In 2017, for the first time as an adult, I suddenly lost two close friends (one to a heart attack, the other, cancer.) “Try Harder” by Mavis Staples offered some solace. Repeatedly wailing “Don’t do me no good to pretend / I’m as good as I can be,” over a primal, guttural guitar riff, Staples’ (then 78!) catharsis inspired me to keep moving forward in the midst of personal loss (and it must be said, national unrest.) So did Iron & Wine’s slow-building “Call It Dreaming”, The War on Drugs’ shimmering, better-with-every-year “Pain” and Alison Moyet’s declarative late anthem “The Rarest Birds”.
For the first time, I’ve gone up to forty tracks because I just couldn’t leave anything out: not the topical, propulsive anthem from the ever-unpredictable Canadian All-Star indie collective Broken Social Scene (with Metric’s Emily Haines on vocals), Alvvays crafting their own kind of lithe post-punk, Tori Amos proving as durable as ever with a seven-minute walk into the deep dark forest, a gem from Slowdive’s surprisingly durable self-titled reunion album or a song from another British group’s own reunion album, The Clientele’s Music For The Age Of Miracles. I had never knowingly listened to the latter until “Lunar Days” once popped up on shuffle on Spotify; I immediately fell for it and now count them among my favorite bands.
As for Jens Lekman (from whom the world is still waiting for a real follow-up album): only he would ever write a song about a man at a bar showing off a 3-D model of a tumor surgically removed from his back to his friend and a waitress or render it both so jubilant and melancholy, inserting almost ridiculously bubbly “doo-doo-doo’s” within a blue-eyed funk/disco arrangement. And there’s something in the way he sings the lyric I’ve co-opted for this playlist’s title that nearly destroys me every time I hear it.
2017: It’s Been A Long, Hard Year
- Iron & Wine, “Call It Dreaming”
- The National, “The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness”
- Laura Marling, “Soothing”
- The Clientele, “Lunar Days”
- Grizzly Bear, “Losing All Sense”
- Lindsey Buckingham & Christine McVie, “Sleeping Around The Corner”
- Perfume Genius, “Wreath”
- The War On Drugs, “Pain”
- Jessie Ware, “Your Domino”
- Sylvan Esso, “Die Young”
- Waxahatchee, “Never Been Wrong”
- Ted Leo, “Used To Believe”
- Charlotte Gainsbourg, “Deadly Valentine”
- Carly Rae Jepsen, “Cut To The Feeling”
- Tennis, “My Emotions Are Blinding”
- Goldfrapp, “Tigerman”
- Mavis Staples, “Try Harder”
- Aimee Mann, “Patient Zero”
- Lana Del Rey, “Love”
- Saint Etienne, “Magpie Eyes”
- Alvvays, “Plimsoll Punks”
- St. Vincent, “MASSeduction”
- The xx, “Replica”
- Slowdive, “Sugar For The Pill”
- Stars, “We Called It Love”
- Spoon, “Tear It Down”
- Tori Amos, “Reindeer King”
- Sufjan Stevens, “Mystery Of Love”
- Joe Goddard feat. SLO, “Music Is The Answer”
- Lorde, “Perfect Places”
- Sparks, “Edith Piaf (Said It Better Than Me)”
- The Mountain Goats, “Rain In Soho”
- Chromatics, “Shadow”
- Nicole Atkins, “If I Could”
- Alison Moyet, “The Rarest Birds”
- Cigarettes After Sex, “Apocalypse”
- Jens Lekman, “Evening Prayer”
- Haim, “Little Of Your Love”
- Broken Social Scene, “Protest Song”
- Destroyer, “Le Regle du Jeu”
Haunted Jukebox 