Denim on Wax: December 2016

Every year at this time music lovers and fans of any branch of culture get inundated with the barrage of lists. Some people dread this sort of thing, while others crave it. I’m in the latter camp, and I always enjoy sifting through my mind, revisiting music I’ve listened to most of the year, listening even more closely to some music I may not have fully appreciated from the outset but have felt drawn to, etc.

I always hate assigning scores to reviews or pitting one thing I love against another, especially if genre, production, narrative themes or artistic intentions skew from each other or have little to no relativity whatsoever. I also try my hardest to refuse to chime in on what is the best or worst when it comes to these things. (This is why I always designate them as my “favorite” as opposed to “best of”.) My goal is usually to take a few extra moments to appreciate what has stuck out to me personally, what has intoxicated me musically or has engrossed my brain or emotions throughout the year and take note of why I enjoy it so much. Several albums I have enjoyed throughout the year have dominated nearly every poll from every publication, even if I have seemed to have found even more to love in albums that didn’t find much traction elsewhere. I try not to sweat too much about what isn’t on my list and what is on all the others, because we each bring so many unique considerations to any listening experience and we all have varying tastes and sweet spots when it comes down to slipping into the world of a record or stumbling upon an artist new to us.

Simply put, these are the records I’ve turned to time after time throughout this year and plan to revisit as new years keep coming. Many are artists I’ve loved for all of my adult life, some have been in rotation for me even longer than that, while several others were brand new to my ears and make me excited to hear more. Obviously, I can’t listen to any more than what equates to a blip in the sea of music released every year, but I do consciously try to hear as much as one person can as many times as he can to listen with any kind of justice. With that said, I tend to stream as little music as possible and buy as many records as I can with whatever spending money I have from month to month. The vast majority of the albums on this list are records I personally own and putting together a post like this always has an intention of showing even deeper support to the people who have created the music that has kept me company and filled me with varying shades of wonder throughout the year.

I hope you find something to enjoy. Thanks for visiting.

Drive-By Truckers - American Band