This year has been one of my favorite periods in music in a long while. There has been a huge resurgence in pop-punk and emo in recent years, and it really hit its stride in in 2017. I took advantage of it in any way I could. Anything that Google Music recommended I may like, I gave it a listen. Anything a friend sent my way, I played it. Anything that got a good review, I gave it a chance. Of course, a fair share of misses, but some really, really big hits that I never saw coming.
This playlist is a list of some of my favorite tracks of 2017. It’s 19 songs in total, limited to one song per artist. Anything released between January 1st up until I started writing this post was considered fair game. I’ll post the completed playlist at the end too.
Let’s get started!
1. Captain, We’re Sinking – “Trying Year”
Jesus, if 2017 had an anthem, this is it. This was a rough year for me, and quite frankly, for a lot of us. With all of our personal, social, political, or any other kind of issues we’ve faced this year, sometimes you just need a song that has your back. This was that song for me in 2017. Life gets rough sometimes, but it could always be worse. Find what you can to pick yourself up, and move on. It’s a fun song to remind you that it’s going to be OK, even if you think it’s the end of days right now. While I wasn’t super sold on the rest of the album, this track just stuck with me. Check it out if you like bands like The Menzingers.
2. Young Hunger – “Every Promise I’ve Made to Myself”
Remember what I just said in the last paragraph? Copy and paste. It’s another song about things not going your way, then wanting to just crawl into a hole and wait for it to all pass over. This one is from a local band, and the whole EP is great. Young Hunger made an EP that is a throwback to the early 2000s punk rock and pop punk sound. If you’re a fan of that genre, then you definitely owe it to yourself to check out Wear Me Down, so go give it a listen and throw them a few bucks if you like it. Keep local music alive!
3. Hot Rod Circuit – “Default Setting”
I know band reunions are pretty cliche these days, but few get me as excited as Hot Rod Circuit. If you’ve gone to a concert with me, you know that I’ve seen HRC more than any other band. During the early 2000s, their work ethic got them on a lot of tours with a wide variety of bands, so I saw them pretty frequently. It helps that they put out great music pretty consistently. This song sounds like it could have been a Reality’s Coming Through or The Underground is a Dying Breed b-side. I really hope this leads to even more new music from them in the future, I’d love to see them taking another shot.
4. Seaway – “Apartment”
A big part of the modern pop-punk and emo resurgence is bands that draw inspiration from the bands I remember growing up loving. Seaway is very clearly a band who prays at the altar of Drive-Thru Records. They’ve got some of their own touches on it, such as the dueling vocal style, and some elements of their music are very much inspired by bands outside of the pop-punk scene. It all comes together in their latest record, Vacation. The album has some very catchy tracks on it, but lacks some cohesion, feeling like a mish-mash of sounds at times. It’s a positive trajectory for them that could lead to an amazing album in the future.
That’s all for today, I’ll have the next set of tracks tomorrow. Thanks for listening!
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