Read more of the 196 moments in music, art, books, theater, film, and TV that helped us survive 2016.

• The sharp intake of breath between realizing David Bowie had made a great album again, finally, with Blackstar, and realizing it would be his last. The genius of that gesture was almost enough to overpower the grief.

• Joanna Newsom at the Paramount (March 29), a master class in harmonic complexity, instrumental virtuosity, and verbal ingenuity.

• Kevin Cole's "Nothing Compares 2U: A Celebration of the Life and Music of Prince" on KEXP on May 6, a four-hour stretch of rare numbers, live recordings, and incredible stories that provided a ritual so rare and familiar, you almost forget how important it is: the chance to share an essential experience—as a city, as a community, as individuals—by listening to the radio.

• Beyoncé's gut-wrenching rendition of Prince's "The Beautiful Ones" at CenturyLink Field on May 18.

• The spryness of the production and the playfulness of the language in Paul Simon's utterly disarming, totally unexpected song about the role of income inequality in the coming apocalypse, "The Werewolf."

• Solid States is the Posies best album in years, but special notice is reserved for "Squirrel vs. Snake," an urgent epic in the form of a flawless power-pop diamond. If songs like this were still allowed to become hits, the world would feel a lot more just.

• "I was young and I was such a flirty bitch / Shit's less cute when you're 36," from Bird of Youth's "Bitter Filth."

• The drowsy melancholy of "Me & Magdalena," Ben Gibbard's contribution to a new album by the Monkees, featuring the particular beauty of Mike Nesmith and Micky Dolenz, their tenor voices weathered but still vital, harmonizing.

• "We the People," from A Tribe Called Quest's miracle comeback, We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service. As Phife skewers "false narratives of guys that came up against the odds," Tip ironically sings to Black folks, Mexicans, and poor folks that they "must go"—and to Muslims and gays, "boy, we hate your ways."

• Silas Blak's astonishingly strong performance of "Cops on My Back" silencing the sold-out Moore Theatre at the Stranger Genius Awards on September 24.

• The Fabulous Downey Brothers. Best band. Go look them up. GO.

• Discovering that Sloucher's EP was more than just a promising debut and one of the richest listening experiences available from any rock band this year, with live performances that deepen the songs even more. Whatever they do next will merit close attention.

• Not to put too fine a point on it, but every video and any live performance by DoNormaal. She appears to be the rare artist whose talents have only been partially glimpsed by all the people lining up to give her praise. It feels good (and significant) just to be in her time zone.

• As densely packed with great songs and moments as Car Seat Headrest's album Teens of Denial is, it was their frequent live cover of David Bowie's "Blackstar" (not easy) that endeared them most—not simply for the skillful execution of a difficult song, but for the statement of purpose and allegiance. No one needs to hear another rendition of "Life on Mars" (or "Hallelujah" or "Purple Rain" for that matter).

• The delicacy and tenderness with which Frank Ocean navigates the awkward phrase "You're a positive, motivating force within my life" in his cover of Aaliyah's cover of the Isley Brothers' "At Your Best (You Are Love)" on Endless, perhaps the most under-acclaimed but over-anticipated record ever released.

• The bit of analysis we read on Rap Genius about how the repetition of the words "I," "Leave," "Tonight," undercuts sympathy for the apparently vulnerable speaker in Frank Ocean's "Self Control," the best song with a Prince reference in it on Blonde.

• The pained, warbled, Auto-Tuned cry that follows Frank Ocean quoting Barack Obama on Trayvon Martin in the song "Nikes."

• The double take Frank Ocean induces when he says, "Why you think I'm in this bitch wearing a fucking yarmulke" on "Nikes."

• André 3000's solo on "Solo (Reprise)," accompanied by piano, on Frank Ocean's Blonde.

• The single, terrifying violin the Seattle Symphony Orchestra string section became when, musically, Stalin walks into the concert hall during Shostakovich's Symphony No. 11.

• The increasingly desperate and angry and dissonant protestations in the last three lines of Bon Iver's "715 - CR∑∑KS," which read: "Turn around, you're my A-Team. / Turn around now, you're my A-Team. / God damn turn around now, you're my A-Team."

• Every single bit of glorious trumpet on Chance the Rapper's Coloring Book.

• Julia Jacklin hitting the vowels and then the consonants in the lines "You grew smaller to me that Saturday when / You came crashing, crawling down through the back brush" with the weariness of a woman who has absolutely survived a physically abusive relationship. That's in the first verse of "Pool Party" on her album Don't Let the Kids Win.

• The fuck-it-all joy contained in the line "It's going to be a funky fresh Christmas and I don't think I can handle it / When there's so little dignity in anything" in Okkervil River's song "Frontman in Heaven."

• Angel Olsen singing the words "I seen youuuuuuuuuuuuuu changin'" with the disdain of a woman who has washed her last fucking dish.

• The three-alarm guitar riff in the opening gesture of Nail Polish's "Chophouse Row," on their album Abrupt.

• Julianna Barwick singing beyond the genius of her instrument when she muddles her violin-like voice with the violin on "Beached" from Will.

• Earth bassist and Master Musicians of Bukkake drummer Don McGreevy donning his serious-composer hat for the "Sulphuric Symphony" he titled Temporal Nature of Stability

at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center on January 30. Written to evoke the tragic poisoning of unsuspecting citizens by the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in 1986, the powerful poignancy of the piece did utmost justice to its grave subject matter.

• EARS, the 2016 album by Orcas Island native Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith,offering pop music for a world that's ascended to a much higher IQ level and has eradicated all bellicose impulses.

• At the :|Depths|: monthly, watching Meridian Arc (Andrew Crawshaw) and other musicians create a chilling new soundtrack for E. Elias Merhige's horrifying existential mindfuck Begotten on March 14 at Substation.

• At Northwest Film Forum on March 19, Ecstatic Cosmic Union's psychedelic grandeur turned Jim Henson's fantasy-adventure movie The Dark Crystal

into a much stranger trip than it's ever been.

• Baltimore's Horse Lords at Hollow Earth Radio on May 16, calling to mind noise-composer maximalist Glenn Branca jamming with African trance rockers Group Doueh during one of Terry Riley's all-night drone concerts. How does a band sound that tightly wound yet so free?

• Throughout their May 23 set at Sunset Tavern, Asheville duo Ahleuchatistas delivered brutal, radiant epiphanies, indelicate displays of virtuosity, and radical eruptions of inventiveness, proving that the lexicon of guitars and drums hasn't been exhausted yet or worn threadbare through cliché.

• The life-giving, Terry Riley–esque drone weaving of Sarah Davachi's Dominions.

• The vastly influential director/composer John Carpenter playing his own scores in front of scenes from his own horror flicks at the Paramount on June 14. His between-song humility and humor were unexpected bonuses.

• Chanting and meditating with dozens of others at the late, great Pauline Oliveros's Deep Listening workshop at the Northwest African American Museum on July 9.

• Minnesota electronic musician Eric Frye disorienting and subverting equilibrium on a six-speaker sound system at Chapel Performance Space on August 26.

• Philadelphia producer/vocalist Moor Mother railing against centuries of oppression toward African Americans in a most unconventional and effective manner at Machine House Brewery on September 11.

• Tabla master Zakir Hussain and sitar demiurge Niladri Kumar freezing time and elevating space at the Moore Theatre on October 23.

• Nordra's calamitous industrial-electronic score for Pylon II performance at King Street Station for the 9e2 Festival on October 26 was a shocking complement to the dancers' graceful, paranoiac moves.

• English/German ambient-dub pioneers the Orb blowing out their greatest hits at Neumos on October 26—pure ecstasy for chill-out aficionados of a certain age.

• The young gay couple kissing and groping each other for the entire 17-minute duration of Kraftwerk's strange krautrock odyssey "Klingklang" at the Chop Suey Den.

• Soundgarden's 22-year-old deep cut "Head Down" capturing the dejected, resigned mood a month after Trump's Russia-assisted victory. Because we can't all live in a state of apoplectic rage 24/7.

• Sorcha Faal + L-System—a new post-techno project by Newaxeyes members Jordan Rundle and Tyler Coray—weirding out Bar Sue on a snowy Thursday at Freakout Festival to about 19 people. They proved that odd synth spasms, sinister drones, and industrial-strength cranial clobber should be next year's big thing.

• Majeure (Zombi drummer Anthony Paterra) outshining the much-hyped, Stranger Things soundtrackers SURVIVE at the Crocodile on October 12.

• Legendary avant-garde improv ensemble Musica Elettronica Viva—some 50 years into their career—sowing elegant chaos at Chapel Performance Space on November 5.

• The exhilarating nihilism of UK duo Emptyset's Borders—whose J.G. Ballard–ian grimscapes won't be released until next year on Thrill Jockey—encapsulate the feeling of impending doom that the current international political situation portends.

• Seattle all-star tribute group led by Wayne Horvitz and Sly Sun Sivad smoothly seguing from Miles Davis's "On the Corner" into Sly & the Family Stone's "Dance to the Music" at the Royal Room on November 26.

• LA saxophonist Kamasi Washington and his large, virtuosic band's uproarious spiritual jazz at the Moore Theatre on December 2.

• New-age artist Laraaji coaxing a bizarre billowing of ominous drones by rubbing his microphone in concentric circles against a gong at Q Nightclub on December 6.

• At Vera Project on December 9, Matmos made John Cage sound like the 1910 Fruitgum Company, summoning an array of wonky and funky mechanized eructations from a laptop and a washing machine.