VMP Magazine

A quarter of the way through the year, and I can confidently say two things. First, this has been a strong year already. And second, I’ve written about three of the best releases of 2017- not just of the month- below, but I know this is going to be a month I look back on at the end of the year and am bummed I missed featuring a fourth (or fifth) album that was released during it. There were companion pieces to tremendous albums that came out in 2016- a full-band re-imagining of sorts from Conor Oberst, and an EP of new stuff from Donovan Woods. There were stunningly good debut EPs from Valley Queen, Caroline Lazar and Sean Heathcliff. There were tremendous new records (at least one, and maybe all, of which I’ll be extremely bummed I didn’t have the words for right now) from Kelli Schaeffer, Jake Xeres Fussell, Sera Cahoone and Will Johnson. Hell, there was even a great new live album from Rocky Votolato. All of that’s to say that March was strong to quite strong, and here’s the best of what I heard.

Since we’re nearing the end of the year and this is a countdown of the best stuff that came through my speakers during it, I’ll say what I've said all 2016: you can say a lot of things about this year, but the thing I think we can all agree on is that it’s been a really strong year for music, but especially folk. Below are the 20 Best Folk (or something resembling it) Albums of 2016 and while they are in some sort of order, outside of my #1 album you could talk me into any of the other 20 being #2 depending on the day. Here’s hoping 2017 provides us with as much good music as 2016.