Top 50 Albums of 2016

2016, despite being 2016, was a pretty good year for music.

In reverse order, my fave 50 albums:

50 Savages - Adore Life
49 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Skeleton Tree
48 Weaves - Weaves
47 Wye Oak - Tween
46 Invisible Boy - Invisible Boy
45 AlunaGeorge - I Remember
44 The Joy Formidable - Hitch
43 All Saints - Red Flag
42 Blood Orange - Freetown Sound
41 Boys Noize - Mayday
40 Eliot Sumner - Information
39 Thee Oh Sees - A Weird Exits
38 Honeyblood - Babes Never Die
37 Katy B - Honey
36 Nice As Fuck - Nice as Fuck
35 Solange - A Seat at the Table
34 Sleigh Bells - Jessica Rabbit
33 Still Corners - Dead Blue
32 Warpaint - Heads Up
31 David Bowie - Blackstar
30 Banks - The Altar
29 Emma Pollock - In Search of Harperfield
28 Emma Ruth Rundle - Marked for Death
27 Frank Ocean - Blonde
26 Leonard Cohen - You Want It Darker
25 Dinosaur Jr. - Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not
24 Jimmy Eat World - Integrity Blues
23 Bat For Lashes - The Bride
22 Tegan and Sara - Love You To Death
21 Bruce Hornsby & The Noisemakers - The Way It Is 2016
20 Carly Rae Jepsen - Emotion Side B
19 The Frank And Walters - Songs For The Walking Wounded
18 Haley Bonar - Impossible Dream
17 Kate Tempest - Let Them Eat Chaos
16 The Anchoress - Confessions Of A Romance Novelist
15 Bob Mould - Patch The Sky
14 Bon Iver - 22, A Million
13 Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
12 Bruce Hornsby & The Noisemakers - Rehab Reunion
11 Minor Victories - Minor Victories

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10 Mitski - Puberty 2

Your Best American Girl is already an indie classic but there’s much more than that here.

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9 Beyoncé - Lemonade

Another remarkable achievement.

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8 Angel Olsen - My Woman

Her most absorbing album yet.

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7 Daughter - Not To Disappear

Initial disappointment that this didn’t move on much from the (albeit excellent) sound of their debut now more than compensated by repeat listening. A grower.

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6 Låpsley - Long Way Home

Everything about this album made sense when I saw Låpsley live this year. What a talent.

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5 School of Seven Bells - SVIIB

The perfect, bittersweet farewell.

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4 Shura - Nothing’s Real

Every single track’s a banger.

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3 Poliça - United Crushers

Three albums in from my favourite band and I’m yet to hear a song I don’t love to bits. I saw them 4 times this year and wished it had been more.

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2 Rihanna - ANTI

Intriguing on first listen and still revealing gems nearly a year on. In years to come ANTI is going to be revered as a masterpiece. People hating on Work could not be more wrong either.

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1 The Wedding Present - Going, Going…

I’d fallen a bit out of love with The Wedding Present over the last decade. 2008’s El Rey and 2012’s Valentina had their moments but were disappointing. The subsequent “Cinerama” reworking of Valentina into an atrocious lounge jazz / easy listening / big band thing was so awful it was the first album I’ve thrown away and deleted from my library for years.

My expectations for Going Going… were therefore pretty low. The idea of 20 tracks at 1 hour and 20 minutes starting with 4 (FOUR!) lyric free moody instrumentals was going to be horrendous. A conceptual piece, based on a US road trip with videos for each song just made it sound worse.

Yet. Here we are.

Despite including the most diabolical song The Wedding Present have ever recorded (Secretary) it’s my album of the year.

It’s gorgeous. The production sounds like the Wedding Present again.

There are so many moments in an album that showcases Gedge’s talent for storytelling, melody and emotion but I’ll just comment on the last two songs, which are my favourites.

Gedge’s love of the pop song and knack for classic songwriting was honed in the (proper) Cinerama years, and reached a peak for me in the gorgeous Perfect Blue from 2004’s return of the Wedding Present. I didn’t think he could match those moments again. He has. Rachel is melodic, sentimental, and just utterly joyous.

You might not top Rachel as an the album’s indie pop banger but you can follow it with the perfect album closer.

Santa Monica is magnificent. It is the most affecting song David Gedge has ever recorded.

The sense of finality is unavoidable:

It’s the last track of an album titled “Going, Going…”. It feels so much like he’s revisiting the last song (Octopussy) from his best album (1991’s Seamonsters). In the lyrics he also references a song from George Best, the first album.

Then there’s the last line. Oh boy, that last line.

I hope this doesn’t mark the end of The Wedding Present but if it is what a way to go out.

School Of Seven Bells - Ablaze (2016)

What a way to start an album. Such a cracking track.

School of Seven Bells - Open Your Eyes

There will come a day when I'll listen to songs from the forthcoming SVIIB album and manage not to cry. That day is not today.

Bittersweet, but overwhelmingly beautiful.

You'll Fall In Love Again: The Story of the School of Seven Bells | NOISEY

Kim Taylor Bennett, for Noisey:

Nine songs strong, their forthcoming album, SVIIB, is a slim, but supremely compelling collection, and in so many ways its completion and eventual release in February 2016 is a victory. For the most part, it sounds like one too. For instance, joyous album opener “Ablaze” clearly maps the thigh-tingling thrill of Alejandra and Benjamin’s first connection while introducing the record’s recurrent lyrical imagery: embers, flames, fires, the night sky, the stars, awakened inspiration. And of course love. She calls it her most blatant love song. “Our whole life together is that song.” Similarly at the record’s close stands “This Is Our Time,” melancholic, yet utterly uplifting too, it’s a love letter to New York in the early 2000s when the city was humming with possibility and all the best music was coming out of dives like the Mercury Lounge and Brownies. “That feeling we both felt when we moved to New York is that same feeling you feel when you fall in love, you’re just like—I can do anything, I’m all powerful, this world is working with me. It’s on my side,” she says smiling.

Out Of The Desert: School Of Seven Bells’ Final Chapter - Stereogum

Ryan Leas for Stereogum, in an excellent feature on Alejandra Deheza and the final School of Seven Bells album:

Given Curtis’ passing, most fans probably expected there would never be another SVIIB album at all, and certainly not one this uplifting. But the writing all took place in summer of 2012, before Curtis’ diagnosis. It’s a time Deheza remembers as one of the happiest summers of her life. “We were finally in this place of just perfect peace, just being best friends,” she recalls. They would hole up in New York, working for 12 hours a day. It was a prolific time. Had SVIIB come out when they originally intended, it would’ve meant that it, Ghostory, and Put Your Sad Down would have all been released in the span of a year. They had struck a perfect rhythm together, and they were following it wherever it led.

So the album is called 'SVIIB'. Fantastic.

There's so much in this article capturing the beauty and sadness of the band's story.

School of Seven Bells Announce New Album For February 2016

Not sure if 'SVIIB' is the title but it would be apt.

Nothing else up on their revamped website other than this from Alejandra Deheza:

Friends, Benjamin and I wrote this record during a tour break in the summer of 2012. I can easily say that it was one of the most creative and inspired summers of our lives. What followed was the most tragic, soul shaking tidal wave that life could deliver, but even that wouldn't stop the vision for this record from being realized. This is a love letter from start to finish. It's the story of us starting from that first day we met in 2004, and that's the story of School of Seven Bells. So much love to all of you. Thank you for being a constant light in our lives. This record is for you.

Reading this brings a tear to my eye.