Throughout December, CHIRP Radio presents its volunteers’ top albums of 2016. Our next list is from DJ/Assistant Music Director/Softball Team Manager Austin B. Harvey.

It's been a year. Let's go.

#1   We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service by A Tribe Called Quest (Epic)
BUY: Reckless / Amazon

Of course the most essential album of 2016 would be inherently political, it wouldn't have been any other way. What was stunning about Tribe’s presumably-final record was how perfectly everything else fell into place. The samples, composition, rhymes, guest spots, and pacing all work together here to form possibly the most cohesive album that modern popular music has seen this decade. This album hearkens to hip-hop’s past and speaks to its future. Hatchets get buried, new standards get raised. Battle cries and mission statements are made. I cannot possibly say more about this record than it already says itself. It is 2016, it is essential.

#2   For This We Fought the Battle of Ages by SubRosa (Profound Lore)
BUY: Reckless / Amazon

I kept coming back to this record, loosely-based on Yevgeny Zamyatin's dystopian novel We, as another shining example of political music that drives the points home without belaboring them, bringing musical and mental catharsis in equal share. The Salt Lake City quintet make doom metal unlike anyone else, marrying two violins with guitar, bass, and drums. The lengthy tracks here all have ample reward, but the album's closer, "Troubled Cells", is a devastating takedown of LDS doctrine that also incorporates a saxophone. You have to listen to it.

#3   Blackstar by David Bowie (Columbia)
BUY: Reckless / Amazon

Bowie's swan song is sort of a jazz record for the indie-rock fan, sort of. The title track alone is part funk-jazz, part fractured-R&B jam, and part not-so-cryptic hint that Bowie was not long for this planet. Forays into drum-n-bass, adult contemporary, and orchestral jazz-rock all come to play here. For any most any other artist, this would be the album of a lifetime. For David Bowie, it's a triumphant, if tragic, final chapter.

#4   Wildflower by The Avalanches (XL/EMI/Astralwerks/Modular)
BUY: Reckless / Amazon

I never thought there would be a second Avalanches album. That it is another mind-expanding classic on the nature of recorded music as an artifact of time and memory is much less of a surprise. The amount of shimmer and sunshine in tracks like "Because I'm Me", "Colours", and "Harmony" is paralleled only by the Australians' 2000 release, Since I Left You. Wildflower is a one-hour passageway to a happier, better dimension. That you can experience it as many times as you want is a gift.

#5   Sorry in the Summer by Impulsive Hearts (Beautiful/Strange)
BUY: Reckless / Amazon

Channeling Dum Dum Girls' most Spector-esque tendencies, Danielle Sines & Co. put together melodies so intuitive and simple that you feel like you've known them for years after a listen or two. Ride cymbals and guitar form a sinfonia of their own as each little bit of pop perfection rises to its climax. One of Chicago's most-promising bands.

#6   Suppressor EP by Beat Drun Juel (self-released)
BUY: Reckless / Amazon

Another ridiculously-solid Chicago trio doing their thing here. Donna “Pasty Face” Polydoros' violently-haunting voice was one of the most captivating sounds to grace these ears in 2016. The amazing conflict in this dissonant hard rock record is that Polydoros sounds like she's in a horror film, but you can't figure out if she's the hunter or the hunted. In just 20 minutes, BDJ thrash the listener to a pulp and still leave you thirsty for more.

#7   Emily's D+Evolution by Esperanza Spalding (Concord)
BUY: Reckless / Amazon

Fusing her jazz roots with neo-soul, and garnishing everything with a killer voice, Spalding made one of the year's most forward-looking and unique albums. These songs trade keys and time signatures like I used to trade baseball cards. Their moments of transition are invigorating, while the moments of release are revelatory in their joy. Plus, the last track is a great cover of a Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory track.

#8   Savoy Motel by Savoy Motel (What's Your Rupture)
BUY: Reckless / Amazon

This Nashville quartet fuses 70's-style rocking-out with danceable beats and chantable choruses. The guitar solos pair wonderfully with the cannabinoids of your choice, and the drum (and drum machine) sounds almost seem cribbed from DFA. If this is the direction that garage rock wants to move, it's something I shall welcome with open arms. Check the video for "Sorry People", too, which features bad pantomiming and dudes in letter jackets line-dancing in a barn. It's big, stupid fun.

#9   Grandfeathered by Pinkshinyultrablast (Club AC30)
BUY: Reckless / Amazon

Probably the best shoegaze band going on the planet at this point, the Saint Petersburg band brings noise and shimmer in equal proportion. They call their own specific genre "thunderpop", which is fitting for the impossible balance of delicate, crushing sounds that emanate from Grandfeathered.

#10   A Seat at the Table by Solange (Saint)
BUY: Reckless / Amazon

Album-as-sociopolitical-manifesto was a welcome trend in 2016, and Solange’s long-incubating mission statement could lay claim to being the best of that specific bunch. The effortless nature of all of these melodies augments some serious cultural and societal criticism. Or you know, you can just dance to it.

Honorable Mentions
11. Danny Brown - Atrocity Exhibition (Warp) Danny Brown's always at his best when operating on the edge of disaster. AE begins with its most challenging tracks, even making a track with glockenspiel and Kendrick Lamar sound creepy as heck. But when "Ain't It Funny"'s horn riff breaks down the door like an uninvited party guest, things leap into the stratosphere. Sure, Brown's catchiest tracks seem bound to become frat-boy drug anthems (see "Dip" from 2013's Old), but that doesn't diminish their ability to slap.

12. White Lung - Paradise (Domino) The year’s best punk record features squealing guitars, breakneck pacing, and killer vocals. It fits my attention span.

13. Ratboys - AOID (Topshelf) This great local band’s Breeders-esque brand of folk-rock is infinitely relistenable.

14. Whyte Horses - Pop or Not (CRC) Mancunian duo give us a lovely record of The Go! Team-esque pop-rock pastiche tracks.

15. Wussy - Forever Sounds (Shake It) This Cincy quintet have been one of the best rock bands going for a decade now. They get a lot fuzzier on their latest collection of Rust Belt classics.

16. ANOHNI - HOPELESSNESS (Secretly Canadian) Incorporating EDM-like beats and synth washes into incisive and brutal political criticism, ANOHNI's latest record is a defining leap in a wholly original direction.

17. Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool (XL) It may go down as the band's "quiet album", but you have admit to yourself that you've never heard a breakup album quite like this.

18. The Fireworks - Black & Blue EP (Shelflife) This English band's debut album was one of my favorite records of last year. Their Sarah-Records-through-acres-of-fuzz-and-noise aesthetic continues apace here.

19. Suede - Night Thoughts (Warner UK) Britpop heroes return with an assertive, grandiose, cinematic record that would please your symphonic-rock-loving parents.

20. Japanese Breakfast - Psychopomp (Yellow K) Synth-washed indie-pop has been a tired trope for a few years. Michelle Zauner's keening ode to caring for a dying mother is welcome kick in the head to the subgenre.

21. Hieroglyphic Being - The Disco's of Imhotep (Technicolour) Serious question: When did the last great acid house record come out?

22. Starlight Girls - Fantasm (self-released) Brooklyn indie-pop, I know I know. But this "spy-rock" album hits all the right dopamine receptors.

23. A Giant Dog - Pile (Merge) A great bar rock album.

24. Lambchop - FLOTUS (Merge) Kurt Wagner and Co. make their version of Neil Young's electronically-fractured Trans and it's almost as good.

25. Hamilton Leithauser & Rostam Batmanglij - I Had a Dream That You Were Mine (Glassnote) Former Walkmen and Vampire Weekend members collaborate on a record that draws a straight line between their former work and Bruce Springsteen. Wistful and delightful.

26. Savages - Adore Life (Matador) The sophomore platter from this London quartet evokes as much cool and swagger as their debut, building tension and granting high-energy releases in spades.

27. Daniel Lanois - Goodbye to Language (Anti-) The venerated producer makes an album of cut-and-pasted pedal steel riffs that blends The Caretaker-esque pastiche with ambient, country, and minimalist electronic. Beautiful and haunting.

28. Heron Oblivion - Heron Oblivion (Sub Pop) Comets on Fire and Espers members unite to make psychedelic folk-rock that will blow your hair back to the back of this auditorium.

29. Vince Staples - Prima Donna EP (Def Jam) The Long Beach rapper continues to be one of the best in the game, featuring collabs with James Blake, DJ Dahi, and No I.D.

30 (tie). Honey Radar - Blank Cartoon (What's Your Rupture)/Connections - Midnight Run (Anyway) The former sounds like Guided By Voices hanging out with every garage band in Nashville while listening to Slumberland's catalog. The latter is Columbus' best band kicking out their trademark brand of inimitable fuzz-pop.