Entertainment Weekly's 40 Best Albums of 2015

Entertainment Weekly's 40 Best Albums of 2015

Original Source →

40.

September 21, 2015
Critic Score
70
20 reviews
If turning the biggest, shiniest pop record of the past year into a survey course in classic rock economy sounds like a novelty, it is. But it’s also the best kind—one that brings two divergent artists together in smart, unexpected ways, and somehow manages to reveal the best of both of them.

39.

January 20, 2015
Critic Score
85
41 reviews

38.

Gary Clark Jr. - The Story of Sonny Boy Slim
September 11, 2015
Critic Score
75
13 reviews

37.

June 23, 2015
Critic Score
78
22 reviews

36.

July 17, 2015
Critic Score
83
28 reviews
His latest sounds happier, and it’s still steeped in the Southern mythology that’s his forte.

35.

May 5, 2015
Critic Score
82
15 reviews

33.

October 23, 2015
Critic Score
89
43 reviews
She’s often described as childlike, due to her lovely, elfin voice and her affection for fairy tales, but Divers comes from a highly sophisticated mind, with its complicated, polyrhythmic arrangements and lyrics that explore the nature of time.

32.

October 9, 2015
Critic Score
68
8 reviews

On her fifth album Gomez goes for mood-setting, and the result is a gripping batch of sultry pop jams that are more “Netflix and chill,” less “Let’s hit the clurb.”

31.

September 4, 2015
Critic Score
70
16 reviews

Frontman Dan Auerbach’s new project lands right in the meaty part of the psychedelic curve with jolts of lush hypno-soul and tough garage-edelia.

30.

September 18, 2015
Critic Score
71
6 reviews

29.

December 4, 2015
Critic Score
58
31 reviews

28.

5 Seconds of Summer - Sounds Good Feels Good
October 23, 2015
Critic Score
61
11 reviews

27.

May 5, 2015
Critic Score
77
21 reviews

26.

September 25, 2015
Critic Score
76
39 reviews

25.

March 13, 2015
Critic Score
73
21 reviews

The Welsh chanteuse’s first two records were rooted in clubby dance-pop, but on her latest, she tosses off the dubstep like cheap cubic zirconia. The change highlights her brightest facet—that limber voice, which swings from voluptuous alto to fluttering soprano in one swoop.

24.

June 2, 2015
Critic Score
75
16 reviews

23.

January 6, 2015
Critic Score
76
12 reviews

22.

November 6, 2015
Critic Score
76
5 reviews

18.

July 17, 2015
Critic Score
83
49 reviews
The crimson-and-clover sprawl of the band’s first two albums is still intact, but there’s a new kind of richness to frontman Kevin Parker’s lonely-astronaut experiments.

17.

November 13, 2015
Critic Score
64
28 reviews

A definitive statement of young manhood, full of deeply meta references to fame and maturity and persecution by the press.

16.

February 12, 2015
Critic Score
76
30 reviews

With no clear bangers on the landscape, Late feels more like the platonic ideal of a Drake album: a woozy, wordy stream-of-consciousness whose stylistic shifts are subtle on a molecular level.

15.

June 2, 2015
Critic Score
77
39 reviews

How Big is Welch’s most accomplished album yet, primarily because she doesn’t rely solely on operatics to make herself heard.

14.

January 20, 2015
Critic Score
89
46 reviews
Now that they’re back, here’s to them living forever.

13.

April 21, 2015
Critic Score
79
35 reviews

The songs here are far more intricately constructed than anything on the band’s debut, and the musicianship is disciplined almost to a fault; a little unbridled rocking out would actually have injected some needed verve into Color’s quieter second half.

12.

June 30, 2015
Critic Score
80
33 reviews

Miguel recognizes both the romance and the risk embedded in the City of Angels, a clear-eyed balance that makes Wildheart as bracing as a plunge into the Pacific.

11.

October 2, 2015
Critic Score
73
20 reviews

Janet strikes a solid balance between innovation and dependability, bridging past and future better than most—including her legendary sibling.

10.

August 30, 2015
Critic Score
59
20 reviews

Dead Petz is a remarkable accomplishment because Cyrus appears to have grasped all of her potential at once: there are Hot 100-ready sugar bombs, psychedelic departures, rugged rock, and throbbing alt-pop that immediately makes the year’s other best pop record (Carly Rae Jepsen’s excellent EMOTION) sound alarmingly obsolete.

9.

July 16, 2015
Critic Score
79
30 reviews
Wilco have often been referred to as “the American Radiohead,” but they are better than that descriptor—Radiohead never sound like they’re having this much fun.

5.

May 26, 2015
Critic Score
74
30 reviews

At.Long.Last.A$AP is a fantastically dense hip-hop album, worthy of its association with recent instant classics like Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly and the aforementioned Drake surprise album.

4.

June 1, 2015
Critic Score
83
45 reviews

3.

November 20, 2015
Critic Score
74
43 reviews

Her voice is a national monument, a ninth wonder; whatever she chooses to wrap it around is transformed and taken over.

2.

August 21, 2015
Critic Score
78
26 reviews

E•MO•TION is the sound of a girl who’s had her career-defining smash; now she just wants to have fun.

1.

March 15, 2015
Critic Score
95
45 reviews

Lamar operates in the same boldly visionary idiom as the Purple One, expanding the boundaries of the hip-hop empire and daring other aspirants to the throne—yes, even Kanye, even Jay—to play catch-up.

Original Source: http://www.ew.com/gallery/best-albums-2015
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