Year In ReView: Our favorite Boston-ish songs of 2017

It's December 21, and we're just finally getting around to our annual list of favorite songs to come out of Boston in 2017. Two conclusions can be drawn from this -- first, the year was so packed that our Year End obligations were pushed back to the very last minute, and secondly, we kind of hate these posts. Through our New Sounds features and pages of Boston News posts, it's virtually impossible to come up with a full portrait of Boston's year in music. We hope that our dedicated coverage from January to December acts as our compass of what's good around town; this list here can be best described as a loose collection of our "faves." It's in no order, it's by no preference; these tracks stuck with us over the course of the calendar, and if you missed one or two when released, perhaps it can help fill in some blanks. Because it was a crazy good year for Boston music, and 2018 feels as promising as ever.

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Joyner Lucas, “I’m Not Racist”

A few weeks ago Worcester rapper Joyner Lucas broke the internet with “I’m Not Racist.” The track addresses race relations in a broken America by featuring two men, one black and one white, face-to-face, explaining why they feel the way they do. And it shows off Lucas’ impressive skills as an emcee. While what is said by both has inspired further discussion and online think pieces, maybe the most important part of the whole thing is that during the entire song and video, the person being spoken to is just listening. The other side never interrupts, never drops an “actually,” never cuts the other off. He listens. “We were all humans until race disconnected us, religion separated us, politics divided us, and wealth classified us,” states the tagline at the end. The YouTube clip is approaching 24 million views (it went up November 28). Feel free to add to it.

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