Superlative Albums I Wrote About in 2017


Before I count down the top ten albums I wrote about in 2017, I though I'd take a moment to shine a spotlight on some other music that didn't quite make the cut, but is well worth a listen for one reason or another. So here, in no particular order is some of this year's middlest music (that I wrote about this year) (not necessarily released this year) (also sass aside I do really like all of it) (y)!



"If you make a mistake and do not correct it, that is a second mistake," says Confucius. Evidence is mounting that the excellent Teenage Dream was a fluke, and vague disappointment is all we can expect from future Katy releases.

Mildly diverting but Greek-yoghurt-bland, Witness slips through the mind like a hot knife through butter, except without leaving a trace. And also it's a pretty blunt knife or whatever. And focus-tested to hell and back in a way that has caused it to resemble the resultant melty puddle. Cut me some slack, it's been a long year.

Also I totally plagiarised this award. The Francis Scott Key Key was first improvised in The West Wing, season 4 episode 18 'Privateers,' written by Aaron Sorkin and Paul Redford.

"To what extent should you get points for meaning well? Is it fair to take into account intentions when judging results? 

On the opening track of her most recent offering, Katy pleads: “Can I get a witness?” She throws back the smothering curtain of celebrity, and finally shows us a glimpse of the real Katy. Behind the fairy floss and the fireworks is someone who drinks coffee and drives a car, a woman who wants nothing more than to inspire women and girls everywhere to be their best selves. Witness encourages aspirations to greatness. Here she is, laid bare: the artist whose wildly successful 2010 album Teenage Dream became only the second ever to spawn five number-one singles. (The first was Michael Jackson’s Bad.) By sharing an intimate peek into the rigorously scrutinised life of one of the world’s richest, most famous and most powerful pop stars, Katy hopes that you too can find the wherewithal to succeed. 

She sees you, and all she asks in return is to be seen. 

What a shame that Witness cannot articulate Katy’s intent."



I apologise profusely for the crimes I committed against the English language in writing this article. It is not within my power to apologise on behalf of Superfruit for the crimes against fashion Scott and Mitch commit in their endlessly stylish music videos. Check them out if you like.

"Two parts funk-pop to one part strawberry daiquiri, Future Friends ably and joyfully balances a diversity of flavours with a common palate. Here it’s frothier, there it’s fizzier, everywhere it’s appealingly light on its feet. Superfruit have found themselves an eminently flattering pastel sweetness, and goodness do they ride it."



It's a tale as old as time. A classically trained musician tires of the limitations of their accustomed milieu, steps leftwards into pop music, and proceeds to tear it up. She soars high in the sky, like a bird but also like a cloud I guess.

Full disclosure: I prioritised assonance over common sense in naming this accolade.

"A selection of smart and supple arrangements flatters Kate’s hits and underrated gems alike, fetched from all corners of that bouncy indie-alt-pop triangle so many inhabit. As with the rest of her prodigious discography, she ricochets wildly up and down the spectrum from Serious Musician to utter dork for a spectacularly eclectic night of entertainment."



Wherein I am overly bitchy about country music and also the country: 

"Whiskey-smooth and pleasingly polished, Kacey Musgraves is exactly what we need: relaxed, focused, unfettered. Pageant Material coaxes a clear-eyed sweetness from her Texas twang, slipping by with the serenity of complete confidence in oneself and one’s abilities. It is a refreshingly minty julep oasis in an inhospitable wasteland of racism and cows; a beacon shining through the dusty gloom.

When our queen and saviour the mighty Beyoncé passes by, exquisite roses bloom and blossom in her wake. Plainest water transforms to richest wine upon grazing her lips. Though she does not operate at the same continuum-warping magnitude, Kacey enjoys her own special power. At the merest brushing of her guitar strings, hackneyed platitudes are somehow fresh and new again."



If I were to be so bold as to summarise my own work in two words, they would be 'whoopsie' and 'daisy.' I sat down at my keyboard one warm February afternoon to work my magic, but what appeared on the screen was not even remotely related to James Blake and his very good album.

The article that flowed forth from my fingertips was a brief work of fiction inspired by the world Overgrown purports to soundtrack. Proud, and a little surprised at myself, I hit publish and gave it nary another thought.

It wasn't until later in the year when Ryan Gosling's dumb face appeared to me in one of those obnoxious unskippable YouTube ads that I realised that I may have appropriated the entire thing from Blade Runner. Oh well. Lawsuits something something tears in rain. Enjoy!

"His informant speaks briefly, and hangs up a little too abruptly. The man, whom manners have makethed, casts this irksome detail from his mind, and refocuses on the task at hand. He restores his phone to its place inside his coat and steps out into the downpour. He hears several beats throbbing through the air at different tempos, numbering the same as the gaudy signs. A chilly gust ruffles his salt-and-pepper sideburns, extending from beneath the brim of a battered fedora. He angles his head against the heavy rain, and steps toward the dazzling pink sign reflected in the slick of the pavement. He takes a moment to admire the great pillars of darkness sinking impossibly deep into the night's abyss below."



Do you like cute boys who make music in and around the boyband format? I do too! And so do McBusted. They tick every box on the diversity list: hot-cute, geek-cute, chic-cute, rural-cute, scruffy-cute and the box you can tick automatically when you have cute-bingo. There is a whole rainbow of cuteness to appreciate.

Also in this one I whinge about Canberra's abysmal public transport system.

"Nestled comfortably between satire and homage, McBusted is an affectionate caricature of your preferred pop-rock band into which you channelled all your teenage angst. Their lyrics are graffitied through your notebooks. Their pictures are collaged on your bedroom walls. Their influence is engraved in your heart.

McBusted have weaponised the nostalgia hijack, harking back to fond high-school memories of a carefree, tax-free time. A time before we were consumed by anxiety over the impending nuclear holocaust, when the biggest problem we could face was waiting for swoopy-haired cuties to text back.

Pursuant to my well-documented enjoyment of fun music, this is right up my alley."



Like the auxiliary Founding Father himself, Janelle Monáe is ruthlessly experimental. She flies her musical kite in the science-storm, with results as magnificent as her hat.

The ArchAndroid merges as many genres as there are hours in the day, soldered together with a thunderbolt of inspiration.

"Monáe casts herself as the lead in this sweeping sci-fi epic: an android messiah torn between function and desire. She must obey her programming and free her bionic brethren from their oppressive human overlords, and she must also follow her heart (coolant pump?) and be with the human with whom she has disgracefully and illegally fallen in love."

Click here to read the full article



We haven't heard from Jessie since she got married and had a kid, and many were looking forward to hearing how and if and to what extent motherhood and wifedom have shifted her perspectives. Fear not, dear reader, all questions are answered to complete satisfaction and satiation.

Except for why I thought it was a good idea to mix together about nineteen different figures of speech. Christ. Read on!

"In her third tastefully curated selection of torch songs and ballads there is a glimmer of Whitney Houston, and more than an éclat of Sade. But Jessie carefully circumscribes her palette. Hers is a discography of smooth, glassy textures selected specifically to flatter her supple, soulful vocals; quintessentially English. Percussion crisp and footstep-light, production always slinky-smooth, Jessie floats through a dreamscape entirely of her own. A gentle drape of soft, white linen billows in the breeze while a whisper of mist clings to her shapely ankles. Passing through a sunbeam, a shimmer of gold dances in her halo of hair. She is suspended, weightless in the air. Beneath her, the sky falls through the river."



As a Christmas present to myself, I have acquired some recursive, self-replenishing baked goods. I still have the cake I ate earlier and I can eat it again later if I want. Also the cake is made of jazz.

Anyway, I couldn't decide between these two so have them both: a nice juicy film score, and perpetual motion on cartoon feet. La La Land is a very pretty movie that follows Standard Romance Plot 2a to the letter, while Cuphead is a cool video game about two jolly little crockery buddies who accidentally pledge their souls to Satan.

(<brag>I tweet a new post every week and Kris saw that I wrote about his music and he hearted my tweet and that made me very happy.</brag>)

"It leans heavily into the luxurious strings and strident brass that betoken romance and fancy, stretching from the boisterous to the shy to the delightful. But at points its imagination begins to run dry, repeating a figure or a form too regularly or too exactly. There must be an ebb and flow to these things, and too often the score sticks in neutral. Too often it sits back on line after line of the same length, falling into awkward overreliance on couplets rather than more natural quatrains, all square and blocky and clumsy."

"It’s no coincidence that all of the tunes acquit themselves much better as incidental music, set for jaunty ensembles of vibraphone chirps and plucks of upright bass rather than to lacklustre voice. Do splash out for the mega extra super complete version of the soundtrack. Brief, charming nuggets of tune abound."


"Channelling the wacky surrealism of early animation, Cuphead is as delightful as its own soundtrack of brassy jazzy funtimes, as exaggerated as its colourful cast of caricatures: rubbery-limbed, in constant motion, possessed of an inexhaustible manic energy. The squiggly sax solos, sassy muted trumpets and frenetic pounding percussion are all ribboned together with inky-smooth production."



Lurking within my secret, sinister panopticon, I can see all the statistics and demographics on exactly who visits my blog: their preferred operating system and web browser, whence hails their IP address, and that's about it really.

However, as I mentioned a paragraph or two ago, I regularly tweet my content out into the ether so the whole wide Internet can enjoy my ramblings. And I seem to have aggregated a contingent of bots that snuggle around my digital ankles like a flock of sexy ducklings. So unless I happen to be wildly popular in Poland, a country I have never visited nor indeed have ever thought about in any capacity at all, my stats need a little parsing.

Fortunately, I can cross-reference the figures with my junk inbox, which these days is overflowing with the juices of unbridled lust. Daily, I receive fresh missives from a legion of Ukrainian women desperately clamouring for my luxurious silken locks, my piercing young-adult-novel-protagonist green eyes and my bank account deets.

As far as I can tell, at eighty-four clicks, this article is the one that the most real fleshpeople read this year. So hey thanks!

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am in love. That mousey boy from Portugal has ensorcelled me, with his scruffy mug, his tentative gesticulations and his deep, soulful, melted-chocolatey-brown eyes. He has stolen my heart, along with thousands of others from across Europe and the world, just like he stole his dad’s ratty old blazer. His sweet, lilting ballad is reminiscent of understated torch songs of yesteryear: sentimental, but never saccharine. Senhor Sobral is hotly tipped for a podium finish in tomorrow’s grand final, and I can only hope that will mean more reaction shots of him and his sister being utter dorks in the green room. Salvador — more like Salvadorable, am I right?

I’ll skip the contextualising. You know what Eurovision is. You know what’s at stake. Without further ado, I’ll get straight into writing nice things about other acts I like."

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There's a lot of good stuff to check out there before we start on the great stuff. Tune in again soon for my top ten!

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All album art credited in its respective article