Throughout December, CHIRP Radio presents its volunteers’ top albums of 2017. Our next list is from DJ MAURICIO REYES.

Weirdest year of my life but music got me through it. Here's a bunch of reasons why...

Throughout December, CHIRP Radio presents its volunteers’ top albums of 2017. Our next list is from DJ Megatron.

Throughout December, CHIRP Radio presents its volunteers’ top albums of 2017. Our next list is from DJ and Board Member Emeritus Tony Breed.

In recent years, my best-of list has skewed toward the music I listen to the most, and the things I expect will get play for years to come. Every year I also pick a song of the year, which typically comes from an album that didn’t make my top ten. This year I almost went with Iverson’s synth-prog masterpiece “Stand Up”, or Fujiya & Miyagi’s dance track about aging, “Extended Dance Mix”, but in the end I picked The XX's perfectly evocative song about loneliness: The XX “Say Something Loving” Now for my top 10:

Throughout December, CHIRP Radio presents its volunteers’ top albums of 2017. Our next list is from DJ Joe Held - Rebellious Jukebox.

My top 10 list for 2017 (simply listed in alphabetical order)...

Throughout December, CHIRP Radio presents its volunteers’ top albums of 2017. Our next list is from Assistant Music Director Craig Reptile.

2017 brought an embarrassment of excellent records to my ears, and presented the toughest choices I can remember since I started doing this for CHIRP seven years ago. Yes, there were reliably excellent releases from “old faithful” and resurgent musical acts like Antietam, Beck, The Clientele, Deerhoof, Fur Coats, Luna, The New Pornographers, Ride, Slowdive, Stars, Son Volt, and Zola Jesus, and possibly too much music from habitual overachievers like Guided By Voices, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and Obnox. But the records that made the agonizing “Top Ten” cut for me were the ones that really knocked off my socks and garnered a steady diet of repeat spins in my headphones, most of which were artists that either seemed to come out of nowhere or finally fulfilled the promises of their earlier recordings. With the caveats that my predilections veer toward a new shoe event horizon, that any one of these 10 could have been ranked differently depending on my daily mood and that I didn’t hear the entirety of everything that was released this year (is such a thing possible?), my methodology went like this: I started with a list of about 60 records, winnowed that down to 40, then down to 30, and then started really sweating. I also took pains (and it was painful) to avoid looking at other “Best of 2017” assessments, in the hopes that I would avoid regurgitating critically received wisdom. Here’s hoping 2018 will be even better than 2017! Musically, I mean. Although 2018 couldn’t possibly be much worse than 2017 was in all other respects. Right?