Note from Dee: The year is drawing to a close and that means it’s time for the third annual Timely Tunes “Favorite Songs” feature for 2017. As always, there is something for everyone in this eclectic collection. Thank you, Chris, for sharing this with us. Enjoy!
Favorite Songs of 2017
by Christopher Piercy
2017 has been a hellscape born from a great collective nightmare: a Hieronymus Bosch phantasm brought to life, intent on piercing our hearts and crushing our will. It has been the year of never-ending villainy from our walking slop bucket of a President, a resurgence and normalization of the darkest demons of America’s racist past, a classic 80’s throwback of impending nuclear apocalypse, and a festering open wound of a male-dominated society of abuse. In short, there hasn’t been too much to be hopeful about. It was a year that, somehow, made me feel as if life were hurtling by in uncontrollable hyperdrive yet unbearably static, like a mosquito trapped in amber. As always, I have turned to art, and especially music, to try to keep me from completely losing my mind, and 2017 has rewarded us with a vast output of strength and experimentation.
2017 was a year of Polo shirt, tiki torch-wielding, basement bros emboldened by a racist, predatory President, but it was also a year in which women brought a great reckoning to the power abusing male establishment. I have hope that the latter has a greater momentum, and that momentum was reflected in a lot of brave and bold work by female artists. Deerhoof sang “you can outlive your executioners” and it felt electric. Princess Nokia invoked brujeria as an empowerment anthem for women of color. Jlin released an album that proved she is the most exciting and boundary-pushing artist in footwork while The Black Madonna has continued to solidify herself as one of the most respected DJs and producers in house music. Cardi B flipped the script of the boy’s club and came up with the most inescapable rap jam of the year in the endlessly quotable “Bodak Yellow”.
I sought counterintuitive centering in the blood-curdling noise of Pharmakon and the metallic chaos of Full of Hell. I felt peace in the return of Ryuichi Sakamoto. I felt euphoria in Carly Rae Jepsen. And I felt revelation in Venezuelan artist Alejandro Ghersi, better known as Arca, who emerged from behind his abstracted, otherworldly production with a voice of staggering beauty. I had no idea! “Desafío”, and its accompanying album, blew me away like nothing else this year. He was also responsible for production on two of the other best albums of the year: Bjork’s “Utopia” and Kelela’s “Take Me Apart”.
As is always the case when I put together my year-end list, I’m shocked by how much truly incredible music DIDN’T quite make the cut. There are plenty of songs that I could have also justified putting on here, and there are plenty of great albums that I am still trying to fully process. I can’t begin to guess how many hours I have spent trying to make sense of the year’s music and create a 100 song snapshot of what sounds meant the most to me. I keep a running playlist all year long of new, interesting songs that grab me, and by the end of November, it was nearing 1,000 tracks in length. I’m always more attracted to new music that sounds like it is pushing things forward, but sometimes, as is the case with The War on Drugs or John Moreland, new life can be breathed into old sounds.
Most of these lists go in reverse-order, but I always prefer to list them first to last. That being said, it’s hard to quantify your relative love for one song over another when they are all this good, and cover a wide range of tone and genre. I hope you find at least a few new favorites in this playlist.
TIMELY TUNES, VOL. 62 ~ 2017 Favorite Songs
TRACKLIST
1. Arca “Desafío”
2. Lil Uzi Vert “XO TOUR Llif3”
3. Carly Rae Jepsen “Cut To The Feeling”
4. Kelela “LMK”
5. Vince Staples “Crabs In A Bucket”
6. Sampha “Reverse Faults”
7. Björk “Arisen My Senses”
8. Pharmakon “No Natural Order”
9. The War On Drugs “Pain”
10. LCD Soundsystem “oh baby”
11. Kendrick Lamar “DNA.”
12. 2 Chainz feat. Travis Scott “4 AM”
13. Miguel feat. Kali Uchis “Caramelo Duro”
14. Deerhoof feat. Jenn Wasner “I Will Spite Survive”
15. Yves Tumor “Limerence”
16. Princess Nokia “Brujas”
17. Porches “Find Me”
18. Full Of Hell “Trumpeting Ecstasy”
19. Priests “Nothing Feels Natural”
20. SZA feat. Travis Scott “Love Galore”
21. Fever Ray “Mustn’t Hurry”
22. Ryuichi Sakamoto feat. David Sylvian “Life, Life”
23. Jlin “Holy Child”
24. Zola Jesus “Siphon”
25. Lawrence English “Object of Projection”
26. Cardi B “Bodak Yellow”
27. Land Of Talk “Loving”
28. Maalem Mahmoud Gania “Sidi Sma Ya Boulandi”
29. Frank Ocean “Chanel”
30. Four Tet “Two Thousand and Seventeen”
31. Slowdive “Sugar for the Pill”
32. The Black Madonna “He Is The Voice I Hear”
33. John Moreland “Slow Down Easy”
34. GAS “Narkopop 3”
35. Blanck Mass “Please”
36. DJ Seinfeld “Too Late for U and M1”
37. Mount Eerie “Real Death”
38. Moses Sumney “Doomed”
39. Future “Mask Off”
40. SOPHIE “It’s Okay To Cry”
41. Nadah El Shazly “Palmyra”
42. Clark “Catastrophe Anthem”
43. Torres “Skim”
44. Visionist feat. Rolynne “Your Approval”
45. Juana Molina “Los pies helados”
46. Nicole Mitchell “Staircase Struggle”
47. Converge “I Can Tell You About Pain”
48. Sabrina Claudio “Stand Still”
49. Bicep “Vale”
50. KWAYE “Little Ones”
51. The Drums “Blood Under My Belt”
52. Gravetemple “A Szarka”
53. Chino Amobi “EIGENGRAU (CHILDREN OF HELL)”
54. Planning For Burial “Whiskey and Wine”
55. Ibeyi feat. Meshell Ndegeocello “Transmission/Michaelion”
56. Charli XCX “Boys”
57. Tee Grizzley and Lil Durk “WhatYo City Like”
58. Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile “Over Everything”
59. Iron Chic “My Best Friend (Is a Nihilist)”
60. Rabit “Possessed”
61. Irreversible Entanglements “Enough”
62. Tyler, The Creator feat. Frank Ocean “Where This Flower Blooms”
63. The Body with Full of Hell “Our Love Conducted with Shields Aloft”
64. Actress “DANCING IN THE SMOKE”
65. Kamasi Washington “Truth”
66. Richard Dawson “Ogre”
67. Waxahatchee “Never Been Wrong”
68. Syd “Body”
69. Lorde “Perfect Places”
70. Ex Eye “Anaitis Hymnal; the Arkose Disc”
71. James Holden and The Animal Spirits “Each Moment Like The First”
72. Quality Control feat. Migos “Too Hotty”
73. Dude York “Love Is”
74. Suffering Hour “For the Putridity of Man”
75. Sarah Davachi “For Voice”
76. Carla del Forno “The Garden”
77. Laurel Halo “Jelly”
78. Impetuous Ritual “Inordinate Disdain”
79. Chelsea Wolfe “16 Psyche”
80. Downtown Boys “Somos Chulas (No Somos Pendejas)”
81. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith “I Will Make Room for You”
82. G Perico “Keep Ballin”
83. Julien Baker “Appointments”
84. Godflesh “Be God”
85. Creek Boyz “With My Team”
86. Destroyer “Sky’s Grey”
87. Drake feat. 2 Chainz and Young Thug “Sacrifices”
88. Julie Byrne “Follow My Voice”
89. Oxbow “Other People”
90. 21 Savage and Offset “Ghostface Killers”
91. Mount Kimbie with King Krule “Blue Train Lines”
92. The Afghan Whigs “Oriole”
93. (Sandy) Alex G “Bobby”
94. Kevin Morby “Pearly Gates”
95. Jay Som “The Bus Song”
96. HAIM “Ready For You”
97. Pallbearer “I Saw the End”
98. Grouper “Headache”
99. Thundercat feat. Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins “Show You The Way”
100. Playboi Carti “Magnolia”
~~~~~
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