Based on critics scores, some albums have more reviews than others, but it is a cool survey of the music of 2020
Showing posts with label albums. Show all posts
Showing posts with label albums. Show all posts
Dec 9, 2020
Dec 4, 2018
Best of 2018 - Quietus Albums Of The Year
The Quietus albums of the year chart returns, with our favourite 100 records released in our tenth anniversary year. Read the countdown and find out how you can support us in our work bringing you the best new music
Dec 18, 2015
Pitchfork's Top 50 Albums 2015
50. Dawn Richard
Blackheart
40. Jlin
Dark Energy
30. Deerhunter
Fading Frontier
20. Floating Points
Elaenia
10. Kamasi Washington
The Epic
1. Kendrick Lamar
To Pimp a Butterfly
Dec 16, 2015
tinymixtapes Top 50 albums 2015
Favorite 50 Music Releases of 2015
50. Lotic - Agitations
49. Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - A Year With 13 Moons
48. Liturgy - The Ark Work
47. Seth Graham - No.00 in clean life
46. Dr. Yen Lo - Days With Dr. Yen Lo
45. Jlin - Dark Energy
44. D’Angelo and The Vanguard - Black Messiah
43. Food Court - Food Court
42. Ben Zimmerman - The Baltika Years
41. DJ Nigga Fox - Noite E Dia
40. Chicklette - UNFAITHFUL
39. ZS - Xe
38. Amnesia Scanner - AS Angels Rig Hook
37. Autre Ne Veut - Age Of Transparency
36. Lolina - RELAXIN’ with Lolina
35. Holly Herndon - Platform
34. Eartheater - RIP Chrysalis
33. Rabit & Chino Amobi - The Great Game
32. Giant Claw - Deep Thoughts
31. Grimes - Art Angels
30. U.S. Girls - Half Free
29. Carly Rae Jepsen - E•MO•TION
28. Prurient - Frozen Niagara Falls
27. M.E.S.H. - Piteous Gate
26. Fourth World Magazine Vol. II - Pinhead in Fantasia
25. Matana Roberts - COIN COIN Chapter Three: river run thee
24. Cloud Rat - Qliphoth
23. Jenny Hval - Apocalypse, girl
22. Helen - The Original Faces
21. D/P/I - Ad Hocc
20. Dawn Richard (D∆WN) - Blackheart
19. Smurphy - A Shapeless Pool of Lovely Pale Colours Suspended In Darkness
18. LIL UGLY MANE - THIRD SIDE OF TAPE
17. Ahnnu - Perception
16. Container - LP [2015]
15. Joanna Newsom - Divers
14. Drake - If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late
13. Sicko Mobb - Super Saiyan Vol. 2
12. Beat Detectives - Boogie Chillen / The Hills Of Cypress
11. Julia Holter - Have You In My Wilderness
10. SOPHIE - PRODUCT
09. Björk - Vulnicura
08. Future - DS2
07. Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell
06. Elysia Crampton - American Drift
05. Oneohtrix Point Never - Garden Of Delete
04. Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly
03. James Ferraro - Skid Row
02. Young Thug - Barter 6
01. Arca - Mutant
Dec 13, 2015
The Line of Best Fit Top 50 Albums
Over the course of a few solitary days spent putting together the longlist of Best Fit's favourite albums of 2015, it hit me just what a great year it is for the concept behind an "album".
Dec 6, 2015
My 2015 - Five Bandcamp albums/ eps from 2015
Adeline Hotel is the project of songwriter Daniel Knishkowy. Released in August 2015, How Strange It Is To See is a short song cycle built from the familiar restlessness of needing to pick up and leave but not knowing where to go or how to get there.
Florist’s music centers on moments of specific intimacy. “Hold me when I’m starting to cry,” Emily Sprague sings on “Holdly,” the title track off the band’s new EP. This lyric translates a universal desire into something precise and personal, a real feeling delivered with commanding impact even through hushed vocals. Unadorned, riveting lyrics like these are certainly a hallmark of the Epoch — the dreamy folk-rock collective that Florist and Sprague are also affiliated with — but Holdly moves by itself. It’s just under 20 minutes of the sweetest melodies swimming with powerful, deeply existential reflections stereogum
Lancaster-based songwriter Tyler Burkhart is back with a new EP Back Against the Wall, only a few months removed from his lovely full-length June release Sweet Spell. On Sweet Spell, Burkhart brought us a gorgeous, mostly upbeat portrait of suburban life. His tools were simple: lush guitar arrangements and simple but deceptively emotional lo-fi vocals. But while his sound may be similar on Back Against the Wall, Burkhart and his message couldn’t be any more different. thekey
Rose Melberg is an indie-pop veteran. She’s swirled around the DIY scene for years and played in various twee-leaning bands in both the Bay Area and Vancouver, including Tiger Trap, Go Sailor, and the Softies. After a recent stint as a solo artist, she’s back with a new band, having recruited Love Cuts members Kaity McWhinney and Tracey Vath and drummer Gregor Phillips for her latest project, Knife Pleats. Melberg has one of those sweetly honeyed and deeply melodic voices that burrows straight into the pleasure centers of your brain, and it’s the kind of thing that sounds completely familiar but also completely amazing atop some vocal harmonies and pleasantly fuzzy, upbeat guitar lines.
Sonic artist Anto Pascoe has just released his new mini-album To Escape through Christchurch-based music label Melted Icecream. The eight-track effort was recorded in a home studio with Anto laying down the vocals, synths and drum patterns, while David Francisco came onboard to offer up bass and guitar lines.
Dec 18, 2014
Consequence of Sound Top 50 Albums
Every year has its share of tragedies and darkness, but 2014 has felt particularly tough. On global, national, and community levels, death, devastation, and darkness have plagued the nightly news in a particularly frustrating and seemingly senseless way. Perhaps that feeling is amplified by the omnipresence of technology that has made each and every pain felt by a larger audience and then replayed on an endless loop. It could also be that this has been an especially broken year, a theory supported by the fact that so many of 2014’s best albums are fueled by artists facing harrowing struggles.
45. ALEX G – DSU
Alex Giannascoli, a North Philadelphia native and Temple University student, makes low-key but lovely bedroom pop under a shorter version of his name. Quietly prolific, Giannascoli has seamlessly blended the gentle and the off-kilter through releases like 2012’s TRICK and RULES. Now, with DSU, his first ever mastered full-length (and Orchid Tapes debut), he refines his formula while maintaining his charm. The album’s best songs, like “Boy”, “Sorry”, and “After Ur Gone”, feature a simple combination of muted acoustic guitars, droning but heartfelt vocals, bass, a steady drum pattern, and the occasional piano. Even with his rudimentary pieces, Alex G is a deft songwriter, able to pack tons of sugary hooks, emotional resonance, and smart flourishes into such simple compositions. –Josh Terry
39. MODERN BASEBALL – YOU’RE GONNA MISS IT ALL
Modern Baseball is a rocket back to my high school days of listening to The Get Up Kids and The Promise Ring. At the time, though, I didn’t want people to hear just how sad-sappy-sack the music and lyrics were. Modern Baseball’s You’re Gonna Miss It All is the kind of album I actually wanted at that time. The lyrics tell hilariously awkward tales of dealing with whatever the fuck life in your late teens and early twenties is, and the music takes on the catchiness from those early bands, but without every awkward blemish Photoshopped away. The Philadelphia rockers have the realism and wordplay I wanted, using the words I was too ashamed to write. It’s a damn near perfect combination. –Nick Freed
16. WEEZER – EVERYTHING WILL BE ALRIGHT IN THE END
A mother says the title of Weezer’s ninth album in the first track’s opening moments, comforting her child. If this album were the end of the band’s career, it would indeed be “alright.” But, fortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the case with Everything Will Be Alright in the End. The band’s return to form is a reminder that Rivers Cuomo and co. still have much to offer the alternative rock universe, whether it’s fashionable to like them or not. In this light, the new record comes across strangely comforting. Cuomo once said about his band’s classic sophomore record, Pinkerton, “I’m not coloring anything or softening anything. This is who I am and if you don’t like it … well, we should probably part ways, and I’m just gonna tell you the very worst parts of myself.” That Cuomo seems to be back on Everything Will Be Alright in the End, with single “Back to the Shack” stating, “I had to go and make a few mistakes so I could find out who I am/ I’m letting all of these feelings out even if it means I fail.” Those lyrics could easily describe his band’s last five or so albums, and delivering this record, with that apology, puts the entirety of Weezer’s career in a different, much more favorable light. –Philip Cosores
12. OWEN PALLETT – IN CONFLICT
This was an apex year for Owen Pallett. Arcade Fire’s most reliable five-tool collaborator received an Academy Award nomination for the Her soundtrack. He also bared hidden turmoils across In Conflict. The album entertains apathy but still gets excited about venturing into parts unknown. “Song for Five & Six” and “Soldier’s Rock” reinforce the notion that it’s time to pick up the pieces and move on. But move on where? And to what end? Tracks like “The Sky Behind the Flag” also offer up Pallett’s bittersweet composition with a bunting of tones that unfurl into a vast aural tapestry. The music is ripe with all manner of blips, blorps, and impassioned introspection. The latter half of In Conflict then races toward an anxious albeit encouraging end, with high intensity cuts like “The Riverbed” and “Infernal Fantasy” upping both the tempo and the stakes. The biggest highlight is Pallett’s enchanted vocals, which pair incredibly well with his meditations. They’re like a siren song of contrition warning others to avoid the emotional rocks and hazards that scuttled a life once sweet. In 2003, The Postal Service hurried down a similar route with Give Up. Now, in 2014, these poignant barbs arrive with more complexity, like forlorn packages dropped off by a guided quadrocopter. –Dan Pfleegor
6. AGAINST ME! – TRANSGENDER DYSPHORIA BLUES
“Your tells are so obvious,” shouts Laura Jane Grace in what’s maybe the most triumphant opener of the year. “Shoulders too broad for a girl.” It’s the first time she’s kicked off an album since she took her own name, her real name, since she told it to the rest of the world. “Transgender Dysphoria Blues”, from the album of the same name, might boast the most devastating first verse of an Against Me! record since Grace sang about her grandparents back in 2002 on “Pints of Guinness Make You Strong”. It carries the same weight. Transgender Dysphoria Blues never shies away from that heaviness, but it also never stops feeling like a victory. Grace packs so much fear into these songs: fear of violence, abandonment, disappointment, change, and death. These aren’t rare shadows for people working through a transition, especially for women who were told for years that they were men. Grace stares them down with a fire that lights up hope in its wake.
Strangely enough, the album’s most hopeful song takes place in a pair of caskets. Grace wrote “Two Coffins” for her young daughter as a reminder that even if not all love is unconditional, hers would last through death. Is that morbid? A little — you don’t get too many songs about a beloved child’s “little moon face” that also imagine that face sealed underground. But death sticks around whether we imagine it or not. For Grace, embracing the possibility of the worst is a cornerstone of her courage. The sixth Against Me! album is a landmark for a number of reasons — their first since dropping their major label, their first since Grace’s transition — but it’s also a massive declaration of triumph and, most of all, freedom. We close our own cell doors, or the world closes them for us. From the album’s first words, we know Grace has decided to kick hers down. –Sasha Geffen
1. THE WAR ON DRUGS – LOST IN THE DREAM
Pressure is a cruel mistress. Its impending presence is both the wild animal that chases us when we’re running our fastest and a trigger that, like nothing else, can tempt us to stop moving altogether. Some, like Adam Granduciel, can’t help but see this paradox everywhere, so it makes sense that it’s the figure in the crosshairs of the best album he’ll likely ever make.
Dec 16, 2014
Aquarium Drunkard's Albums of 2014
Here are a few highlights from AD favourite albums of 2014
See comments on their blog - very nice list and write-ups of each of the top albums.
Dec 13, 2014
Spin's Top 40 Albums
With the Salad Days of 2014 long gone, we're looking back on the music that defined the past 12 months. We've already counted down the year's 101 Best Songs, and now we've rounded up the 50 Best Albums. Expect to find our favorite Nikki Nacks and Brill Bruisers; a two-stepping, fire-spitting MC from Harlem; Los Angeles' principal lo-fi auteur; a bird-flipping British upstart; a number of literary post-punks; and the most bankable '80s baby. Brace yourselves: We're going 50 to 1, real quick.
Nothing surprising... the top lists are getting pretty generic IMO...
The Guardian Best Albums 2014
1. St Vincent - St Vincent
What we say: “On St Vincent, Annie Clark sounded suspiciously like an artist reaching the top of their game, currently capable of doing it all. She could write beautiful, crystalline melodies – the woozy swoon of I Prefer Your Love, Prince Johnny’s astonishing octave-leaping chorus, the warped power ballad Severed Crossed Fingers – then arrange them in a way that made them sound more astonishing still.”
2. War On Drugs - Lost in the Dream
What we say: “‘Balearic Springsteen’ is not, sadly, the defining sound of 2014, but while Lost in the Dream might not be the sort of album that could only have been made this year, the fact that it has placed so highly in this poll means it’s the sort of intimate, empathetic record that really gets under the skin. What was clearly punishing for Granduciel has become cathartic for the rest of us.
3. FKA twigs - LP1
What we say: “People have said that LP1 is a sparse record. True, there are gaps and pauses all over the place, but the production is fundamentally busy and demanding. There’s an awful lot going on. Choruses swell, beats scatter, the melody can slow mid-song before lurching back to its original tempo. The music pulls off the same trick as the vocals: providing intimacy and distance, all in the same breath: a push and pull of showing and concealing.”
4. Aphex - TwinSyro
What we say: “Some would grouse that Syro didn’t reinvent music – a rather high bar you had to regard as a compliment, of sorts. But if we don’t get Aphex the innovator here, we get something just as good: Aphex the virtuoso. Much of Syro was rooted in an athletic ‘80s electro funk, typified by the inhumanly fast keytar runs of syro u473t8+e (piezoluminescence mix). But the album’s real hallmark was its generosity of melody.”
5. Caribou - Our Love
What we say: “Club bangers have long been littered with platitudes about losing yourself to dance or feeling someone up at the end of the night. Our Love, though, runs deeper. Its songs are about the complexities of adult relationships, whether new fatherhood or friends’ divorces – even deaths. And yet despite this bittersweet melancholy, and Snaith’s chilly falsetto, Our Love manages to sound like it’s bathed in a warm, amber glow.”
Dec 10, 2014
Best 60 Albums from Pretty Much Amazing
By now, many of you reading this have probably seen your fair share of year-end “Best Of” lists, so thank you for hanging out with us and giving us a chance to break through the cacophony with our take on music in 2014. Thanks for hanging out and listening to music with us at all. This year, like every year, was a blast. But as any music nerd with ears to the ground would tell you, music doesn’t have many connective threads these days. Trends emerge, there’s no doubt about that, but it’s rare that distinctive moods capture the zeitgeist anymore. For every revelatory, death-obsessed Benji, we had a bizarre and sexy St. Vincent; for every indignant and seething Too Bright, we had a party-starting and life-affirming It’s Album Time!; when the emotional and brutal honesty of Plowing Into A Field of Love would begin to overwhelm, we had the glorious hands-in-the-air freedom of 1989 to turn to. There’s never been a better time to be an omnivorous music fan.
60 ScHoolboy Q, OxyMoron
59 Chromeo, White Women
58 Trust, Joyland
57 Lykke Li, I Never Learn
56 Ariana Grande, My Everything
55 Death From Above 1979, The Physical World
54 Perfect Pussy, Say Yes To Love
53 YG, My Krazy Life
52 Liars, Mess
51 Ratking, So It Goes
59 Chromeo, White Women
58 Trust, Joyland
57 Lykke Li, I Never Learn
56 Ariana Grande, My Everything
55 Death From Above 1979, The Physical World
54 Perfect Pussy, Say Yes To Love
53 YG, My Krazy Life
52 Liars, Mess
51 Ratking, So It Goes
50 Sia, 1000 Forms of Fear
49 Ariel Pink, pom pom
48 MØ, No Mythologies to Follow
47 The New Pornographers, Brill Bruisers
46 Shamir, Northtown
45 Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra, Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything
44 Hundred Waters, The Moon Rang Like A Bell
43 Real Estate, Atlas
42 White Lung, Deep Fantasy
41 Röyksopp & Robyn, Do It Again
49 Ariel Pink, pom pom
48 MØ, No Mythologies to Follow
47 The New Pornographers, Brill Bruisers
46 Shamir, Northtown
45 Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra, Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything
44 Hundred Waters, The Moon Rang Like A Bell
43 Real Estate, Atlas
42 White Lung, Deep Fantasy
41 Röyksopp & Robyn, Do It Again
40 Against Me!, Transgender Dysphoria Blues
39 BADBADNOTGOOD, III
38 Azealia Banks, Broke With Expensive Taste
37 Caribou, Our Love
36 Grouper, Ruins
35 Parquet Courts, Sunbathing Animal
34 How To Dress Well, “What Is This Heart?”
33 Ben Frost, A U R O R A
32 Owen Pallet, In Conflict
31 Strand of Oaks, HEAL
30 Beck, Morning Phase
39 BADBADNOTGOOD, III
38 Azealia Banks, Broke With Expensive Taste
37 Caribou, Our Love
36 Grouper, Ruins
35 Parquet Courts, Sunbathing Animal
34 How To Dress Well, “What Is This Heart?”
33 Ben Frost, A U R O R A
32 Owen Pallet, In Conflict
31 Strand of Oaks, HEAL
30 Beck, Morning Phase
01 Beyoncé
BEYONCÉ
BEYONCÉ
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