Our good friend, Vasilios Mantoulidis, has had quite the year, getting papped with Dua, Mariah, Robyn, well you get the idea – he has selfies with them all, just check his Insta for the receipts. So we figured who better to give us the run down of this year’s releases. Take it away…
“2017 was a strange one wasn’t it? Hardly any ‘OMG WHAT A SONG!’ moments yet when compiling the year’s best tracks I came up with a list of 300 songs I played for weeks and enjoyed immensely.
There was an array of brilliant songs from dreamy ALT gals (Tea She, Amber Mark, Sabrina Claudio, ABRA), pop managed to still deliver the goods (Dua Lipa’s New Rules, Katy’s gorgeous Bon Appetit, Rita Ora’s Anywhere, streaming monster Havana), cool girls like Tove Lo, Tove Styrke, Rae Morris, Leon kept on giving us great material and hip hop (check our picks by Leikeli47, Migos, Cardi B, Future and Vince Staples who’s SOPHIE-laced album took us by surprise) had a fantastic year. I mean when Nicki’s 50 collaborations are 85% great, what more proof do you need.
Many of the cuts we loved this year sound like wonderful things of the past: The incredible Samantha Urbani track, Time Time Time sounds like a moody Debbie Gibson hit from 1988, Kelela’s LMK could have been a deep 90s cut from girlband 702, Danny L Harle’s HUGE 1UL is giving us major MC Shar & The Real McCoy feels while Khalid’s massive collaboration with Marshmello could well be another Christmas East 17 single from the early 90s. Or we’re just old? We_just_don’t_know.gif. And the amazing SOPHIE track, It’s Okay To Cry, with 2017’s wildest video? Um, LGBTQ anthem, yes but also sounds straight out of a 1987 teen flick from a scene where the protagonist realises she’ll never be the Molly Ringwald to her boyfriend’s erm… Michael J Fox. Sob.
SZA’s album is literally filled with modern classics but Love Galore was the one, mainly because of the Travis feature, MUNA gave us a true queer masterpiece full of moments, the legendary Kiddy Smile served amazing solo tracks but also fire collaborations (like Inquisifunk his track with TEPR, who we love since his Yelle days) and newcomers like Mabel (Neneh Cherry did that! Literally.), Stefflon Don and Jorja Smith will surely make the next few months super interesting.
Other quality albums we played for months this year? Mura Masa really delivered the eclectic album of the year, Dua’s much-delayed debut, Lana’s return to form, the Tea Shi dreamy masterpiece (Crawl Space), Mount Kimbie’s Love What Survives, A Deeper Understanding by The War On Drugs and of course Lorde’s Melodrama-tic triumph.
What you waiting for, click play / save / follow and listen to some amazing music from 2017 via the Spotify playlist below!”
Follow Vasilios on Instagram here.
