It\u2019s earned its own hashtag: #WorstYearEver. The music world\u2019s losses started with David Bowie in January and went on to claim luminaries including Phife Dawg, Merle Haggard, Glenn Frey, Keith Emerson, Greg Lake, Pete Burns, Prince, Leonard Cohen, and in a Christmas surprise, George Michael. While fans mourned on social media they also took solace in some incredible swan songs\u2014for Bowie and Cohen, records consciously created as final acts.<\/p>\n
Pop\u2019s heavyweights posthumously asserted the enduring power of art, in all of its messy nuance and abstraction, while American voters signed off on a reductive vulgarian\u2014a manipulator who didn\u2019t pursue truths but invented convenient ones, an anti-artist, his triumph a middle finger to wisdom, introspection, compassion, liberation, and virtually every other positive theme you might associate with the elevating music of the deceased. It was a grim campaign season, one that pushed me toward familiar comforts. Here are the artists and moments that gave me encouragement and even, dare I say, hope in 2016.<\/p>\n
A Tribe Called Quest, We Got It from Here… Thank You 4 Your Service<\/i> (Epic Records)<\/strong> Lyrics touching on racial experience, the media, and the kind of scapegoating that drove a president-elect to power give it a contemporary and urgent feel even if some of its production sounds like it was dug up from a time capsule capturing the best of Tribe\u2019s early \u201890s feel-good vibes. Actually, much of it is deliciously throwback\u2014big, theatrical scratching on well-known rock-samples (\u201cBenny and the Jets\u201d), Run DMC\u2013style rhyming tug-of-war between Q-Tip and Phife, and bursts of battle rap braggadocio on knockin\u2019 beats. The final track is called \u201cThe Donald,\u201d a nod to Phife\u2019s old moniker \u201cDon Juice\u201d and a paean to the self-made Queens legend featuring Tribe co-founder Q-Tip and Busta Rhymes. \u201cFuck your ass-cheek flows with bars sweeter than scones,\u201d Phife raps on the final track, the perfect sign-off from a master of the craft who never compromised even when America did.<\/p>\n X at Irving Plaza, New York, August 13<\/strong> The Stone Roses at Madison Square Garden, New York, June 30<\/strong> Bohren & der Club of Gore, Bohren for Beginners<\/i> (PIAS Recordings)<\/strong> Jane\u2019s Addiction at Ford Amphitheater, Brooklyn, July 15<\/strong> The Pixies, Head Carrier<\/i> (Pixiesmusic\/PIAS Recordings)<\/strong> The Pretenders at Madison Square Garden, New York, December 1<\/strong> David Bowie, \u201cLazarus\u201d (Columbia Records)<\/strong> RJD2, Dame Fortune<\/i> (RJ\u2019s Electrical Connections)<\/strong> Run the Jewels, \u201cA Report to the Shareholders\/Kill Your Masters\u201d (self-released)<\/strong> It\u2019s earned its own hashtag: #WorstYearEver. The music world\u2019s losses started with David Bowie in January and went on to claim luminaries including Phife Dawg, Merle Haggard, Glenn Frey, Keith Emerson, Greg Lake, Pete Burns, Prince, Leonard Cohen, and in a Christmas surprise, George Michael. While fans mourned on social media they also took solace […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":5366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2479],"tags":[1877,245,853,1659,988,1876,1824,1878,1341],"class_list":["post-5396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-best-of-the-year","tag-bohren-der-club-of-gore","tag-david-bowie","tag-janes-addiction","tag-rjd2","tag-run-the-jewels","tag-the-pixies","tag-the-pretenders","tag-the-stone-roses","tag-x"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nA Tribe Called Quest\u2019s sixth album, delivered two days after the election and eight months after the death of founding member Phife Dawg\u2019s from diabetes-related complications, is its first in nearly 20 years and its best. If I met someone who had somehow never heard hip-hop and wanted to fall in love with it, I would instruct them to hit play and clear out enough space for dancing.<\/p>\n
\nI\u2019ve caught the Los Angeles four-piece X a number of times over their decades-long run, but this summer show at Irving Plaza marked the return of rockabilly hell-raiser Billy Zoom, who was sidelined with cancer when I saw them a year prior. The set started with some of the group\u2019s mellower numbers, including their excellent cover of the 1930 jazz standard \u201cDancing with Tears in My Eyes\u201d and \u201cAdult Books,\u201d which got a vibraphone treatment. Then, the menacing opening riff to \u201cThe Hungry Wolf\u201d kicked in, and vocalists Exene Cervenka and John Doe proceeded to demolish Irving Plaza with a frenzied set of classic West Coast punk. An old-timer in a T.S.O.L. shirt at the merch table told me it was the best he\u2019d seen them and I have to concur.<\/p>\n
\nMadison Square Garden is not the greatest place to see a show. Depending on your seats and the vocal capacity of your neighbors, the noise of adjacent conversation can drown out the band. But when The Stone Roses, playing their first NYC show in 21 years, hit their stride with a rousing, sing-along version of \u201cMade of Stone\u201d (from their eponymous 1989 debut), it reminded me there is indeed a place for stadium concerts; there\u2019s no matching the energy of 20,000 people dancing and singing along to an iconic band.<\/p>\n
\nIf dark jazz sounds like something you might be into and you\u2019ve never heard it, treat yourself to this haunting double-disc of music spanning the under-appreciated German band\u2019s 25-year career. A few words come to mind, but I\u2019m not sure how to put them together so I\u2019ll leave them here: exquisite, spooky, sublime, ghost, orchestra.<\/p>\n
\nJane\u2019s Addiction\u2019s performance at Coney Island\u2019s new boardwalk amphitheater had the muscle, sleaze, and sideshow weirdness befitting of the locale. Impish frontman Perry Farrell still controls a stage like few others, breathing fire into tunes like the anthemic \u201cMountain Song\u201d and \u201cJane Says.\u201d With the saltwater breeze, fireworks, and a setlist that included my favorite Jane\u2019s record, Ritual De Lo Habitual<\/i>, in all of its psychedelic, prog-rock meandering, this was a summer high mark.<\/p>\n
\nWhile 2014\u2019s Indie Cindy<\/i> was not the comeback album for which Pixies fans like myself clamored (and if you\u2019re splitting hairs it was a collection of EPs, not a proper full-length, anyway), Head Carrier<\/i> was. From the opening churn of the title track to the majestic closer \u201cAll the Saints,\u201d this record is a tour of the signature sounds, tempo changes, and weirdo lyrical allusions that made them one of the most influential bands in the alt-rock boom of the early \u201890s.<\/p>\n
\nChrissie Hynde\u2019s change from an angular white-trimmed blazer to a black and white Elvis-printed tee certainly ranks among the more bad-ass wardrobe changes I\u2019ve seen. Actually, everything about Hynde was alternately bad-ass and elegant, from the soaring third stanza of \u201cBack on the Chain Gang\u201d to \u201cHymn to Her,\u201d a show-stopping display of vocal control. This night, she was the king, the queen, the court\u2014she was everything.<\/p>\n
\nBowie lies in a hospital bed, blindfolded, with buttons for eyes in the video for \u201cLazarus,\u201d an incredible track from his poignant final album Blackstar<\/i>. \u201cLook up here, I\u2019m in heaven,\u201d he sings in the opening verse. He released the album January 8, and died two days later. It was an intense goodbye, one that both rattled and motivated me; I love the fact that Bowie never stopped thinking like an artist. A Dylan Thomas poem comes to mind.<\/p>\n
\nColumbus, Ohio\u2013based RJD2\u2019s latest LP is a fine collection of neo-funk and soul, along with some spaced-out hip-hop instrumentals. \u201cThe Sheboygan Left\u201d was my feel-good jam of the summer.<\/p>\n
\nJust as I\u2019m getting ready to turn in my picks for the Best of 2016, Run the Jewels drops their third full-length ahead of schedule and Killer Mike again proves why he\u2019s my favorite political emcee. This six-minute closing track also includes two choice El-P beats and a guest spot from Zack De La Rocha and is thus making my cut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"