My Favorite 25 Songs of 2017
And a smattering of thoughts on the current state of hip hop and how we got here
I was reviewing my list of favorite 25 songs from last year, and in my notes had a bit about how “2016 was a really rough year for a lot of things, but great for music.” 2016 looks pretty good, comparatively, a year removed. Would be curious to see a longitudinal study of how safe/happy/secure people felt in the US a year ago and what kind of hit that probably took this past year.
Despite the state of the world in 2017, music didn’t seem to directly reflect a lot of what was happening on a macro level in the world. It could be that there’s always some delay between popular sentiment/world events and their reflection in music, but I think it’s more likely that music served as an escape for people, even more than usual (at least popular music).
Specifically, the music I listen to most was in kind of an interesting state of transition — a year ago, the notion of ‘Bad & Boujee’ or ‘Bodak Yellow’ achieving such widespread mainstream appeal, to the point of each reaching number 1, was almost unimaginable. Also, while the last several years have seen an influx of SoundCloud rappers (for one of the best reads on this, check out A-Trak’s prescient article from 3 years ago), the dam between SoundCloud and mainstream blew open with Lil Uzi Vert, Kodak Black, 21 Savage, Lil Pump, and tons more all breaking through.
This year felt like the year we got the confluence of a couple things:
The barriers to entry for recording and making music are at all-time lows for hip hop — both producing songs (beat-making and recording) and distribution (digital, free/cheap, and instant) are both orders of magnitude easier than they’ve ever been.
But this change has been brewing for awhile now, so why such a stark change this year? I’ll caveat that I have no direct evidence for this (this being where the argument ends), but if you look at the landscape of hip-hop a little over a decade ago, say 2005–7, there was this weird period of post-50 Cent, Jay-Z being sort of out of retirement but Kingdom Come being a dud, and a couple people starting to get going (T.I., Jeezy), but the genre felt like it was lagging (outside of Kanye).
Then, Lil Wayne started recording a hundred tracks a year, releasing a barrage of incredible mixtapes, and creating tracks that alternatively oscillated from stacking punchlines of wordplay and triple entendres to lean-induced, drug-haze self reflections, and everything in between.
The free-associative style Weezy created was completely different than anything that had hit mainstream, and for the wave of rappers now breaking through, a lot of these guys are young enough that their first exposure to music would’ve been during this era when Lil Wayne was everywhere, and we’re starting to see a lot of that influence in music from this latest generation.
Anyway, without further speculation or ado, here are my favorite songs from the last year:
listen to the spotify playlist
25. motley crew — they.
24. biking ft jay-z & tyler the creator — frank ocean
23. draco — future
22. sky walker ft travis scott — miguel
21. quand on arrive en ville — fhin
20. pull up and wreck — big sean
19. lies, damn lies, and instagram — mike skinner (the streets)
18. t-shirt — migos
17. drowning ft kodak black — a boogie wit da hoodie
16. loyalty. — kendrick lamar ft rihanna
15. stay — alessia cara & zedd
14. big fish — vince staples
13. saturday night — 2 chainz
12. xo tour llif3 — lil uzi vert
11. bodak yellow — cardi b
10. bad & boujee ft lil uzi vert — migos
9. doves in the wild ft kendrick lamaer — sza
8. blood on me — sampha
7. 745 — vince staples
6. intentions ft twin shadow — rainsford
5. caught their eyes ft frank ocean — jay-z
4. liability — lorde
3. don’t shoot — dave east
2. DNA. — kendrick lamar
1. chanel — frank ocean
Let me know what I missed, and hope you found something here that you like. Hit that clap button if you’re into it, and have an awesome 2018.
