Slant Magazine's 25 Best Albums of 2015

Slant Magazine's 25 Best Albums of 2015

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25.

September 25, 2015
Critic Score
67
33 reviews

As much as they respect the deep-house gods, Caracal sees Disclosure wrestling to resist and thankfully losing.

24.

June 2, 2015
Critic Score
63
7 reviews

Everything Is 4 recalibrates a bit, updating Derulo’s sound to current trends with 11 precision-tooled three-minute-and-change pop songs. But it also shuffles in nuggets of pop’s past, revealing an artist with both a finger on the zeitgeist and an appreciation of his forbearers.

21.

October 9, 2015
Critic Score
68
8 reviews

Song for song, Revival rivals Carly Rae Jepsen’s Emotion for breakout pop album of the year, but if it similarly falls short of greatness, it’s due in large part to a lack of originality.

20.

October 23, 2015
Critic Score
89
43 reviews

The singer-songwriter's first album in five years, Divers, adds electric guitar to the mix, yet stays true to her original template of epic poetry set to masterful harp-plucking and vocal ascents that climb toward the stratosphere.

19.

January 20, 2015
Critic Score
85
41 reviews

One listen to Vulnicura confirms what's been evident for a long time, but will still continue to come as a disappointment for many: Björk firmly belongs to the world of the avant-garde.

17.

April 16, 2015
Critic Score
70
14 reviews

16.

March 3, 2015
Critic Score
69
34 reviews
Producer Corin Roddick's tinny percussive loops, pitch-shifted vocal samples, and bass drones continue to make a fine pairing with singer Megan James's deceptively unassuming vocals.

14.

January 20, 2015
Critic Score
80
30 reviews

13.

October 2, 2015
Critic Score
73
20 reviews

Janet has calculatedly played the humble-grateful card countless times in her career, but Unbreakable, a ready-made collection of deep cuts, is one of the first times she's given a fully convincing performance.

12.

August 21, 2015
Critic Score
78
26 reviews

Emotion is further proof that Jepsen is capable of translating broadly understood emotions and experiences into unshakable earworms.

11.

Robyn & La Bagatelle Magique - Love Is Free
August 7, 2015
Critic Score
73
13 reviews

If there's a distinguishing feature that differentiates Robyn's Love Is Free ... from both last year's Do It Again and 2010's Body Talk EPs, it's that the songs on the singer's latest mini-album take a decidedly more purist approach to the retro stylings that were hinted at in her previous work.

9.

February 24, 2015
Critic Score
85
8 reviews
He's a storyteller with a literary knack for using detail and narrative to draw complex, relatable characters, and his storytelling finesse has never been more evident than it is here.

7.

May 19, 2015
Critic Score
75
29 reviews

His winking in-jokes and one-liners might have gotten the Internet's attention, but Ratchet wins you over when it reveals that this smart-aleck's got a beating heart too.

6.

June 30, 2015
Critic Score
80
33 reviews

As with Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly, another work whose laser-focused assuredness counterpoises the ambivalence on display here, Wildheart stands out as a collection of songs about the significance of roots, using an assortment of West Coast imagery to communicate the splintered state of the artistic psyche Miguel presents.

5.

February 10, 2015
Critic Score
87
42 reviews
Tillman's narrator is a self-destructive train wreck, but he's so masterfully sketched that he feels more than deserving of sympathy.

3.

November 6, 2015
Critic Score
84
36 reviews
There's still some room for Boucher to further focus her ambitions, but this album is the surest evidence so far that she's game for the challenge.

2.

March 24, 2015
Critic Score
84
44 reviews

For an album that deals in low stakes, Sometimes I Sit and Think finds Barnett hitting some incredible highs.

1.

March 15, 2015
Critic Score
95
45 reviews

Tidy this album isn't, but like There's a Riot Goin' On or the distended jams of One Nation Under a Groove, the uncompromising messiness is the point.

Original Source: http://www.slantmagazine.com/features/article/the-25-best-albums-of-2015
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