Depending on who you choose to listen to, 2016 was the worst year on record, or at least a mediocre one in the pantheons of shitty years. Personally, there were a lot of great moments punctuated by some pretty average ones. But moments are just that, and when you think the bottom of the barrel has been scraped, a fresh coat of gloss appears and saves the day. Or year.

It didn’t start well when almost 12 months ago to this day, one of the biggest influencers on music in the last half-century left the planet, and possibly returned to whatever celestial orb he was visiting from. Bowie‘s legacy is more than music, it’s cultural, mystical and magical. Blackstar is perhaps his most compelling work since Scary Monsters back in 1980, and was the perfect parting gift from a man who never let anyone, including himself, pigeonhole his music or his persona til the very end. Or perhaps the beginning.

Hear It: Spotify | Apple Music

Many other icons left us too, but none had the same impact on me, or the wider population it seemed. Leonard Cohen was the only one of the departed who could walk in the same halls as the Thin White Duke, and the melancholic bleakness that permeated his words and music was always made for his inevitable demise and now seems to breathe new life into them. His parting gift You Want It Darker is a death notice that you’ll want to re-read again and again.

Hear It: Spotify | Apple Music

Death can also inspire, and the ultimate tragedy of losing a child produced an opus of incredibly moving––even uplifting––songs from the broken heart of Nick Cave. At times it feels almost as if one shouldn’t be listening, like being invited to a funeral where you don’t know the person who died, but then when the wake comes you start to mingle with the inner throng and gain a privileged insight into the grief process as told by the person closest to the departed. Skeleton Tree and the accompanying film One More Time With Feeling perpetuated the myth of Cave as the lord of darkness, but the light he casts just beyond the abyss will always be the overriding force. The upcoming Bad Seeds shows fill me with equal parts joy and dread as to what may transpire when that emotion is laid bare right in front of our eyes, ears, hearts and souls.

Hear It: Spotify

The incomparable PJ Harvey showed us once again the gulf that lies between a musician, an artist and a mere singer. The process which she undertook to produce The Hope Six Demolition Project went beyond merely writing songs, from immersing herself in some of the world’s most dangerous locations, logging the results first as stories and then opening the recording process up to the public resulting in an incredibly engaging and thought-provoking album. With her NZ shows coming a week after former beau Cave’s, it could be the perfect antidote to any lingering solemnity.

Hear It: Spotify

Radiohead must surely be the singlemost talented and chameleonic band of the last twenty-odd years, and like Harvey and Cave never rest on their substantial laurels. A Moon Shaped Pool was immediate in its impact, unmistakably Radiohead yet continuing to push their own boundaries along with those of the faithful and also the uninitiated. May we witness another tour soon.

Hear It: Spotify | Apple Music

Sometimes comebacks can be triumphant and embraced, or a really bad idea. Pixies have been seemingly doing the comeback for a good few years now, and 2016 saw them blur the lines between a tribute to themselves and a properly functioning band with a newfound enthusiasm for making new music. Head Carrier kind of got lost in the malaisse of the aforementioned albums as far as I’m concerned, which is not to say it isn’t a really good album. It is. maybe not great, but the same could be said for the last two albums before they called it quits back in the mid 90s. A good Pixies album is still better than most great albums by 99% of artists doing the rounds today. There are more than a few morsels of the classic Pixies sound from Surfer Rosa and Doolittle, and if they’d released this on the back of their (previously) final record Trompe le Monde it would no doubt have been hailed as a tour de force and a return to top form. I need to give it a further thrashing on the decks ahead of their March tour, which will still stand up to scrutiny on the back of a catalogue of brilliance from their halcyon days.

Hear It:  Spotify

While those artists will always sit at the very top of my personal musical tree, there has been a slew of fantastic music from many others in ’16 that are worthy of inclusion. Soft Hair‘s self-titled debut floats along on a wave of mutilated guitar and reconstructed pop melodies.

Any collaboration with Josh Homme is going to reap rewards, and Iggy Pop certainly did with Post Pop Depression, which funnily enough sounds just like you’d expect Iggy and QOTSA mashed together… brilliant. Hear It: Spotify

Angel Olsen may not have been on the radar but her star is ascending on the back of a collection of songs that reach inside and draw out a bunch of emotions that remind of the likes of Joni Mitchell and more contemporary female singer songwriters with her own unique talents on My Woman. Hear It: Spotify | Apple Music

Wilco never disappoint, and Schmilco continues the long lineage of the kind of ‘alt-country-rock-pop’ that shouldn’t really be labelled at all. Hear It: Spotify  |  Apple Music

The man of many instruments, projects and line-ups Ty Segall put together probably his strongest entourage with The Muggers and the resulting album Emotional Mugger is a thumping and fuzzing acid trip punctuated by Ty’s trademark weirdness and goes where most fear to tread, lyrically and sonically. Hear It: Apple Music

2016 wasn’t a total write-off as far as music goes, and it’s one thing that we can always rely on to mostly deliver the goods, among the wider swamp of rubbish that is spewed from the corporate whores who run the industry. There is always quality to be found if you seek it, and 2017 might just have a tough task ahead to match its predecessor.

Tell us what your favourite albums or musical moments in 2016 were in the comments section below.