Rolling Stone's 45 Best Albums of 2016 So Far
The 45 best albums of 2016 so far, including Beyoncé, Radiohead, Chance the Rapper, David Bowie and more.
Published: June 20, 2016

Stereogum's 50 Best Albums of 2016 So Far
Veep, quite possibly the best show on TV right now, depicts a culture of Washington aides chained to their phones, sent scrambling to come up with an official response every time a new crisis erupts. They can’t sleep, their personal lives are in shambles, and they exist in a constant state of bickery infighting. For the past few months, that’s been us. The entire rock-critical establishment has been in a tetchy, freaked-out reactive state since shortly after 2016. The reason: There is so fucking much going on. There’s always a lot going on in music, of course, but the first half of 2016 has been a goddamn gauntlet. Every few weeks — sometimes not even that — there’s been a huge new surprise album, a long-gestating masterwork from a huge star or a respected up-and-comer that demands some kind of reaction this very minute. Some of those albums have been absolute dogshit. (Hello, Views.) But many of them have been great. It’s exhausting for those of us who work in this business. But it’s also terribly exciting to show up to work everyday, knowing that we could be dealing with a new album from Beyoncé or Radiohead or Chance The Rapper or James Blake or Kanye West. Sometimes, we’ll get a few days of advance warning. Sometimes, we won’t even get that. At the same time, the undergrounds keep churning. So while, say, a new Rihanna album demands a certain level of attention, it’s important not to let the great smaller albums slip through the cracks. And this year has been lousy with those, too. We’ve been celebrating the superstars, but we’ve also been celebrating Canadian pop-punk tantrum masters and twangy New Jersey emo belters and bloodthirsty extreme-metal auteurs and bedroom-pop outsiders and introverted rap motormouths. On our list of the year’s 50 best albums thus far — the albums coming out before July, or, at least, the ones that we’ve already heard — you’ll find a whole lot of pop. You’ll also find jazz and house and metal and country and punk and experimental music, as well as indie-rock of all stripes. All the members of your Stereogum staff have voted, and we’ve had to make the ridiculous and absurd choices, like how to rank David Bowie’s uncompromising goodbye album against the gorgeous utopian soul LP that Anderson .Paak put out on the very same day. You will probably disagree with some of our choices here; that’s a given. But perhaps you’ll join us in marveling at the quantity and breadth of great music that 2016 has already given us. And maybe you’ll also find something amazing that you hadn’t heard before. —Tom 50 Parquet Courts – Human Performance (Rough Trade) It’s hard to explain exactly why Parquet Courts are so great, because on paper, they don’t sound that exciting. So it’s a testament to their immense talent that they really are that exciting. On Human Performance, they take all the anxiety and ennui of modern existence, add in a healthy dose of personal heartbreak, and turn it into whip-smart, hugely satisfying rock songs. Some of the ramshackle punk energy of Sunbathing Animal is gone, but it’s replaced by a world-weariness and a tight musicianship that can’t be beat, plus some of the most immediately appealing songs of their career. —Peter STREAM IT: Spotify | Apple Music 49 Open Mike Eagle – Hella Personal Film Festival (Mello Music Group) The underground MMG has a roster as deep as the Golden State Warriors. Time and time again they come with artists that can spit their asses off and production that’s in the traditional vein of hip-hop, but fresh, updated, and inventive. Open Mike Eagle would be their MVP for the first half of the season. He perfectly named Hella Personal Film Festival because he comes with inward, intimate reflections. But he also has the wherewithal to remove himself from his limited personal perspective while creating a wildly entertaining experience where he can yell at the screen with sharp commentary along with the rest of us in the audience. —Collin STREAM IT: Spotify | Apple Music 48 Ariana Grande – Dangerous Woman (Republic) And to think, this album was going to be called Moonlight. Instead we get the pleasure of hearing Grande attempt to shed her ingenue image, exploring her wilder side by adopting an edgy Sasha Fierce-style persona. It was a savvy move that yielded a slew of her finest singles yet. “Dangerous Woman,” “Be Alright,” and especially “Into You” are pantheon-level pop songs, proof that Grande is gunning for the A-list. And the fact that she got Macy Gray to guest on her big-budget pop album — in 2016! — is further evidence that besides being more dangerous than she gets credit for, Grande is also weird as hell. —Chris STREAM IT: Spotify | Apple Music 47 The Range – Potential (Domino) Potential is part immaculately-produced electronic album, part sociological experiment. James Hinton scoured the depths of YouTube for samples on his second album as the Range, and approached his subjects with a respectful but academic rigor in order to interrogate the nature of what sampling means during an age when there’s an unlimited amount of sources to draw from. An endeavor that could have easily been a pretentious and voyeuristic vanity project is instead a work of uncompromising humanity that explores the breaks between our hopes, dreams, and the crushing weight of reality. —James STREAM IT: Spotify | Apple Music 46 Fear Of Men – Fall Forever (Kanine) Fall Forever is full of jaw-dropping lyrics, among them “Force my nerves to bend to feel what you feel,” “You tell me impossible things that break me,” and “Breathing deeper now, I am free from the crowd/ I’m as clean as the shame will allow.” But the relevant passage here is when Jessica Weiss dejectedly declares, “The change in me is never what you hoped it would be.” Where Fear Of Men are concerned, that could not be more false. This album is a quantum leap for the Brighton band, a dark indie-pop triumph that channels Weiss’ trauma into the space between Radiohead and Allo Darlin’ and finds beauty there. —Chris STREAM IT: Spotify | Apple Music 45 KING – We Are KING (King Creative) We Are KING is pretty much a self-titled debut, but that simple title speaks volumes. KING came out of the gate with the cool, relaxed stride of a thoroughbred headed to the solitude of the winner’s circle. The trio is unabashedly confident in their identity and exquisitely crafted sound, balancing a gauzy aesthetic with a quiet, warm potency. Paris and Amber Strother are twins, which means they have a closeness inherent in their very DNA. But the musical chemistry Anita Bias shares with them registers just as intimately, and that makes their sound as unique as it is compelling. —Collin STREAM IT: Spotify | Apple Music 44 Tegan And Sara – Love You To Death (Vapor) The first thing that’s so winning about Tegan And Sara’s transition to pure pop of the Cars/Lauper variety is that they’ve lost none of their detailed, diaristic approach to lyric writing, and that lovelorn melancholy fits well with a style of music that traditionally balances sadness with jubilation. The second thing is they do it really goddamn well. Love You To Death is an album of real emotional depth and maturity, but these songs are marvels of structure and technique, not just echoing some timeless influences but matching them. You don’t need to make out the words to hear the heartache in these songs — the melody conveys that to the body with an adrenaline quickness — but when those words make it to your brain, man, they’d knock you down if the beat weren’t there to keep you on your feet, moving. —Michael STREAM IT: Spotify | Apple Music 43 Underworld – Barbara Barbara, we face a shining future (Astralwerks) Barbara Barbara, we face a shining future, the first album in six years from British electronic godheads Underworld, has gotten its share of praise, but thanks to so many blockbuster releases this year, it’s unlikely to register when people remember 2016 down the line. That’s a shame because this is a stunning work. The title is a quote from Rick Smith’s father toward the end of his life, a phrase rooted in mortality and looking toward something beyond. And that’s what the album sounds like. Opening trilogy “I Exhale,” “If Rah,” and “Low Burn” all feature Karl Hyde issuing sing-speak visions amidst mechanical churn. It’s music that captures the feeling of being lost in the modern world, but the shining future is just ahead: “Ova Nova” and “Nylon Strung” shoot off into the sky at the album’s conclusion, sounding like hope and peace and unnamed emotions. —Ryan STREAM IT: Spotify | Apple Music 42 Julianna Barwick – Will (Dead Oceans) Julianna Barwick makes devotional music for a secular age, turning the aesthetic experience into the sacred. Using little more than her voice, she constructs cavernous cathedrals of sound, clouds of echoed vocals that slowly ascend to the heavens. On Will, though, they sound more earthbound than ever before — the amniotic haze makes way for pianos and strings and synths, adding a tactile heft and an immediacy to these compositions. Where the album falls short of the divine, it more than makes up for in its intimate sense of humanity. —Peter STREAM IT: Spotify | Apple Music 41 Wye Oak – Tween (Merge) Like Kendrick Lamar’s untitled unmastered., Tween is billed not an album or mixtape but an amorphous project built from worthy outtakes. So what’s it doing on a best albums list? Well, just as Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack have managed to translate their swooning twilight indie-rock into many different sonic frameworks, so that no matter what instruments they use it still sounds like Wye Oak, apparently if you string enough of these songs together it will elicit that same epic melancholy sensation you get from one of their proper LPs. In other words, shut up Wye Oak this is an album, one that masterfully bridges Shriek‘s baroque synthpop with the smoldering guitar music of their youth. —Chris STREAM IT: Spotify | Apple Music 40 Oranssi Pazuzu – Värähtelijä (20 Buck Spin) Psychedelic black metal traditionally references Floydian vastness and Zeppelin-esque bombast, but Finland’s Oranssi Pazuzu adhere to no traditions, and their world-eating fourth LP, Värähtelijä, references a far broader (and weirder) world of influences: Krautrock, Afrobeat, free jazz, dub, ambient, noise. But Värähtelijä isn’t an antagonistic or esoteric work; it’s an inviting, immersive experience. Its songs build slowly, to be sure, yet they hook you quickly and reward your attentiveness with gigantic payoffs. The brutality here feels expansive and textural; the rhythmic elements give the music a rare beauty and mystery. It’s inner-space music, but it’s not just a trip, it’s a journey. —Michael STREAM IT: Spotify | Apple Music 39 M83 – Junk (Mute) When M83 released “Do It, Try It,” there was a common, resounding response: What the shit, M83? Movie soundtracks aside, this was the highly anticipated and long-awaited first proper single from from Anthony Gonzalez since his sprawling, neon masterpiece Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming in 2011, and the announcement of an LP inspired by ’80s TV like Punky Brewster and Who’s The Boss made Junk seem like a bizarro freakout of a followup. Thing is, “Do It, Try It” and much of Junk are not nearly as much a departure as they’ve been made out to be. Sure, you have to sift through cheesy detritus like “Moon Crystal” and the overly saccharine “For The Kids,” but the stuff that lingers longer is the louche “Bibi The Dog,” the highly addictive one-two of “Laser Gun” and “Road Blaster,” or the late-night city cruise Beck feature “Time Wind.” M83’s wild maximalism had always flirted with tastelessness anyway, which only means the bleary Junk is an appropriate comedown from the highs of Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming as well as the logical crash landing of Gonzalez’s nostalgia overdrive. —Ryan STREAM IT: Spotify | Apple Music 38 School of Seven Bells – SVIIB (PLANCHA) After Benjamin Curtis tragically lost his battle with lymphoma in 2013, SVIIB’s sole remaining member, frontwoman Alejandra Deheza, could’ve abandoned the music they had been recording before and during Curtis’ illness. Instead, she returned to this often-effervescent material and found a way to process her grief. In the soaring “Ablaze” or the meditative “A Thousand Times More,” she chose the path of celebration, chronicling the partnership (first romantic, then platonic, always musical) she shared with Curtis. Given its context, SVIIB is inevitably a heavy album, but against expectations it’s also an uplifting and defiant one. Nothing, not even death, can take away the years you do get with the people you love. For what is likely the last music that will be released under the SVIIB moniker, Deheza found the strength to share a piece of that with us, writing a beautiful epilogue for her and Curtis and all the people who cared about them, even if from a distance. —Ryan STREAM IT: Spotify |
Published: June 15, 2016

The Guardian's Best Albums of 2016 – So Far
The year is half over and it’s time to take stock of all the brilliant albums made in 2016, from Beyoncé’s fizzing pop to Anohni’s anguished protest music
Published: June 08, 2016

Consequence of Sound's Top 25 Albums of 2016 (So Far)
Surprises, both beautiful and heartbreaking, are the story so far this year.
Published: June 01, 2016

Rolling Stone's 20 Best Avant Albums of 2015
The year's best in noise, out-jazz, contemporary classical, ambient, drone and more.
Published: December 29, 2015

HipHopDX's Top 25 Albums of 2015
The Top 25 albums of the year.
Published: December 23, 2015

XLR8R's Best Releases of 2015
We run through our top 25 albums and EPs of the year.
Published: December 23, 2015

NOW Magazine's Top Albums of 2015
It wasn't a notable year for rock 'n' roll, but a rock band still snagged our number-one spot, while experimentalists of all stripes made the strongest showing. Here's our critics' collaborative list.
Published: December 23, 2015

Rolling Stone's 40 Best Rap Albums of 2015
The 40 best rap albums of 2015, including Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Future and more
Published: December 23, 2015

Popjustice's Top 33 Albums of 2015
Carly Rae Jepsen won obviously. No need to even click the link.
Published: December 22, 2015

Passion of the Weiss' Best Albums of 2015
We may be wrong but I doubt it.
Published: December 21, 2015

Digital Spy's 25 Best Albums of 2015

Published: December 19, 2015

Rolling Stone's 20 Best Pop Albums of 2015
The 20 Best Pop Albums of 2015, including Adele, Justin Bieber, One Direction and more
Published: December 18, 2015

Uncut's Top 75 Albums of 2015
The current issue of Uncut features the best albums of the year, along with our reissues of the year, and the best films and books.
Published: December 18, 2015

Clash's Albums of the Year 2015
So here we are: the year's finest album. We've been counting down what are (in our opinion) the 50 finest album releases of 2015, a list that
Published: December 18, 2015

musicOMH's Top 50 Albums of 2015
Lists: musicOMH's Top 50 Albums Of 2015
Published: December 18, 2015

Rolling Stone's 20 Best EDM and Electronic Albums of 2015
The 20 best electronic, dance and EDM albums of 2015, including Jack Ü, Disclosure, Jlin and more.
Published: December 17, 2015

Time Out New York's 20 Best Albums of 2015
Listen back to 2015’s best new music with Time Out London's review of the year’s greatest albums to date, including Björk, Blur, Drake, Kendrick Lamar and Florence + The Machine.
Published: December 17, 2015

Time Out London's 50 Best Albums of 2015
Listen back to 2015’s best new music with Time Out London's review of the year’s greatest albums to date, including Björk, Blur, Drake, Kendrick Lamar and Florence + The Machine.
Published: December 17, 2015

Cosmopolitan's 15 Best Albums of 2015
Justin Bieber, Carly Rae Jepsen, and maybe that Adele person. She put something out, right?
Published: December 16, 2015

SPIN's 50 Best Hip-Hop Albums of 2015
2015 was hip-hop's best year of the decade. The albums then released elevated the game. Check out the 30 best hip-hop albums of the year 2015 at SPIN.
Published: December 16, 2015

Dazed's Top 20 Albums of 2015
From Shamir’s disco-club debut to Archy Marshall’s surprise ode to south London, we pick this year’s most explosive creations
Published: December 16, 2015

Mashable's 30 Best Albums of 2015
The 30 best albums of 2015
Published: December 15, 2015

SPIN's 20 Best Metal Albums of 2015
Continuing the domination of last year's hellish hopscotch between anarchy and orthodoxy, fortune — for 2015's best metal acts — has once again favored
Published: December 14, 2015

The Daily Beast's Best Albums of 2015
All the greatest albums of the year, from an Obama-approved rap manifesto to riot grrrl legends’ roaring comeback.
Published: December 14, 2015

Treble's Top 50 Albums of 2015
The year has come to an end and Treble has revealed our list of the 50 best albums of 2015.
Published: December 14, 2015

The Vinyl Factory's 50 Best LPs of 2015

Published: December 11, 2015

Newsweek's Top 20 Albums of 2015
These are the albums that surprised and delighted us in 2015.
Published: December 10, 2015

Slant Magazine's 25 Best Albums of 2015
If ingenuity and craft are legitimate measures of success, then the rumors of the LP’s demise are indeed greatly exaggerated.
Published: December 10, 2015

The Line of Best Fit's 50 Best Albums of 2015
From A$AP Rocky to Viet Cong, here are fifty records from 2015 that you really need to hear.
Published: December 10, 2015

SPIN's 20 Best Avant Albums of 2015
Hard and fast boundaries don't mean much these days. M.I.A. would tell you as much, offering a big ol' "what's up with that?" at the very concept and
Published: December 09, 2015

Consequence of Sound's Top 25 Metal Albums of 2015
The heavy metal renaissance is in full effect.
Published: December 09, 2015

Exclaim!'s Top 10 Electronic Albums of 2015
Our Best of 2015 albums lists by genre continue today with our staff picks for the 10 best electronic albums this year.   Click next to re...
Published: December 09, 2015

Vulture's 10 Best Albums of 2015
To Pimp a Butterfly isn’t a perfect album, but it’s the one we needed most this year.
Published: December 08, 2015

Exclaim!'s Top 10 Soul and R&B Albums of 2015
Our Best of 2015 albums lists by genre continue today with our staff picks for the 10 best soul and R&B albums this year.   Click next to...
Published: December 08, 2015

SPIN's 25 Best Pop Albums of 2015
This year was the one where pop's backstage forces stepped out from behind the scenes and took the reins. Ariel Rechtshaid bridged the gap between college
Published: December 07, 2015

Stereogum's 40 Best Rap Albums of 2015
Things got hot in 2015. After 2014, when most of rap’s biggest names took the year off, everyone was suddenly locked into a brutal competition to see who could claim rap’s top spot. Drake released two album-length projects in 2015, insisting that neither one was a proper album even though both of them cost actual […]
Published: December 07, 2015

Idolator's 15 Favorite Albums of 2015
Our picks for the 15 finest LPs the year had to offer.
Published: December 07, 2015

Exclaim!'s Top 10 Hip-Hop Albums of 2015
Our Best of 2015 albums lists by genre continue today with our staff picks for the 10 best hip-hop albums this year.   Click next to read...
Published: December 07, 2015

NPR Music's 50 Favorite Albums of 2015
Albums that we loved in 2015 swept us away, seduced us, reckoned with the politics that shape our moment or our nation and taught us something new about ourselves.
Published: December 07, 2015

A.V. Club's 15 Best Albums of 2015
It might sound cliché at this point, but in 2015, the music industry bounced back. Maybe not all the way back to its mid-’90s peaks of excess, but relatively speaking in today’s terms. Taylor Swift made buckets of money touring her 1989 record, Adele broke long-held sales records with 25, and everyone with a radio and…
Published: December 07, 2015

Exclaim!'s Top 10 Folk & Country Albums of 2015
Our Best of 2015 albums lists by genre continue today with our staff picks for the 10 best folk and country albums this year.   Click next...
Published: December 04, 2015

Exclaim!'s Top 20 Pop & Rock Albums of 2015
Our Best of 2015 albums lists by genre continue with our staff picks for the 20 best pop and rock albums this year. Yesterday (December 2),...
Published: December 03, 2015

NME's Top 50 Albums of 2015

Published: December 02, 2015

Consequence of Sound's Top 50 Albums of 2015
This year belonged to the artists hungry to tell the truth.
Published: December 02, 2015

Complex's Best Albums of 2015 (So Far)
These are the top releases of the year.
Published: December 01, 2015

Brooklyn Magazine's Best Albums of 2015

Published: December 01, 2015

Rolling Stone's 50 Best Albums of 2015
Rolling Stone's best albums of the year list: The 50 best albums of 2015.
Published: December 01, 2015

Stereogum's 50 Best Albums of 2015
We heard it again and again in 2015: This year in music is so good that any attempt to make sense of it is going to be a fool’s errand. And it’s true. We always agonize over our year-end lists, but we agonized harder over this one than we usually do. There are albums that […]
Published: December 01, 2015

Exclaim!'s Top 10 EPs of 2015
Shorter and with less perceived artistic importance than LPs, extended players — or EPs — often get painted as somehow lesser mu...
Published: December 01, 2015