Forget 2016 — Here's Some Of 2017's Best Music

By Stephen Thompson

Published January 1, 2017 at 5:09 PM EST

Released in December, Little Simz's <em>Stillness In Wonderland </em>is technically a buzzer-beating 2016 album — but NPR Music's Stephen Thompson says it's worth keeping it in mind as we enter the new year.

You can only dissect a year for so long before another, hopefully better one comes along. So let's set aside 2016 — with its celebrity deaths, political upheaval and, yes, great music — and take a moment to look ahead to the best music of 2017.

For a quick primer on 2017 music, here's a world tour of sorts — one that runs through Mali ( Tinariwen), the U.K. ( Little Simz), Brooklyn ( Sinkane, who's also lived in Sudan, London and Ohio), Canada ( Japandroids) and, finally, NPR's hometown of Washington, D.C. ( Priests). Hear a song from each below.

Stephen Thompson

Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)

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