The best albums of 2017

1. Jarvis Cocker & Chilly Gonzales - Room 29
Jarvis Cocker and Chilly Gonzales are two individuals who seem to be perfectly suited for making a collaborative project. Room 29 is about the (in)famous Chateau Marmont Hotel. Known for decades of decadent parties hosted by the rich and famous. Jarvis and Chilly go a bit further than just detailing the excess. Chilly Gonzales provides a rich improvised piano backdrop to Jarvis Cocker's part sung/part spoken monologues. Jarvis finds time to sing about his own childhood and how it inspired his own love of TV and film. Chilly also provides a piano backdrop to a narration of Howard Hughes time in the hotel.  Much of Room 29 has an intimate feel about it. As if you're in the room with Jarvis making slightly awkward post coital conversation.
Key Track - Trick Of The Light

2. Wiley - Godfather  
Few grime MC's could go back to their roots so successfully after years of experimenting with more mainstream pop sounds. Even fewer manage to do this at the top of their game. On 'Godfather' Wiley lives up to his name. There is not a verse on the album that isn't delivered with passion or fire whether that be from Wiley himself or the several guests that litter the track-list. He's frequently funny, witty and quotable. Wiley commands respect from his contemporaries and newcomers alike. Most notably from a frenzied Ghetts on 'Bang'.  The production is hard-hitting, throwing back to the sounds that made grime so vital in the first place. From the ethereal intro and robotic, eski-beats of 'Birds and Bars', Godfather hooks the listener in, with the exception of the slightly disappointing Slow jam/break up song 'U were Always (part 2)' every single track is a banger.
Key Song- Can't Go Wrong

3. Sampha - Process
The genre recently christened 'Alternative RNB' has already become so saturated and mainstream that it takes someone truly special to break through and make their voice heard. Unlike Frank Ocean, or FKA Twigs, who are mostly focussed on sexuality and relationships. Process finds Sampha reflecting on his guilt and sadness following the loss of his mother. Sampha pulls off the neat trick of doing this via an expertly produced and wildly experimental batch of songs. Taking cues from early Massive Attack as much as the piano balladry of James Blake. The mix of eclectic production and poignant song-writing made Process a worthy Mercury Prize winner.
Key track - Blood On Me

4. Creeper - Eternity, in your arms
It was inevitable that with My Chemical romance still inactive and many other heroes of the 00's pop punk and emo scenes either defunct or changing sound and style, that a new band would emerge to pick up where they all left off. Enter Creeper. A band with the looks, sound, style, and most importantly, the tunes to make pop punk vital again. They may not be one of the most innovative or original bands (despite their forays into country & western) but it's the songs that really stand out. Landing somewhere between the operatics of Meatloaf and the angst of MCR, every song here demands to be sung along as loud as humanly possible.
Key Track - Misery

5. Tyler, The Creator - (SCUM FUCK) Flower Boy
Flower Boy is the album where Tyler finally lived up to the massive potential that he has shown since his Odd Future beginnings. It shows him taking huge steps forward as both an MC and a producer. Fleshing out the quirky production style that made OF stand out in the first place and ditching the rape jokes and daddy issues for an in depth look at his psyche, materialism, loneliness and how fame and fortune has affected him.
Key Track - See You Again

6. Kendrick Lamar - Damn 
While 'DAMN' may initially seem like a return to the psychedelic tinged trap sound of Kendrick's breakthrough tape 'Overly Dedicated'. Repeated listens reveal an album just as ambitious and complex as his previous jazz/funk tinged masterpiece 'To Pimp A Butterfly'. Much like his previous two albums 'DAMN' finds Kendrick at the centre of his own semi-autobiographical concept album. 'DAMN' tells the story of his life in reverse, drawing parallels between his imagined early death and upbringing. What's more impressive is the themes of deadly sins and judgement weaved into each song alongside sly jabs at authority figures and hit singles. 'DAMN' is more proof that Kendrick is a G.O.A.T.
Key Track - DNA

7. Pumarosa - The Witch 
While some may lazily lump Pumarosa in with their other guitar based London contemporaries. 'The Witch' is a début that marks Pumarosa as one of the most fascinating and intriguing young British rock bands. 'The Witch' is a heady psychedelic mix of an album that melds 90's britpop, trip-hop, and even hints of space rock together, with, hippy-ish vibes, consistently funky grooves and Isobel's haunting vocals. The tracks on 'The Witch' are all so varied and subtle that its hard to define simply what Pumarosa sound like. When all their influences come together, such as on the trippy, 'priestess' or the brit-poppy 'My gruesome loving friend', this peerless band craft a sound that is completely their own.
Key track - My gruesome loving friend.

8. St Vincent - MASSEDUCTION
10 plus years into career and ST Vincent is still an artist who can't be pinned down. MASSEDUCTION is both her most poignant and emotional album as-well as being her most aggressive. ST Vincent excels at both sexually charged Nine Inch Nails tinged industrial rock as much as she does piano ballads, 'Happy Birthday Johnny' and 'New York' being beautifully melancholy ballads about the loneliness that can come with living in big cities. Her stories are so rich and full of detail that they seem to have come directly from her experience. 'Dancing with a ghost' and 'Slow Disco' are both full of lush orchestral instrumentation. Few artists are able to accomplish as much in a 40 minute album.
Key Track - New York

9. Loyle Carner - Yesterday's Gone
Sometimes being an MC isn't just about money drugs and hoes, sometimes all you need to be is yourself. Not since Mike Skinner has the UK produced a rapper so comfortable just being himself. despite not being from the ghetto Ben Loyle-Carner, has been through a lot from such a young age, from break-ups, his ADHD, Dyslexia, and loss of his Step-Father. All of which makes 'Yesterday's Gone a much more honest and personal record than you'd get from your average rapper. Much of 'Yesterday's Gone' is Loyle's Anglicised take on the Jazz-rap sound popularised by J Cole and Kendrick Lamar with his own hints of gospel and spoken word dialogue. The main reason 'Yesterday's gone appears so high on this list is the spoken word monologue by his own mother on 'Son of Jean'. Jean's description of her 'Scribble of a boy' is a beautiful and genuinely touching moment.
Key track - Mrs C

10. Brockhampton - Saturation 1, 2, 3 (Joint 10th place)

Brockhampton blew up in 2017 thanks to 3 excellent full length albums. Following on from their 2016 début 'All American Trash' and Kevin Abstract's masterful solo album 'American Boyfriend'. Brockhampton are a hip hip group (or 'Boy-band' as they insist on being called) packed full of creative and amazingly talented individuals. All three Saturation albums show off an array of creativity. From the left field production, bars that mix the personal, political and hilarious Brockhampton seem unable to put a foot wrong. 'Saturation 2' was initially slightly higher up the list as it refines the sound crafted on 'Saturation' and because it's both musically and lyrically more direct. Every member of Brockhampton stands out, yet it's Kevin Abstract's bars 'about being gay' and Ameer Van's brutal personal history of racism make Brockhampton seem more relevant and vital than almost anyone else in hip-hop.
Key tracks - Junky, Boogie, Star.

11. Idles - Brutalism
12. Enter Shikari - The Spark
13. Japandroids- Near To the Wild Heart of Life
14. Protomartyr - Relatives in Descent
15. Joey Bada$$- All AmeriKKKan Bada$$
16. Spoon - Hot Thoughts
17. Wolf Alice - Visions of a life
18. Father John Misty - Pure Comedy
19. Formation - Look at all the powerful people
20. Courtney Barnett/Kurt Vile - Lotta Sea Lice
21. Ibibio Sound Machine -Uyai
22. LCD Soundsystem - American Dream
23. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Flying Microtonal Banana
24. The XX - I see you
25. Public Service Broadcasting - Every Valley
26. Laura Marling - Semper Femina
27. Paramore - After Laughter
28. Luke Rainsford - I feel at home with you
30. Ghostpoet - Dark Days and Canapes
31. Lowly - Heba
32. Astroid Boys - Broke
33. Mac Demarco- This Old Dog
34. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard/The Mild high Club - Sketches of Brunswick East.
35. Hoops - Routines
36. Perfume Genius - No Shape.
37. Ride - Weather Diaries
38. Kamasi Washington - Harmony of Difference
39. Kevin Devine - We are Who We've always been
40. The Horrors - V
41. Harry Styles - S/T
42. Everything Everything - A Fever Dream
43. Benjamin Clementine - I tell a fly
44. (Thee) Oh Sees - ORC
45. King Krule - The OOZ
46. Black Mekon - One in the hate.
47. Superfood - Bambino
48. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Polygondwanaland
49. Amine - Good For You
50. Dizzee Rascal - Raskit

Note: This list may change slightly before the end of the year.