Well folks, time again to unveil my top albums of the year, and this year I’ll be scaling things back a bit. I didn’t really have the motivation or time/energy to do any write-ups or even delve too deeply into analyzing all the releases I came across this year, so this isn’t going to be nearly as involved an exercise. As I’ve said in year’s past, this ranking has always been a hybrid of “best” and “favorite” albums, but this year it’ll lean much more towards the latter. However, since there will be less content (Honorable Mentions? Nah. Dishonorable Mentions? Nope. Overrated/Underrated? Meh.), I’ll expand the rankings to my top 40 rather than the usual top 25, and release the whole list at once. Also, you’ll notice I don’t have any song samples accompanying my rankings this year. A band who shall remain nameless (let’s just say it rhymes with Lumford and Puns) recently contacted me and demanded I remove their songs from the site, which led to a little reprimand from the Wordpress police. Therefore, I’ll leave it up to you to track down some tunes on for favorite streaming service if you feel so inclined.
This past year I purchased, in some form, 87 albums, 82 of which are eligible. I do not include EPs, reissues, soundtracks, live albums, holiday albums, or b-side/rarity type releases as eligible for my list. For the first time I debated including albums I merely streamed as eligible, but that became too difficult to manage, and it’s probably best to draw the line somewhere. So as always, there’s plenty of albums that I never got around to procuring meaning there’s going to be very worthy albums that don’t make my list. So if you have questions as to why your favorite album isn’t on my list, well it’s because I either didn’t get it, or just plain didn’t care for it as much as you, simple as that. After the jump, you can see the list of all albums I purchased, in order of release date. As you can see by the schedule over on the right, tomorrow I’ll unveil my complete top 40, and Thursday I’ll post my ever popular mixtape.
David Bowie – Blackstar
Hinds – Leave Me Alone
Anderson .Paak – Malibu
Shearwater – Jetplane and Oxbow
Savages – Adore Life
Chairlift – Moth
The Besnard Lakes – A Coliseum Complex Museum
Rihanna – ANTI
Porches – Pool
Pinegrove – Cardinal
Animal Collective – Painting With
Wild Nothing – Life of Pause
School of Seven Bells – SVIIB
Thao & The Get Down Stay Down – A Man Alive
M. Ward – More Rain
Kendrick Lamar – untitled unmastered.*
Into It. Over It. – Standards
Brian Fallon – Painkillers
Cullen Omori – New Misery
The Thermals – We Disappear
Japanese Breakfast – Psychopomp
Frankie Cosmos – Next Thing
Explosions In The Sky – The Wilderness
Laura Gibson – Empire Builder
The Field – The Follower
Parquet Courts – Human Performance
Deakin – Sleep Cycle
M83 – Junk
Frightened Rabbit – Painting Of A Panic Attack
Sturgill Simpson – A Sailor’s Guide To Earth
Kevin Morby – Singing Saw
PJ Harvey – The Hope Six Demolition Project
Sam Beam and Jessica Hoop – Love Letter For Fire
Camp Cope – Camp Cope
Greys – Outer Heaven
Gallant – Ology
James Blake – The Colour In Anything
ANOHNI – Hopelessness
Kaytranada – 99.9%
White Lung – Paradise
Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool
Modern Baseball – Holy Ghost
Adia Victoria – Beyond The Bloodhounds
David Bazan – Blanco
Wolf Parade – Wolf Parade EP 4*
Car Seat Headrest – Teens of Denial
Big Thief – Masterpiece
The Hotelier – Goodness
PUP – The Dream Is Over
Whitney – Light Upon The Lake
William Tyler – Modern Country
Fear of Men – Fall Forever
Speedy Ortiz – Foiled Again*
Wye Oak – Tween*
Diarrhea Planet – Turn To Gold
Mitski – Puberty 2
Blood Orange – Freetown Sound
Russian Circles – Guidance
Dinosaur Jr – Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not
Wild Beasts – Boy King
Thee Oh Sees – A Weird Exits
Frank Ocean – Blonde
Angel Olsen – My Woman
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Skeleton Tree
St Paul & The Broken Bones – Sea of Noise
Okkervil River – Away
Wilco – Schmilco
Local Natives – Sunlit Youth
Cymbals Eat Guitars – Pretty Years
Touché Amoré – Stage Four
Preoccupations – Preoccupations
Against Me! – Shape Shift With Me
Kishi Bashi – Sonderlust
Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam – I Had a Dream That You Were Mine
Beach Slang – A Loud Bash of Teenage Feelings
Flock of Dimes – If You See Me, Say Yes
How To Dress Well – Care
Bon Iver – 22, A Million
Drive-By Truckers – American Band
Jenny Hval – Blood Bitch
Hiss Golden Messenger – Heart Like a Levee
American Football – American Football
Weyes Blood – Front Row Seat To Earth
David Bazan – Dark Sacred Night*
Sad13 – Slugger
Sleigh Bells – Jessica Rabbit
Run The Jewels – RTJ3
* Not Eligible
A Round of Sound 