2017 Keepers

Music fades faster every year. Fewer new acts connect. An album that seems destined for years of steady rotation drifts into obscurity after a few weeks. Have we become more picky or has music as a commodity even been more disposable? I couldn't say.

 Throughout the year, I enjoyed plenty of bits and pieces. After a blistering takes on the country’s state in 2017, Jason Isbell almost made the list for a third straight album, but too many lesser tracks sink The Nashville Sound. The National came close.  I never expected to find solace in The Shins again, but James Mercer obliged with the charming, personal Heartworms.

The expectation that the Fleet Foxes would soar atop this list fell drastically short – The Crack-Up has moments, but feels too much like one 50-minute song, strumming the same guitar chord endlessly; aside from some stunning instrument breaks and codas, not enough breaks out.

The usual prolific suspects (Mark Lanegan and Guided by Voices) obliged me with new records. Queens of the Stone Age went for a more sinewy, sparse metal on Villains and occasionally hit paydirt while the Foo Fighters do what they always do (a few tracks bound for a future compilation surrounded by rock-by-numbers songs). I could build a solid mix-tape from songs on those records. Here’s a sample worth sampling:
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Cumberland Gap
QOTSA, Feet Don’t Fail Me 
Big Thief, Shark Smile
Foo Fighters, Run 
The National, The Day I Die 
Feist, The Wind
Mark Lanegan, Old Swan 

The album list runs short, but that’s the point.

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, The Kid
Had Nancy and I not seen Smith at the Big Ears Festival, I might have missed this wonderful album. Smith wields her Buchla modular synthesizer adeptly, flipping switches, turning knobs and switching plugs. It’s an intense performance. The album pulls the organic from the artificial, Smith’s voice grounding the swirling, ambient tunes that could otherwise feel light.

Depeche Mode, Spirit 
I don’t know if I would put Spirit up with classics like Black Celebration, Violator or Music for the Masses, but it definitely works as music of the moment. Where’s the Revolution shows Depeche Mode still knows their way around an anthem, even though the mood of the record is more downtrodden than usual. The industrial synth has a timeless snarl on No More (This is the Last Time). The world of 2017 has grafted an angry edge onto Depeche Mode’s music, even as the songs retain their usual beauty.

Childish Gambino, “Awake, My Love!”
Released in December 2016, I had no interest in Donald Glover’s music until a friend played me a few samples, including the single Redbone. This album hooked me in three minutes flat, when Me and Your Mama goes from a delicate soul ballad into a fuzzed-out stomper with a gospel choir. It might be the best record Parliament never made, and superior to many that they did. But Glover, who performs as Childish Gambino, creates an album that’s more than mere homage – or maybe it’s just the homage I needed in 2017.

Broken Social Scene, Hug of Thunder 
Feist released an album this year, her first since 2011’s incredible Metals, but it didn’t register. The supergroup which counts her as a member released its first album since 2010 and won me back instantly. Yes, every Broken Social Scene album makes the Keepers list, the virtue of only gathering for new record every few years. The bruising Halfway Home bursts out of a short ambient interlude and Hug of Thunder never eases off the throttle. Every song feels anthemic. “Things will get better because they can’t get any worse.”

Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters, Carry Fire
A decade after Raising Sand, I prepared for a letdown – could Plant keep up his string of strong late-career albums? Of course they hooked me with the opening notes of May Queen, which cruises on a gentle Middle Eastern feel. Despite the track’s name coming from a Stairway to Heaven verse, they couldn’t sound less alike. With the same band as his last record, the mostly good Lullaby and the Ceaseless Roar, Plant spreads to new ground, once again conducting a clinic on how to age gracefully once the high notes become too high. Plant and the Shape Shifters make this album feel effortless, mixing blues and the folk music of many cultures across 50 minutes.

Sufjan Stevens/Bryce Dessner/Nico Muhly/James McAlister, Planetarium
I hesitated to include this record, but it's one that requires weeks of exploration. Stevens holds the album together, bringing the disparate collaborators together on his commissioned piece about the solar system. Put on some videos of Voyager or New Horizons probes approaching the outer planets, and it's all the soundtrack you need.

Best compilation 
The Beach Boys, 1967 – Sunshine Tomorrow 
 Along with remastered Wild Honey – the sharp, 20-minute soul record anchored by Carl Wilson – this collection brings together outtakes, live cuts and other tracks from the post-Pet Sounds era. The best might be a solo piano cut of Surf’s Up, once intended as an integral piece of Smile and if pressed, my favorite Beach Boys song ever.

Old Albums that Gained New Perspective 
Temple of the Dog, Temple of the Dog (25th anniversary reissue – from 2016)
Singles, Original Soundtrack (expanded 25th anniversary reissue)

We cannot talk music in 2017 without mentioning the stinging loss of Chris Cornell, right as the Singles soundtrack reissue was released. Despite numerous choice cuts, it has too much chaff (cough, Paul Westerberg, cough) to make the Keepers list.

How did it make the leap? Cornell keeps this soundtrack and its castoffs relevant. As my good friend been Crites notes, Cornell’s solo track, Seasons, easily ranks among his top compositions. It’s more Led Zeppelin III than Soundgarden – dark, acoustic and with a Middle Eastern flair. The reissue also includes the Poncier EP, a series of interesting Cornell demos most people noted for an early but inessential take on Spoonman - the other Poncier tracks are better and never resurfaced. Cornell is all over the bonus material.

The Temple of the Dog 25th anniversary reissue came out in 2016. That ignores the fact that following its original release,  most people didn’t discover it until 2002, when it got a renewed push after Pearl Jam and Soundgarden broke big. Cornell wrote those songs with the late Andrew Wood’s former bandmates and they don’t sound like anything else in either catalog.

I didn’t include Temple of the Dog on my 2016 list because I felt disappointed by the lack of interesting unreleased material (just demos of existing songs) and the band’s “reunion tour” spanned all of four shows. As everyone knows, there will be no further Temple of the Dog or Soundgarden reunions.

The album’s relevance in 2017 became something entirely different after Chris Cornell’s suicide. Cornell wrote the perfect record for mourning. What started from a moment in time –Cornell grieving through a blitz of songwriting – has become timeless. It is no longer a vessel of Cornell's grief, but of universal grief. Too bad the album now serves as a reminder of its primary author, not its muse. Temple of the Dog is a soundtrack of music crafted in grief, and there was no better vehicle for coping with Cornell’s death. I spun Temple of the Dog relentlessly in the second half of 2017 and have shown no signs of stopping.