#^d 2017-01-02 #^h Music Week

Music: Current count 27548 [27512] rated (+36), 366 [362] unrated (+4).

Most of the week's discoveries have already been unveiled in Saturday's Streamnotes post, although I did add one more A- record a day later, from Venetian Snares -- a synth programmer from Winnipeg with a jazz master's sense of rhythm. Also came close to adding the new Klezmatics album, but I stretched its consideration beyond my cutoff moment. Whereas alt-country provided most of my A- finds last week, this week's winners were mostly rap albums.

I temporarily caught up with my backlog of EOY lists, not that I won't keep adding data at least up through Pazz & Jop (as it used to be known). Top of the list is pretty consistent at this point, with only minor fluctuations and no trends I can discern. The top 50 reads as follows (with my grades in brackets):

  1. David Bowie: Blackstar (Columbia) {491} [***]
  2. Beyonce: Lemonade (Parkwood/Columbia) {378} [A-]
  3. Frank Ocean: Blonde (Boys Don't Cry) {367} [**]
  4. Radiohead: A Moon Shaped Pool (XL) {326} [B]
  5. Solange: A Seat at the Table (Saint/Columbia) {293} [**]
  6. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Skeleton Tree (Bad Seed) {276} [B-]
  7. A Tribe Called Quest: We Got It From Here . . . Thank You 4 Your Service (Epic) {273} [A-]
  8. Kanye West: The Life of Pablo (Def Jam/GOOD Music) {270} [***]
  9. Bon Iver: 22 a Million (Jagjaguwar) {246} [*]
  10. Chance the Rapper: Coloring Book (self-released) {245} [A-]
  11. Angel Olsen: My Woman (Jagjaguwar) {235} [***]
  12. Anohni: Hopelessness (Secretly Canadian) {200} [*]
  13. Anderson Paak: Malibu (OBE/Steel Wool/ArtClub/Empire) {194} [A-]
  14. Leonard Cohen: You Want It Darker (Columbia) {187} [A-]
  15. Car Seat Headrest: Teens of Denial (Matador) {183} [***]
  16. Danny Brown: Atrocity Exhibition (Warp) {171} [A-]
  17. Mitski: Puberty 2 (Dead Oceans) {141} [*]
  18. Kaytranada: 99.9% (XL) {139} [A-]
  19. Blood Orange: Freetown Sound (Domino) {138} [A-]
  20. Rihanna: Anti (Roc Nation) {136} [A-]
  21. Kendrick Lamar: Untitled Unmastered (Top Dawg Entertainment) {109} [***]
  22. Skepta: Konnichiwa (Boy Better Know) {101} [***]
  23. Jenny Hval: Blood Bitch (Sacred Bones) {98} [C+]
  24. Parquet Courts: Human Performance (Rough Trade) {96} [A-]
  25. PJ Harvey: The Hope Six Demolition Project (Vagrant) {95} [**]
  26. Sturgill Simpson: A Sailor's Guide to Earth (Atlantic) {92} [***]
  27. James Blake: The Colour in Anything (Polydor) {90} [B-]
  28. The Avalanches: Wildflower (Astralwerks) {85} [B]
  29. Iggy Pop: Post Pop Depression (Loma Vista) {82} [*]
  30. Michael Kiwanuka: Love & Hate (Polydor) {79} [**]
  31. Whitney: Light Upon the Lake (Secretly Canadian) {78} [B-]
  32. Kate Tempest: Let Them Eat Chaos (Lex) {74} [**]
  33. Nicolas Jaar: Sirens (Other People) {70} [**]
  34. Margo Price: Midwest Farmer's Daughter (Third Man) {70} [A-]
  35. The 1975: I Like It When You Sleep for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It (Dirty Hit/Interscope) {66} [*]
  36. Drive-By Truckers: American Band (ATO) {66} [A-]
  37. Savages: Adore Life (Matador) {65} [***]
  38. Young Thug: [No My Name Is] Jeffery (300 Entertainment/Atlantic) {62} [A-]
  39. Drake: Views (Cash Money) {55} [*]
  40. Jessy Lanza: Oh No (Hyperdub) {55} [A-]
  41. Schoolboy Q: Blank Face LP (Interscope/Top Dawg) {51} [***]
  42. YG: Still Brazy (Def Jam) {51} [*]
  43. Miranda Lambert: The Weight of These Wings (Sony Music Nashville) {47} [A-]
  44. Noname: Telefone (self-released) {47} [**]
  45. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard: Nonagon Infinity (ATO) {46} [*]
  46. Kevin Morby: Singing Saw (Dead Oceans) {43} [***]
  47. Christine and the Queens: Chaleur Humaine (Because) {41} [**]
  48. Paul Simon: Stranger to Stranger (Concord) {41} [*]
  49. Wilco: Schmilco (dBpm) {41} [*]
  50. BadBadNotGood: IV (Innovative Leisure) {40} [B]

Probably the first year ever where I've heard all top-50 albums (informed as I am that this year's Chaleur Humaine is just a British repackaging of last year's eponymous Christine and the Queens album -- the one I've heard -- which was itself a reissue of the 2014 French Chaleur Humaine). The top five have been stable for a while now, even though the 2-3 margin is just 11 (I don't think the lead has ever changed). I had originally expected Beyoncé to catch Bowie but the closest they've come was about 30 points, and Bowie has been steadily building his lead over the last 2-3 weeks. I suspect she's lost votes (at least positions) to sister Solange.

Note that 6-7-8 are still very close (6 points total). Nick Cave does exceptionally well in non-English-language pubs, and I've picked up quite a few of them. Tribe got a late start, but seems to have hit a plateau, at least here -- I figure they'll finish 4th in the Voice poll, behind Bowie-Beyoncé-Ocean. The 9-10 race is also close (1 point), but 11-16 is pretty well spread out, 17-20 close (5 points), then a big jump to 21 (27 points).

My grade breakdown is: 15 A-, 10 ***, 8 **, 10 *, 3 B, 3 B-, 1 C+. I'd be real surprised if any previous year broke that favorably. (Last year I had 9 A- [-6], 11 *** [-1], 12 * [+2], and 9 B/lower [+2], with 3 unrated.) Number of lists compiled is down from 720 to 231, so there are quite a few more I could add if the spirit moves me. Total records are down from 5285 to 2402.

At this point, all of the new jazz CDs in my queue are scheduled for release in 2017, so I've felt justified in ignoring them. (I also held a few that I have listened to back for January's Streamnotes.) I'll start digging into them over the next week or two, but for a while I plan on concentrating on 2016 releases I've missed. Maybe start thinking about what to do in this coming year.

New records rated this week:

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week: