This was a big year.
I got engaged & married, watched (and celebrated) the Capitals win the Stanley Cup, and did a whole bunch of fun stuff in-between. These songs are a great representation of what I listened to throughout the year.
A few years ago I began a personal, annual tradition of choosing 50 songs from the year that I felt spoke to me. I won't claim that these are the best, or necessarily all of my favorites, but, to me, they are 2017.
In addition to the playlist of songs, I'd like to call out a few of the albums that I particularly enjoyed this year:
- A Deeper Understanding by The War on Drugs (Apple Music / Spotify)
- Near To The Wild Heart Of Life by Japandroids (Apple Music / Spotify)
- Gone Now by Bleachers (Apple Music / Spotify)
- Lany by Lany (Apple Music / Spotify)
- Out In The Storm by Waxahatchee (Apple Music / Spotify)
There are days when In Rainbows feels like the best Radiohead album. It’s definitely in contention with 1995’s The Bends as the band’s most approachable, compulsively listenable release — the one you can just put on and enjoy without turning it into a full-blown immersive experience, the one that will meet you wherever you’re at and be beautiful in your presence.
I remember Radiohead being a band that I actively disliked. I remember thinking that their music was not for me. I remember foolishly deciding without much (nay, any) actual listening that Thom Yorke was full of 'it', and I wanted nothing to do with his band. I remember In Rainbows being dropped into the world unexpectedly, and me volunteering to pay $15 for music that I didn't think I wanted to hear because I liked the idea of their experiment.
I fell in love with this set of songs.
Radiohead are now a band whose faces are clearly chiseled onto my music 'Mount Rushmore'. When I began collecting vinyl a couple of years ago, I made sure that In Rainbows was at the top of my wishlists, and one of the first in my collection.
I still love this set of songs.