Paste's 50 Best Albums of 2015

Paste's 50 Best Albums of 2015

Original Source →

50.

April 14, 2015
Critic Score
75
17 reviews

48.

October 9, 2015
Critic Score
78
15 reviews

47.

Pops Staples - Don't Lose This
February 17, 2015
Critic Score
80
8 reviews

46.

September 11, 2015
Critic Score
65
24 reviews

45.

June 23, 2015
Critic Score
72
22 reviews
Rebellion hasn’t sounded this awesome—or honest—in a long time.

44.

March 3, 2015
Critic Score
69
34 reviews
It’s enough of a creative leap to perhaps usher in more copycats, but Purity Ring again checks in first.

43.

October 16, 2015
Critic Score
78
23 reviews

41.

October 30, 2015
Critic Score
78
24 reviews

The Things We Do is a record for anyone who’s ever felt, even for a moment, that music is what matters the most. For any hard-luck kid or nowhere bum who needs it, that escape is heaven.

40.

September 21, 2015
Critic Score
70
20 reviews

39.

January 20, 2015
Critic Score
73
35 reviews
While an overarching theme is largely absent on this album, it’s instead filled with 14 stand-alone folk-pop songs that show their fluency in a multitude of pop genres and styles.

38.

April 21, 2015
Critic Score
79
35 reviews

Sound & Color is a daring and deliberate record, and its greatest success stems from the band’s complete defiance with its choices.

37.

July 24, 2015
Critic Score
82
10 reviews
The hooks are there—and they stick in deep—but there’s no EDM bluster or rock histrionics cooked into the stew. Monroe and her producers Vince Gill and Justin Niebank have created something a lot more even-keeled.

36.

September 18, 2015
Critic Score
69
34 reviews

La Di Da Di is a unique listen, giving large responsibility to the listener to determine or interpret the parameters of its far-reaching sonic liberties.

35.

Palehound - Dry Food
August 14, 2015
Critic Score
74
12 reviews

On Dry Food’s eight heartbreaking observations, she teeters between aching insecurity and crushing tenderness, rarely allowing sunlight to peak through the clouds.

34.

February 10, 2015
Critic Score
79
8 reviews

Rock ’n’ roll has a knack for brute force, but these songs are never less than nimble, always full of electricity and a steady barometer of unfailing good taste.

33.

January 27, 2015
Critic Score
71
18 reviews

Range Anxiety is a great guitar record for people who love the guitar but not in the way that Guitar Center people love the guitar.

32.

August 21, 2015
Critic Score
79
15 reviews

31.

July 16, 2015
Critic Score
79
30 reviews
Wilco sound spryer, looser, livelier, wittier, and more fun than they have in years. And when was the last time anyone used “fun” to describe this serious band?

29.

June 2, 2015
Critic Score
77
39 reviews

The 11 songs on Beautiful resonate in a deeper way by varying the sonic palette and focusing her words inward.

28.

Guantanamo Baywatch - Darling... It's Too Late
May 12, 2015
Critic Score
66
3 reviews

If you’ve been searching for your perfect summer soundtrack for 2015, you may look no further.

27.

June 23, 2015
Critic Score
77
22 reviews
At 26, Musgraves has kept her wonder, honed her focus and remained true to her core.

25.

The Lone Bellow - Then Came The Morning
January 27, 2015
Critic Score
69
5 reviews

Most of Then Came the Morning shows a confident band stepping more fully into a compelling sound.

24.

November 6, 2015
Critic Score
84
36 reviews

23.

January 27, 2015
Critic Score
78
24 reviews

At its core, this follow-up to 2012’s JP is as whimsically experimental as it is steeped and reveling in its own revivalism.

22.

March 17, 2015
Critic Score
79
26 reviews

Goon is mostly excellent slow songs about heartbreak, about the fear of failure, about losing your direction and hoping to find it. 

21.

May 19, 2015
Critic Score
79
29 reviews

Platform is still avant-garde enough to only be appreciated by some, but those who break through the surface, will understand this album for being the important, temporal work that it is.

20.

June 1, 2015
Critic Score
83
45 reviews

19.

August 28, 2015
Critic Score
79
44 reviews

Depression Cherry doesn’t always have the emotional heft, or melodic impact, of their 2010 breakthrough Teen Dream or its follow-up, 2012’s Bloom, but the duo’s knack for crafting thoughtful, enveloping songs makes their return more than welcome.

18.

July 17, 2015
Critic Score
83
28 reviews

Isbell’s increasing skill as a storyteller, and the natural affinity he has for melody, combine to make Something More Than Free a masterful piece of work.

16.

September 25, 2015
Critic Score
76
39 reviews

Every Open Eye is another album you can throw on at a party to get everyone dancing just as easily as you could pensively listen to it alone in your bedroom.

15.

May 5, 2015
Critic Score
79
25 reviews

While Torres’ self-titled 2013 debut was a hushed affair—even the loud bits came in gradual, measured bursts—Sprinter crackles and explodes, with a dynamic range that’d make Steve Albini blush.

13.

September 25, 2015
Critic Score
77
35 reviews

Much of b’lieve remains mellower and more cognizant than Vile’s previous works, blending organic and inorganic sounds.

12.

October 9, 2015
Critic Score
80
21 reviews
Essentially, it’s an album of spindly bass, needling guitar and economical drums. And yet, with Protomartyr’s inventive ensemble flare, it sounds like much more.

11.

April 7, 2015
Critic Score
74
23 reviews

It’s an artistic success as a literary exercise, and as a wrestling fan it’s hugely gratifying to see a serious artist that I’ve enjoyed for decades take wrestling seriously.

10.

October 16, 2015
Critic Score
79
40 reviews

Instead of trying to make an experimental oddity for music nerds, he made an indie pop album for music fans. He went for our hearts rather than our heads.

9.

June 23, 2015
Critic Score
76
23 reviews

Coming Home, however unintentionally, represents the spiritual cleansing and soulful healing we need right now. It’s the sound of an era where civil rights seemed so desperate, but progress also felt in reach.

8.

July 17, 2015
Critic Score
83
49 reviews
This is a near-perfect album. It’s a superb progression from their last efforts, a study in internal consistency and just chock fucking full with nearly an hour of great songs.

7.

January 27, 2015
Critic Score
83
24 reviews
It is the debut of a songwriter not struggling to find a voice, but fully formed and confident as all hell.

6.

March 31, 2015
Critic Score
91
47 reviews

Carrie & Lowell is a demonstration of why Stevens sings songs, of why we listen to songs: to feel less alone, to make sense of the things that are hardest to make sense of. Hopefully it proves as rewarding to the singer as it is for his audience.

5.

May 5, 2015
Critic Score
82
15 reviews

Although Hop Along’s lyrical content can be heavy at times, Painted Shut’s tracks are well-balanced between catchy indie pop with an edge and more discordant fare.

4.

January 20, 2015
Critic Score
89
46 reviews
In just 10 songs and a little over 30 minutes, Sleater-Kinney does so much more than revive an old band. They craft an argument for having improved in its absence.

3.

March 24, 2015
Critic Score
84
44 reviews

By channeling her anxiety into wonderful, shaggy, relatable and supremely catchy songs, she’s made Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit one of the most compulsively listenable albums to come out so far this year.

1.

February 10, 2015
Critic Score
87
42 reviews

Honeybear thrives on the knife’s edge of that enigmatic split personality, as he attempts to reconcile the love-swept optimist with the world-weary wise-ass.

Original Source: http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2015/12/the-50-best-albums-of-2015.html
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