The Guardian's Best Albums of 2015

The Guardian's Best Albums of 2015

Original Source →

39.

September 4, 2015
Critic Score
79
31 reviews

On the evidence of The Book of Souls, The Acceptance of the Inevitable isn’t on Iron Maiden’s agenda.

37.

October 2, 2015
Critic Score
73
20 reviews

The chunky bass of Dammn Baby hits the dancefloor spot – but otherwise, Unbreakable’s highlights are low-key moments of reflection and nostalgia.

36.

June 30, 2015
Critic Score
84
23 reviews

In a year of impressive solo rap albums, Staples has managed to create one that’s arguably the most idiosyncratic of the lot.

35.

August 7, 2015
Critic Score
79
30 reviews

It’s an hour-long demonstration that Dr Dre’s skills as producer and curator alike are still as potent as ever.

34.

June 8, 2015
Critic Score
76
33 reviews
There’s more here than mere novelty appeal – enough to make you hope they repeat the experiment at some point.

33.

January 27, 2015
Critic Score
78
24 reviews
Dreamlike, radiant folk songs.

32.

June 9, 2015
Critic Score
79
27 reviews

It’s provocative, but these are ideas rarely heard in pop, which makes it all the more compelling.

31.

September 25, 2015
Critic Score
76
39 reviews

It’s an assured follow-up to their US-conquering debut, The Bones of What You Believe, picking out its predecessor’s stadium-pop moments and turning up the intensity without ever overselling its charm.

30.

Fantasma - Free Love
March 9, 2015
Critic Score
77
3 reviews

29.

July 24, 2015
Critic Score
76
22 reviews
Anger is still their foremost energy, but there is a much richer seam of humour than they like to let on.

28.

January 27, 2015
Critic Score
83
24 reviews

The touchstones here, such as Dusty in Memphis, are all records that revel in a particular kind of musicality, yet this is a record that never feels retro, just timeless.

27.

August 7, 2015
Critic Score
74
36 reviews
This follow-up arrives quickly, and is small in its ambition, but still feels well-formed.

26.

March 23, 2015
Critic Score
81
34 reviews

It’s less musically intense than its predecessor – as well as the usual neo-Brit folk rock, there’s spindly and angular rock and even, on Gurdjieff’s Daughter, an unmistakable debt to Sultans of Swing.

25.

July 10, 2015
Critic Score
81
23 reviews

It is more than bluster: Perpetual Motion People is the restless sound of a genuine one-off in a generic world.

24.

May 19, 2015
Critic Score
79
29 reviews
Banger-free, perhaps, but gloriously avant garde and fiercely inventive.

22.

September 25, 2015
Critic Score
76
33 reviews

It’s a little long, there’s the odd duff track ... But Music Complete still feels like the freshest thing they’ve done in ages.

21.

February 16, 2015
Critic Score
87
8 reviews

Ten Love Songs shows a command of artpop, chilly synthpop, and that simultaneously joyous and desperate disco that seems to seep out of Scandinavia in an unending flood.

20.

November 6, 2015
Critic Score
84
36 reviews

19.

August 21, 2015
Critic Score
78
26 reviews

Her voice is fine, rather than outstanding. She doesn’t do anything to stamp her identity on the songs: good as they are, you’re struck by the sense you could be listening to anyone.

18.

May 26, 2015
Critic Score
79
30 reviews
The songs nod to the 1960s (Like Acid Rain), 70s (The World Is Crowded) and 80s (Can’t Keep Checking My Phone), but always feel fresh – a giddy, psychedelic sound almost as unique as the subject matter.

17.

June 1, 2015
Critic Score
83
45 reviews

Although In Colour flirts with being overly tasteful, it usually manages to stay just the right side of strange – much like the xx themselves.

16.

November 6, 2015
Critic Score
83
25 reviews
Like its namesake – a lithe South American bird – Elaenia flits, swoops and soars beautifully, impossible to pin down, let alone cage.

15.

July 17, 2015
Critic Score
83
49 reviews
Like all great psychedelic music, it perfectly evokes a deeply weird altered state, albeit that of a head wrecked by grief rather than lysergic acid diethylamide.

14.

February 12, 2015
Critic Score
76
30 reviews
Intimate, intense, wistful, endlessly questioning, open-hearted Drake, backed by pristine machine beats, with aching chord sequences and lovely synth codas – longtime Drake fans will find much to appreciate here.

13.

June 22, 2015
Critic Score
80
27 reviews
It’s an invigorating debut with a gaunt, gallant identity of its own.

12.

October 16, 2015
Critic Score
79
40 reviews

There are so many straightforwardly commercial-sounding songs here that Fading Frontier could conceivably be an album that turns Deerhunter from cult concern into mainstream success.

11.

June 30, 2015
Critic Score
80
33 reviews

His previous albums were sonically scattered and eclectic, but Wildheart mints a signature musical style; moreover, it’s a signature musical style that doesn’t sound much like anyone else.

10.

October 23, 2015
Critic Score
89
43 reviews
It’s at turns maddening, exhausting, enrapturing, insightful and very beautiful. But it always feels like the work of an artist who’s out there on her own, doing something no one else is doing.

9.

April 7, 2015
Critic Score
83
30 reviews
They manage the rare feat of melding pop and politics into a potent mix, and continue a tradition – begun by the likes of Smith & Mighty, Tricky and Massive Attack – of reinterpreting pop, hip-hop and soul through the filter of black British life.

8.

May 5, 2015
Critic Score
87
10 reviews

Dedicated to bringing jazz to the uninitiated, Epic features soul and gospel vocals, boiling drumming, swing, funk, and voicelike free-jazz blowing.

7.

March 24, 2015
Critic Score
84
44 reviews
Gentle, subtle, poignant, Barnett is almost crooning as she talks disappointment and expectation, and she has a photographer’s eye for detail when it comes to the otherwise mundane.

6.

January 20, 2015
Critic Score
89
46 reviews
All hail Sleater-Kinney: as riotous and vital as ever.

5.

January 20, 2015
Critic Score
85
41 reviews

You could say there’s something gimlet-eyed about a woman who realises her relationship is collapsing and automatically thinks: still, great material. But it’s nothing if not honest. And besides, on the evidence of Vulnicura, she has a point.

4.

September 25, 2015
Critic Score
88
37 reviews
The result is a genuinely exceptional and entrancing album, opaque but effective, filled with beautiful, skewed songs, unconventional without ever feeling precious or affected.

3.

February 10, 2015
Critic Score
87
42 reviews

For all the layers of irony on I Love You, Honeybear, the biggest irony of all might be that such an ostensibly knotty and confusing album’s real strength lies in something as prosaic and transparent as its author’s ability to write a beautiful melody.

2.

March 31, 2015
Critic Score
91
47 reviews

The music matches the lyrics, managing to be both overwhelming and understated: melodies match sentiment with perfect judgment. Carrie & Lowell is a delight in every way, surely one of the albums of the year.

1.

March 15, 2015
Critic Score
95
45 reviews

Time will tell whether in decades to come, To Pimp a Butterfly is still being spoken of in the same breath as the kind of epochal albums it’s currently being compared to, but for the moment, he’s certainly achieved his aim in impressive style.

Original Source: http://www.theguardian.com/music/ng-interactive/2015/dec/02/best-albums-of-2015
Comments
Sign in to comment
No one has said anything yet.
Connect with AOTY
Like Us
Follow Us

February Playlist