Rolling Stone's 20 Best Pop Albums of 2015

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.”

When hackers forced Madonna to release tracks from *Rebel Heart* early, it only drove expectations higher for the album, which comes in a standard 14-track version and a sprawling 19-track deluxe edition. The opening trilogy—“Living for Love,” “Devil Pray,” and “Ghosttown”—offer comfort food, melodies fans can take to heart, helped along by Diplo and Avicii. “Unapologetic B\*\*\*\*h” slides into reggae. “Illuminati” collaborates with Kanye West. “B\*\*\*h I’m Madonna” teams with Nicki Minaj. Chance the Rapper and Mike Tyson find their way into “Iconic,” while Madonna sings purely on “Joan of Arc.”

*Everything Is 4* sees the R&B dynamo working with an all-star cast—including Meghan Trainor, Jennifer Lopez, Stevie Wonder, and Keith Urban. While Derulo flexes his falsetto on the unstoppable opening anthem “Want to Want Me,” he harmonizes beautifully with Lopez in the summery, Matoma-produced pulse of “Try Me.” Just as impressively, Derulo makes memorable use of Wonder’s legendary harmonica and Urban’s unmistakable guitar moves on the hip-hop hoedown “Broke.”

This full-length debut is a colorful blast of attitude-packed R&B pop, spiced up with flirty rhymes (“Them Girls Be Like”), Mariah Carey samples (the ultra-catchy \"Like Mariah”), and guests including Kid Ink, Tyga, and Meghan Trainor. It’s the tunes when the distinct singers lean into lush vocal harmonies—“Reflection,” \"This Is How We Roll,” “We Know\"—where the album really shines.

One Direction’s fifth album demonstrates just how far the group has come since their early days on the *X Factor* stage. *Made in the A.M.* is filled with charisma, confidence, and sparkling group chemistry. Upbeat sing-alongs like “Drag Me Down” and “Perfect” are perfectly crafted pop anthems, but the guys shine just as brightly on an epic power ballad like “Infinity.”

Justin Bieber shows there’s art in resilience on his fourth studio album. After a turbulent 2014, *Purpose* sees the pop prodigy return with his strongest work to date—an atmospheric, introspective set that’s built on smart production and intimate songwriting. From the radiant “What Do You Mean” to the soulful, Skrillex-produced “I’ll Show You,” this is Bieber at his most vulnerable and honest. 

While Little Mix’s musical output has always transcended its talent-show beginnings, there were moments during the group’s early years when it felt like the members were stuck on a pop conveyer belt. Little Mix’s 2012 debut, *DNA*, was released less than a year after the group won the top prize on the British version of *The X Factor*; a follow-up album, *Salute*, arrived not long afterwards. So far, so seamless. But Little Mix’s third effort, *Get Weird*, was held up for a year—with the band members later revealing that nearly an album’s worth of material had been scrapped along the way. Still, while the protracted recording of *Get Weird* was unusually tortuous, you wouldn’t know it from listening to the record. Unlike the moodier, more experimental *Salute*, the light and buoyant *Get Weird* finds the band members leaning into a pure pop sensibility. The lead single, “Black Magic,” has the effervescent bounce of 1980s teen pop, featuring a killer chorus and an instantly catchy call-and-response bridge (“All the girls on the block knocking at my door (I got the recipe)/Wanna know what it is, make the boys want more (Now you belong to me)”). “Black Magic” doesn’t reinvent the wheel. But the song stormed the charts and solidified Little Mix’s status as the globe’s most reliable hitmaking girl band. And there are plenty of hits to be found on *Get Weird*. While previous Little Mix singles owed a debt to En Vogue and Destiny’s Child, “Love Me Like You” harks further back, with its harmonized “Sha-la-la-la” verses and doo-wop stylings recalling The Ronettes and The Supremes. But if “Love Me Like You” features a retro sound, its lyrics are surprisingly suggestive: “Used to get it when I wa-a-ant…Now I’m dealin’ with these bo-o-oys/When I really need a man who can do it like I can.” Things escalate even more on the naughty “A.D.I.D.A.S.,” which features such to-the-point lines as, “Excuse me, do me or lose me/Get me to the bedroom, do your duty.” When pop groups try to grow up with their fanbases, the results often come off as contrived; on *Get Weird*, though, such diversions are executed with a welcome, knowing wink. Elsewhere on the album, Jason Derulo lends his tremulous vibrato to “Secret Love Song,” dedicated to the group’s LGBTQ+ fanbase, while Sean Paul makes a typically spirited appearance on thumping single “Hair.” It all makes for an effort that, despite its title, isn’t particularly weird. But it *is* certainly wonderful.

The title is no idle boast: Demi Lovato’s fifth album is their most assured. Enlisting master craftsmen of 21st-century pop such as Max Martin, Stargate and Ryan Tedder, they\'ve built a collection of sparkling, hip-hop-laced electro-pop that’s impressively punchy in tone and melody. Self-empowerment is the motif as Lovato chews up haters (“Waitin for You”), chases sexual adventure (“Cool for the Summer”) and confronts heartbreak and grief on gale-force ballads “For You” and “Father”.

Jess Glynne’s star has been in ascent since her soulful vocals lit up Clean Bandit\'s “Rather Be” and “Real Love”. The Londoner’s debut album is a journey through giddy personal highs (the dance-floor hits “Right Here” and “Hold My Hand”) and mournful lows (“Take Me Home” and “Gave Me Something” both show off that sensational voice). There’s satisfying middle ground, too, with “You Can Find Me” injects some playful fun.

A decade on from *Ruby Blue*’s avant-jazz and eight years after the glistening disco of *Overpowered*, Ireland’s abiding electropop queen stylishly retakes her throne on this sumptuous, ever-shifting third solo album. Murphy (alongside Moloko collaborator and new co-writer Eddie Stevens) isn’t afraid to hurl new ideas into an already-brimming pot, as evidenced by the spaghetti western drama of “Exile” and the escalating synth-funk atmospherics on “Exploitation”. There’s always cohesion to match the fearless sonic questing, though. And at the heart of it all–with that breathy, brittle falsetto–is Murphy’s matchless delivery.

Roisin's first album in 8 years, Hairless Toys is a career defining tour de force. Tipping its hat to the dark disco of European house music, Casablanca Records and Grace Jones, while seamlessly taking in the freedom and organic spirit of jazz, country and gospel. Hairless Toys is a Mercury Prize shortlisted album.