The A.V. Club's 20 Best Albums of 2017

In the two years since *To Pimp a Butterfly*, we’ve hung on Kendrick Lamar\'s every word—whether he’s destroying rivals on a cameo, performing the #blacklivesmatter anthem *on top of a police car* at the BET Awards, or hanging out with Obama. So when *DAMN.* opens with a seemingly innocuous line—\"So I was taking a walk the other day…”—we\'re all ears. The gunshot that abruptly ends the track is a signal: *DAMN.* is a grab-you-by-the-throat declaration that’s as blunt, complex, and unflinching as the name suggests. If *Butterfly* was jazz-inflected, soul-funk vibrance, *DAMN.* is visceral, spare, and straight to the point, whether he’s boasting about \"royalty inside my DNA” on the trunk-rattling \"DNA.\" or lamenting an anonymous, violent death on the soul-infused “FEAR.” No topic is too big to tackle, and the songs are as bold as their all-caps names: “PRIDE.” “LOYALTY.” “LOVE.” \"LUST.” “GOD.” When he repeats the opening line to close the album, that simple walk has become a profound journey—further proof that no one commands the conversation like Kendrick Lamar.

Pushing past the GRAMMY®-winning art rock of 2014’s *St. Vincent*, *Masseduction* finds Annie Clark teaming up with Jack Antonoff (as well as Kendrick Lamar collaborator Sounwave) for a pop masterpiece that radiates and revels in paradox—vibrant yet melancholy, cunning yet honest, friendly yet confrontational, deeply personal yet strangely inscrutable. She moves from synthetic highs to towering power-ballad comedowns (“Pills”), from the East Coast (the unforgettable “New York”) to “Los Ageless,” where, amid a bramble of strings and woozy electronics, she admits, “I try to write you a love song/But it comes out a lament.”

After his breakthrough *Lost in The Dream*, Adam Granduciel takes things a step further. Marrying the weathered hope of Dylan, Springsteen, and Petty with a studio rat’s sense of detail, *A Deeper Understanding* feels like an album designed to get lost in, where lush textures meet plainspoken questions about life, loss, and hope, and where songs stretch out as though they\'re chasing answers. For as much as Granduciel says in words, it’s his music that speaks loudest, from the synth-strobing heartland rock of “Holding On” and “Nothing to Find” to ballads like “Clean Living” and “Knocked Down,” whose spaces are as expansive as any sound.

Sylvan Esso’s sophomore album, What Now, is the sound of a band truly fulfilling the potential and promise of their debut. Everything has evolved - the production is bolder, the vocals are more intense, the melodies are more infectious, and the songs shine that much brighter. However, it is also a record that was made in 2016 - which means it is inherently grappling with the chaos of a country seething inward on itself, the voices of two people nestled in studios around the country who were bemused by what they looked out and saw. It’s an album that is both political and personal, and blurs the line between the two – What Now describes the inevitable low that comes after every high, fulfillment tempered by the knowledge that there is no clearly defined conclusion. What Now asks where we go as a culture when standing at what feels like a precipice. It’s a record about falling in love and learning that it won’t save you; about the oversharing of information and the fine line between self-awareness and narcissism; about meeting one’s own personal successes but feeling the fizzling embers of the afterglow rather than the roar of achievement; about the crushing realization that no progress can ever feel permanent. It is an album that finds its strength in its own duality. But at its core, What Now is an album of the finest songs this band has ever written- produced masterfully, sang fearlessly- to articulate our collective undercurrents of anxiety and joy.

Until a late flurry of percussion arrives, doleful guitar and bass are Solána Rowe’s only accompaniment on opener “Supermodel,” a stinging kiss-off to an adulterous ex. It doesn’t prepare you for the inventively abstract production that follows—disembodied voices haunting the airy trap-soul of “Broken Clocks,” “Anything”’s stuttering video-game sonics—but it instantly establishes the emotive power of her rasping, percussive vocal. Whether she’s feeling empowered by her physicality on the Kendrick Lamar-assisted “Doves in the Wind” or wrestling with insecurity on “Drew Barrymore,” SZA’s songs impact quickly and deeply.

On their debut album, fiery D.C. post-punk outfit Priests cram a record’s worth of drama into opening track “Appropriate” alone; after sprinting out of the gate with a riot grrrl-schooled screech, the song rebuilds into something far more sinister. It’s the first startling moment on a collection packed with sucker-punch surprises: “JJ” spikes its surf-rock surge with playful piano, while the Cure-like title track turns from mournful to cathartic thanks to Katie Alice Greer’s bracing voice, soulful and serrated in equal measure.

Sister Polygon Records SPR-021, out January 27 2017 Produced by Kevin Erickson, Engineered by Hugh McElroy in Washington, DC. Mixed by Don Godwin at Airshow Studio. Mastered by TJ Lipple. All songs written by Priests: Katie Alice Greer, Daniele Daniele, Taylor Mulitz, GL Jaguar. Guest appearances by Janel Leppin, Luke Stewart, Mark Cisneros, Perry Fustero, Brendan Polmer. Cover photo by Audrey Melton

“WE IN YEAR 3230 WIT IT,” Vince Staples tweeted of his second album. “THIS THE FUTURE.” In fact, he’s in multiple time zones here. Delivered in his fluent, poetic flow, the lyrical references reach back to 16th-century composer Louis Bourgeois, while “BagBak” captures the stark contrasts of Staples’ present (“I pray for new McLarens/Pray the police don’t come blow me down because of my complexion.”) With trap hi-hats sprayed across ’70s funk basslines (“745”) and Bon Iver fused into UK garage beats (“Crabs in a Bucket”), the future is as bold as it is bright.

Boston indie rock band Pile’s sixth album is a genuine surprise. Stark but warm, dingy but pretty, *Hairshirt* recalls the dreamy side of ’80s Sonic Youth paired with a melancholy grandeur that could only be called Pile’s own. The sound is stripped down—bass, drums, guitar—but the songs are fragmented and surprising, taking detours through blues and post-punk (as on the labyrinthine “Rope’s Length”), Jesus Lizard-style churn (“Hairshirt”), and almost Beatles-esque gentleness (“Worms,” “Dogs”).

Recorded by Ben Brodin at the Record Company in Boston, MA in September of 2016. Mixed by Ben at Another Recording Company in Omaha, NE Mastered by Carl Saff. Artwork by Nick Pyle. Violin and Viola played by Elisabeth Fuchsia Matt Becker – guitar Matt Connery – bass Kris Kuss – drums Rick Maguire – guitar and vocals credits releases March 31, 2017

The album that finally reveals a superstar. Sampha Sisay spent his nascent career becoming music’s collaborator à la mode—his CV includes impeccable work with the likes of Solange, Drake, and Jessie Ware—and *Process* fully justifies his considered approach to unveiling a debut full-length. It’s a stunning album that sees the Londoner inject raw, gorgeous emotion into each of his mini-epics. His electronic R&B sounds dialed in from another dimension on transformative opener “Plastic 100°C,” and “Incomplete Kisses” is an anthem for the broken-hearted that retains a smoothness almost exclusive to this very special talent. “(No One Knows Me) Like the Piano,” meanwhile, makes a solid case for being 2017’s most beautiful song.

Nearly 20 years into the band\'s career, The National have reached a status attained only by the likes of Radiohead: a progressive, uncompromising band with genuinely broad appeal. Produced by multi-instrumentalist Aaron Dessner in his upstate New York studio (with co-production from guitarist Bryce Dessner and singer Matt Berninger), *Sleep Well Beast* captures the band at their moody, majestic best, from the propulsive “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness” to “Guilty Party,” where Berninger’s portraits of failing marriage come to a sad, gorgeous, and surprisingly subtle head.

Sleep Well Beast was produced by member Aaron Dessner with co-production by Bryce Dessner and Matt Berninger. The album was mixed by Peter Katis and recorded at Aaron Dessner’s Hudson Valley, New York studio, Long Pond, with additional sessions having taken place in Berlin, Paris and Los Angeles.

After the storm comes a clearer, brighter morning. In 2015, Björk channelled a painful breakup into the dark, tumultuous *Vulnicura*. On this follow-up, she turns toward warmth and optimism. With flutes and harps weaved around glitchy electronics and sampled voices, her music is as expressive and unique as her vocals. “The Gate” welcomes love back into her heart amid a hymnal, delicate soundscape, and the sense of a new dawn is accented in the birdsong that hops across graceful flute melodies on the title track. “Sue Me” returns to the sorrow and recrimination of broken love, but where there was once vulnerability and despair, Björk now seems charged with resilience.

Utopia is the ninth studio album by Icelandic singer-musician Björk It was primarily produced by Björk and Venezuelan electronic record producer Arca and released on 24 November 2017 through One Little Independent Records. The album received critical acclaim from music critics for its production, songwriting, and Björk’s vocals, and later received a nomination for Best Alternative Music Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, becoming Björk’s eighth consecutive nomination in the category. Utopia is an avant-garde and folktronica album. With fourteen tracks in total, the album clocks in at 71 minutes and 38 seconds, making it the longest of Björk's studio albums to date. Björk began working on Utopia soon after releasing Vulnicura in 2015. Upon winning the award for International Female Solo Artist at the 2016 Brit Awards, Björk did not appear as she was busy recording her new album. In an interview published in March 2016, Björk likened the writing to "paradise" as opposed to Vulnicura being "hell... like divorce." Speaking to Fader in March 2017, filmmaker and collaborator Andrew Thomas Huang said that he had been involved with Björk on her new album, stating that "quite a bit of it" had already been written, and that the "new album's gonna be really future-facing, in a hopeful way that I think is needed right now."

One of the more prevalent trends in \'10s indie rock is the resurgence of stuff that sounds like it came out in the ‘90s. Into this fray steps Charly Bliss, a playful fuzz-pop band whose first full-length nails the balance between tough and tender, smart and achingly bittersweet. “I cry all the time,” Eva Hendricks sings on the album-opening “Percolator,” her voice cracking like a lost Deal sister. “I think it’s cool I’m in touch with my feelings.”

Four years after Lorde illuminated suburban teendom with *Pure Heroine*, she captures the dizzying agony of adolescence on *Melodrama*. “Everyone has that first proper year of adulthood,” she told Beats 1. “I think I had that year.” She chronicles her experiences in these insightful odes to self-discovery that find her battling loneliness (“Sober”), conquering heartbreak (“Writer in the Dark”), embracing complexity (“Hard Feelings/Loveless”), and letting herself lose control. “Every night I live and die,” she sings on “Perfect Places,” an emotionally charged song about escaping reality. “I’m 19 and I\'m on fire.\"

While evolving from the feral roar of 2007 debut *Strange House* toward the saucer-eyed dance rock of 2014’s *Luminous*, The Horrors have often sculpted sharp pop tunes. Their fifth album fully embraces those melodic instincts while exploring the possibilities offered by mixing psychedelia, rock, and synth-pop with their gothic otherness. The results are disparate and gripping, from “Machine”’s grinding urgency to the woozy swagger of “Press Enter to Exit.” Finale “Something to Remember Me By” is the towering peak of their most assured album to date, evoking Balearic-period New Order with its yearning fusion of house and synth-pop.