NPR Music's Essential Songs, Albums, Performances And Videos Of 2017 (So Far)
Is music an escape from the world or the key to it? Over and over, when we began considering the best music of the first half of 2017, politics seemed to intrude, whether in moments that echoed headlines or ones that spoke individual truths too often drowned out by that other, noisier machine. Maybe that's the case every time the calendar turns over. Probably not.
Rather than attempt to come to a consensus about the best albums or songs from the first six months of the year, we opted to select music that was meaningful to us as individuals, music that washed away all the background noise, songs and albums and performances that made sense to us, whether or not they made sense of the world. Moments like that are blessings, not to be taken for granted. Here are nearly four dozen blessings selected by NPR Music staff and our partners from around the public radio system. Let's count them.
Charly Bliss, Guppy
Like many people I know, this year's deluge of real world news has conjured an ever-present anxiety simmering just below the skin. So when I need a musical reprieve and a head-clearing pick-me-up, few artists are as satisfying as Charly Bliss. A debut with sunny melodies and blistering guitar riffs that would make Weezer proud, Guppy is a taut, 10-song thrill ride. But there's more to its charm than meets the eye: Embedded in Spencer Fox's powerful hooks and Eva Hendricks' bubbly voice is a wounded vulnerability and blunt honesty that imbues these songs with heartfelt meaning. That's especially true of the throttling break-up anthem "Glitter," in which Hendricks unfurls rapid-fire one-liners that take aim at anyone who's mistreated her while owning up to her self-absorbed behavior. "Am I the best? Or just the first person to say yes?" she sings — one of the year's best knife-twisting kiss-offs — with equal parts wide-eyed, adolescent wonder, introspective regret and pissed-off sneer. It's this sweet and sour combo that makes Guppy one of those immediately mood-altering albums that's guaranteed to enliven even your most bummer-filled days. --Mike Katzif
Wayne Shorter at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center
Wayne Shorter, the illustrious saxophonist and composer, has led his current quartet for the better part of two decades. I've seen the group — a magically cohesive unit with Danilo Pérez on piano, John Patitucci on bass and Brian Blade on drums — eight or nine times over the years, and I've never witnessed a more transcendent or turbocharged performance than this one. Circumstances may have played a role in that remarkable outcome. Shorter had returned at long last to Newark, his old stomping grounds, for a four-day festival in his honor via NJPAC's TD Jazz Series; the quartet played the second half of a concert that began with Shorter in improvised duologue with the keyboardist Herbie Hancock. There was also the thrill of a new challenge: Shorter had composed a dynamic, suitelike piece, "Scout," which the band was performing in public for the first time. But the most important factor was simply the hyper-alert, insatiably curious instinct of the man himself, who at 83 is not only an undiminished force on his horn but seemingly still intent on pushing against every conceivable boundary. --Nate Chinen, WBGO
Perfume Genius at Exit/In
The mythical figure of the rock star was sacrificed on the altar of Generation X's pessimism long ago. It's been 26 years since Kurt Cobain ignited the pyre with Nevermind, nearly fifteen since Elliott Smith's death choked its last ash. Yet this year, another Pacific Northwesterner threw a match. No Shape, the fourth album by Mike Hadreas as Perfume Genius, explodes the shame-haunted confines of his previous work, reasserting the power of audacious desire and transformative expressiveness. It's a personal triumph and a challenge to both the misogyny and homophobia that rock performance has often masked, as well as the sexually neutered solution that reformists like Nirvana offered.
Hadreas walks through the flame and emerges incombustible, the Khaleesi the rock world needs, and he's been proving it on tour all year. In May, at Nashville's Exit/In, Hadreas wore a corseted gown with Bowie pinstripes and a Castro clone's muscle tank. As the four-piece band built a roar, he contorted his limbs in rhythm with the music's crackle. The set peaked again and again. Then, at the encore, Hadreas sat alone at his keyboard to sing "Alan," his love song to longtime companion and collaborator Alan Wyffels. "Though I'd hide, maybe leave something secret behind," he murmured, dwelling on the diminished expectations of his anti-rock star past. But then he put his doubts to rest, and let his falsetto loose to fill the room."I'm here, how weird!" he sang. The affirmation went out to both Wyffels and the rapt audience before him. Wyffels emerged and sat next to Hadreas to play an older song, "Learning"; the two men chased each other's fingers on the keyboard, Hadreas bottoming Wyffels's arpeggiated runs. It was a perfect moment: an expression of love and security that could take the men offering it to each other somewhere new every
