died on a Sunday—Monday quickly becomes a stand-in for life itself. "Where the **** did my life go?"
All of this leads up to his last words, "I Can't Give Everything Away." It is commonly said that a good magician never reveals his secrets, which seems an appropriate idiom to apply to this song. His parting song is a message to the world, left open to interpretation. In one reading, he is defending his right not disclose personal information—such as his battle with cancer—to the public. In a different reading, he is apologizing to fans for only being able to give one last album and nothing more. A third reading, sadder and more human, hints at a reluctance to leave the world behind.
Blackstar is a stellar (and interstellar) album. Although heightened by the context of his death, the album was excellent before Bowie died—and it would be equally excellent if he still walked the Earth today. The Next Day and Blackstar are the only two Bowie albums that I know, but they rank amongst my all time favorites and I feel so fortunate to have been able to witness the momentous closing chapter of the career of one of music's most interesting and most influential entertainers ever.
No other artist has ever seemed too big for the Earth to hold, and none ever will again.
(Side note: I started crying when I wrote this)
1. Solange - A Seat At The Table
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A SEAT AT THE TABLE
2016 may be colloquially known as the "year of realizing things," but in music it might be better to call it the year of statement piece—and nobody, NOBODY did the statement piece better than Solange. Every song on A Seat At The Table is written and composed with precision, and each is heightened by the inclusion of several masterfully incorporated interludes.
Because comparisons to Beyoncé's Lemonade are unavoidable, let's start there. I see one major difference between the two sisters' albums. With a few notable exceptions, Beyoncé spends most of Lemonade making the personal political. Solange, on the other hand, dives directly into the social and political themes.
"Mad" tackles the stereotype of the "angry black person," as well as the idea that some people are aware of this stereotype and monitor their own behavior to avoid embodying it. "Don't Touch My Hair" is an imperative against cultural appropriation, while also resurrecting memories of stories about public schools, workplaces, the military, and other entities that try to enact rules prohibiting black people from wearing their natural hairstyles. "FUBU" also offers a significant message to Solange's white audience: "Don't feel bad if you can't sing along / just be glad you got the whole wide world."
Not everything on A Seat At The Table is so politically changed. Eight years in the making, the airy "Cranes in the Sky" is an astounding meditation on attempting to alleviate one's depression by any means necessary. It's title instantly evokes the image of cranes flying through the sky, an illusion of flight and freedom. It's a delicate image; one made all the more delicate by the fact that Solange is actually singing about the construction cranes that loom over skylines and tear buildings to the ground. Depression has never sounded nearly this beautiful.
A Seat At The Table is perhaps the most cohesive, most powerful, most well-crafted album in a year bursting with cohesive, powerful, and well-crafted albums. She really did that. Knowles Superior tbh.
Flawless top 2. I love Vice so I might as well give Miranda a listen, but country music is low key over for me.
Solange really did THAT but...For Us By Us, though
Blackstar is able to feel so complete with only 8 tracks, it's magical like it was a full circle for his life as an artist... but ICGEA does balance that nicely as well, like we will only ever know him so much. you should get more into him. He's got a whole lot more of where that came from.
Because comparisons to Beyoncé's Lemonade are unavoidable, let's start there. I see one major difference between the two sisters' albums. With a few notable exceptions, Beyoncé spends most of Lemonade making the personal political. Solange, on the other hand, dives directly into the social and political themes.
For me, Lemonade is better because of this. It has more depth. What's on the surface is not what's inside. SEAT, everything is in your face.
But the Knowles sisters released the 2 best female albums of the year. Tina's magical vagina
that top 3
The Weight of These Wings was good album, but she didn't top Vice with it tho
Blackstar Lazarus still gave me chills
A Seat At The Table wins omg! yas sis! it's really one of the best 2016 albums and one of the best this decade
Miranda, Bowie, and Brandy all of their albums were amazing. Since You've Gone to heaven is so flawless you're right about that. One of my favorite country songs of all time.
I looked at this before I saw La La Land + listened to the soundtrack so I didn't listen to anything from your top 5, but yasss I'm glad it made it that high
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I have not yet had the privilege of viewing La La Land, an original musical that has essentially been this year's Best Picture frontrunner since last year's Academy Awards.
Ooh honey you better get a ticket IMMEDIATELY. Listening to the soundtrack is only half of it. The visuals you see during the instrumental-only tracks >>>>>. Especially with the 7-minute one (I forgot the name dd).
Top 60 Songs:
Not you shoving out the bottom 50 this fast GORL give me some time to breathe!
Million Reasons + Starving getting shaded and being this low Fix your life!
True Colors, Treat You Better, Kill Em wih Kindness, This Town LOTB + WUTB
Girls Talk Boys, CAN'T STOP THE FEELING!, Toothbrush, IDWLF, Try Everything
Something In the Way You Move, Sorry, LIFTED, Formation, TIWYCF
Send My Love, We Don't Talk Anymore, Perfect Illusion, Hands to Myself
Close, Dangerous Wman, PILLOWTALK, YOUTH, Into You
Whew what a slayful ass list so far! Hopefully the top 10 doesn't mess things up.
Send My Love, We Don't Talk Anymore, Million Reasons, Sorry, Something in the Way You Move, Perfect Illusion, Dangerous Woman, I Don't Want to Live Forever, Formation, Into You, This is What You Came For, Love on the Brain, Water Under the Bridge and Hands to Myself