American Songwriter's Top 50 Albums of 2015

American Songwriter's Top 50 Albums of 2015

Original Source →

50.

Kristin Diable - Create Your Own Mythology
February 24, 2015
Critic Score
80
2 reviews

49.

January 20, 2015
Critic Score
89
46 reviews

48.

Glen Hansard - Didn't He Ramble
September 18, 2015
Critic Score
75
13 reviews

Well, so much for judging a book by its cover or Hansard by his previous missteps because Didn’t He Ramble is a surprising and unexpectedly refreshing success.

47.

Iris DeMent - The Trackless Woods
August 7, 2015
Critic Score
77
8 reviews

45.

Nora Jane Struthers & The Party Line - Wake
February 24, 2015
Critic Score
80
1 review

43.

GospelbeacH - Pacific Surf Line
October 16, 2015
Critic Score
67
3 reviews

42.

November 20, 2015
Critic Score
74
43 reviews

The finished product here seems like an attempt to up the ante on the drama and showstopping that permeated 21.

41.

Aaron Lee Tasjan - In the Blazes
October 6, 2015
Critic Score
70
1 review

40.

June 23, 2015
Critic Score
78
22 reviews
There’s not much in the way of innovation here, but there’s a hell of a lot of fun to be had.

39.

October 2, 2015
Critic Score
80
3 reviews

38.

May 4, 2015
Critic Score
74
30 reviews
Regardless of how many stylistic changes are shoehorned into any cut, nothing feels forced or stilted.

35.

September 18, 2015
Critic Score
75
38 reviews

Honeymoon isn’t quite as fine as Ultraviolence, but that’s less an indictment of the new album than high praise of the older one ... In any case, Del Rey’s rollercoaster of a career seems to have steadied on an impressively high level.

33.

April 21, 2015
Critic Score
74
16 reviews

31.

Dwight Yoakam - Second Hand Heart
April 14, 2015
Critic Score
83
8 reviews
It’s clear Yoakam is as inspired nearly 30 years into his career as ever.

30.

June 23, 2015
Critic Score
76
23 reviews

29.

Lucero - All a Man Should Do
September 18, 2015
Critic Score
75
5 reviews

27.

The Deslondes - The Deslondes
June 9, 2015
Critic Score
76
5 reviews

25.

Steve Earle & The Dukes - Terraplane
February 17, 2015
Critic Score
72
13 reviews

Terraplane is such a standout that we can only hope he makes his way back around to the blues relatively soon.

21.

April 21, 2015
Critic Score
79
35 reviews

After the wild success of Alabama Shakes’ debut album, it took a lot of courage to veer into the territory they explore in Sound & Color, a deeply layered collage of tempos and textures – and a seemingly hard left-turn from their previous work.

17.

Dawes - All Your Favorite Bands
June 2, 2015
Critic Score
64
10 reviews

16.

June 23, 2015
Critic Score
77
22 reviews
From beginning to end, it’s an absolute charmer. Every pretty melody, every sweet-tart lyric, every vocal and instrumental flourish … they definitely earn her – to borrow a title-song reference – a 4.0.

15.

Rayland Baxter - Imaginary Man
August 14, 2015
Critic Score
65
3 reviews

12.

September 25, 2015
Critic Score
76
39 reviews

10.

March 31, 2015
Critic Score
91
47 reviews

Carrie & Lowell demonstrates, brilliantly and harrowingly, over and over again, how life’s most valuable lessons can only be gleaned by enduring its worst circumstances.

9.

January 27, 2015
Critic Score
83
24 reviews
This dream of an album sounds like little else currently in the pop field, and the fact that it’s a debut from a relative newcomer makes it even more impressive.

8.

Craig Finn - Faith in the Future
September 11, 2015
Critic Score
74
19 reviews

Finn is still as sharp as ever with his details and as striking as ever with his lyrical gambits.

7.

July 16, 2015
Critic Score
79
30 reviews
At under 34 minutes running time, it packs a punch that requires only the first listen to feel, from the spiky, unkempt guitars of opening instrumental “EKG” to the hazy fugue state conjured by closer “Magnetized.”

5.

February 24, 2015
Critic Score
85
8 reviews

It’s an album that shows again and again that very few songwriters on this planet illuminate the oft-unfair rules of this game or the inner workings of the players quite like he can.

4.

March 24, 2015
Critic Score
84
44 reviews

What Sometimes I Sit And Think And Sometimes I Just Sit reflects is that Courtney Barnett is a burgeoning talent whose future likely holds great improvement from this already-impressive starting point.

3.

July 17, 2015
Critic Score
83
28 reviews

He’s followed up one masterpiece of an album, 2013’s Southeastern, with a new one that is probably stronger top-to-bottom.

Original Source: http://americansongwriter.com/2015/11/american-songwriters-top-50-albums-2015-presented-daddario/
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