Best of 2016

Julie River's picks (2016)

Adam Eisenberg

2016 has been a bit of a disaster of a year for the world as a whole, and for my personal life as well. I went through the hardest breakup of my life, which was followed almost immediately by losing my apartment to the rising cost of living in Denver. I also came out as transgender to friends and family, which has been a big old mixed bag of emotions for me. But while 2016 has been a shitstorm crossed with a garbage fire for pretty much everything else, it has been an amazing year for music. The following are the albums that have allowed me to hold it together as much as I have.

MY TOP 20 ALBUMS OF 2016

20. Planes Mistaken For Stars: Prey Deathwish Inc.

Again, I didn’t listen to much of Planes before this album. I decided to give this album a try after Renaldos review of it, and maybe it was the constant repetition of the word ”fuck”, but the first track, “Dementia Americana” had me hooked. Its a dark, harsh, distorted journey through your own emotional turmoil that’s guaranteed to make you want to put on a happier record when your’e done with it, but you’ll be glad you listened to it nonetheless.

’ 19. Nada Surf: You Know Who You Are Barsuk Records

Despite my complaints about how much I hate this album title, Nada Surf churned out another successful album this year. Following the same formula that’s worked for them since 2003’s Let Go, Nada Surf put together a classic breakup album. It’s emotionally raw and beautifully melodic at the same time. You Think You Know Who What Are You Birds or whatever the hell this album is called is a must-listen for anyone going through a breakup, trust me.

18. Pkew Pkew Pkew: Pkew Pkew Pkew Royal mountain records

Pkew Pkew Pkew is Seinfeldian in their focus on the mundane and nothingness of everyday life. There’s an entire song on this album about ordering a pizza! The most catchy, anthemic song on the album is about the band being rude to someone in their apartment building who complained to them about their practice being too loud. But even when singing about insignificant things, they have some of the best pop-punk melodies I’ve heard all year.

17. Little Bags: Little Bags Community Records

Good God have the boys in PEARS been busy this year, as Little Bags is essentially just PEARS with a different drummer playing a different style of music. Between this and PEARS’ album Green Star (spoiler alert: that’s coming up later on this list), not to mention Zach Quinn’s solo album, these guys have put out a ton of quality material in 2016. Little Bags is raw, fuzzy pop-punk with strong lyrics and lingering traces of PEARS’ hardcore style. If you like PEARS, you have to check out Little Bags.

16. Mean Jeans: Tight New Dimension Fat Wreck Chords

Mean Jeans love to talk about how they’re supposedly such a “dumb” band, but there’s a difference between being dumb just because you’re dumb, and being intentionally dumb. Tight New Dimension is a masterwork in the art of making intentionally dumb music, which is much harder than you’d expect. It takes a special talent to revel in the easy pun of “4 Coors Meal,” or to ask “Are There Beers in Heaven?” as if it’s a true existential question. With all the wit it took to make this album, I think Mean Jeans are a lot smarter than they give themselves credit for.

15. Chris Farren: Can't Die Side One Dummy Records

When this album was announced, all the other PunkNews writers got really excited for it, while I was left here going “Who the hell is Chris Farren?” But since all of them seemed to like him, not to mention Laura Jane Grace tweeting about how excited she was to have his album announced on the same day as hers, I had to check it out. Can’t Die is a bright burst of sunshine, with a few melancholy moments. If I had to find fault with this album, I’d have to point out that he blows his load a little early and puts the two best songs at the beginning of the album, but it’s still worth a listen all the way through, especially if you’re really in need of a pick me up.

14. Conor Oberst: Ruminations Nonesuch Records

I first got into Conor Oberst when an ex-girlfriend got me into Bright Eyes back in college. Oberst and Bright Eyes are unfairly maligned, especially by people who are trying to dismiss the entire emo genre. Putting aside the argument about emo’s validity for a second, Oberst is a strange person to dismiss as emo because the last time he was writing a lot of songs about breakups was on 2000’s Fevers and Mirrors. Somehow, people have missed this for the past 16 years, and Ruminations, Oberst’s reflections on life after his major health scare in 2015, shows him again tackling tough emotions, but rarely talking about relationships. The fact that it’s such a simple album, with Oberst limiting himself to nothing more than a harmonica, a piano, and an acoustic guitar, makes it his most intimate release to date.

13. AJJ: The Bible 2 Side One Dummy Records

AJJ is another band that I didn’t know much about before this album, but now I’m hooked on them. This album definitely wins my award for best album title of 2016, and the rest of the album shares in that same wry humor. While a few songs here and there did lose my interest, “White Worms” is definitely one of my absolute favorite songs of 2016. Is there really any more punk rock statement of personal freedom than “If you want to listen to the Devil’s music/You should probably listen to the Devils’ music?” I want to get a tattoo of that lyric. Not kidding.

12. The Mr. T Experience: King Dork Approximately: The Album Penguin random house

The companion album to Dr. Frank’s two young adult novels, King Dork and King Dork Approximately, this album was a refreshingly bright and fun concept album. Still, sometimes the bright and chipper tone of these big pop-punk stadium rockers belies lyrics that shine a light on the darker side of teen angst. It’s funny and nihilistic at the same time, capped off with a song that literally contains the lyrics “Death to the Universe.” As our recent election has ensured the end of the world, why not take the rest of the Universe down with us?

11. Jamila Woods: Heavn Closed Sessions

Normally my favorite albums list of any year would be sprinkled with a little bit of underground hip-hop here and there, but the year that I started writing for PunkNews is the one where I was a little bit more focused on rock and punk. So Jamila Woods’s transcendent opus of hip-hop and R&B is the only nod to the genre on my list this year. Heavn is both deeply personal and fiercely political. It demands respect for black people, and black women in particular, and is unapologetic in its self-love.

10. PEARS: Green Star Fat Wreck Chords

No, PunkNews doesn’t mandate that all of its writers have to love PEARS, but I do, and Green Star belongs on anyone’s best of 2016 list. While I don’t think Green Star topped Go to Prison, I think it came very damn close, and covered new territory with its beautifully anthemic moments mixed into a barrage of experimental hardcore. PEARS are the new Refused, plain and simple, and they’re changing punk for the better with every album.

9. Fea: Fea Blackheart Records Group

An album that came across my radar because it was produced by Laura Jane Grace of Against Me!, Fea’s self-titled debut is going sadly underappreciated right now. Fea could be the band that launches a new wave of riot grrrl artists, with their rambunctious, bi-lingual, psychobilly riot grrrl sound. Fea is an album that literally says, with pride, “I am a feminist,” and does it in five different languages in case you missed it the first time. Hopefully, their sophomore effort gets them more of the attention they deserve.

8. Jeff Rosenstock: Worry Side One Dummy Records

I’m a sucker for any artist who can demonstrate a sense of range and eclecticism, and very few artists embody that these days as well as Jeff Rosenstock. His album goes all over the place from acoustic ballad, to ska, to hardcore, and everything in between, often making abrupt, bold shifts in style very quickly. It’s an album that should be listened to in order every time, so you can see as it zigs where you expect it to zag.

7. The Coathangers: Nosebleed Weekend Suicide Squeeze Records

The Coathangers are a badass all-female band and, now that they’re down to being just a three piece, they’re churning out some very old-school style, back-to-basics punk that could have easily graced the stage of CBGBs in the mid-70s. Brimming with girl power and a whimsical style--as evidenced by one song featuring a childs squeak toy as a lead instrument--Nosebleed Weekend is the Coathangers’ strongest album to date and just promises that the band is going to keep getting better and better.

6. The Living End: Shift Dew Process

The Living End’s first two albums will always be my favorites of theirs and, while Shift is musically very far from their early style, it’s the first album since Roll On that’s on par with the quality of those first two brilliant albums. Shift is a dark album that tackles things like death and suicide with a rockabilly-meets-The Police style staccato that contrasts nicely with the lyrical content. Shift is the first album I gave five stars to on PunkNews, and I still stand behind it being a near perfect album.

5. White Lung: Paradise Domino Records

I like Renaldo’s description of this album as “angry dream-pop,” because that’s what makes Paradise such a unique album. It rages on powerfully with a punk rock pace, but the keyboards add in this bizarre sense of jagged beauty to the album. Mish Barber-Way is one of the best punk frontwomen out there right now, and her lyrics and her voice simply wreck me as they tear through this furious yet dreamy album.

4. PUP: The Dream Is Over Side One Dummy Records

I never really got the hype over Pup’s self-titled debut album. It has a few catchy songs, and I will give them credit for a very unique style, but it could never hold my attention from start to finish. Their sophomore effort, The Dream is Over, however absolutely knocked me on my ass. Like I said, I went through a very particularly painful breakup this year, and The Dream is Over was the perfect soundtrack to that pain. It takes meanness to a hilarious level, and mixes it with a touch of hope for the future. The Dream is Over is a burst of cathartic, angry energy that makes it feel like its worth waking up again tomorrow.

3. Car Seat Headrest: Teens in Denial Matador Records

With some of the most intelligent lyrics and most haunting melodies I’ve heard all year, this album is a big, epic run-on sentence of artistic triumph. It doesn’t sound like much at first, but the album is deceptive in that its complexities really unfold only after multiple listens. I’m still finding new things to unpack in this album. It takes a long time to get through this one, but it is well worth it.

2. Against Me!: Shape Shift With Me Total Treble

When I told you at the beginning of this list that I came out as transgender this year, did you ever have a moment of doubt that Shape Shift With Me was showing up on this list? I hate to be a cliché, but yes, Laura Jane Grace changed my life, and her music continues to inspire me. Probably nobody this year had a harder act to follow this year than Laura Jane Grace, with everyone wondering how you could possibly follow up something like Transgender Dysphoria Blues. Shape Shift With Me refuses to just become a clone of its predecessor, and succeeds on entirely different grounds than Transgender does. If we insist on ranking them, then yes, Transgender Dysphoria Blues is better, but Shape Shift With Me is still a masterpiece.

1. Direct Hit!: Wasted Mind Fat Wreck Chords

Hey, when the trans girl ranks something above Against Me!, you better pay attention!

Have you ever wondered if it was possible to create something even approaching “high art” within the genre of pop-punk? Well, for the second album in a row, Direct Hit’s Wasted Mind proves that it’s possible, as they weave a bizarre pschyedelic narrative (that I’m still trying to decipher) out of some of the poppiest pop-punk you’ve ever heard. Blink-182 hasn’t put out an album this infectiously catchy. Add in the lush instrumentation and mix in a little hardcore-style screaming along with the singing, and you have possibly the most profoundly original pop-punk album ever put together. A near perfect album in every way, Wasted Mind still blows me away every single time I listen to it.

So with the terrible year of 2016 finally over, here’s to a much better year in 2017. Fuck 2016! Get pumped!