Ye Olde Hit Parade: Lazarus

Editor's note: Ye Olde Hit Parade takes a look back at my favorite songs year by year (starting in 1978, when I really started paying attention to music).

2016: David Bowie - Lazarus

As 2016 closed out, the general feeling was: Well, THAT happened. And boy, did it ever. Wikileaks. The Benghazi report. More police shootings of unarmed black men. More mass shootings. Hillary Clinton's emails. Oh, and there was a presidential election of some note as well.

If all that wasn't enough, it was a tough year for celebrity deaths: Bowie, Prince, Alan Rickman, Abe Fucking Vigoda, Muhammad Ali, Gordie Howe, Elie Wiesel, Arnold Palmer, Leonard Cohen, George Michael, Carrie Fisher. Just brutal.

Things were good on the home front. I volunteered at the Boston Marathon again, ran a couple of half marathons. My office moved again, this time to Middleton. The company was about half the size it was when we moved to the Danvers office, so we downsized a bit. My commute doubled, but it was still only 20 minutes going on back roads, so it wasn't a big deal. We vacationed in Myrtle Beach, which was nice.

Musically, it was another interesting year. The standouts included a great comeback album from Iggy Pop (backed by a killer band including Josh Homme and Matt Sweeney), Toronto's PUP with a kickass second album, Jeff Rosenstock with another excellent release, Drive-By Truckers with a genuine protest record, Black Mountain perfecting their prog-stoner thing, and fine albums from Parquet Courts, Bob Mould, Car Seat Headrest, The Tragically Hip, A Giant Dog, Savages, Dinosaur Jr., Split Single and Beach Slang.

And right after they announced the release of their latest album, The Tragically Hip revealed that frontman Gord Downie had terminal brain cancer, but they still pulled off a tour. The Hip are one of my favorite bands and I always caught them when they came through town. I was hoping they'd play a few U.S. dates, but they did 15 shows in Canada, culminating in a final show in their hometown of Kingston, Ontario that was broadcast and streamed worldwide. It was a terrific and gut-wrenching performance. The chemo had left Downie, an electric performer, with short-term memory loss, but he was able to get through the shows with the help of teleprompters. What a way to go out (he died in October 2017).

Concerts I saw included Bully, Elizabeth Colour Wheel/Earthquake Party, Greg Dulli, Deer Tick, Savages, Iggy Pop, Bob Mould/Ted Leo, Eagles of Death Metal, Buffalo Tom, Black Mountain, X, Descendents/Beach Slang, Sloan, Teenage Fanclub, Jeff Rosenstock, and Elizabeth Colour Wheel/Coaches/Sneeze/Lilith.


But for me, it was all about Bowie. His album Blackstar was recorded secretly and came out on January 8, his 69th birthday. I bought the digital version that day and remember going for a long run the next morning listening to it and thinking how amazing it was that he released such an excellent record this late in his career. His 2013 album The Next Day was good, but this was next level, recorded with an unknown jazz-rock band supporting him and bringing a whole new jazz/hip hop sound. So it was a shock to most when he died two days after Blackstar came out of liver cancer, which he had also kept quiet. He had recorded this album while dealing with cancer, knowing that he was dying. An amazing feat, to be sure. The videos he released prior to the album's release were creepy and unsettling, but captivating. Much like the album itself. "Lazarus" features Bowie lying on his deathbed, with a bandage over his eyes. It's an intense experience. I have to admit I haven't listened to this a lot in the years since it came out. It makes me sad. But it's a triumphant accomplishment nonetheless.


Honorable mentions: David Bowie - "Blackstar"; Beach Slang - "Atom Bomb"; Split Single - "Leave My Mind"; Dinosaur Jr. - "Goin' Down"; Savages - "The Answer"; A Giant Dog - "Sleep When Dead"; The Tragically Hip - "Machine"; PUP - "DVP"; PUP - "If This Tour Doesn't Kill You, I Will"; Car Seat Headrest - "Vincent"; Bob Mould - "Hold On"; Parquet Courts - "Berlin Got Blurry"; Black Mountain - "Florian Saucer Attack"; Drive-By Truckers - "Surrender Under Protest"; Jeff Rosenstock - "Wave Goodnight to Me"; Iggy Pop - "Sunday"; David Bowie - "Sue (In a Season of Crime)"; Radiohead - "Burn the Witch"; The I Don't Cares - "King of America"; Used Cassettes - "President"; Descendents - "Comeback Kid"; Preoccupations - "Zodiac"; Gord Downie - "Haunt Them, Haunt Them, Haunt Them"; Living Colour - "Who Shot Ya"; PJ Harvey - "Ministry of Defence"; Hallelujah the Hills - "I'm in the Phone Book, I'm On the Planet, I'm Dying Slowly"; Angel Olsen - "Shut Up Kiss Me"; Mitski - "Your Best American Girl"; Kristin Hersh - "Hemingway's Tell"; TUNS - "Back Among Friends"; Teenage Fanclub - "Thin"; Terry Malts - "Won't Come to Find You"; Ty Segall - "Candy Sam"; Run the Jewels - "Thieves! (Screamed the Ghost)"; A Tribe Called Quest - "Dis Generation"; Washer - "Do It Yourself"; Wolf Parade - "Floating World"; The Weeknd feat. Daft Punk - "Starboy"