BEST OF 2017

Welcome to the central page for my albums of 2017 countdown. As always, I’ve listened to a lot of excellent music over the year and I continue to resolutely rebuff anyone who tries to argue that there’s not as much good music these days. I may struggle ten years down the line, once our sub-Spotify culture has completely eroded the means to make a living by making art, but there have been many, many tremendous releases since January ticked around and I’ve endeavoured to convince you of that fact over the past month. Everything has now been revealed and, if you’re reading this in 2018 or beyond, then everything you need is here. Click the link for the piece on each record and click the album art to launch a stream.

Having started from a short(long)list of 74, I’ve whittled it down to what follows below. As always, click the artwork on each review to launch a stream and feel free to chip in at any point. Inevitably, I’ve since realised that there are some other fantastic records from 2017 that I had missed but with which I am now smitten. I’ll endeavour to give them a little time soon. However, these are the thirty I settled on as December began so, without further ado, here they are…

30. BNQT – Volume 1

29. Sufjan Stevens, Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner, James McAlister – Planetarium

28. Molly Burch – Please Be Mine

27. Jake Xerxes Fussell – What In The Natural World

26. Miles Mosley – Uprising

25. The Magnetic Fields – 50 Song Memoir

24. Bing & Ruth – No Home Of The Mind

23. LCD Soundsystem – American Dream

22. Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings – Soul Of A Woman

21. Laura Marling – Semper Femina

20. Courtney Marie Andrews – Honest Life

19. Jens Lekman – Life Will See You Now