We begin with the lead single from Leonard Cohen’s final album (to be released in his lifetime) which at the time summed up this cursed year aptly; we conclude with a meditative Velvet Underground cover that ended up Brian Eno’s first solo vocal track in over a decade. The year itself started with David Bowie’s death, infamously days after releasing his final album, represented here by “Lazarus” where he ponders his mortality with a directness almost revelatory coming from such an icon; many more high-profile deaths followed, from Prince to George Michael to Sharon Jones (here covering Greg Allman for a car commercial, a definitive version of that song) and Cohen himself.
Compared to 2015, this wasn’t as great a year for albums (except for this one) or singles. While long-awaited records like Tegan and Sara’s Love You to Death or Junior Boys’ Big Black Coat felt a little underwhelming in lieu of what came before from each duo, I played the heck out of both “U-Turn” and “Baby Give Up On It”. The Bastille single ended up as much of an earworm as “Pompeii” was a few years before. The Florence + The Machine song, a soundtrack cut, certainly didn’t feel like filler or a leftover from How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful. Underworld returned with an album that often resembled little of they’d done before while still fully sounding like themselves.
Elsewhere, veterans from Ben Watt and Wilco to Pet Shop Boys and Andrew Bird caught my ear alongside newer acts such as Mitski, Michael Kiwanuka (one of the few singer-songwriters who meshes well with producer Danger Mouse) and The 1975, the latter epitomizing an audaciousness sorely missing in a lot of modern pop (even if it doesn’t always yield positive results.) I’ve chosen to highlight the last song on cult British brother duo Field Music’s fine album Commontime. A lullaby of sorts, rich with ambiguity (it could conceivably be sung to either a child or a romantic partner), it promotes empathy and generosity, the act of putting others first while still reveling in the joy it brings to you both–a feeling its melody practically radiates. Eight years on (and on the heels of another likely contentious election), I’d rather remember 2016 for signs of life than an excess of death.
2016: I Would Rather Stay Awake
- Leonard Cohen, “You Want it Darker”
- Santigold, “Rendezvous Girl”
- Michael Kiwanuka, “One More Night”
- The Radio Dept., “Committed to the Cause”
- The Avalanches, “If I Were a Folkstar”
- Martha Wainwright, “Traveller”
- Ben Watt, “Between Two Fires”
- Whitney, “No Matter Where We Go”
- Parquet Courts, “Berlin Got Blurry”
- Bastille, “Good Grief”
- KT Tunstall, “Turned a Light On”
- Corinne Bailey Rae, “Stop Where You Are”
- Pet Shop Boys, “Burn”
- The Divine Comedy, “To The Rescue”
- John K. Samson, “Prayer For Ruby Elm”
- Florence + The Machine, “Wish That You Were Here”
- The 1975, “Somebody Else”
- Wilco, “Someone to Lose”
- Andrew Bird, “Truth Lies Low”
- Roisin Murphy, “Ten Miles High”
- Junior Boys, “Baby Give Up On It”
- Eleanor Friedberger, “Because I Asked You”
- case/lang/veirs, “Best Kept Secret”
- David Bowie, “Lazarus”
- Tegan and Sara, “U-Turn”
- PJ Harvey, “The Wheel”
- Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, “Midnight Rider”
- Field Music, “Stay Awake”
- Lake Street Drive, “Call Off Your Dogs”
- Mitski, “Fireworks”
- Bat For Lashes, “Joe’s Dream”
- Underworld, “I Exhale”
- Brian Eno, “Fickle Sun (iii) I’m Set Free”
Haunted Jukebox 