Now offering brand assessment services on a scale:
Quite Wonderful
Super Solid
Appropriate
It’s OK
Falls Flat
Hmmmmmmmmm
Not Even Average
Um, We’ll Get Back To You
Maybe As An Album Cover
Your Cousin Do This?
We will tell you it’s tremendous while winking
The albums that pushed me through this year of intensity and loss, of dread and motivation. The music out there in the world is always a sign of our great potential for beauty, harmony, understanding, and hope. For me, these are the albums of 2016, in no particular order:
A Tribe Called Quest, We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your service
Kate Tempest, Let Them Eat Chaos
Radiohead, A Moon Shaped Pool
Beyoncé, Lemonade
Conor Oberst, Ruminations
Thao & The Get Down Stay Down, A Man Alive
David Bowie, Blackstar
Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam, I Had A Dream That You Were Mine
Common, Black America Again
Blood Orange, Freetown Sound
I’ve always known Beyoncé is really something special. But until this year, nothing she’s done has really spoken to me. Then she released “Formation.” And the Earth stood still. Also, special shoutout to that new Beck song “WOW.” Still can’t believe how amazing it is. Finally, I discovered Valerie June this year. Can’t wait for January 27, 2017.
Things I’m really bored of:
Designs w/ pizza in them
The word “awesome” used to describe the kinds of things a particular designer or company makes
Urgent deadlines
Sloppy dev teams
Being asked to talk, meet up, or put together a proposal for someone and never hearing back
Pretty much all TV commercials
Working too much
Things I’m really stoked on:
Community-focused design projects
People running for local office
My go-to dev team
The First Day of Autumn
Launching some projects that have been going on for a VERY long time
Project Runway Season 15
Vince Staples
NOFX playing Omaha in November
These are the ones that left the biggest imprint. The albums that, when I look back on this year, I can feel them shake my being and alter the standard course of my day-to-day trajectory. Without further ado, in no particular order:
Kendrick Lamar, To Pimp A Butterfly
Sufjan Stevens, Carrie & Lowell
Modest Mouse, Strangers to Ourselves
Jamie xx, In Colour
Young Fathers, White Men Are Black Men Too
Father John Misty, I Love You, Honeybear
Purity Ring, another eternity
FKA Twigs, M3LL155X
Doomtree, All Hands
Desaparecidos, Payola
And if I could have 11, I’d include Wolf Alice, My Love Is Cool. But thems the breaks.
Here they are. The most beautiful, most interesting albums that have truly touched my soul and gotten me through a year of great joy, great sadness and much learning. In no particular order:
The War on Drugs, Lost In The Dream
Future Islands, Singles
Jungle, Jungle
TV on the Radio, Seeds
The Rural Alberta Advantage, Mended with Gold
Death From Above 1979, The Physical World
Conor Oberst, Upside Down Mountain
Lykke Li, I Never Learn
Tycho, Awake
Strand of Oaks, Heal
Notable mentions for the best songs not on this list include “Kingdom” by Common, “Black Out Days” by Phantogram and “Close Your Eyes (And Count to Fuck)” by Run The Jewels.
