SOUNDS THAT RESONATED

Music about departures sounded good to me this year. So as I look back at the list of my top albums of 2017, it appears some of these records were very clearly made by brokenhearted young people about their broken hearts. Others were about the corporeal departure of heroes or friends.

And one was the most canny breakup album of the bunch: The National’s “Sleep Well Beast” is a Splitsville record, but less as cathartic she-left-me device.

My affinity for The National long ago sailed past sycophantic, but I feel wellsynced with the sound — a moody fog, lit occasionally by sparks of irritation — and the lyrical content continues to impress and resonate. On “Beast,” the band’s Mr. November has left the oval office. You’d think the orange umbrella would come back out, but Matt Berninger hasn’t written one of those single-minded albums about disliking a presidential administration. Instead, he’s charted a strained marriage and served it up as allegory for disliking a presidential administration, for any who care to make the connection. Lousy communication and social anxiety left loose are a volatile mix.

“I’d rather walk all the way home right now than to spend one more second in this place,” goes one line. I can relate to that as a partygoer. I can also relate to it in a bigger, broader way. When a flustered Berninger runs out of words (“I can’t explain it, any other way”) the band does the unthinkable and lets loose a guitar solo. The result is cathartic.

After tiptoeing to the edge of resignation, the record instead finds reconciliation and romanticism, which is hopeful in a manner that’s in short supply these days. Theirs is protest music, but measured protest music. Expect an onslaught of less reserved protest songs next year. Until then, the beast can rest for a spell.

Here’s the rest of the best:

1. “Sleep Well Beast,” The National:

Quiet until it gets loud, mopey until it gets angry. And it hums along with a lot on its mind, whether it’s about a couple in trouble or a nation on the brink.

2. “A Shadow in Time,” William Basinski:

Houston native Basinski is at his best when he’s in funereal territory. His ambient loopbased music is meditative and mournful on a good day. One of the two compositions here is “For David Robert Jones,” the ’70s shapeshifting rocker we know as Bowie. Offering a little post-modern love, Basinski breaks out his saxophone and folds it into the electronic flow of this moving tribute.

3. “Ash,” Ibeyi:

Two years ago, the debut album by FrenchCuban twins Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Díaz caught my ear. “Ash” is even more striking and assertive in establishing a sonic identity that pulls from points near, far and further. They merge tribal percussion with vocals that dance all over the place, from chants and incantations to modern R&B. Other times the stacked harmonies sound almost like keyboards. They’re not precious about the global sounds, either. Theirs is a modern sound that avoids the fetishization of “world music.”

‘SLEEP WELL BEAST’ BY THE NATIONAL TAKES A NONTRADITIONAL APPROACH TO PROTEST MUSIC AND IN THE END FINDS RECONCILIATION AND ROMANTICISM

4. “Take Me Apart,” Kelela:

After some lean years, R&B has pivoted away from some of the cheeseballs who sold it short in the ’90s and become full of vitality and variety. Kelela’s music tips to the old school, at times, while still managing to

sound wholly modern. And the 14 songs tell a story of empowerment, from a troubled relationship to independence.

5. “No Shape,” Perfume Genius:

As Perfume Genius, Mike Hadreas used to create subtle modern pop with an internalized energy he sounded hesitant to cut loose. His previous albums were the aural equivalent of dancing like nobody’s watching. “No Shape” is him thrashing about in bright stage lights. It’s grand and flamboyant, a dark but robust and instrumentally rich album. In the old days, it would’ve been called “chamber pop,” but that term seems restrictive and quaint today.

6. “Dark Matter,” Randy Newman:

Opener “The Great Debate” is weird and wonderful; like a play within a play come to life. Newman sets up a debate between scientists and true believers, and then calls out himself for a career’s worth of setting up straw men just to knock them down. It’s the lightest dark matter I’ve heard. He also razzes Putin, turns in the best old folks tune (“Lost Without You”) since John Prine’s and offers a mantra for the foreseeable future: “People think I’m crazy, ’cause I worry all the time. If you paid attention, you’d be worried, too.”

7. “Out in the Storm,” Waxahatchee:

Katie Crutchfield has, over four albums, become increasingly less quiet, culminating in this recording. There are woeful breakup albums and then there are those where, as a listener, you’re just relieved the songs aren’t about you. This is the latter. “You love being right,” Crutchfield sings. “You’ve never been wrong.” True to the title, it’s stormy stuff, but that opening song, “Never Been Wrong,” is the kind of perfectly composed tune that could easily be a hit for a savvy pop singer.

8. “Narkopop,” GAS:

Wolfgang Voigt had left his GAS moniker in the beaker for 17 years before quietly letting this album waft out this year. It was a welcome escape from one’s day to day, a piece of ambient music that can envelop you for an hour or so. And despite the modern electronic palette, Voigt still manages to make his music sound earthy and sylvan, with all the wonder and terror that comes with a walk in the woods.

9. “Basalms,” Chuck Johnson:

Chuck Johnson isn’t the first guy I’ve heard take the pedal steel guitar out of its tenured job in honky-tonk. But he is the first person I’ve heard apply it to such melodic and ethereal ends. This album feels like watching clouds pass: six unique instrumentals by Johnson on pedal steel and synths, all of them drifting for longer than five minutes. It’s the kind of recording that can make you completely forget about time.

10. “The OOZ,” King Krule:

I have no point of reference for this album, though I guess you’d file it under “rock ’n’ roll.” King Krule is the stage name for a red-headed, baby-faced Brit named Archy Marshall. “OOZ” is a self-indulgent breakup album where you feel some relief for the significant other. Nevertheless, the rock, jazz, trip-hop, torch and other forms flash by like headlights on the highway, an eerie but beautiful thing. If the whole thing — Marshall, the album — are just something David Lynch imagined into being, I wouldn’t be surprised.

HONORABLE MENTION

“Black Origami,” Jlin “Aromanticism,” Moses Sumney “DAMN.,” Kendrick Lamar “Slowdive,” Slowdive “MASSeduction,” St. Vincent