TOP 15 ALBUMS OF 2015

The saturated motion blur of passing storefronts glows through the raindrop-covered window as the enchanting keyboards of The Magic Whip take you on a nighttime taxi ride through the neon streets of Hong Kong. After being away from the music scene for over a decade, the charismatic Britpop band Blur resurfaces with a slow-burning sound that radiates with the group’s crimson charm. The album embodies a ...

Explosive and sinister, the gritty guitar riffs of title track “Mister Asylum” set the brash, blood-pumping tone to launch this hotheaded record, one of thundering beats and rough edges. Highly Suspect, a trio hailing from Brooklyn, brings along aggressive blues rock that plays like a corrupt reincarnation of rock music as it once was, with just as much attitude. As new kids on the block of the...

If you ask me what genre Kid Cudi was going for on his recent album, I couldn’t give you a straight answer. Speedin’ Bullet 2 Heaven blurs the conventions of hip-hop, exploring sounds of heavy alternative rock (“Fade 2 Red”), twanged acoustics (“Handle with Care”), and new-age punk (“Séance Chaos”). Born Scott Ramon Seguro Mescudi, Cudi has always been one to play by his own rules and d...

With 16-bit synths and iridescent funk, Neon Indian welcomes you to the VEGA INTL. Night School for a middle-of-the-night celestial trip to interstellar sound. Whether exploring glitzy character-driven romance (“Annie”) or struggling with finding his place in the world (“Slumlord”), lead singer Alan Palomo pairs techno-tinged electro-pop with a vivid array of enchanting vocal samples to create flu...

Before you full-out roast me in the comments below, let me explain. Sure, this is pure, shameless bubblegum pop. But it’s pure, shameless bubblegum pop done extremely well. Jepsen has become a master in the craft of catchy beats, memorable lyrics, and crisp rhythms and she thoroughly exhibits her skills along these sweet synth tracks. Lead track “Run Away With Me” sounds like a revamped version...

“I wait all week for a moment's break/Away from being told who I am,” FKA twigs sings on “Glass and Patron,” expressing her frustration with social conformity. Pronounced “Melissa” which twigs explains is her “personal female energy,” M3LLI5X conveys a complex feminist narrative, exploring the power of womanhood, desire, birth, and control. Collaborating with star producer Boots, twi...

In their third album, Tame Impala channels a mind-bending groove of soul-searching heartbreak that flows through a celestial blend of disco, pop, and alternative rock. Primarily written, recorded, and produced by frontman Kevin Parker, Currents vocalizes the uncovered feelings of an urban introvert and does so with a brooding spirit that is more reflective than regretful.  Psychedelic keyboards b...

With witty lyrics and notable relatability, Courtney Barnett instantly feels like an old friend. A practical pessimist, the Australian singer- songwriter shares her concerns, complaints, and insecurities over simple guitar and drum arrangements in a conversational way that feels like late night chitchat over takeout. “Put me on a pedestal/And I will only disappoint you,” she warns in “Pedestr...

After four years since her record-setting sophomore album, Adele finally offers eleven new tracks that we can foolishly attempt to sing along to. Following childbirth and recovering from vocal surgery, the British singer, always having a maturity that surpassed her age, takes on a new, more developed approach to romance. As much as we loved the break-up ballads of 21, there is something more stunning and more s...

Let’s have one thing clear: this album is no “Whip My Hair” follow-up. Leaving her old music behind along with her last name, Willow Smith ventures into genre-blurring sound that bears no resemblance to the teenager’s past (as if, at the age of 15, she even has much of one). Originating from the genus name of the first humanoid, Ardipithecus is written from a place of transition, discussing subj...

Shamir Bailey caught my attention along with that of many others late last year with his single “On the Regular,” which provided layered rhythms, charming lyrics, and a heaping load of in-your-face attitude. Following the hype, Ratchet is nowhere near disappointing. In his debut album, the young singer takes an unconventional approach by broadening his sound instead of narrowing it down to con...

Hailing from the alternative-pop staple group The xx, Jamie xx brings his individual music identity to a prismatic debut album.  However, don’t mistake the album for simply another electronic record or an extension of his old group's work. If you do, the R&B-inspired and Jamaican-infused jam “I Know There Is Gonna Be (Good Times)” will definitely surprise you with featured artists Young...

“Grimes as one person can not represent more than a couple ideas,” Claire Elise Boucher a.k.a. Grimes explained to the Fader Magazine in July. “That’s why I started developing some of the other characters really abstract from who I am and how I am.” The results were the Art Angels that flutter and dance across this fantastical and animated record which includes the singer’s catchiest tunes t...

To Pimp a Butterfly epitomizes the creative shift in the hip-hop industry this year in a cohesive record that is nothing less than cinematic. If you listen to the entire album starting from ”Wesley’s Theory” all the way to “Mortal Man,” you cannot help but feel as though you are listening to a broadway production in which each song is an interconnected scene of dramatic importance. Kendric...

With Björk, each album is a separate universe of her creation. Vulnicura is a world of science and romance, of apathy and intimacy, of technology and tension. Following her split with longtime partner Matthew Barney,  Björk comes across the most vulnerable she has ever been on the self-explorative tracks that construct this album. A master of metaphor, the Icelandic singer finds herself reverting t...