2016 music wrap-up, and mixtape 177

I am very, very late with this, but hey, the last few months have left me a little distracted. It's nearly the end of January, and I had to face the fact that I'm just never going to find the time to do a lot of writing about this, so... ship it. As I've said in previous years, I feel that year-end lists like this aren't of much use if the author doesn't say something about what the music is or why they like it, but, well, that's not going to happen this year. Oh well.

So. In only approximate order of favoriteness -- and for the fourteenth year in a row -- and since I didn't force myself to write about them, the order and everything else about this is extremely approximate -- here is my year-end wrap-up. As usual, a few of the entries on the following list were released earlier than 2016, but that is when I discovered them, so I'm allowing some slack. Though most were actually released in 2016.

This year I acquired around 50% more new music as last year: roughly 90 new releases, almost all released within the last 3 years, roughly half released in 2016. That's up 17% from 2014 but still down 25% from 2013.

Number of those bands that I saw perform this year: 22.
Number of those bands that performed at DNA Lounge this year: 11.
Go team!

I like these things. You should like them too. Here's your shopping list:

And finally, here's mixtape 177, which includes one track by each of the above artists.

Join the DNA Lounge Patreon, ok?

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Current Music: as noted

11 Responses:

  1. Jens Knutson says:

    Here's a Google Play Music playlist of the above: https://goo.gl/XByphP

    It's only missing Allie X, who is apparently on every major steaming service except GPM. (They have another EP of hers with some of the same songs though.)

    Anyway, I'm glad you still took the time to write up another year end music wrap-up, even with everything going on with DNA. Thanks!

  2. TimeDoctor says:

    Here's the Apple Music version, also missing Allie X.


    Compiling playlists on a phone sucks.

  3. Patrick Berry says:

    Here's the Spotify version. I too thank you for compiling this.

    One question though, how do you find music? Now, before saying, "Uh, I run a night club you moron," I know that. You used to go to SXSW, which ultimately turned out to be not that useful to you. I guess more specifically, do you get new bands to listen to from the bands that play at DNA? "Hey [INSERT BAND HERE], thanks for dropping by...what are you listening to these days?" Do bands send you demos, or links to YouTube?

    Or is it really as simple as "music is my day job."

    • jwz says:

      I subscribe to a lot of RSS feeds of music blogs, and any time I hear a song I like I follow that band on Facebook. And I go to Popscene. I discover essentially no new music via DNA Lounge because our booker rarely manages to get us anything but metal shows, about which I give zero fucks.

    • Daniel Sheppard says:

      Even if attending sxsw is less useful, listening through the sxsw playlists each year is a somewhat useful exercise in exposing yourself to new music (and especially new music outside the genres you typically stick to).

      Just be prepared to hit the 'next' button a lot. Seems like a big thing this year is terrible christian hip-hop.

  4. Alex P says:

    Have you heard the album "Of Desire" by The KVB? I think it would be your kind of thing.