Is there anything insightful left to say about 2016? It feels almost overwrought to talk about the year in review, but maybe thats because folks have been stewing over this 52-week span since the day it started. 2016 never really shook the storm clouds hanging over its head, and the musical trends of the year were as tumultuous and unpredictable as the current events. Two superstar songwriters (Bowie and Leonard Cohen) penned dark, morbid albums about dying shortly before passing away. Lil Yachty and D.R.A.M. rode the sounds of children's piano and sunshine SNES synths to a chart topping banger. Beyoncé brought the politics of black womanhood into the stadium of Superbowl 50, and later onto a full length visual album that pushed her crumbling relationship with Jay-Z into the public eye. Former champions of the underground, Angel Olson, Car Seat Headrest and Mitski put out the best rock records of the year. Chance made a gospel album. Kanye West is hosting private meetings with Donald Trump. My 2015 self was not ready when the ball dropped 365 days ago.

So, in an effort to bring some order to the tidal wave that was 2016, the staff writers at Aural Wes have put together a list of our favorite albums of the year. It's a sprawling catalogue from soul to sludge metal, so put on your tin foil hats and read on in preparation for the new year.

-Ryan Breen

Ryan

1. Danny Brown - Atrocity Exhibition
2. Car Seat Headrest - Teens of Denial
3. Black Moth Super Rainbow – SeeFu Lilac
4. Walking Distance - Remnants of a Spellbook
5. Vektor - Terminal Redux

I haven’t been great at keeping up with new music this year. It’s telling that every artist on my year-end list except for one (Car Seat Headrest) has a previous album that I’ve listened to extensively. For me 2016 felt oddly underwhelming, with a slew of albums I really respected, but never quite called me back for more. I found myself digging up old records and looking backwards to different genres, maybe in an effort to escape the present moment.

That being said, the records that did end up on my list are still treasures and represent a weird, unintentional spectrum of the styles of music that caught my ear. Danny Brown's Atrocity Exhibition is a wicked rabbit hole of beats and left turns, with odd instrumentation that still offered Danny's signature hooks and goofy/bleak verses. Teens of Denial stayed in my car stereo for months, proving time and time again that it deserved the hype every time the first bars of "Fill in the Blank" started. SeeFu Lilac is a delicate, brief suite of wobbly, wavy synths and vocoder drums, groovable but heartfelt. Remnants of a Spellbook was initially just from 'my friends band' until it grew into one of my favorite releases of the year, a sprawling uncontainable album with hints of shoegaze, Sabbath, 50's rock n' roll, and garage rock, all wrapped in a vague occultish dread. The last record, Vektor's Terminal Redux is an hour-and-ten minutes of pseudo coherent sci-fi thrash metal. 'nuff said. I'm ready for 2017.

Kelsey

1. Car Seat Headrest - Teens of Denial
2. PUP - The Dream is Over
3. Chance the Rapper - Coloring Book
4. Rihanna - ANTI
5. Slothrust - Everyone Else

I spent most of 2016 mad. Between a lackluster summer internship and a wonderful, but confusing semester in Paris, 2016 has been quite the year. Music was a crucial part of my life this year and these albums are a reflection of that. I can’t tell you how many time I listened to The Dream is Over while wandering the streets of Boston this past summer, fed up with the endless mundane days I spent sitting at a desk. Or the amount of times I blared ANTI in my car during the most painful drive of my life from Boston to Cleveland at the end of the summer. And when I had the incredible opportunity to see Chance the Rapper live, I could finally grasp how Coloring Book changed my perspective on myself and the music industry. My most profound connection, however, was to the brilliant Teens of Denial. This year I found myself recommending Car Seat Headrest and this album to literally anyone that would listen. While abroad, I listened to some part of this album nearly every day. I would listen to my favorite track, an eleven-minute epic ballad, “The Ballad of Costa Concordia” for three hours straight. Screamed along to “Not What I Needed” and “Unforgiving Girl (She’s Not An).” It was the soundtrack to my train ride from Prague to Berlin, my daily commutes to school. It was my shelter.

Michelle

1. Frankie Cosmos - Next Thing
2. Blood Orgy - Blood Orgy
3. Mal Devisa - Kiid
4. Night Witch - Tour Tape 2016
5. Hello Shark - Delicate

Despite 2016 being a more than lackluster, at many times infuriating, depressing year overall, it was full of innovative, passionate new music, and ended up being one of my favorite years of new music that helped push me through the dark, brooding hole that was my year. My top albums are pretty reflective of my 2016 feelings: it was either fun, kind of melancholy and a little sappy bedroom pop or the loudest, angriest and/or sludgiest queercore/doom metal I could find, with pretty much no in-between. It took me a while to actually listen to Next Thing in full, but after my second time through, I couldn’t get enough of Frankie Cosmos' incredibly smart, candid lyrics. It was the album of my summer: I’d listen to it during any long drive or train ride I had, and come August I had basically every song memorized. Blood Orgy’s self titled EP, with its slow, trudging drums and bass, screeching guitars, and agonizing, demonic wails and Night Witch’s unwaveringly, intensely feminist hardcore punk provided a nice outlet for my angst-filled internal screaming and despair that I felt throughout the year. Mal Devisa’s, Kiid, her first full-length album, is one of the most incredible, dynamic albums I’ve heard in a while. Deja Carr, of Mal Devisa’s, sonorous, haunting vocals seem to float over the space of her lingering bass in blues ballads like “Sea of Limbs” and are nothing short of mesmerizing, while the equally astonishing rap song “Dominatrix” that finishes the album leaves me speechless. Finishing it off is Hello Shark’s Delicate. This album holds a special place in this list: its nostalgic, melancholy instrumentals and kind of crushing, honest verses fill me with warm memories of a small Philly show on a night in early August and an intimate show in Art House-post election weirdness. Nonetheless, it’s been quite the year.

Adam

1. Childish Gambino - Awaken, My Love
2. Whitney - Light Upon the Lake
3. Kanye West - The Life of Pablo
4. Chance the Rapper - Coloring Book
5. Mild High Club - Skiptracing

My list admittedly looks nothing like what I would have expected before 2016; most of these artists are pretty new to me. I definitely wouldn’t have expected to be choosing Childish Gambino as my album of the year, but once I heard “Me And Your Mama,” the first single, I was hooked. The album is groovy, psychedelic funk perfection. I can hear an amazing attention to detail throughout and I think this is no doubt a masterpiece. I knew I’d be interested in Whitney as soon as I heard about their formation (I was always of fan of Smith Westerns): when I first heard “Golden Days” I knew they were something special. Light Upon the Lake became the soundtrack to my summer. Toward the end of the summer, I started delving into Mild High Club’s albums; Skiptracing provided the perfect lax vibes when I walked my dog through the woods in my hometown. On a different note, I wasted countless hours in 2016 following Kanye and riding the hype train of his album release - I vividly remember running from Exley after my psych test to catch the first Tidal live stream and being blown away, but only after wasting my days looking at memes on /r/kanye and vigorously refreshing his Twitter to see what changes he’d made. In the end, The Life of Pablo was a weird album, but I had to love it. After all, it brought me into the world of Chance the Rapper, whose mixtape this year peppered my days with soulful joy.

Meg

1. Mitski - Puberty 2
2. Frank Ocean - Blonde
3. Chance the Rapper - Coloring Book
4. Car Seat Headrest - Teens of Denial
5. Jamila Woods - HEAVN

For me, 2016 was comprised of a few brief stints of obsessive listening. In the summer, Blonde and Teens of Denial. It took me much too long to listen to the entirety of Mitski’s Puberty 2, but once I heard it, I had it on repeat. Life of Pablo and Coloring Book are favorites of my thirteen year old brother. We must have listened to “Angels” five hundred times.

This year, my favorite album releases have had more mainstream success than I can remember in my lifetime. Although I was mildly miffed every time my favorite band "made it big” in high school, sharing my favorite music on such a wide scale was one of the highlights of 2016. The collective excitement over Frank Ocean’s comeback, singing along to “Waves” live at a Kanye show cut short by a Kardashian-West family emergency—these were some of my favorite memories.

Aurora

1. Blood Orange - Freetown Sound
2. Frankie Cosmos - Next Thing
3. Angel Olsen - My Woman
4. Princess Nokia - 1992
5. Hinds - Leave Me Alone

In 2016 I found myself most drawn to music that was deeply personal, blatantly political, or that explored the inevitable overlap between the two. With the rise of visual albums like Lemonade, the power of connecting music and visuals seemed to be especially important this year, with many artists releasing elaborate series of videos along with their albums or certain groups of songs. I usually don’t pay much attention to music videos when listening, but this year visual components felt much more relevant than before. Artists like Princess Nokia, Solange, and Blood Orange put out videos that I couldn’t stop watching over and over again.

Another musical highlight for me was seeing Blood Orange this past fall. He put on a performance unlike any concert I had ever been to, that cohesively incorporated music, dance, video samples and live poetry from collaborator Ashlee Haze to open the show. Blood Orange’s dedication to not only carefully constructed melodies and poignant lyrics, but to creating a multifaceted artistic experience for the audience was one of my favorite aspects of musical production this year.

Nadine

1. ABRA - Princess
2. Brockhampton - All-American Trash
3. Blood Orange - Freetown Sound
4. Princess Nokia - 1992
5. A Tribe Called Quest - We got it from here...Thank you 4 Your Service

Each of the albums I selected are, I believe, representative of the way in which 2016 gave birth to a whole new wave of black and brown music. From the poetic and fierce bars of femme artists like ABRA and Princess Nokia, to the synth-y and spacey beats of West Coast rap collective Brockhampton, all of these albums represent the way in which music within the POC community is constantly expanding, defeating the barriers and binaries typically associated with race, class, gender and age.

Manny

1. Frank Ocean - Blonde
2. Jenny Hval - Blood Bitch
3. Blood Orange - Freetown Sound
4. Solange - A Seat at the Table
5. Ricky Eat Acid - Talk to You Soon

2016 was a wild ride in regards to music. Frank Ocean came back from his seemingly ~endless~ hiatus to an almost insurmountable level of hype. Although some did not receive the album they were hoping for, I thought he more than delivered. I didn’t leave the house the first day after Blonde came out, listening to it on repeat until I had a solid opinion of it. In the end, I was, and still am, set in the belief that Frank Ocean did something magical and different on his newest album. Opinions on my other favorite albums of the year came much more naturally. After listening to Blood Bitch by Jenny Hval for the first time, I packed up my stuff in Olin and texted my roommate explaining that we were going to sit down and listen to it again right then because the world needed to hear this ethereally spooky and equally powerful album. Similarly, I changed one of my albums on this list to Mitski’s Puberty 2 after a few other people chose it for their lists and decided to give it a listen since I had liked other Mitski albums. I immediately fell in love with the album and have been listening to it almost obsessively since. All-in-all I really enjoyed this year in music. Sure, there were a few misses, like Lady Gaga’s step out of her usual genre (though not as bad as Lupe Fiasco’s in 2015), but picking my top five was unexpectedly difficult. Anyways, I hope all those reading this enjoyed listening to what 2016 had to offer as much as I did, and if you didn’t take the new music plunge this year, I hope some of these lists inspire you to check some stuff out. Stay searching for some good new music in 2017!

Allison

1. Mitski - Puberty 2
2. Car Seat Headrest - Teens of Denial
3. Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
4. Pinegrove - Cardinal
5. Stranger Ranger (fka Sioux Falls) - Rot Forever

My decision to include Cardinal and Rot Forever on my list is very much influenced by the personal connections I have with both bands. The members of Pinegrove and Strange Ranger are wonderful people who I have had the pleasure of getting to know, and the albums that they released this year have by far been their best. I also felt obligated to include A Moon Shaped Pool because Radiohead has been one of my favorite bands since I was 12, and while I wouldn’t consider it their best (especially in comparison to Kid A), it was well worth the wait. The second best album of the year, in my opinion, was Teens of Denial. While I’m embarrassed to admit it, I only started listening to Car Seat Headrest a few months ago, but Teens of Denial instantly made it on my list because of its memorable lyrics and its ability to make me want to dance and cry at the same time. Lastly, my pick for best album of the year was undoubtedly Mitski’s Puberty 2. The first time I saw Mitski live was in 2014 at a small concert venue in Connecticut where there were about 10 people in the audience (including me), so it has been surreal to see her fanbase grow so fast and to see Puberty 2 be recognized by so many as one of the best albums of the year. From start to finish, Puberty 2 is raw and intense and demands to be listened to in its entirety. 2016 was an amazing year for new music, and I can’t wait to see what these artists and many others -*cough* Modest Mouse- continue to produce in 2017.

Neel

1. Glass Animals - How to be a Human
2. PUP - The Dream is Over
3. Pro Teens - Accidentally
4. Red Tank! - Bio/Feedback
5. Black Marble - It’s Immaterial

2016 was the year of listening that pushed my music tastes to expand more than ever before. I found myself exploring genres that I had never previously taken the time to delve into. I started listening to electronic music with a newfound curiosity: Black Marble's It’s Immaterial combines dreamy synths and drum machines with Robert Smith-style vocals to create an ethereal experience that captures the listener. In stark contrast is Bio/Feedback by Red Tank!, who describe themselves as “dystopian punk for millennial scum”. Pro Teens and Red Tank! are both bands that are very close to my heart, so their new albums were definitely among my 2016 highlights. Skate punk masters PUP’s first album was on loop for me when it came out, so I was giddy with anticipation when I heard they were releasing another album and The Dream is Over did not disappoint. With tracks like, “DVP”, “Doubts”, and “Pine Point,” PUP's sophomore release makes for an excellent album. Finally, I gave the number one spot on my list to Glass Animals' How to be a Human Being. I have listened to this album countless times this year and I get something new out of it with each listen. This album tells the story of ten characters that lead singer Dave Bailey came up with using the stories of strangers he met during his travels; each and every one of these stories is excellently crafted both lyrically and musically. Overall, 2016 was a great year of new music and I can only hope that 2017 will be just as good.

Jan 6 Aural Wes' Favorite Albums of 2016