Around this time every year I write a snarky post about the things that disappointed me in music throughout the year. Generally it’s just some garbage about Nicki Minaj being a talentless shrew, or Bon Iver being so boring I’d rather lay in the grass and wait for it to envelop me than listen to his droning on about whatever pretentious drivel he’s got on his mind. But I don’t really think any of that matters this year.

Honestly, in a year that’s been such a maddening, infuriating, make you wanna live under a rock and/or blow your brains out 365 days (thank Christ this wasn’t a leap year-Dylan probably would have died), I don’t see much point in talking about how bad Life Of Pablo is. Or questioning the sanity of those that keep telling me it’s good. Or asking those people which tracks, other than the ones where Chance The Rapper takes the reins, are actually worth listening to. If you like Life Of Pablo, so be it. Enjoy. Don’t let me rain on your parade.

David Bowie put out a great album, Blackstar, and he’s gone. Leonard Cohen released an equally great album. He’s gone, too. Prince…Well, Prince was being Prince (the one we loved, not the one with the sacred addiction to opiates), playing shows with little notice to audiences of loyal fans who are now without the man who taught them that being weird was ok and long as you were true to yourself.

The 2016 bullshit pot boiled over long ago and we’ve just been stewing in it for the past few months. This year can’t end fast enough, and I think most people will agree that’s true. I mean, many people are saying that. I’ve heard it from many people. Our new Russian overlords probably thought it was ok. Shit. They probably didn’t even like Prince. They’ve always been more of a Billy Joel crowd.

Obviously some of the crap that we got in 2016 was our own doing, which kinda sucks. It’s also good, because who better than us to get everything back on the right track? The Dakota Pipeline got postponed, Hillary’s wandering the woods changing lives, and Frank Ocean put out two new albums. There are glimmers of hope to which we can still hitch our wagon.

So yeah, 2016 was a raging dumpster fire. Let’s move on and honor those we lost by continuing to fight.

R.I.P.

David Bowie

Leonard Cohen

Prince

Vanity

Merle Haggard

Sharon Jones

Glenn Frey

Leon Russell

Maurice White

Phife Dawg

Johnny P

Sean McKeough

James Woolley

Leslie Witt

Attrell Cordes

Thomas Fekete

Keith Emerson

Terry Wogan

Otis Clay