As long as Colin is writing about Jeff Rosenstock, I should probably say something about his Antarctigo Vespucci bandmate, Chris Farren, who also released a solo album this year.

Can’t Die is Chris Farren’s solo debut, but you might also know him from the band Fake Problems or his eclectic Christmas album Like a Gift from God or Whatever. Between all those projects, you’ll get a good sense of Farren’s poppy, introspective, self-deprecating sensibilities, which are fully represented on Can’t Die.

Farren definitely is relatable, as he sings about wanting to be liked, guilt, the realization that the world doesn’t revolve around him and that one day he will die (but it will be OK). I’m with you, brother.

Generally, the music is anthemic, driving, and upbeat. There’s lots of guitars and pianos, but Farren brings the synths when they’re called for too. It’s the best kind of feel-good music, and this year needed a lot of that. If you can’t get worked up over “Say U Want Me,” go to the hospital. You need help.

Favorite Tracks: “Say U Want Me,” “Still Beating,” “Everything’s My Fault”

I would say Jeff Rosenstock’s still-relatively-new album is a pretty good indicator that 2016 was a legitimately great year for music. Because upon first hearing it, I was actively resisting its greatness. Like, we’re almost at end-of-the-year top ten times hear at Mildly Pleased, and my top ten feels so complete at this point and I’m getting sick of rearranging it over and over again. And that’s not even to mention the fact that there are still albums that have been placing high on a lot of music publication’s top tens that I haven’t spent enough time with (mainly the two by those Knowles sisters), and there’s even that Childish Gambino record that I haven’t gotten around to listening to. So an album that hits my pleasure centers in such a potent way as WORRY. feels almost like an inconvenience than another welcome addition to a year chocked full of great music.

But at the end of the day, I just can’t deny the pleasurable potency of this rockin’ opus. Rosenstock is an artist that I had zero prior knowledge of, but apparently he’s been a force on the ska/punk scene in New York for many years, though considering ska’s never really been my bag, I guess it makes sense that I’d never heard of him. But what’s most impressive is just the wide variety of different rock sounds Rosenstock takes on here – from the album’s opening notes, he sounds like an angstier Brian Wilson, which eventually transitions into a fist-pumping, anxiety-ridden sing-a-long like “Wave Goodbye To Me”. Then towards the end of the album, we get to this series of songs were Rosenstock embraces his ska roots and even delves into a little bit of hardcore as well.  The point is, it’s a big mish-mash of sounds that probably shouldn’t work, but totally does due to Rosenstock’s steady hand as a songwriter, and in the process serves as another great antidote to fighting the oncoming dread of 2017.

Favorite Tracks: “Festival Song”, “Wave Goodnight To Me”, “I Did Something Weird Last Night”

Look, I don’t wanna get hung up on the most depressing event of 2016, and quite possibly the last decade. But in the days following the events that transpired on 11/9, I, like a lot of people I’m sure, had trouble finding a whole lot of joy in anything. Even music, the one anti-depressant that’s always been there for me, and has always been the thing that I’ve turned to when trying to make sense of life’s more unfathomable circumstances, wasn’t doing much for me. As I said on our latest Rokk Talk, really the only song I was in the mood to listen to was Stevie Wonder’s “Evil”, while pondering the unanswerable question, “evil, how have you engulfed so many hearts?”

So I can only think it was by some divine miracle that A Tribe Called Quest (of all groups) released the perfect antidote to these troubling times just two days later, and finally gave me a reason to believe in not just music’s power to heal, but also its power to call to arms.  This is an album with timely sloganeering like “we got to get it together forever” and “All you black folks you must go./All you mexicans you must go./Muslims and gays. Boy, we hate your ways…”  And that’s just on the first two tracks!  What we get from there is a snapshot of black America in 2016 in the way that a lot of other great hip-hop/R&B albums have been this year, but also much more.  With Tribe, you get a whole wide range of sounds and subject matter, while there’s this wonderful over-arching message of unity in the face of so much divisiveness.

Which, as I hinted at, is a little surprising coming from A Tribe Called Quest. Maybe that’s because I’d never dug too deep into their discography, and even though I’ve liked what few albums I’ve heard of theirs, I always kind of regarded them as “that rap group from the ’90s that white people really like”.  But again, maybe that comes from their whole unity vibe, since this is clearly music entrenched in black issues, but also sees the bigger picture enough that it can appeal to anybody. I don’t know, I don’t feel like I’m enough of an authority on A Tribe Called Quest to talk about their importance or influence. I mean, I haven’t even seen that Michael Rappaport documentary. But what I can say is, I’m not sure I’ve heard many artists sound as vital 25+ years into their recording careers as Tribe do here, and considering this year’s passing of Phife Dawg has rendered We Got It From Here… the group’s swan song, it’s a hell of a note to go out on.

Favorite Tracks: “Solid Wall Of Sound”, “Dis Generation”, “Ego”

This is something I’ve been over before, but 2016 in music was in many ways the year of rock star mortality. Because 2016 took more than its share of beloved 20th century musicians from us, and we’re still being reminded of it as Leonard Cohen and David Bowie’s final albums have very prominently been making the rounds on a lot of “best of the year” lists. These albums were both clearly the works of dying men who knew they didn’t have much time left on this Earth, and you could certainly lump Iggy Pop’s Post Pop Depression in with those albums, since it also has a decidedly dark and murky sound to it. While I believe Iggy stated that there’s a pretty good chance that he might not have the will to record another album again.

But at the same time, Iggy Pop is clearly alive and kicking. Sure, he’s settled almost exclusively into leaning on that low key croon that he’s often whipped out, and from what I can tell was keeping his shirt on a little more often in the wake of this album’s release. Still, this is an album that does it’s fair share of rocking, with a backing band headed by Queens Of The Stone Age’s Josh Homme, as the album fittingly has some of that lurching sludge rock that Homme was exploring on the last QOTSA album.  And because Homme’s stamp is felt all over Post Pop Depression, it’s a little hard for this feel like a final statement from Iggy rather than a really good collaboration between two artists that have never ever given a fuck.

I’ve had a hard time deciding if this not giving a fuck had possibly kept this album from being something truly special, or if it’s completely appropriate.  Because from what I’ve read, the album was recorded in just a couple weeks at Homme’s own recording studio, and even though the production is equally lavish and brooding in a pretty awesome way, I don’t know if all the songs are quite there.  Some of them feel a bit like sketches that were fortunately backed up by some really great musicians, while Iggy’s charisma is usually more than enough to make each song at the very least interesting.

But a lot of the time, that’s enough I guess, even if none of the songs come close to matching the sublimely muddy street poetics of “Gardenia”.  Though it’s also hard not to love the note this album goes out on with the song “Paraguay”, which features a spoken tirade by Iggy, basically railing against complacent millenials dickin’ around on their god damn laptops. And instead of quoting said tirade, I’ll just say go listen to it. It’s a weirdly satisfying testament to the man who invented punk’s ability to stay pissed off after all these years, and a reminder that maybe we still have plenty to learn from his inability to just sit there and eat shit from the powers that be.

Favorite Tracks: “Gardenia”, “German Days”, “Paraguay”