Ye Olde Hit Parade: Tinseltown Swimming in Blood

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).

2017: Destroyer - Tinseltown Swimming in Blood

I'm almost caught up here. In 2017, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States. It's still kind of unbelievable. Aaron Hernandez, the former New England Patriots star tight end who was in jail for murder, was found hanged in his prison cell. There were more mass shootings throughout the year, including one in Las Vegas that killed 58 people and injured almost 500.

More celebrity deaths including Mary Tyler Moore, Don Rickles, Roger Moore, Adam West, Roy Halladay, Malcolm Young and Charles Manson. But the big ones for me were Gord Downie and Chris Cornell, two musical heroes of mine. Downie succumbed in October to brain cancer, but not before releasing one last solo album that he worked on in the last year of his life with Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene. Cornell committed suicide after a May Soundgarden concert, although there was much speculation whether the medication he was on contributed to it. Whatever the case, it was a case of two musical geniuses taken way before their time.

On the personal front, we took a long-awaited European vacation over a few weeks in the summer, going to London, Paris, Belfast (where my brother was living at the time) and Dublin. We did a lot of touristy stuff, as you can imagine, and had an incredible time. It was a little nerve-wracking before we got over there because there were several terrorist attacks in London and Paris in the weeks leading up to our trip. Fortunately, nothing happened while we there, but the increased security presence definitely kept it on our minds.

Musically, I was listening to a lot of Soundgarden and Tragically Hip after the deaths of Cornell and Downie, but there was also plenty of great new music: Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile (who teamed up on an album), the Afghan Whigs, Mark Lanegan Band, Downie, St. Vincent, METZ, Queens of the Stone Age, Ted Leo, Boss Hog, The War on Drugs, LCD Soundsystem, Protomartyr, Ron Gallo and Pile, among many others.

Concerts included Bash & Pop/So So Glos, Los Campesinos!, Midnight Oil, Meat Puppets/Mike Watt/Grant Hart, Iron Maiden, Mark Lanegan Band, Oh Sees, Paul Weller, The Breeders, Hot Snakes/Savak and Ted Leo and the Pharmacists/Bill Janovitz.



In a year where I didn't have an obvious favorite song, I'm going with Destroyer's "Tinseltown Swimming in Blood." Basically a one-man show courtesy of Dan Bejar, Destroyer has spent the last several years exploring '80s sounds. On the 2017 album ken, he embraces a darker synth-pop sound that's reminiscent of Depeche Mode or New Order. There are also jazzier passages that call back to 2011's Kaputt, gliding along while Bejar sings of paranoia and disillusionment. "Tinseltown" has a real noir feel as it details moral decay in Hollywood. Just a cool breeze of a song.

Honorable mentions: The Afghan Whigs - "Demon in Profile"; The New Pornographers - "High Ticket Attractions"; Ron Gallo - "Kill the Medicine Man"; Cloud Nothings - "Enter Entirely"; Japandroids - "North East South West"; Snowball II - "CR-VUC"; Melkbelly - "Off the Lot"; Ty Segall - "Break a Guitar"; Ride - "Charm Assault"; Slowdive - "Star Roving"; Bash & Pop - "Anything Could Happen"; Spoon - "Can I Sit Next to You"; Los Campesinos! - "I Broke Up in Amarante"; Pile - "Texas"; The Feelies - "Gone, Gone, Gone"; At the Drive-In - "No Wolf Like the Present"; Boss Hog - "Ground Control"; Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile - "Over Everything"; Waxahatchee - "Silver"; Mark Lanegan Band - "Drunk on Destruction"; Nine Inch Nails - "Less Than"; Wolf Parade - "Valley Boy"; White Reaper - "Party Next Door"; Lo Tom - "Overboard"; Palehound - "Carnations"; Alvvays - "In Undertow"; Ted Leo - "You're Like Me"; Infinity Girl - "The Winner Always Talks"; EMA - "I Wanna Destroy"; A Giant Dog - "Fake Plastic Trees"; METZ - "Mr. Plague"; Protomartyr - "My Children"; Gord Downie - "Love Over Money"; St. Vincent - "Masseduction"; Queens of the Stone Age - "Head Like a Haunted House"; Oh Sees - "Nite Expo"; Destroyer - "Tinseltown Swimming in Blood"; The War on Drugs - "Knocked Down"; LCD Soundsystem - "Emotional Haircut"; Bruno Mars - "That's What I Like"