Best music of 2017...so far

It's hard to believe 2017 is halfway over already.

In many ways, the first six months of the year have flown by, but in others, it feels like ages have passed since Jan. 1. So far 2017 has been an unsettling and unsettled year, and that has led to strange new reality, where terrorists target pop music audiences, and leaders snipe at each other over social media instead of working together.

Although most of the albums released in the first half of the year were written before the 2016 election and its successive uproar, the best music of the year manages to reflect the anxiety and search for hope so many are experiencing.

And there's been a lot of great music released in the past six months. So much that you'd be forgiven for missing some of the year's best just trying to keep up with it all. But I'm here to help with my list of 10 best albums you might've missed in the first half of the year. 

Best albums of the year so far (arranged alphabetically)

1. Prisoner – Ryan Adams 

2. Number 1 Angel – Charli XCX 

3. City of No Reply – Amber Coffman 

4. Tourist in This Town – Allison Crutchfield

5. More Life – Drake 

6. Pure Comedy – Father John Misty 

7. We All Want the Same Things – Craig Finn 

8. Crack-Up – Fleet Foxes 

9. The Far Field – Future Islands 

10. The Nashville Sound – Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit 

11. Near to the Wild Heart of Life – Japandroids 

12. DAMN. – Kendrick Lamar 

13. Melodrama – Lorde 

14. The Search for Everything – John Mayer 

15. After the Party – The Menzingers 

16. City Music – Kevin Morby

17. Goths – The Mountain Goats 

18. One Foot Out – Nines

19. No Shape – Perfume Genius 

20. Process – Sampha 

21. Big Fish Theory – Vince Staples 

22. From A Room: Volume 1 – Chris Stapleton 

23. Ctrl - SZA

24. Drunk - Thundercat

25. The World's Best America Band – White Reaper 

Album of the Week: Ryan Adams 1989

This week is an obscenely good one for new music, and truthfully Ryan Adams' cover of Taylor Swift's 1989 isn't the best new album. Right now, I'd say it's a fistfight between Chvrches' killer-good sophomore effort and Drake and Future's joint mixtape, What A Time to Be Alive. But it might be the most interesting.

Despite all the excellent releases this week (see the recommended list at the end of this piece), Adams has received the most ink, and there have been some truly, truly wonderful things written about it. The debate surrounding Adam's covers revolve around how seriously many (particularly in critical circles) are taking Swift's work, now that a man is "legitimizing" it, and there are certainly valid points you can read on both sides of the topic.

For myself, the clearest answer comes from the artists themselves.

Swift has been vocal in her support since the project was first announced, and rightfully sees that Adams isn't trying to improve her work. He's high-fiving her on creating something he connected to on a deep and personal level.

And then there's Adams. In some wonderful and thoughtful interviews he's given about 1989, Adams highlights his affection for Swfit's work. He rightfully points out how bulletproof Swift's songwriting is – not just on her latest release, but everything since she hit the scene – and he's absolutely right. She puts hooks into her hooks, and writes with a startlingly relatable clarity. Just check out the myriad of demographics her fans come from – you're as likely to hear "Shake It Off" blaring from high school students' car as a police officer's.

To be clear, Adams' version of the album isn't better than Swift's in any way. The best songs on it ("Style," "I Wish You Would," and "Clear") only match the originals – none supersede.

The most interesting versions are the stripped-down ones – versions you might consider the most quintessentially "Ryan Adams." All of a sudden, "How You Get The Girl" is a torch song for the broken-hearted, and "Out Of The Woods" sounds like it was recorded at the Café Wha in New York.

Adams pulls in his influences in a myriad of ways. Take the Springsteen touches he gives to opener "Welcome To New York," or the way he turns "This Love" into a tears-in-your-beers piano ballad, a la Tom Waits.  

If you can listen to Adams' 1989, and understand that he's paying homage to a top-tier talent, then I think you're approaching the project the way both he and Swift wanted. He's not throwing rocks at the throne – he's kneeling before it.

1989 is out on Pax-Am.

Also recommended this week:

Angel Haze's ferocious return to form, Back to the Woods.

Big Grams – the collaborative project between Outkast's Big Boi and Phantogram.

Chvrches' stellar, glittering Every Open Eye.

Dead Weather's Dodge and Burn – yet another project from Jack White.

Disclosure's electro-soul sophomore album, Caracal.

Drake & Future's off the cuff, What A Time to Be Alive.

Fetty Wap's long-awaited, self-titled debut.

Patty Griffin's fiery folk album, Servant of Love.  

Silversun Pickups' reliably enjoyable Better Nature.
The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die's startlingly lovely, Harmlessness.