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Rowan's Top 20(16)

From 1 to 20, with one honourable mention cos who can do maths anyway?
1All Human
Teenagers, You Don't Have to Die

And So Peter Dances – Teenagers, You Don’t Have to Die is a strange title for an album with lyrics that would make most people want to blow their brains out. While almost the whole album could have appeared on this list had I broken the one-per-artist rule, “And So Peter Dances” is a clear highlight. With a constantly evolving melody that makes superb use of the two vocalists and an incredible lyrical turn from Adam about a man alone on Christmas, “And So Peter Dances” gets full marks in every conceivable field. Try not to tear up when the strings come in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q86UbYIX-EY
2Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
Skeleton Tree

I Need You - Skeleton Tree is arguably 2016’s true classic, an almost anti-musical statement that forsakes everything we know about memorable songwriting in favour of brutally anti-melodic pieces of absolutely fucking miserable genius. At times it feels as if Cave has skipped the middle steps of actually making an album and is just inserting his emotions straight into you with a syringe. Yet “I Need You” stands apart somehow, a song that disregards the “can’t-muster-the-will-to-sing” delivery of the other songs in favour of a cracked, wavering croon that is just impossible to ignore. In a year where music has seemed more obsessed with death than any other, “I Need You” reminds us how painfully good it is to be alive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v20ftD2_nmM
3Bon Iver
22, A Million

8 (circle) - There’s a point towards the end of “8 (circle)”’s climax where there about four different voices singing four different things, all indecipherable and all glorious. Whether you see it as some grand statement about the place of religion and faith in our lives or just a personal moment in Vernon’s life, it’s hard to deny the sheer scale of the realisation that sometimes enlightenment is just not worth the time it takes. Also, this shit is fucking beautiful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrGqzKJ--b8
4Frank Ocean
Blonde

White Ferrari - “Ivy” and “Self-Control” are close contenders, but I have to give the edge to “White Ferrari”, the late-album masterpiece which stands as Ocean’s finest achievement to date. Ocean’s proclivity for metaphor is set aside for an almost uncomfortably personal lyric, recounting the last terrible car ride at the end of a faltering relationship. Yet it’s James Blake who makes the song what it is, offering an unbelievably emotional Bon Iver-esque final verse that covers nihilism, sex and everything in between in the space of 40 seconds. No YouTube link available
5David Bowie
Blackstar

Dollar Days – “Blackstar” and “Lazarus” may be the epic technical emotional numbers, but after living with the album for a year it’s clear to me that “Dollar Days” is its heart and soul. Blackstar will be remembered for years to come as offering a perspective on death and release that is perhaps unique in all of music, and “Dollar Days” is the most poignant moment of it all – it’s the moment when colours seem brighter and memories are so vivid you’re almost there again for the last time. “Dollar Days” is a worthy successor to the likes of “Rock n Roll Suicide” and “The Man Who Sold the World”; I can’t give it any higher of a compliment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqW-kvU5cLg
6Gang Of Youths
Let Me Be Clear

Still Unbeaten Life – In a year of death and loss, there may be no better rallying cry for the sheer fucking joy of life than “Still Unbeaten Life”. David L’eaupepe’s girlfriend survived her bout with cancer as documented in The Positions, and yet it came as the cost of the relationship that they suffered so much to maintain. And that fuckin' sucks, because sometimes that’s how life happens, and yet there’s still so much to celebrate because that’s sometimes how life happens too. And nowhere else is the tremendous, paradoxical, ugly beauty of that fact felt more than on “Still Unbeaten Life”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMrdS6SFX-A
7Andy Hull
Swiss Army Man OST

Montage – Imagine a chorus of angels (who look like lumberjacks) singing to you as you wake, enticing you to run across an open field of flowers under a beautiful blue summer sky in chase of a beautiful man or woman who holds the key to happiness. And you can also fly. That’s this song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrYCAHIccc8
8A Tribe Called Quest
We got it from Here… Thank You 4 Your service

Black Spasmodic – Who predicted Q-Tip dropping the verse of the year? There’s no shortage of highlight songs and fantastic verses on the unexpectedly great Thank You 4 Your Service… but “Black Spasmodic” uses the recent death of Phife Dawg as the springboard for one of the band’s strongest ever outings. With a great, rough-and-ready verse from Malik himself, “Black Spasmodic” sees Tip celebrate and mourn his lost brother in equal measure, extolling his virtues and presenting the verse as kind of a final statement from the man himself. RIP Phife.
9Childish Gambino
"Awaken, My Love!"

Stand Tall - “Stand Tall” is gorgeous. By turns, it’s a low-key ballad, electronic freak-out and acoustic clap-along jam. The common thread throughout all these sections is the warm, heartfelt, Motivational poster-worthy chorus. Glover plumbed some dark, existential depths towards the back end of Because the Internet, and four years later we find him, on the back of a superb first season of Atlanta and the birth of his child, in a place of serenity and contentment. Listening to “Stand Tall” is guaranteed to take you to that same place. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbsZnsr0lI4
10James Blake
The Colour in Anything

I Need a Forest Fire – “I Need a Forest Fire” sounds like James Blake and Justin Vernon allowed us to hear four minutes of a song that could probably repeat forever and never get boring, something elemental, primal and beautiful. It’s a banger 4sure https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FU1MKbHEuc
11Kendrick Lamar
untitled unmastered.

untitled 02 – The biggest crime of To Pimp a Butterfly was excluding the best song to come out of its sessions, untitled 02. With a first half that leans more towards jazz than hip-hop and some of Kendrick’s best bars after the amazing transition, 02 lends some much needed levity and bounce to an album that is at times suffocatingly serious and conceptual. (Note: 03 would have taken this place if the studio version didn’t cut off the best moment in Kendrick’s entire discography, see: the Colbert performance).
12Glass Animals
How To Be A Human Being

Agnes – “Youth” and “The Other Side of Paradise” were a hint that maybe Glass Animals would dive into something more than happy-go-lucky peanut butter vibes on their second album, but I doubt anyone was prepared for just how well they did that on “Agnes”. With a powerful lyric about a friend succumbing to drug addiction and one of the strongest melodies on an album with more catchy choruses than you would believe possible, “Agnes” is an unassuming, beautiful closer that will leave you thinking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25mDqXfEqa4
13Blink-182
California

Cynical – Blink were smart enough to start their lazy, crappy, disappointing flop of a comeback with easily their best song since the “Stockholm Syndrome” days. “Cynical” is a two-minute blast that starts us off with a low-key, emotional verse, and transitions through the trademark Barker drum fills to one of the most powerful refrains of 2016. Even being a massive fluke doesn’t keep this song from being one of the best of the year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NjivYhbQaY
14The Dillinger Escape Plan
Dissociation

Limerent Death – This might be the album opener of the year. When did we last hear Greg this passionate, the band this well in sync, and the music so fucking powerful? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p4tQUBtsBw
15The Hotelier
Goodness

Soft Animal – “Soft Animal” is the Hotelier’s greatest song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoLDz4nCeAM
16Jeff Rosenstock
Worry.

I Did Something Weird Last Night – I would have put the entire Abbey Road-style suite that makes up the second half of WORRY. if I could, but I’ll settle for the song that kicks it off and the album’s centerpiece. “I Did Something Weird Last Night” is an awkward, fumbling ode to being awkward and fumbling, and it’s as relatable as any of the best Bomb the Music Industry! songs ever were. This is a song you play on an out-of-tune guitar to a room full of drama students at 3 in the morning, if that's your thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am9G2J1HfJw
17Kanye West
The Life of Pablo

Wolves (OG) - I’m still in awe that Kanye managed to record one of his greatest ever songs and then butcher it into an absolute fucking shitheap for the album release. The original Wolves is heartfelt, ghostly and sublime, merging the vocals of four different singers with one of the most haunting samples of the year to create a brilliant piece of work. Mensa’s bridge stands out, but the contribution of each vocalist is essential to the song.
18Leonard Cohen
You Want It Darker

You Want it Darker – While “Treaty” is the emotional and lyrical lynchpin of Cohen’s superb final album, I’ll give the title track the benefit of the doubt for its incredible instrumental composition courtesy of Patrick Leonard. Eerie male choir vocals, a funky bassline and Cohen’s ragged growl combine to create a lurking, sinister track full of sin and temptation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0nmHymgM7Y
19Polyenso
Pure In The Plastic

Moona Festival – Evolving impressively from a Radiohead-aping debut, Polyenso dropped an indie/R&B benchmark with Pure in the Plastic. While the first half, with its massive choruses and glitchy electronics is more immediately memorable, the second half shows them exercising restraint to create some truly beautiful songs, the best of which is “Moona Festival”. It feels like the piano ballad of the future. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiAVfLYNoVM
20Taking Back Sunday
Tidal Wave

You Can’t Look Back – if there were one record on this list I came close to ignoring for the rest of my life, it would be Tidal Wave. Yet when the obligatory gushing Sowing review alerted me to its existence I decided to jump right in (get it?). While Tidal Wave has its share of filler I was caught off guard by how good the good stuff is, the highlight being the folksy, energetic “You Can’t Look Back”. With a passionate chorus that stays in your head for days and a slow, powerful second half that moves into anthemic territory, “You Can’t Look Back” is a triumph from a band who by rights should have faded away long ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqmKSb0kPjo
21Weezer
The White Album

Honourable mention: Jacked Up – As good as it is to hear Rivers and co. finally riffing again on the rest of the album, there’s something about “Jacked Up”’s piano-and-drums combo that’s absolutely irresistible. It’s also surprisingly emotional in a way they haven’t attempted since “The Angel and the One”, and it’s a style that fits them like a glove. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJOsRoY-na0
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