Your Top Ten Music Albums of 2017

10. Colin Stetson - All This I Do For Glory

9. Spoon - Hot Thoughts

8. The XX - I See You

7. Chelsea Wolfe - Hiss Spun

6. SZA - Ctrl

5. Pallbearer - Heartless

4. St. Vincent Masseducation

3. Kendrick Lamar - DAMN.

2. Kelela - Take Me Apart

1. Sampha - Process

I'm pretty much out of the loop as always with music releases but here's some albums I really dig.

St. Vincent - Mass Seduction.

Dagoba - Black Nova.

REOL - Σ

EDIT: Switched out one album after a bit of thinking. Now I feel good about this list.

10. Biblical - The City That Always Sleeps
9. Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra - Where the Gods Are in Peace
8. Luna - A Sentimental Education
7. Eyot - Innate
6. Sherwood & Pinch - Man Vs. Sofa
5. Protomartyr - Relatives In Descent
4. Death from Above 1979 - Outrage! Is Now
3. LCD Soundsystem - American Dream
2. Cameron Graves - Planetary Prince
1. Tinariwen - Elwan

So apparently I've only listened to three new albums this year... so here they are ranked.

3. DAMN - Kendrick Lamar

2. Big Fish Theory - Vince Staples

1. MASSEDUCTION - St. Vincent

2017.

1. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Flying Microtonal Banana

2. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Polygondwanaland (This one's free!)

3. Thee Oh Sees - Orc.

4. Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile - Lotta Sea Lice

5. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Murder of the Universe

6. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Whatever their fifth album's gonna be this year. I'll probably like that one a lot too.

Older albums I got into this year.

1. Angel Olsen - My Woman.

2. Disasterpiece - Fez/Hyper Light Drifter OSTs

3. Modest Mouse/764 Hero - Whenever You See Fit

4. Every other King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard album.

Basically, I spent a lot of money on King Gizzard vinyl this year.

@psykhophear: I just wanted to say thank you for introducing me to Noveller! I haven't fallen in love with a musician this quickly in a long time!

Pallbearer's Heartless is easily my album of the year. Nothing else really compares, despite this year being great for music that I'm into.

@jacksmedulla said:

You're most welcome. With the overwhelming mainstream music of today, it definitely makes her one of the most underrated artists out there. She deserves a limelight. You can find more Noveller on her Bandcamp page.

Here's a shot-from-the-hip top five:

5. Dead Cross - Self-Titled

4. Lucky Chops - Walter

3. Diego's Umbrella - Edjka

2. The Bronx - The Bronx V

1. Gogol Bordello - Seekers and Finders

This was a tough one this year but I think I finally narrowed it down to ten........Also the fact that we see so many different artists on these lists proves that MUSIC is the best form of art and self-expression. Love seeing and listening to new artists I come across on these lists. Keep'em coming...

1. Jamiroquai - Automaton

2. Beck - Colors

3. Earl St. Clair - My Name is Earl

4. Kendrick Lamar - DAMN.

5. Pigeons Playing Ping Pong - Pizazz

6. Twiddle - Plump: Chapters 1&2

7. 311 – Mosaic

8. Sleigh Bells – Kid Krushev

9. Deer Tick - Vols. 1&2

10. Joey Bada$$ - ALL AMERIKKAN BADA$$

My list would probably look something like this..

1. Myrkur - Mareridt
2. Apocalypse Orchestra - The End Is Nigh
3. Ye Banished Privateers - First Night Back In Port
4. Heilung - Ofnir
5. Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper
6. Cradle of Filth - Cryptoriana
7. Danheim - Mannavegr
8. Hulkoff - KVEN
9. The Black Dahlia Murders - Nightbringers
10. Tempel of Void - Lords of Death

This year I have consumed an impressive amount of more metal than I usually do and this list is barely scratching the surface, but I figured I would list the ones that I have listened to the most. I generally have stint over the summer when I am deep into some rap or electronic but this year has been mostly metal through and through. I suppose if I want to give a shout out to something other than metal (and folk music, I suppose) it would be Henry Bowers' new album A Delicate Craft and Infected Mushroom's latest Return to the Sauce.

Thanks thread for letting me know how out of touch I am with music now. Didn't even fucking know there was a new QOTSA album. Other than that mostly obsessively listening to Spoon - Hot Thoughts and The National - Sleep Well Beast.

I wouldn't have a top 10 this year but here are my favourites:

Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked at Me
Slowdive - Slowdive
Kendrick Lamar - DAMN.
Big Thief - Capacity

OSTs omitted ...

1. Band-Maid - Just Bring It

2. Suiyoubi no Campanella - Superman

3. Zwei - LeyLine

4. QotSA - Villains

5. Starsailor - All This Life

6. Glim Spanky - Bizarre Carnival

7. Wagakki Band - Shikisai

8. charisma.com - not not me

9. LCD Soundsystem - American Dream

10. Matt Cameron - Cave Dweller

1. Big K.R.I.T. - 4eva Is A Mighty Long Time
2. Bedwetter - volume 1: flick your tongue against your teeth and describe the present
3. BROCKHAMTPON - Saturation trilogy
4. Kodak Black - Project Baby 2
5. $uicideBoy$ - Kill yourself saga 11-15 / 16-20
6. Juicy J – Highly Intoxicated
7. Kendrick Lamar – DAMN.
8. Migos – Culture
9. Freddie Gibbs – You Only Live 2wice
10. The Underachievers - Renaissance

Outside of Mastodon, there's no particular order to this list:

• Mastodon - Emperor of Sand
• Belle Haven - You, Me and Everything in Between
• Justice for the Damned - Dragged Through the Dirt
• Comeback Kid - Outsider
• Polaris - This Mortal Coil
• Counterparts - You're Not You Anymore
• A Night In Texas - Global Slaughter
• Make Them Suffer - Worlds Apart
• Alpha Wolf - Mono
• In Search of Solace - RegressionProgression

There's also a Top 10 albums I want to listen to or relisten (having only listened to it once) too, so the above list will no doubt look very different in a week or so. Still need to get to:

• Hollow Prophet - Hellhole
• Signs of the Swarm - The Disfigurement of Existence
• Converge - The Dusk In Us
• Honest Crooks - Suffer
• Statues - No Grave, No Burial
• Vices - Now That I Have Seen I Am Responsible
• Cursed Earth - Cycles of Grief Vol 1 & 2
• Lodz - Time Doesn't Heal Anything
• Enterprise Earth - Embodiment
• Daybreak - Death Dreams

And, finally, a top-3 Hip-Hop albums of the year:

• Kendrick Lamar - DAMN.
• Jay Z - 4:44
• Joey Bada$$ - ALL-AMERICAN BADA$$

2017 was a great year for music and games, but sucked for almost everything else. But the suckiness of 2017, I feel, is what gave us so much great music in a lot of ways...

I didn't listen to too much new music from this year as I would like, but 2017 was a pretty fantastic year for music, lots of good surprises. That new National album is one of their best so far, and I was really shocked by how much I dug the new Paramore album. Wasn't exactly blown away by either Arcade Fire or LCD Soundsystem, but they both had some real standout tracks. The Sufjan Stevens and Daughter albums on this list are a little weird, because they aren't exactly standard "albums" let's say. One is a collection of remixes and B-sides and the other is a soundtrack, but dammit they are so good I'm gonna include them anyway.

1. The National - Sleep Well Beast
2. Father John Misty - Pure Comedy
3. Sufjan Stevens - The Greatest Gift
4. Daughter - Music From Before The Storm
5. Paramore - After Laughter
6. Fleet Foxes - Crack Up
7. The War On Drugs - A Deeper Understanding
8. Julien Baker - Turn Out the Lights
9. LCD Soundsystem - American Dream
10. Arcade Fire - Everything Now

For me, in no particular order (unless otherwise noted):

• Quazarz: Born on a Gangster Star/Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines by Shabazz Palaces
• This Old Dog by Mac Demarco
• Slowdive by Slowdive
• american dream by LCD Soundsystem
• Ctrl by SZA
• Out in the Storm by Waxahatchee (favorite of the year)
• The Far Field by Future Islands
• Drunk by Thundercat

In no particular order...

• Antisocialites by Alvvays
• Below the House by Planning for Burial
• Compassion by Forest Swords
• A Crow Looked at Me by Mount Eerie
• Goths by The Mountain Goats
• Last Place by Grandaddy
• No Home for the Mind by Bing & Ruth
• Relatives in Descent by Protomartyr
• Slowdive by Slowdive
• Stubborn Persistent Illusions by Do Make Say Think

I don't have ten, but here's my favorites in loose order:

• Kendrick Lamar - DAMN.
• Priests - Nothing Feels Natural
• SZA - Ctrl
• Tyler, The Creator - Flower Boy
• King Krule - The OOZ

In no order:

Idles - Brutalism

Kendrick Lamar - DAMN.

Brockhampton - Saturation

Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked at Me

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Flying Microtonal Banana

To be honest, I spent much of the year listening to a lot of older stuff. These are just a few new albums that I loved.

Had a listen. Sounds like something obviously based off shit from 10/15 years ago so I'm not sure how it would come to be influential 20 years from now. Baffling description at best.

I'm feelin' all the St Vincent love. Anybody else catch her Masseduction tour? Because the shit that woman can do with a guitar blew my fucking mind.

Also dug Foo Fighters, Concrete & Gold and QOTSA's Villains.

I absolutely listened to more new music this year but none of it stood out enough for me to remember right now.

Albums

Hällas - Excerpts From a Future Past

Malokarpatan - Nordkarpatenland

Inconcessus Lux Lucis - The Crowning Quietus

Mausoleum Gate - Into A Dark Divinity

Evil - 邪悪を讃えよ (Rites of Evil)

Wiccans - Sailing A Crazy Ship

Condor - Unstoppable Power

Antichrist - Sinful Birth

Demon Head - Thunder on the fields

Elder - Reflections Of A Floating World

Honorable Mentions: Isenblast - Screams In Cold Silence, Sielunvihollinen - Ruhonkantaja, Vulture - The Guillotine, Oh Sees - Orc, Glue - Glue, Sheer Mag - Need To Feel Your Love, Vampire - With Primeval Force, Skelethal - Of The Depths..., Exoctica - Musique Exotique #02

EPs/Singles/Demos

Chevalier - A Call To Arms

Tarantüla - Tarantüla

Rixe - Baptême Du Feu

Horns & Hooves - Morbid Lust

Devil Master - Inhabit the Corpse

Lucifer's Hammer - Victory Is Mine

Cult Of Eibon - Lycan Twilight Sorcery

Caedes Cruenta - Recitation Of Abyssic Necropsalms

Witch Vomit - Poisoned Blood

Antichrist Siege Machine - Morbid Triumph

Honorable Mentions: Gruesome - Fragments of Psyche, Ensepulcher - No Sanctity in Death, Sanctifyre - Immortal Champions, Tarantüla ‎– Weird Tales Of Radiation And Hate, Generacion Suicida - Reflejos

Weird year for me: I fell into the increasingly common thing for people my age, whereby podcasts took my main attention away from albums/etc this year. However, here's some stuff that I really enjoyed:

1. Frank Ocean- Single Series (who says I can't count these disparate singles as one release?)
2. Rostam - Half-Light (seriously good--the second Discovery album we never got. Vampire Weekend and Panda Bear all mixed up)
3. SZA - CTRL (clearly a special release)
4. King Krule- The OOZ (I'm only 2 days in to listening to this album, but it's already left its mark on me)
5. Brockhampton - Saturation II (still waiting for Sat 1/Sat 3 to sink in for me, but this one is immediately great)
6. Broken Social Scene - Hug of Thunder (high school me would have been so amped by this album)
7. Strange Ranger - Daymoon (sure, it can be a little same-y throughout, but this album is still extremely my shit)
8. Lil Uzi Vert - Luv is Rage 2 (this thing ain't perfect, but some of the songs are so good)
9. Viator - We Are Sleeping (all my friends make noise music now)
10. Yeah Wings - Tomorrow Will Be Better (RIP to the best MPLS slowcore revival band out there)

A few other thoughts:

• I love Mount Eerie more than almost any other artist, but I could only listen to all of A Crow Looked at Me once. I just wasn't in the place to listen to it this year. Love you forever, Phil.
• I bounced off of the Kendrick Lamar album really hard after thoroughly enjoying his last few releases. What changed more: him or me?

I didn't like DAMN either, to be honest. Found it preachy, and the trappy beats did nothing for me at all. After a while I realized he was drifting into self-aggrandizing territory with some of his lyrics, making some outrageous claims. To Pimp a Butterfly is so much more down to Earth and real, lyrically, yet ambitious in its scope, musically; a true art piece, IMO.

It's a solid 7, but Pimp is almost a 10 to me.

I also feel the same about DAMN. I listened to it only a handful of times, and when I try to go back to it, I skip most songs except DNA and Humble. But I think it's a really smart decision for him to not try to do another To Pimp a Butterfly, it would have been much worse if he tried to do that, or box him into that type of album. I also like DAMN thematically because in his other albums, there is a constant struggle with him overcoming his demons. Good Kid Mad City and To Pimp a Butterfly both ended with him finding salvation, but with DAMN, this is him living completely in hedonism, so it's no wonder his music sounds very mainstream. I think he'll completely change it up on the next album.

I don't necessarily have a top ten, but this was definitely my favorite album of 2017.

Quicksand - Interiors

Their first album in over 22 years. Welcome back.

All the albums I've bought this year weren't from this year, lol. ('cept for the Cuphead OST)

I've only got a Top 4 because those are the only albums released in 2017 I bought.

1. Incorruptible by Iced Earth
2. Reaching Into Infinity by DragonForce
3. Madness by All That Remains
4. Torment by Six Feet Under

In case anyone missed it on Twitter here are Alex's top 20 favourite albums of the year in no particular order:

• Mastodon - Emperor of Sand/Cold Dark Place
• Converge - The Dusk In Us
• Ariel Pink - Dedicated to Bobby Jameson
• Kendrick Lamar - DAMN.
• Mogwai - Every Country's Sun
• Code Orange - Forever
• St. Vincent - MASSEDUCTION
• Boris - Dear
• Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked at Me
• Power Trip - Nightmare Logic
• SZA - Ctrl
• Ted Leo - The Hanged Man
• The Bronx - V
• Pissed Jeans - Why Love Now
• Spoon - Hot Thoughts
• LCD Soundsystem - American Dream
• Goatwhore - Vengeful Ascension
• QOTSA - Villains
• Why? - Moh Lean
• Metz - Strange Peace

As I mentioned, there was likelihood on mine changing, and it indeed has. Mastodon is still the top, but my top 10 is as follows:

Mastodon - Emperor of Sand

Belle Haven - You, Me and Everything in Between

Justice for the Damned - Dragged Through the Dirt

Comeback Kid - Outsider

Polaris - This Mortal Coil

Counterparts - You're Not You Anymore

A Night In Texas - Global Slaughter

Hollow Prophet - Hellhole

Signs of the Swarm - The Disfigurement of Existence

Honest Crooks - Suffer

Couldn’t squeeze in Alpha Wolf or Statues. The new Story of the Year album is a hell of a surprise, but could have dropped a song or two to feel ‘tighter’. Great year for music though! Also, and I may be a bit biased living here, but 2017 was such a fantastic year for Australian heavy music, with some fantastic stuff from bands I’d not heard of before!

My Top 10 Albums* of 2017:

1. Mount Eerrie - A Crow Looked At Me

2. SZA - Ctrl

3. BROCKHAMPTON - SATURATION (I, II, and III)

4. Tyler, The Creator - Flower Boy

5. Rina Sawayama - RINA

6. Migos - Culture

7. Big K.R.I.T. - 4Eva Is A Mighty Long Time

8. Algiers - The Underside of Power

9. Alex Cameron - Forced Witness

10. Father John Misty - Pure Comedy

Honorable Mentions:

Perfume Genius - No Shape

Pretty Girls Like Trap Music - 2 Chainz

Oxbow - Thin Black Duke

Jay Z - 4:44

Kendrick Lamar - DAMN.

Sampha - Process

St. Vincent - Masseduction

*Some of these are EPs or more general projects.