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Reader's Poll: Vote on The Best Albums of 2017 So Far
Reader's Poll: Vote on The Best Albums of 2017 So Far

Reader's Poll: Vote on The Best Albums of 2017 So Far

Lenny Kravitz, Grace Jones, Lauryn Hill, Lion Babe, Thundercat, SZA & More Rock The Afropunk Festival 2015 in Brooklyn, NY.

Who you got?

Here we are at the midway point of 2017, the year a burnt squash took office and erased 8 years of measurable good in like 12 minutes. But all is not lost. A tightly-coiled shitpile is unraveling before our eyes. And damn that feels good.

Which is to say, wading the psychological and cultural tremors of this administration is probably taking its toll. Jaded? Sure. Distracted? You bet. Finished? Nah. Self-medicating is self-care and when it comes to (at least) dulling the perpetual sucker-punch of Trumplandia, the year in music has been there for us. As a pill, as a blanket, as an exercise in emotional dexterity.

In terms of listening regiments, this typically results in clinging to whatever hits hardest at a profound low, a painfully regular occurrence in 2017. And that's fine. You should know, however, that this year's musical landscape, perhaps more than any other in recent memory, was fit with a peak in frequencies for each and every dip into grueling executive-level fuckery. So there's a good chance that the vast majority of 2017 outings skirted your radar, or was followed by a subsequent release from a more familiar name that snagged your attention. With over 120 titles of medium to exceedingly great quality already making rounds in the ether -- from The Internet's piece-by-piece proliferation to regal releases from TDE's king and queen, respectively, to Thundercat's woozy yacht-jazz fusions to stellar debuts from Stones Throw's class of 2017 to the moon and back again  -- it was easy to do. But at the six-month mark, it's time to catch-up and begin this whole best-of conversation from a reasonable resting point.

Keeping with the undying democratic spirit (and delicately dodging the weight of this conversation until the year's run its full course) we're getting this whole best-of conversation started in a hurry. Again, we're not even close to the cap on 2017 and we're already in triple digits. That's a lot to consider. Even for us. So we're enlisting you, dear reader, to help weigh in and complete the cypher if we've missed a note. We want to know what titles have been earning spots in your respective rotations this year. Not just to keep ourselves sharp, but to return the favor. Be honest, be brutal, be the self-righteous music snob you've always wanted to be.

Just don't think too hard about it. This is friendly fodder for a discussion we'll be having throughout the remainder of the year. What are the best albums of 2017 so far? You decide. Vote for as many or as few title as you'd like. Just be sure to give it a good look over before you send it on. We''ll be collecting votes until midnight on Friday, June 23rd, at which point we'll begin to tally and present to you a top 15 with our own mid-year musings arriving the following week.