And some of the strongest statements this year came from people of color-not just stars like Kendrick Lamar and Killer Mike, but newcomers like British crooner Sampha and Jasmyn Burke of Weaves-with frankness and intimacy to expose the strains being felt by the people in their communities. It’s a list dominated by an array of female voices, from the agit-punk of Sheer Mag and Melkbelly to the R&B visions of SZA and the late Sharon Jones, to the wonderfully unclassifiable sounds of Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Nai Palm. After all the votes were counted, we took a step back and realized how our listening habits had dovetailed with the social conversations happening around us. That was certainly reflected in the ballots our music writers submitted for this year’s list of the 50 Best Albums. Even all the chatter and buzz that accompanied big-ticket releases like Taylor Swift’s Reputation and Jay Z’s 4:44 sparked and disappeared with the intensity of a meteor burning up in the atmosphere. So much has been thrown at us over the past 12 months that it’s harder than ever for music fans to point to one artist or album that stands above all others or dominates the discourse.
The effects of that are bleeding into every aspect of our lives, including our interest in pop culture. By anyone’s account, 2017 has been an exhausting year-a stretch of time that, thanks to unending upheaval and the barrage of often bad news, has felt about three times as long as normal.
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