YEAR IN MUSIC
The critics of the Houston Chronicle share their picks for the year’s best
I don’t recall the last time I struggled so much to pick 10 favorite albums from a single year.
The 10 that follow are probably the 10 I’ve found the most difficult time filing away, which is always a good sign. And I think those 10 represent a miserable, wonderful year pretty fittingly.
Death became a defining motif in music in 2016, both logistically and thematically. So naturally it was dark, with the wonder and sadness that entails.
So here we are: Winter is here, and 2016 is about to die along with all it took from us. A miserable, wonderful, miserable year.
1.“Skeleton Tree,” Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds:
I’ve always admired Nick Cave’s recordings, but my affinity always stopped short of what fans might call love, largely because he seemed more admirable than lovable: an anti-superhero with a growl and a scowl and a well-tailored suit that served as armor. This record moved me deeply, and I have to think it’s not just the father in me that felt it but also somebody moved by the idea of an impenetrable figure rendered vulnerable. The grief floods into Cave’s voice more than the words, most of which were written before the death of his teenage son. That said, there’s enough grief to go around, and it’s in some of the words as well. The musical presentation is bold and bleak but also full of curiosity and weakness. Faith, friendship, love … those things fail to provide a salve.
In Andrew Dominik’s documentary about making the album, Cave says, “Everything is not OK, but it’s also OK.” This album is full of such contrasts and push/pull content. This album is a barefoot walk on a rocky road toward hope. Or at least tomorrow.
2.“Blackstar,” David Bowie:
Forget for a moment that David Bowie headed for the stars two days after this album’s release. Even without the album’s complicity in the greatest musical disappearing act of all time, Bowie’s last album is the most outward-looking, innovative permutation of cinematic, galactic jazz rock he made since the 1970s. And since he essentially created cinematic, galactic jazz rock, that’s saying something. Its lyrical and allegorical density matches the layered music.
3.“Modern Country,” William Tyler:
A distinctive guitarist and composer with the band Lambchop, Tyler has proven a compelling artist whose guitar instrumentals are rootsy without cribbing from John Fahey. This is his best so far, a restless and melancholy set of compositions inspired by Tyler’s tour, during which he took back roads through towns decimated by disappearing jobs, poverty and addiction. Tyler is a master of setting a scene with sound, and here creates a stirring elegy.
4.“A Seat at the Table,” Solange:
On a first distracted play, this album didn’t catch my attention. Subsequent spins revealed subtle but effective instrumental flourishes: a classic horn lick here, a modern electronic touch there. Then lyrical snippets began to catch my ear after listening closely to a snippet of mother Tina Knowles talking about embracing the beauty in being black. The lyrics aren’t shouted, but rather delivered with understated clarity. This is an album full of pride and discontent. I initially thought Beyoncé made the bigger and better album among the Knowles sibs this year. Later, I amended that: She made the bigger one. Now I’m not even sure of that. This is a whispered epic of edgy contemporary pop and R&B.
5.“Orphée,” Jóhann Jóhannsson:
Icelandic composer Jóhannson has been paying his bills with soundtracks for films including the new “Arrival,” but here he gets to create a piece of music freed from visuals, which is funny because his Orpheus myth-inspired tale is visually evocative — ominous and wintery. My favorite pieces on this album, such as “Flight From the City,” have Jóhannson playing spare piano figures that counter the somber sweep of the strings. The electronics may ruffle purists’ feathers, but they lend some of the pieces a faint feeling of agitation.
6.“We Got It From Here … Thank You 4 Your Service,” A Tribe Called Quest:
Hip-hop doesn’t have great quality control when it comes to putting out music by the deceased. This final album by A Tribe Called Quest, however, is a masterpiece independent of the fact that one of its key contributors — Malik “Pfife Dawg” Taylor — died by the time it was released. Twenty years after Q-Tip declared “got to get it together” on a Beastie Boys record, he sounds irritated that we still haven’t done so, and he thinks the playing field isn’t level: “Put it on TV, put it in movies, put it in our face/These notions and ideas and citizens live in space,” he raps. “Imagine for one second all the people are colored, please/Imagine for one second all the people in poverty/ No matter the skin tone, culture or time zone/Think the ones who got it/Would even think to throw you a bone?”
7.“Lemonade,” Beyoncé:
Often albums are praised for style-hopping, as though picking up phrase-book understanding of a music genre is in and of itself commendable. Here’s what still buzzes me about this record: For all its stylistic sprawl, Beyoncé brings those sounds into her own rather than venturing out like a dabbler. She’s become a genre. And, yes, admirable compression of heavy emotional content into an effective song cycle about infidelity, etc., etc., etc.
8.“Thor & Friends,” Thor and Friends:
When a percussionist makes an “… and Friends” album, it’s frequently a disjointed thing with a gaggle of guest vocalists. La Porte native Thor Harris upends expectations with an album of organic ambient pieces lightly hammered out on marimbas. The effect is hypnotic and envelops with slow-moving beauty punctuated by little droning sheets of violin. It is sweet and sad — minimalism with some blood behind its pulse — and an unassuming treasure that should appeal to Steve Reich fans.
9.“A Moon Shaped Pool,” Radiohead:
My “Bends”-loving friends voiced some disappointment in this one, but my preference is when this band puts down the guitars and emphasizes mood over meaning. And this is long on mood. It starts with its strongest pulse, “Burn the Witch,” before settling into meticulously assembled sounds that are only atmospheric if you don’t pay attention. It closes with “True Love Waits,” one of the band’s loveliest songs and one that has kicked around for more than 20 years waiting to find its way onto a studio album.
10. “Love and Hate,” Michael Kiwanuka:
I admired Kiwanuka’s debut album four years ago, but it felt time capsule-y slavish in its reverence to Bill Withers. Here he takes a bigger swing from the outset, serving up a bristling guitar figure, strings and an ah’ing chorus for more than five minutes before an actual word is sung. His is an ambitious, smart and spiritually unsettled update on wondrously arranged, folk-tinged soul music.