Top 10 Best Albums Listened To In 2016

This list is not always my favorite new releases; instead, it is the best of the albums I listened to for the first time since last year. This list is also in alphabetical order because agonizing over a precise order would take all the fun out of remembering some of this year’s best music:

1. The Beatles, Live At The Hollywood Bowl (2016):

The sound quality has been significantly improved on this “remixed, remastered and expanded version of an album previously released in 1977 of two performances at the Hollywood Bowl in August 1964 and August 1965″ (Wikipedia).

2. Beyoncé, Lemonade (2016):

Inspired by a line from Jay Z’s grandmother, “I had my ups and downs, but I always find the inner strength to pull myself up. I was served lemons, but I made lemonade.” Streaming service Tidal described the concept behind Lemonade as “every woman’s journey of self-knowledge and healing” (Wikipedia).

3. David Bowie, Blackstar (2016):

The twenty-fifth and final studio album by English musician David Bowie. It was released worldwide on 8 January 2016, coinciding with Bowie’s 69th birthday. The album was largely recorded in secret with a group of local jazz musicians. Two days after its release, Bowie died of liver cancer; his illness had not been revealed to the public until then. Co-producer Visconti described the album as Bowie’s intended swan song and a “parting gift” for his fans before his death. (Wikipedia)

4. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Skeleton Tree (2016):

During the recording sessions for this sixteenth studio album by Australian rock band, Cave’s 15-year-old son Arthur died from an accidental cliff fall. Most of the album had been written at the time of Cave’s son’s death, but several lyrics were amended by Cave during subsequent recording sessions and feature themes of death, loss and personal grief. The majority of the songs on the album were written prior to Arthur’s death; however, some lyrics—such as the opening lines to “Jesus Alone”—have been regarded as “prophetic” in the wake of his death. (Wikipedia)

5. Leonard Cohen, You Want It Darker (2016): At age 82, three weeks before his death, Cohen released his fourteenth and final studio album, produced by his son, Adam Cohen. Powerful and moving.

6. Bob Dylan, The Real Royal Albert Hall 1966 Concert (2016):

For decades, Bob Dylan’s performance in Manchester was incorrectly labeled, The Royal Albert Hall Concert. Now, for the first time, the REAL Royal Albert Hall concert, originally recorded for a live album by CBS Records, is finally being released as a standalone 2-CD set. (For the even-more-hardcore Dylanophile, you can buy the 36CD box set containing every known recording from Dylan’s 1966 concert tours of the US, UK, Europe and Australia.)

7. Grateful Dead, Day of the Dead (2016):

A celebration of the Grateful Dead’s music that was created and curated by The National. A wide-ranging tribute to the songwriting and experimentalism of the Dead which took four years to record, features over 60 artists from varied musical backgrounds, 59 tracks and is almost 6 hours long. All profits will help fight for AIDS/ HIV and related health issues around the world.

8. Ben Johnston, String Quartets Nos. 6, 7, & 8, Quietness (2016):

The ten string quartets of Ben Johnston, written between 1951 and 1995, constitute no less than an attempt to revolutionize the medium. Only the first limits itself to conventional tuning. The others, climaxing in the astonishing Seventh Quartet of 1984, add in further microtones from the harmonic series to the point that the music seems to float in a free pitch space, unmoored from the grid of the common twelve-pitch scale. The completion of the cycle, supervised throughout by the composer himself, is a historic achievement that will undoubtedly stand as the definitive document of these works, among the landmark quartet cycles of 20th-century music. The Seventh and Eighth Quartets are receiving their world-premiere recordings. The former has a reputation as the most difficult quartet ever written and the Kepler Quartet has met the challenge with enviable aplomb, as they have throughout the cycle, affording listeners a chance to finally hear these difficult but highly rewarding works.

9. Conor Oberst, Ruminations (2016):

This past winter, Oberst found himself hibernating in his hometown of Omaha after living in New York City for more than a decade. He emerged with this unexpectedly raw, unadorned solo album: “I wasn’t expecting to write a record. I was just staying up late every night playing piano and watching the snow pile up outside the window. Next thing I knew I had burned through all the firewood in the garage and had more than enough songs for a record. I recorded them quick to get them down but then it just felt right to leave them alone.” He recorded all the songs in the span of 48 hours. The results are almost sketch-like in their sparseness. This is Oberst alone with his guitar, piano, and harmonica; the songs connect with some of the rough magic and anxious poetry that first brought him to the attention of the world, while their lyrical complexity and concerns make it obvious they could only have been written in the present.

10. A Tribe Called Quest, We got it from Here… Thank You 4 Your service (2016):

Q-Tip, Phife Dawg (who passed away on March 22, 2016), Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Jarobi White formed this groundbreaking 90s group that forever transformed the urban music landscape reunited on their first and last studio album together in eighteen years. Guests include; Kendrick Lamar, Elton John, Jack White, Andre 3000, Busta Rhymes, Consequence, Anderson Paak, and Talib Kweli.

It’s release ten days after Trump’s election made the album seem all the more vital.

Previous Lists

Top 10 Best Albums Listened to in 2015

Top 10 Best Albums Listened to in 2014

Top 10 Best Albums Listened to in 2013

Top 10 Best Albums Listened to in 2012

Top 10 Best Albums Listened to in 2011

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