2016 Media Round-Up: Music!

[sabotabby]

This is much harder than the telly one. While I typically seek out new telly with enthusiasm—we live in the best possible time in history for TV—I am way less stoked about seeking out new music. Most of what I like was written 30+ years ago, and half the time when I hear a new group, it turns out they broke up in the 90s and aren't new at all. I also have a hard time writing about music and putting into words why I like one thing versus another thing.

In 2016, the big releases were Lemonade and Blackstar; the former I still haven't listened to in its entirety but I spent a lot of time defending its musical value on Facebook; the latter's musical genius is self-explanatory. Eh. In reality, only four albums really mattered to me in terms of emotional bonding, which is four more than usually happens these days:

Retribution, Tanya Tagaq. This has my vote for Album of the Year. It is flawless, searing, musically innovative, politically challenging, just mindblowing. I can listen to it over and over again and pick out something new happening. She gets played on CBC a lot but she should be played at goth clubs. Tanya Tagaq is the one artist that I can point to in order to prove that I can still become obsessive about a new artist and I don't just listen to stuff that sounds like the music I liked in my teens. (Though my comparison with Einstürzende Neubauten still stands—hearing Tagaq for the first time evoked similar feelings of "I can't believe music can sound like this.")

We Are the Halluci Nation, A Tribe Called Red. This would be my choice for Album of the Year if Tanya Tagaq had not also released an album this year. It's much more in-your-face and talky than their older stuff, to great effect, controversy about Joseph Boyden aside. It's also really layered and danceable. At the party I was at on the 25th we just listened to it on repeat, as if we couldn't believe just how cool it was.

You Want It Darker, Leonard Cohen. One of my all-time favourite artists releases a perfect album about how he's ready to die, then dies like two weeks later, and I can just now listen to the whole thing through without crying a lot. This is some of Cohen's best work and a fitting way to exit the world.

The Skeleton Tree, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. I mean obviously this was going to be here. A heartwrenching, soul-tearing meditation of loss in the wake of his son's death. I still can't listen to the whole thing without crying.

Like every year since I started hanging out with 50_ft_queenie, this has been a great year for concerts. Some of the shows I've seen this year: Buffy Sainte-Marie, Savages, Tanya Tagaq (twice!), Legendary Pink Dots, Levellers, Billy Bragg, and Peter Hook & the Light. Managed to take in quite a bit of opera, though sadly not as much in previous years.

I also made an effort to start going to dance nights again, though this is hard because I am always battling the forces of inertia. But I managed to make it to a few goth nights and country nights, because I contain multitudes.

BONUS! A few days ago I found out about the existence of the Mapuche (indigenous Chilean) heavy metal scene. So that's what I'm checking out as I'm baking a cake:

Comments

[curgoth]

Your 2016 list and mine have a lot in common. I keep comparing Tagaq to Diamanda Galas; both use their voices like weapons.

I haven't got Skeleton Tree yet; I feel like I need to be better braced, emotionally, before sitting down with it.

[sabotabby]

Diamanda Galas is also an apt comparison.

Skeleton Tree is a difficult album. That feels like an understatement, but it really is.