The Guardian's Best Albums of 2016 – So Far

ANOHNI has collaborated with Oneohtrix Point Never and Hudson Mohawke on the artist's latest work, HOPELESSNESS. Late last year, ANOHNI, the lead singer from Antony and the Johnsons, released “4 DEGREES", a bombastic dance track celebrating global boiling and collapsing biodiversity.  Rather than taking refuge in good intentions, ANOHNI gives voice to the attitude sublimated within her behavior as she continues to consume in a fossil fuel-based economy. ANOHNI released “4 DEGREES,” the first single from her upcoming album HOPELESSNESS, to support the Paris climate conference this past December. The song emerged earlier last year in live performances. As discussed by ANOHNI: "I have grown tired of grieving for humanity, and I also thought I was not being entirely honest by pretending that I am not a part of the problem," she said. “’4 DEGREES' is kind of a brutal attempt to hold myself accountable, not just valorize my intentions, but also reflect on the true impact of my behaviors.” The album, HOPELESSNESS, to be released world wide on May 6th 2016, is a dance record with soulful vocals and lyrics addressing surveillance, drone warfare, and ecocide.  A radical departure from the singer’s symphonic collaborations, the album seeks to disrupt assumptions about popular music through the collision of electronic sound and highly politicized lyrics.  ANOHNI will present select concerts in Europe, Australia and the US in support of HOPELESSNESS this Summer.

There’s one moment critical to understanding the emotional and cultural heft of *Lemonade*—Beyoncé’s genre-obliterating blockbuster sixth album—and it arrives at the end of “Freedom,” a storming empowerment anthem that samples a civil-rights-era prison song and features Kendrick Lamar. An elderly woman’s voice cuts in: \"I had my ups and downs, but I always find the inner strength to pull myself up,” she says. “I was served lemons, but I made lemonade.” The speech—made by her husband JAY-Z’s grandmother Hattie White on her 90th birthday in 2015—reportedly inspired the concept behind this radical project, which arrived with an accompanying film as well as words by Somali-British poet Warsan Shire. Both the album and its visual companion are deeply tied to Beyoncé’s identity and narrative (her womanhood, her blackness, her husband’s infidelity) and make for Beyoncé\'s most outwardly revealing work to date. The details, of course, are what make it so relatable, what make each song sting. Billed upon its release as a tribute to “every woman’s journey of self-knowledge and healing,” the project is furious, defiant, anguished, vulnerable, experimental, muscular, triumphant, humorous, and brave—a vivid personal statement from the most powerful woman in music, released without warning in a time of public scrutiny and private suffering. It is also astonishingly tough. Through tears, even Beyoncé has to summon her inner Beyoncé, roaring, “I’ma keep running ’cause a winner don’t quit on themselves.” This panoramic strength–lyrical, vocal, instrumental, and personal–nudged her public image from mere legend to something closer to real-life superhero. Every second of *Lemonade* deserves to be studied and celebrated (the self-punishment in “Sorry,” the politics in “Formation,” the creative enhancements from collaborators like James Blake, Robert Plant, and Karen O), but the song that aims the highest musically may be “Don’t Hurt Yourself”—a Zeppelin-sampling psych-rock duet with Jack White. “This is your final warning,” she says in a moment of unnerving calm. “If you try this shit again/You gon\' lose your wife.” In support, White offers a word to the wise: “Love God herself.”

On the cover of his fourth studio album *Views*, Drake looks down from atop Toronto’s CN Tower, paying homage to the city’s notoriously frigid winter temperatures in a heavyweight shearling coat and high-cut boots. He looks less like the superhero he’d made himself into over the course of a roughly six-year rise as singer-songwriter extraordinaire and more like a troubled monarch. *Views*, which followed two wildly successful projects in 2015 that he’d branded as mixtapes—*If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late* and the Future collab *What a Time to Be Alive*—would confirm him as both, his penchant for immaculate songwriting still fully intact and the pressures of existing as the most popular voice in rap, as well as his hometown’s most successful export, weighing heavy on his mind. “I made a decision last night that I would die for it,” Drake raps on “9.” “Just to show the city what it takes to be alive for it.” Drake’s presence eclipsed Toronto just about as soon as *So Far Gone* dropped, but the city—and what it thinks of him—was never far from his mind. There are references here to specific people (“Redemption”), places (“Weston Road Flows”), and experiences (“Views”), along with nods to the influence of the city’s Caribbean population on “With You,” “Controlla,” and “Too Good” (which just happens to feature Rihanna). He isn’t too much for the world, though, ruminating on his position as one of music’s biggest names—and those who’d rather he wasn’t—on songs like “Still Here,” “Hype,” and “Grammys.” Maybe the the most affecting acknowledgment to this end is the fact that “Hotline Bling,” a strong contender for 2015 song of the summer, was such an afterthought by the time *Views* was released that it appears here as a bonus track. For all intents and purposes, the Drake of *Views* is the same one we got on *If You’re Reading This* and *What a Time*, but if his previous proper album (*Nothing Was the Same*) foretold anything, it’s that the man peering down from CN Tower sees things differently than the rest of us.

Brooklyn art-rockers Parquet Courts have sometimes obscured their warmth under a cover of discord, challenging song structures and sardonic detachment. Their fifth album simplifies and purifies their sound to thrilling effect though. Whether they’re dovetailing or duelling, Andrew Savage and Austin Brown’s punchy riffs sublimate into the band’s poppiest hooks yet. There’s emotional engagement too, with Savage opening up his heartache and isolation on the bittersweet “Human Performance” and “Berlin Got Blurry”’s collision of thrumming post-punk and surf guitar licks.

Recorded over the course of a year against a backdrop of personal instability, "Human Performance" massively expands the idea of what a Parquet Courts record can be. They've been one of the most critically acclaimed bands of the last 5 years; this is the record that backs all those words up. “Every day it starts, anxiety,” began the first song on 2014’s "Content Nausea." Those were essentially the song’s only lyrics, but "Human Performance" picks up where that thought left off, picking apart the anxieties of modern life: “The unavoidable noise of NYC that can be maddening, the kind of the impossible struggle against clutter, whether it's physical or mental or social,” says singer, guitarist and "Human Performance" producer/mixer Austin Brown. There has always been the emotional side of Parquet Courts, which has always had an important balance with the more discussed cerebral side, but Savage sees "Human Performance" as a redistribution of weight in that balance. "I began to question my humanity, and if it was always as sincere as I thought, or if it was a performance,” says Savage. “I felt like a sort of malfunctioning apparatus,” he says. “Like a machine programmed to be human showing signs of defect.” The sonic diversity, time, and existential effort that went into its creation makes "Human Performance" Parquet Courts' most ambitious record to date. It's a work of incredible creative vision born of seemingly insurmountable adversity. It is also their most accessible record yet.

Radiohead’s ninth album is a haunting collection of shapeshifting rock, dystopian lullabies, and vast spectral beauty. Though you’ll hear echoes of their previous work—the remote churn of “Daydreaming,” the feverish ascent and spidery guitar of “Ful Stop,” Jonny Greenwood’s terrifying string flourishes—*A Moon Shaped Pool* is both familiar and wonderfully elusive, much like its unforgettable closer. A live favorite since the mid-‘90s, “True Love Waits” has been re-imagined in the studio as a weightless, piano-driven meditation that grows more exquisite as it gently floats away.

After giving the world a decade of nonstop hits, the big question for Rihanna was “What’s next?” Well, she was going to wait a little longer than expected to reveal the answer. Four years separated *Unapologetic* and her eighth album. But she didn’t completely escape from the spotlight during the mini hiatus. Rather, she experimented in real time by dropping one-off singles like the acoustic folk “FourFiveSeconds” collaboration with Kanye West and Paul McCartney, the patriotic ballad “American Oxygen,” and the feisty “Bitch Better Have My Money.” The sonic direction she was going to land on for *ANTI* was still murky, but those songs were subtle hints nonetheless. When she officially unleashed *ANTI* to the world, it quickly became clear that this wasn’t the Rihanna we’d come to know from years past. In an unexpected twist, the singer tossed her own hit factory formula (which she polished to perfection since her 2005 debut) out the window. No, this was a freshly independent Rihanna who intentionally took time to dig deep. As the world was holding its breath awaiting the new album, she found a previously untapped part of her artistry. *ANTI* says it all in the title: The album is the complete antithesis of Pop Star Rihanna. From the abstract cover art (which features a poem written in braille) to newfound autonomy after leaving her longtime record label, Def Jam, to form her own, *ANTI* shattered all expectations of what a structured pop album should sound like—not only for her own standards, but also for fellow artists who wanted to demolish industry rules. And the risk worked in her favor: it became the singer’s second No. 1 LP. “I got to do things my own way, darling/Will you ever let me?/Will you ever respect me?” Rihanna mockingly asks on the opening track, “Consideration.” In response, the rest of the album dives headfirst into fearlessness where she doesn’t hesitate to get sensual, vulnerable, and just a little weird. *ANTI*’s overarching theme is centered on relationships. Echoing Janet Jackson’s *The Velvet Rope*, Rihanna details the intricacies of love from all stages. Lead single “Work” is yet another flirtatious reunion with frequent collaborator Drake as they tease each other atop a steamy dancehall bassline. She spits vitriolic acid on the Travis Scott-produced “Woo,” taunting an ex-flame who walked away from her: “I bet she could never make you cry/’Cause the scars on your heart are still mine.” What’s most notable throughout *ANTI* is Rihanna’s vocal expansion, from her whiskey-coated wails on the late-night voicemail that is “Higher” to breathing smoke on her rerecorded version of Tame Impala’s “New Person, Same Old Mistakes.” Yet the signature Rihanna DNA remained on the album. The singer proudly celebrated her Caribbean heritage on the aforementioned “Work,” presented women with yet another kiss-off anthem with “Needed Me,” and flaunted her erotic side on deluxe track “Sex With Me.” Ever the sonic explorer, she also continued to uncover new genres by going full ’50s doo-wop on “Love on the Brain” and channeling Prince for the velvety ’80s power-pop ballad “Kiss It Better.” *ANTI* is not only Rihanna’s brilliant magnum opus, but it’s also a sincere declaration of freedom as she embraces her fully realized womanhood.

Following the dizzying success of their breakout 2013 debut, The 1975 aim even higher. The poignantly titled *I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it* is a captivating display of all the UK rock chameleons do so well, blending neon ‘80s art-funk confections (“Love Me,” “She’s American”) and heady 21st-century electro-textures (“Somebody Else,” “If I Believe You,” the gorgeous title cut). Held together by frontman Matt Healy’s bold-yet-earnest vocal performances, the result is as anthemic as it is intimate.