NME's Top 50 Albums of 2015

NME's Top 50 Albums of 2015

Original Source →

50.

September 21, 2015
Critic Score
70
20 reviews

49.

September 11, 2015
Critic Score
77
13 reviews
In 'That's The Spirit' the Sheffield band have crafted an album that should see them not just seated at rock's top table, but putting their feet up and getting comfortable.

48.

September 25, 2015
Critic Score
76
33 reviews

47.

November 6, 2015
Critic Score
78
13 reviews
Whereas Ryder-Jones' old band inhabited a colourful, self-contained world of soft drugs, spaghetti westerns and Scouse jabberwocky, his own sonic nook might seem smaller and more earthbound by comparison, but it's no less personal or poignant for that.

46.

January 20, 2015
Critic Score
80
30 reviews
Fans of Women’s challenging melodies will appreciate the songcraft here, but Viet Cong are very much their own animal.

45.

March 24, 2015
Critic Score
73
15 reviews

On sixth album – the ‘pop one' ... they give it their best shot while sticking firmly within their screamy garage punk parameters.

44.

April 16, 2015
Critic Score
70
14 reviews

43.

July 24, 2015
Critic Score
76
22 reviews
The record is replete with sometimes grinding, sometimes funky post-punk basslines and pared-down, insistent beats. If you’ve heard last year’s excellent ‘Divide And Exit’, or the odds’n’sods that preceded it, it’ll sound instantly familiar.

42.

August 30, 2015
Critic Score
59
20 reviews
'Miley Cyrus And Her Dead Petz' is surely the weirdest album made by a massive pop star in recent memory, but more impressively, it's also an essential listen.

41.

June 8, 2015
Critic Score
61
35 reviews

It’s Bellamy’s job to prise open deeper socio-political dimensions as much as it is to comment on the times, and Muse’s music once more matches his adventurous intrigue.

40.

June 2, 2015
Critic Score
77
39 reviews

Overflowing with stately songwriting and lyrical craftsmanship, ‘How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful’ makes for a restrained but joyful return, and a collection that will last long after Welch’s broken bones are mended.

39.

April 7, 2015
Critic Score
83
30 reviews
Young Fathers’ second record is a clattery lo-fi gospel of budget drum machines, enthusiastic xylophone, monomaniacal krautrock grooves, preacher-man testifying and a few good tunes, all wrapped up in a title that feels like a provocative statement.

38.

April 6, 2015
Critic Score
76
15 reviews
Where ‘Drenge’ offered brutal bloodshed and casual violence, ‘Undertow’ is much more focused on sneaking malevolence.

37.

July 17, 2015
Critic Score
78
19 reviews

36.

August 21, 2015
Critic Score
78
26 reviews

The 29-year-old Canadian has regrouped and made a surprisingly sophisticated ’80s-influenced pop album.

35.

December 4, 2015
Critic Score
58
31 reviews
If ‘A Head Full of Dreams’ really is to be Coldplay’s last hurrah, then they’ve gone out with a flashbang of colour and catharsis.

34.

January 26, 2015
Critic Score
73
22 reviews
Perhaps, for a band as strange as this, making a pop album is the ultimate experiment. The results are anything but clichéd.

33.

June 29, 2015
Critic Score
77
12 reviews
As La Priest, he’s made one of the debuts of the year.

32.

December 16, 2014
Critic Score
78
36 reviews
This year’s first great pop record bowls in with a rapturous celebration of the genre's rebellious, trashy potential (and a bottle of champagne and a pocketful of pills to boot).

31.

June 1, 2015
Critic Score
61
12 reviews
They’ve used their major-label debut to rally the troops rather than just jeer at them from the sidelines. Every song here is a call to arms or an affirmative flip of the table.

30.

September 25, 2015
Critic Score
63
13 reviews

29.

September 11, 2015
Critic Score
68
36 reviews

While the music may not always match up, the lyrics reaffirm The Libertines’ place as one of the most vital British bands ever and should usher a fresh generation of believers on board the good ship Albion.

28.

March 23, 2015
Critic Score
81
34 reviews
Marling is her own protagonist - flawed, like anyone else, but utterly compelling all the same.

27.

August 7, 2015
Critic Score
74
36 reviews

‘Another One’ neither sounds particularly different to his last album, 2014’s ‘Salad Days’, nor does it give much indication of where he’ll go next; rather it does for ‘Salad Days’ what ‘Salad Days’ did for his previous album, ‘2’ – offers added richness and refinement to his very songbook style of writing.

26.

May 19, 2015
Critic Score
79
29 reviews
‘Platform’, Herndon’s third album and her first for 4AD, unveils sparkling, electronic pop that twitches like a corrupt video file, her voice fractured into glinting melodies.

25.

January 20, 2015
Critic Score
85
41 reviews

It’s not an easy listen, but a brave, beautiful and affecting album – an attempt to find order in chaos that, as she wishes for it, offers a “crutch” to the heartbroken.

24.

March 31, 2015
Critic Score
91
47 reviews

No matter how desperate Sufjan gets ...he’s resolutely serene, his emotion swathed in glistening guitar tones and angelic harmonies, spooling out his genius as casually as breathing.

23.

February 12, 2015
Critic Score
76
30 reviews
For all the music's cagey intelligence, Drake sounds like the kind of guy who comes sauntering out the traps in a 100m race and immediately breaks out into a victory lap, pausing only to remonstrate with hecklers.

22.

March 24, 2015
Critic Score
84
44 reviews
She might not want a pedestal, but there aren’t many songwriters who’d make better use of it.

21.

May 19, 2015
Critic Score
75
29 reviews
This combination of pop and disco makes ‘Ratchet’ the perfect summer soundtrack. Sometimes you’ve got to party like it’s 1989.

20.

September 25, 2015
Critic Score
75
17 reviews

This is the unmistakeable sound of a star being born: this is an album with something to say, in a voice all of its own.

19.

August 28, 2015
Critic Score
71
26 reviews

He may have softened his edge, upped the production and pulled in the stars, but The Weeknd remains an outsider.

18.

Swim Deep - Mothers
September 25, 2015
Critic Score
77
10 reviews

17.

October 23, 2015
Critic Score
89
43 reviews
It’s reassuring that, five years on, the 33-year-old is back with something utterly predictable: yet another masterpiece.

16.

February 10, 2015
Critic Score
87
42 reviews
It's a hugely ambitious, caustically funny album about the redemptive possibilities of love, and being heartily sick of your own bullshit.

15.

April 27, 2015
Critic Score
79
45 reviews
This is a reunited band making music to rival their very best. There’s airmiles aplenty in these Essex Dogs yet.

14.

October 16, 2015
Critic Score
79
40 reviews
'Fading Frontier' - the most direct, unflinching album Deerhunter have ever made, and quite possibly the best - sometimes feels like the second part of a duology about breakdown and recovery, not only from the psychodrama of 'Monomania', but from the car accident Cox was hospitalised by last December.

13.

January 20, 2015
Critic Score
89
46 reviews

The songs on ‘No Cities To Love’ are short, taut and lethal, harking back, if anything, to their earliest albums. But they’re more complete songwriters now, and there isn’t a track on ‘No Cities To Love’ that doesn’t have a killer chorus.

12.

May 26, 2015
Critic Score
74
30 reviews
‘ALLA’ is a thrillingly focused follow-up that betrays its anxieties even as it mostly makes do with extolling the virtues of vice.

10.

May 26, 2015
Critic Score
79
30 reviews
Here, Nielson strides away from the woozy Beefheart-indebted psychedelia of ‘II’ and its self-titled 2011 predecessor, and vividly expands every single aspect of the UMO sound.

9.

July 31, 2015
Critic Score
72
18 reviews
It’s refreshing to hear what they can do when they cut loose, when they’re not afraid to be a bit raw and spiky.

8.

August 28, 2015
Critic Score
76
32 reviews

They’ve mastered math rock, destroyed disco and flattened funk, now they measure hard rock in their hands like a medicine ball, and find it a comfortable weight.

7.

September 18, 2015
Critic Score
75
38 reviews

An intoxicating listen, ‘Honeymoon’ is designed for the red neon glow of a smoky cabaret bar, a Californian answer to the chanson tradition.

6.

September 25, 2015
Critic Score
76
39 reviews
A record like a deep gulp of cold air on a clear, bright morning after.

5.

July 17, 2015
Critic Score
83
49 reviews
From the crisp, hip-hop accenting on the drums to the full-bodied bass and vivd synths, ‘Currents’ is an audiophile’s wet dream.

3.

June 1, 2015
Critic Score
83
45 reviews
Less has always been more with Smith, and the success of ‘In Colour’ lies in his gift for melding together very few elements to create songs that are original, surprising and highly effective.

2.

March 15, 2015
Critic Score
95
45 reviews

Has Lamar followed a classic with another classic? Not quite, but in laying his demons and his contradictions bare, he has stayed true to his formidable talent.

1.

November 6, 2015
Critic Score
84
36 reviews

It would be reductive to call this record Boucher's ‘Grimes goes Pop’ moment, but it certainly feels like an attempt to bridge the gap between her fervent online cult and tangible, real-world success.

Original Source: http://www.nme.com/photos/nme-s-albums-of-the-year-2015-part-one/393989
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