Dance Music

Here are my highlights in popular music from 2016. It includes records by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Bright Light Bright Light, David Bowie, Melanie C, Hikaru Utada, Beyoncé, and many more!

On December 9 and 10, Blink 182 and Green Day headline Live 105's Not So Silent Night at Oracle Arena in Oakland.

The Super Tour is aptly named. The Pet Shop Boys deliver on their classics, new tracks, and an impressive light show.

Nineteen years removed from Theaudience, Bextor's catalog runs six solo albums deep with this year's 'Familia' as proof of her power. Bextor's grasp of pop music shows an awareness that the genre isn't solely beholden to four-on-the-floor ideas; this knowledge has led her to outfox predecessors and lap contemporaries. This overview acts as an introduction to one of the brightest voices in contemporary pop.

After countless listens, I feel as if I both know Fela Kuti more than I ever knew any other African artist before, and also how little I appreciated the struggles and injustices that take place across the world in other people’s hometowns or communities. It takes a strong light to shine down on some of the darkest days in the shadow. Thank god Fela Kuti burned as bright as he did for our awareness.

'We Are the Halluci Nation' from A Tribe Called Red will knock your socks off musically, intellectually, and emotionally,

From the sonic exuberance of “Dancin’ Fool” and “Tell Me You Love Me” to the funky dissonance of “You Are What You Is” and “Joe’s Garage” to the bathroom-humor excellence of “Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow” and “Titties and Beer,” this album will give you just as much of a “taste” for Frank Zappa’s music as his son’s "Zappa Plays Zappa" did for me some eight years ago.

Hundred Waters, Oh Wonder, and FKA Twigs headlined the closing day of Symbiosis Gathering at Woodward Reservoir Regional Park near Oakdale, California, on Sept. 25, 2016.

‘Dolphin Trance’ is an album one can choose to listen to very attentively so as to catch its many nuances or to use as music either for an energetic, lounge-like get-together, or for a dance party.

A decade removed from its release, '20 Y.O.' stands as a confident display of Jackson’s sharpened skills worth rediscovering.