Billboard's 10 Best Albums of 2015 (So Far)

Courtney Barnett\'s 2015 full-length debut established her immediately as a force in independent rock—although she\'d bristle at any sort of hype, as she sneers on the noise-pop gem \"Pedestrian at Best\": \"Put me on a pedestal and I\'ll only disappoint you/Tell me I\'m exceptional, I promise to exploit you.\" Warnings aside, her brittle riffing and deadpan lyrics—not to mention indelible hooks and nagging sense of unease with the world—helped put *Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit* into the upper echelon of 2010s indie rock. The Melbourne-based singer-songwriter stares at stained ceilings and checks out open houses as she reflects on love, death, and the quality of supermarket produce, making *Sometimes* a crowd-pleaser almost in spite of itself. Propulsive tracks like the hip-shaking \"Elevator Operator\" and the squalling \"Dead Fox\" pair Barnett\'s talked-sung delivery with grungy, hooky rave-ups that sound beamed in from a college radio station\'s 1995 top-ten list. Her singing style isn\'t conversational as much as it is like a one-sided phone call from a friend who spends a lot of time in her own head, figuring out the meaning of life in real time while trying to answer the question \"How are you?\"—and sounding captivating every step of the way. But Barnett can also command blissed-out songs that bury pithy social commentary beneath their distorted guitars—\"Small Poppies\" hides notes about power and cruelty within its wobbly chords, while the marvelous \"Depreston\" rolls thoughts on twentysomething thriftiness, half-glimpsed lives, and shifting ideas of \"home\" across its sun-bleached landscape. While the topics of conversation can be heavy, Barnett\'s keen ear for what makes a potent pop song and her inability to be satisfied with herself make *Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit* a fierce opening salvo.

*Surf* is the long-awaited collaboration between the unbilled Chance the Rapper, his band The Social Experiment, and musical ally Donnie Trumpet (a.k.a. Nico Segal). Chance gets his time to shine, spitting acrobatic rhymes throughout, but clearly this is a team effort focused on moving minds and butts. Flecks of big-band instrumentation lend sparkle, while folks like Erykah Badu, Busta Rhymes, Janelle Monáe, and Big Sean provide cameos. The vibe is reminiscent of Native Tongues or Soulquarians, a positive space to submit to creative freedom and unpredictable flow, just like the ocean itself.

Drake surprised everyone at the beginning of 2015 when he dropped *If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late*, an impressive 17-track release that combines the contemplative and confrontational with plenty of cavernous production from longtime collaborator Noah “40” Shebib. While Drizzy joins mentor Lil Wayne in questioning the loyalty of old friends on the woozy, Wondagurl-produced “Used To,” “Energy” is the cold-blooded highlight—on which he snarls, “I got enemies.” Later, amid the electrifying barbs of “6PM in New York,” Drake considers his own mortality and legacy: “28 at midnight. I wonder what’s next for me.”

On Florence + The Machine’s third album, their focus is clear from the cover art. While the group\'s first two albums featured frontwoman Florence Welch posed in a theatrical side profile with her eyes closed, this one finds her eyes open and staring straight into the camera. This sense of immediacy and alertness infuses the band’s most mature, cohesive album yet, starting with propulsive opener, “Ship to Wreck.” Lush arrangements combine a rock band, strings, and brass with Welch’s volcanic, soaring voice, serving high drama on tracks like the driving “What Kind of Man” and the transcendent “Mother.”

A wondrous debut from the house producer of indie-pop romantics The xx, *In Colour* is the sound of dance music heard at helicopter height: beautiful, distant, and surprising at every turn. Whether summoning old-school drum ’n’ bass (“Gosh”) or dancehall-inflected pop (the Young Thug and Popcaan double feature “I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times)”), the mood here is consummately relaxed, more like a spring morning than a busy night. Laced throughout the thump and sparkle are fragments of recorded conversation and the ambience of city streets—details that make the music feel as though it has a life of its own.

Thanks to multiple hit singles—and no shortage of critical acclaim—2012’s *good kid, m.A.A.d city* propelled Kendrick Lamar into the hip-hop mainstream. His 2015 follow-up, *To Pimp a Butterfly*, served as a raised-fist rebuke to anyone who thought they had this Compton-born rapper figured out. Intertwining Afrocentric and Afrofuturist motifs with poetically personal themes and jazz-funk aesthetics, *To Pimp A Butterfly* expands beyond the gangsta rap preconceptions foisted upon Lamar’s earlier works. Even from the album’s first few seconds—which feature the sound of crackling vinyl and a faded Boris Gardiner soul sample—it’s clear *To Pimp a Butterfly* operates on an altogether different cosmic plane than its decidedly more commercial predecessor. The album’s Flying Lotus-produced opening track, “Wesley’s Theory,” includes a spoken-word invocation from musician Josef Leimberg and an appearance by Parliament-Funkadelic legend George Clinton—names that give *To Pimp a Butterfly* added atomic weight. Yet Lamar’s lustful and fantastical verses, which are as audacious as the squirmy Thundercat basslines underneath, never get lost in an album packed with huge names. Throughout *To Pimp a Butterfly*, Lamar goes beyond hip-hop success tropes: On “King Kunta,” he explores his newfound fame, alternating between anxiety and big-stepping braggadocio. On “The Blacker the Berry,” meanwhile, Lamar pointedly explores and expounds upon identity and racial dynamics, all the while reaching for a reckoning. And while “Alright” would become one of the rapper’s best-known tracks, it’s couched in harsh realities, and features an anthemic refrain delivered in a knowing, weary rasp that belies Lamar’s young age. He’s only 27, and yet he’s already seen too much. The cast assembled for this massive effort demonstrates not only Lamar’s reach, but also his vast vision. Producers Terrace Martin and Sounwave, both veterans of *good kid, m.A.A.d city*, are among the many names to work behind-the-boards here. But the album also includes turns from everyone from Snoop Dogg to SZA to Ambrose Akinmusire to Kamasi Washington—an intergenerational reunion of a musical diaspora. Their contributions—as well as the contributions of more than a dozen other players—give *To Pimp a Butterfly* a remarkable range: The contemplations of “Institutionalized” benefit greatly from guest vocalists Bilal and Anna Wise, as do the hood parables of “How Much A Dollar Cost,” which features James Fauntleroy and Ronald Isley. Meanwhile, Robert Glasper’s frenetic piano on “For Free? (Interlude)” and Pete Rock’s nimble scratches on “Complexion (A Zulu Love)” give *To Pimp a Butterfly* added energy.

This debut from brothers Swae Lee and Slim Jimmy, a.k.a. Rae Sremmurd, proves that Southern hip-hop is as bumping and irreverent as ever. This is the soundtrack to delinquency; its roiling low end and chopped-up beats foreground the antics of the devil-may-care protagonists. Whether it\'s praising the local gentlemen\'s club on the Minaj feature \"Throw Sum Mo\" or comparing themselves to Donald Trump, these boys just wanna have fun.

The peerless indie trio’s first LP in a decade is 33 minutes of pure, lean, honest-to-goodness rock. Corin Tucker is in full command of her howitzer of a voice on standouts like “Surface Envy.” Carrie Brownstein’s haughty punk sneer leads the glorious “A New Wave.” Janet Weiss’ masterful drumming navigates the songwriting’s hairpin tonal shifts, from the glittering “Hey Darling” to the turbulent album closer, “Fade.\" *No Cities to Love* is an electrifying step forward for one of the great American rock bands.

“We sound possessed on these songs,” says guitarist/vocalist Carrie Brownstein about Sleater-Kinney’s eighth studio album, No Cities to Love. “Willing it all–the entire weight of the band and what it means to us–back into existence.” The new record is the first in 10 years from the acclaimed trio–Brownstein, vocalist/guitarist Corin Tucker, and drummer Janet Weiss–who came crashing out of the ’90s Pacific Northwest riot grrrl scene, setting a new bar for punk’s political insight and emotional impact. Formed in Olympia, WA in 1994, Sleater-Kinney were hailed as “America’s best rock band” by Greil Marcus in Time Magazine, and put out seven searing albums in 10 years before going on indefinite hiatus in 2006. But the new album isn’t about reminiscing, it’s about reinvention–the ignition of an unparalleled chemistry to create new sounds and tell new stories. “I always considered Corin and Carrie to be musical soulmates in the tradition of the greats,” says Weiss, whose drums fuel the fire of Tucker and Brownstein’s vocal and guitar interplay. “Something about taking a break brought them closer, desperate to reach together again for their true expression.” The result is a record that grapples with love, power and redemption without restraint. “The three of us want the same thing,” says Weiss. “We want the songs to be daunting.” Produced by long-time Sleater-Kinney collaborator John Goodmanson, who helmed many of the band’s earlier albums including 1997 breakout set Dig Me Out, No Cities to Love is indeed formidable from the first beat. Lead track “Price Tag” is a pounding anthem about greed and the human cost of capitalism, establishing both the album’s melodic drive and its themes of power and powerlessness–giving voice, as Tucker says, to those who “struggle to be heard against the dominant culture or status quo.” “Bury Our Friends” has Tucker and Brownstein joining vocal forces, locking arms to defeat a pressing fear of insignificance. It’s also emblematic of the band’s give and take, and commitment to working and reworking each song until it’s as strong as it can be. “‘Bury Our Friends’ was written in the 11th hour,” says Tucker. “Carrie had her great chime-y guitar riff, but we had gone around in circles with how to make that part into a cohesive song. I think Carrie finally cracked the chorus idea and yelled, ‘Sing with me!’” “A New Wave” similarly went through many iterations during the writing process, with five or six potential choruses, before crystallizing. It enters with an insistent guitar riff, and a battle between acceptance and defiance–“Every day I throw a little party,” howls Brownstein, “but a fit would be more fitting.” The album’s meditative title track was inspired by the trend of atomic tourism and its function as a metaphor for someone enthralled and impressed by power. “That form of power, that presence, is not only destructive it’s also hollowed-out, past its prime,” says Brownstein. “The character in that song has made a ritual out of seeking structures and people in which to find strength, yet they keep coming up empty.” Sleater-Kinney’s decade apart made room for family and other fruitful collaborations, as well as an understanding of what the band’s singular chemistry demands. “Creativity is about where you want your blood to flow, because in order to do something meaningful and powerful there has to be life inside of it,” says Brownstein. “Sleater-Kinney isn’t something you can do half-assed or half-heartedly. We have to really want it. This band requires a certain desperation, a direness. We have to be willing to push because the entity that is this band will push right back.” “The core of this record is our relationship to each other, to the music, and how all of us still felt strongly enough about those to sweat it out in the basement and to try and reinvent our band,” adds Tucker. With No Cities to Love, “we went for the jugular.” –Evie Nagy

Sufjan Stevens has taken creative detours into textured electro-pop, orchestral suites, and holiday music, but *Carrie & Lowell* returns to the feathery indie folk of his quietly brilliant early-’00s albums, like *Michigan* and *Seven Swans*. Using delicate fingerpicking and breathy vocals, songs like “Eugene,” “The Only Thing,” and the Simon & Garfunkel-influenced “No Shade in the Shadow of The Cross” are gorgeous reflections on childhood. When Stevens whispers in multi-tracked harmony over the album’s title track—an impressionistic portrait of his mother and stepfather that glows with nostalgic details—he delivers a haunting centerpiece.