Golden Year

Beyoncé striding into history.

2016 marks the golden anniversary of a triumvirate of classic discs: Pet Sounds, Revolver and Blonde on Blonde. Back in January, The Observer ran a feature on how these albums established the LP as a benchmark of creative musical expression and made 1966 the greatest year in pop music. They are also feature in the book 1966: The Year Decade Exploded by Jon Savage, a lively piece of pop/social history that pinpoints the year of my birth as the flashpoint for that decade's cultural innovation. Not everyone agrees of course and Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne fame (and therefore someone who I esteem highly) has made the case for 1981. These essays go beyond the Desert Island Disc notion of nostalgia and associated memories and speak of how certain records change music and touch people's lives whether they remember the year they were released in or not. Personally I would plump for 1980 which saw the release of Scary Monsters, Remain In Light and Black Sea, or that was until last week. Three releases in three consecutive weeks make a strong case for this year being a vintage year in popular music and it's only mid-May.

2016 was already off to a good start with Backstar (an album which has sadly become a fitting epitaph for Bowie) SVIIB (the strongest set yet from indie darlings School of Seven Bells) and Super (another terrific Stuart Price/Pet Shop Boys collaboration) and then Lemonade dropped when we were still reeling from the death of Prince. Beyoncé may have been a star for over 15 years and the author of a handful of Pop/R&B crossover classics - Say My Name, Crazy In Love, Halo, Single Ladies - but those shining singles are rendered shrill and insubstantial by her new album, Lemonade, a raw and thrilling examination of Queen Bey's personal and musical roots. Lemonade also easily surpasses 2013's highly acclaimed self titled album. Edgy and sexy as that release was, it relied too often on loose (albeit skilful) vocalising over hip hop beats. This album has proper songs with real punch - All Night, Freedom, Don't Hurt Yourself - and unfeigned emotion - Pray You Catch Me, Sandcastles. Blues, Reggae and Rock are all encompassed within the album's hour long running time and features a patchwork of samples courtesy of The Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, Isaac Hayes and Led Zeppelin - but Lemonade maintains a singular focus and is  never overwhelmed by its influences. This is the sound of an artist facing her vulnerability and realising not only the role of good fortune in her fame but also the need to pay back and pay respect. Much has been made about the theme of infidelity and the anger it has induced, strikingly visualised in the video album that accompanies the album, but Lemonade is ultimately about forgiveness and redemption as epitomised in the soaring All Night. That track's reggae beat and the sample of Can't Get Used To Losing You got me thinking of that great 80's ska band, The (English) Beat, while the album's confessional quality also reminded me of The Mis-Education of Lauryn Hill but those comparisons don't really do the album justice. For its sheer breadth of its musical range yet undeniable embrace of the here and now, Lemonade is a major personal statement and nothing less than Beyoncé's What's Going On?

While Lemonade is political with a small p (though frankly any discussion of race  in mainstream American music is significant and way overdue), Anohni's Hopelessness is political with the caps lock on. It also proves Thom Yorke wrong - you can make a protest album in 2016 that isn't embarrassing or a bit shit. Hopelessness is a glowing, glowering triumph. Over glistening electronica provided by Oneohtrix Point Never and Hudson Mohawke, Anohni's lyrics pull no punches. The cruelty of the modern world is laid bare throughout the album - the environmental holocaust we so blithely perpetrate on 4 Degrees and Why Did You Separate Me From the Earth?, the endless cycle of war and violence on Drone Bomb Me and Crisis and our disillusionment with collusive liberal politics. Obama calls out the U.S. President as a corporate apologist and war monger no better than his predecessors while Watch Me presents an Orwellian view of the state as both paternal protector and abuser. Hopelessness is not without irony though, as Execution proves, deflating Western hypocrisy over the death penalty in its cheeky chorus "Execution -it's an American Dream, like the Chinese and the Saudis". Anohni's anger is palpable on Hopelessness but the album is never strident, thanks to the delicacy of her inimitable delivery and the beauty of the melodies that frame the message. As Crisis reaches its moving crescendo of apology it becomes clear that with Hopelessness Anohni is attempting to provide some kind of restorative justice for our heartless society.

Both Lemonade and Hopelessness are immediately arresting - Sandcastles on the former and Crisis on the latter moved me to tears on first listen. The long awaited new album by Radiohead, A Moon Shaped Pool, is however, a grower not a shower. The lead singles that launch the album, Burn the Witch, with its propulsive strings and the melancholy Daydreaming are distinctive enough but ultimately this is an album of textures that requires proper listening to from big speakers. However, if you must resort to tinny earphones on the underground, A Moon Shaped Pool will offer bucolic escape. There are moments of diaphanous beauty as on the piano led Glass Eyes, the sylvan The Numbers and the quiet grandeur of fan favourite, True Love Waits, which closes the album. Right through A Moon Shaped Pool, the songs' orchestral or acoustic arrangements counterpoint Yorke's mournful lyrics creating a reflective rather than depressing listening experience. It is early days yet but I wager that A Moon Shaped Pool will come to be regarded as great an artistic achievement as 1997's OK Computer. In the meantime it helps make 2016 a better place to be musically.