Best Year In Music

It's not a Top Ten, but I think it belongs here.

​The discussion came up in the group chat the other day on what the best year in music for the five people (I mean, I guess we’re counting Sam? Whatever) in our friend group. This was meant to be in our lifetime, but also a year which we could really remember. So, when it boils down to it, like the last 15 years of our lives. It's totally subjective, so don't @me. 

Ed started off with a strong case for 2008:

1. Helplessness Blues (Fleet Foxes)
2. Tha Carter III (Lil Wayne)
3. 808’s and Heartbreak (Kanye West)
4. Narrow Stairs (Death Cab for Cutie)
5. Vampire Weekend (Vampire Weekend)
6. Attack and Release (The Black Keys)
7. Sleep Through the Static (Jack Johnson)
8. Fearless (Taylor Swift)
9. For Emma, Forever Ago (Bon Iver)
10. Oracular Spectacular (MGMT - Okay, technically not. Released December 14, 2007. Close enough)
11. Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! (Nick Cave & The Bed Seeds)
12. Viva La Vida (Coldplay)
13. Wagonwheel Blues (The War On Drugs)

But then he realized that Helplessness Blues came out in 2011, not 2008. What an idiot! He then redeemed himself by pointing out that Fleet Foxes’s self titled album came out in 2008. (I’m not really sure on the possessive of the band Fleet Foxes. If there really were multiple Fleet Foxes then it would be Fleet Foxes’ but in this case it’s a band and the band’s self titled album. One of the biggest misused in English grammar is the ’s, especially when a word already ends in s. I digress.)

To be fair, no one caught this. Zach even said, “I fully agree but cannot for the life of me figure out how helplessness blues was written first.” What a stupid response, no? But then followed it up with a somewhat intelligent insight that the best ranking for the 2008 albums is oddly alphabetical order. That might be true. I have been too lazy to even put them in alphabetical order to even begin to confirm or refute this claim.

Patrick then came off the top rope and pointed out that 2016 was a great. Let’s look at what 2016 brings to the table:
​
Life of Pablo (Kanye West)
Blonde (Frank Ocean)
ANTI (Rihann)
Lemonade (Beyonce)
Coloring Book (Chance the Rapper)
22, A Million (Bon Iver)
A Moon Shaped Pool (Radiohead)
Untitled Unmastered (Kendrick Lamar)
Teens of Denial (Car Seat Headrest)
Malibu (Anderson .Paak)
Light Upon the Lake (Whitney)
I Like it when you sleep for you are so beautiful and so unaware (The 1975)
Starboy (The Weeknd)

I later pointed out that Blink-182’s California also came out in 2016, as well as Sunlit Youth (Local Natives) and Home of the Strange (Young the Giant). Objectively, 2016 is a great year for music.

I was unfortunately working as this went down between 9 and 10 pm (MST) Wednesday night and could not contribute while the discussion was developing. I, however, intuitively was thinking that the year that Modern Vampires of the City came out was also a great year for music all together, but I couldn’t remember if it had come out in 2013 or 2014. Luckily for me, Patrick did the work for me.

People, don’t sleep on 2013 because IT. IS. ELECTRIC.

Yeezus (Kanye West)
Modern Vampires of the City (Vampire Weekend)
Random Access Memories (Daft Punk)
Reflektor (Arcade Fire)
Acid Rap (Chance the Rapper)
Trouble Will Find Me (The National)
Days Are Gone (HAIM)
Doris (Earl Sweatshirt)
Same Trailer Different Park (Kacey Musgraves)
Pure Heroine (Lorde)
AM (Arctic Monkeys)
Night Time, My Time (Sky Ferreira)
Old (Danny Brown)
Overgrown (James Blake)
Long.Live.A$AP (A$AP Rocky)
Melophobia (Cage The Elephant - added by Seth after)
The Bones of What You Believe (Chvrches - added by Seth after)

Like DAMN. What a great year for music. Phenomenal year for music. Now, who’s to say which year was better? This is all subjective anyway. These are what years of music were best for us five friends.

And looking back on these years, not only were they objectively great for music, but in the context of our lives, they meant even more. First, consider 2008. The age ranges of our group of friends in 2008 was 15 to 17 year old during that year. Talk about formative years of really beginning to discover who you are and what you like. This music was incredibly influential on all of us. It was the beginning of a music palate that laid a foundation for the rest of our lives. Yeah, sure, we’ve dropped off on some of these artists as we’ve grown up, but that doesn’t change the fact that they shaped our music interests moving forward.

As I began to think of how old we were in 2008, I realized that these other years were just as significant a time in our lives. In 2013, we were in college, continuing that journey of self-discovery, who you really are, what you like, and even what you stand for. And 2016, we were all in our first couple years post college (me excluded - I was a late bloomer), navigating what it means to be a real adult. These albums were anchors in our lives as we waded through some pretty crazy times in life.

Now, this is all probably just coincidence, but it’s still a pretty cool coincidence that these awesome years in music perfectly lined up with certain, crazy, self-defining times in our lives.
And it made me think about the other great years of music in my life. As I reflected this, I kept thinking about my 2020 In Review. 2020 was a great year; a year in which we will definitely be remembering for the rest of our lives and thank goodness it was filled with great music. So, what’s your best year in music?