We say it every year, but, seriously now… it was a good one for music, wasn’t it? There were political anthems reflective of our tumultuous times from Pussy Riot, Blondie, Sampha, MUNA and Kendrick. Then there were the artists (Camila Cabello, Charli XCX, Carly Rae Jepsen, Harry Styles, PRETTYMUCH, Luis Fonsi, Tove Lo, Sigrid, etc.) who left us happily distracted from said times with their massive pop tunes. Meanwhile, jazz lads from either side of the pond including Thundercat and Rex Orange County delivered very different, very brilliant takes on the genre. And NYC label 88rising challenged stagnant opinions on Asian artists thanks to Joji, Rich Chigga and girl of the moment, Yaeji.
As we told you a couple of months ago, novelty artists were rife this year. Big Shaq’s Man Don’t Care and everything “cash me outside” girl Bhad Bhabie did proved hilarious — whether intentional or not — while Cardi B managed to distance herself from this lot, scoring the top spot on Billboard’s Hot 100 with Bodak Yellow, making her the first female rapper with no featured artists to do so since Lauryn Hill way back in 1998.
Keeping things different, there was plenty of stuff from artists stuck firmly in their own lane; Manila multi-instrumentalist Eyedress continued to make love songs disguised as trippy nighttime adventures, hyperactive UK producer Iglooghost introduced us to his fluorescent cartoon world, and Kedr Livanskiy did a dreamy job of representing Moscow’s underground electronic music scene. London’s HMLTD stayed weird, Yung Lean grew up, and we were blessed with the only thing to understand our emo teen hearts, Lil Peep’s Come Over When You’re Sober, Pt 1, before losing the SoundCloud rap pioneer much, much too soon.
Plus, there’s loads more. Literally 100 tracks of the stuff. Reminisce about all the best sounding music of 2017 and deep dive with us now.