Written by: Andrew Kirkpatrick
2015 was a tremendous year for music — so incredibly good that it seemed like that momentum couldn’t possibly be sustained. As it turns out, it could. I’ve chosen 10 records (plus two honorable mentions) to highlight here, but that still doesn’t do justice to the huge number of great releases this year.
But hopefully between my own list, those of Stereo Embers’ other editors, and those of other publications, you’ll discover all the fantastic music you could ever want.
First, the two records I absolutely have got to talk about right before I get to the bunch of other records that I absolutely have got to talk about:
Arca – Entrañas
Arca, like many musicians, is an outsider. But unlike those who desperately seek acceptance and normalcy, the Venezuelan producer embraces being labeled an other. For 25 minutes, he revels in grotesquerie and base violence and sex while weaving together some of the darkest and hardest-hitting beats of the year. The record ends a cluster of explosions. Whether these are celebratory fireworks or bombs is up to you — in Arca’s twisted world, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was both simultaneously.
Sivyj Yar – The Unmourned Past
To die and eventually be lost to time is a fate we’re almost all doomed to. Sivyj Yar’s concise but deep dive into this harsh reality is bleak, atmospheric black metal bliss.
Now, without further ado, here’s my Super Serious, Important, Inarguable, and Totally Definitive List of the Top 10 Albums of 2016 (™), in order from least mindblowingly amazing to most mindblowingly amazing:
- Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids – We Be All Africans
Reconciling ups and downs of everyday life with our innate sense of greater, transcendental things is spiritual jazz’s primary mission, and few are better at grappling with these ideas than Idris Ackamoor’s legendary crew. From the urgent title track to the extra-dimensional closer, The Pyramids yet again find a deft balance between the earthy and immediate and the cosmic and cerebral.
Key Track: “Rhapsody in Berlin”
- Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith & Suzanne Ciani – Sunergy
Cross-generational collaborations rarely feel like anything more than a gimmick, but the pairing of up-and-coming synth music mastermind Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and electronic elder stateswoman Suzanne Ciani is sublime. The record’s music video reveals their source of inspiration: their picturesque and remote mutual hometown of Bolinas, California. Across three giant tracks, the pair’s intricate electronic compositions come together to form a cohesive soundscape that’s just as beautiful and mysterious as the artsy enclave they call home.
Key Track: “A New Day”
- Kendrick Lamar – untitled unmastered
Kendrick is so good that I’m running out of ways to praise his work. untitled unmastered is a jam session, looser and more amorphous than any of K.Dot’s other records. And though the tracks here may be B-sides, they still add up to another essential project from mainstream music’s most important artist.
Key Track: “untitled 02 | 6.23.2014”
- Swans – The Glowing Man
Here’s a quick way to land on my top 10 list: do what Swans frontman Michael Gira did and refer to your album as “Kurosawan.” That pretty much guarantees any artist a spot. But if that album can also be an utterly uncompromising, dense, and ass-kicking rock record that marks yet another stellar entry in a perfect discography, that’d definitely improve the odds.
Key Track: “Cloud of Unknowing”
- Young Thug – Jeffery
Flamboyant, vibrant, and utterly unique, Jeffery‘s 10 tracks find the ATL madman pushing boundaries with more feverish energy than ever before. As a sub-genre, trap music is becoming ever more difficult to classify, and Thug is at the forefront of turning his region’s signature sound into something beautifully unrecognizable.
Key Track: “Harambe”
- A Tribe Called Quest – We Got It From Here, Thank You 4 Your Service
I’ll just say it: We Got It From Here is better than The Love Movement and Beats Rhymes and Life. Tribe has done the impossible, piecing together a comeback album after 18 years and in the wake of Phife Dawg’s passing that not only isn’t terrible, but feels like a classic in the making.
Key Track: “We The People…”
- Schoolboy Q – Blank Face LP
It took a few years, but Schoolboy Q — one of the best rappers out right now without a doubt — has finally put together the album every rap nerd knew he was capable of. Dark, ambitious, and packed with variety, Blank Face is the year’s best hip-hop epic. From vicious posse cuts, to sprawling West Coast bangers, to psychedelic turn-up anthems, Q nails it every step of the way.
Key Track: “Groovy Tony/Eddie Kane”
- Anderson Paak – Malibu
“I’m doing what I want and how I should, too,” says Paak early on this fantastic breakout record. An accurate self-assessment, I’d say. The newfound West Coast R&B phenom’s brand of laidback everyman soul doesn’t really fit in with today’s popular music, but his material is just so compelling that it’s carved a place in the mainstream anyway. In an era where music is quickly listened to and discarded, it speaks volumes about Paak’s talents that he dropped Malibu in January and it’s had more staying power than most of this year’s big releases.
Key Track: “The Season/Carry Me”
- Solange – A Seat at the Table
Like her older sister Beyoncé, Solange’s latest is a reflection on dealing with racism and misogyny simultaneously. The younger Knowles’ anger and shock drive the album — anger at being continually mistreated by the social groups she doesn’t belong to and shock at being disrespected by the ones she does. A Seat at the Table is often a deeply sad and furious record. Solange’s silky vocals coupled with some warm Soulquarian-style production soften the blow, but the pain is palpable and, unfortunately, warranted.
Key Track: “Cranes in the Sky”
- Frank Ocean – Blond(e)
How can an album so loose and free-associative have such breathtaking and purposeful moments of pop bliss as “Self Control?” How can tracks like “Seigfried” and “Ivy” that borrow heavily from other genres still remain so rooted in R&B and soul? How can incredibly opaque songs like “Nikes” and “Futura Free” feel so immediately relatable? Chances are we won’t learn anything about the method behind Frank’s madness for a long time. Even if that leaves me to take Blond(e) for what it is at face value, I’m blown away. This is a near-perfect vision of a postmodern sort of R&B, inextricable from the internet age but still possessed of instinctive blues.
Key Track: “Self Control”
