The Independent's 50 Best Albums of 2019

No Home Record’s lack of cohesion is unlikely to pull you deep into its disjointed soundworld. What does unite the tracks, though, is the restlessly questing, non-conformist spirit of their creator.

Miss Universe is a brilliant collection of songs, an expansive melange of indie, jazz, pop and trip-hop that flits between a lo-fi sparseness and something The Strokes would play.

A viscerally entertaining album that never lingers for more than four minutes per song. Rock’n’roll isn’t dead: it’s just been sleeping.

Musically, Lost Girls couldn’t be more Eighties if it were playing a Commodore 64 while eating Angel Delight.

It is ... balletic and haywire, refusing to follow traditional rules of song structure. Listening to it feels like accidentally pressing play on two songs at once, and finding the combination strangely inebriating.

This is a polished, playful album, though it has a DIY edge to it.

The result is a quintessentially London record, as dark and moody as it is brash and innovative.

It lacks a centrepiece to match the arresting depth and space of Sweetener’s “God Is A Woman”, but Grande handles its shifting moods and cast of producers with engaging class and momentum.

You don’t come away from this record feeling downcast. It’s more a reminder of how fleeting yet beautiful life is, and an appeal to make the most of it.

Here, Lewis does what she does best: adds the glossy sparkle of Hollywood and a sunny Californian sheen to melancholy and nostalgia, with her most luxuriantly orchestrated album yet.

For the most part, When We All Fall Asleep is stiflingly dull and bloated, with subpar production from Eilish and her brother, Finneas O’Connell.

The variety and scale of ambition on this album is breathtaking. Fans will be surprised to discover Tracey sings almost as much as he raps, in pleasingly gruff tones.

It’s pure rock and roll: sleazy, slick and lots of fun. Sound & Fury marks another milestone for a remarkable artist.

For long stretches, Father of the Bride feels less like a studio album than the sort of demo trove usually unearthed decades after a rock band splits.

The follow-up to 2014’s LP1, made in the wake of heartbreak, is twigs at her sorrowful, scrappy best.

Social Cues is an album where Shultz bares his soul, and apparently shakes off a few demons in the process.

There’s no track on Jaime that is likely to make waves ... But what lovely ripples it makes.

Crush is an insight into Shepherd’s brilliant mind and – such is the sheer variety of this album – a way to inspire one’s own imagination.

A blunt, bold album on which Hackman’s beatific voice sits atop methodically messy instrumentals.

Where 2016's A Seat At The Table commanded respect, action and validation to an extent, When I Get Home offers respite, support and hope.

Swift’s seventh album feels like a partial resurrection of the Swift of old: moony romance and earnest earworms abound.

The record is an introspective mix of psychey soul, blues, rock and funk, which skips and strolls and swaggers through its 13 tracks – but it is not simply an exercise in nostalgia.

For all its glimmering synths and the robotic pathos of Taylor’s idiosyncratic vocals, this is a record with both heart and soul.

If there’s any justice ... Saves the World, should see MUNA joining the ranks of those who have brazenly borrowed their sound.

The sheer ambition on We Are Not Your Kind is just as staggering.

On her new album, Eve, she explores a lineage of black female icons in a way that is both tender and compelling.

Grunge-rinsed, feminist-flipped, upcycled Fifties guitar an’ all: Crushing is a triumph.

Merging their asymmetrical early math pop with the deep space atmospherics of Total Life Forever and Holy Fire, plus added innovations ... they’ve created an inspired album of scorched earth new music that, in all likelihood, will only really be challenged for album of the year by Part 2.

At 20 years old, Dave – born David Orobosa Omoregie – has just released one of the most thoughtful, moving and necessary albums of 2019 so far.

The artist ... accompanies her instrumental idiosyncrasies with strong, luscious melodies and unfussy lyrics.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful. And the politics sure got spiteful. But the good news is that the perma-brilliant James Blake has flooded his fourth album – Assume Form – with euphoric sepia soul and loved-up doo-wop.

Following the traumatised chaos of 2016’s Skeleton Tree, Ghosteen is a warm cloud of ambient solace – a sonic evocation of the communion he has experienced through his newly porous relationship with his audience.

Tyler has never been one for traditional song structure, but on IGOR he’s like the Minotaur luring you through a maze that twists and turns around seemingly impossible corners, drawing you into the thrilling unknown.

Two Hands is Big Thief’s best to date, and undoubtedly one of the best of the year.

Rapper lands on a new, bold sound that incorporates an eclectic range of influences, along with three carefully chosen features.

The album is sultry and soporific, sitting somewhere between the minimalist trip-hop of Del Rey’s early days, and the scuzzy desert rock she has toyed with over the years.

It’s layered with whimsical flutes, intricate guitar picking and sombre bass lines that meander with casual abandon. At an age where the pressure is on to have everything worked out, Harding sounds delightfully free.