Top 10 Albums

10. Car Seat Headrest, Teens of Style (Matador Records)
Given the dearth of rock records on this year’s list, it’s easy to assume we need more guys like 22 year-old Will Toledo in our lives. Teens of Style is a spark of an album, like Is This It?, On the Mouth, or Slanted and Enchanted. It has an immediacy so profound you know you’ll start it over even before it ends. Toledo has amassed a lifetime of work in just a half-decade, and with Teens, he’s sorted out the best. It’s thick with hooks and Beach Boys–on-Adderol harmonies and is completely earnest, even embarrassingly so, when it needs to be. Not flawless, but that’s part of the charm.

9. Young Thug, Barter 6 (300 Entertainment)
When I started compiling a fun list of singles from the year, I found a noticeable trend: Young Thug, the Atlanta-based hip-hop shapeshifter, was featured on about half. He’s the Bob Pollard of rap, capable of creating his own language and writing songs in sigils and illustrations. My high school students loved him about 16 months ago, when he was just a “Stoner.” Now, they’ve turned their back on him and moved on. Is he too esoteric or absurd to survive in any of the new outre formats hip-hop has adopted? That he’s indefinable makes Barter 6 all the better. It’s the cool condensation of his negative chi changing into a vaporous mix of mythical language and infectious, barely there, in sonic baubles. This feels like the portal to Thug’s next level.

8. Grimes, Art Angels (4AD)
Claire Boucher herself has used “A.D.D.” to describe the music of Grimes. Thus, it’s been hard for her not to flit between the many post-modern genres that fuel her subconscious. Art Angels, then, is a statement that declares her universe is of her own design. She doesn’t quite fit anywhere, and she is autonomous to the nth degree. Between K-Pop excursions, avant hip-hop beats, weirdo folk interludes, maximalist pop, and electric guitars, the album represents her artistic vision as euphoric amalgam of styles without borders. Where before Grimes bore a slight redundancy or an ephemeral flimsiness, Art Angels posits the young songwriter as terrestrial, confident, and unafraid to bend the limits of pop music to her liking. Art Angels is a blueprint to where music is headed, like it or not.

7. Janet Jackson, Unbreakable (Rhythm Nation)
Surprisingly, Janet Jackson has never written a song along the lines of Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” and she will eternally be the second most adored Jackson of the empire. Which is a shame, because in 2015, when the world did not expect much from Ms. Jackson, she released Unbreakable, an album brimming with apex-quality Janet in its deep cuts and grooves. A big component in the revival is the impeccable production from Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, the all-star team behind her big records, Control and Rhythm Nation 1814. Not only do they provide a bit of nostalgia, but push Janet along into some new territory that still sounds uniquely Janet. That it’s showing up on many year-end lists is proof that, in a industry devoid of MTV and the mechanisms that brought Janet to power, she’s still capable of making a record that’s relevant.

6. Father John Misty, I Love You, Honeybear (Sub Pop Records)
File under this year’s post-collegiate folkie crooner who is actually as good as the hype. I can recite most of this like dive-bar poetry or something I’d text to an ex.

5. Dick Diver, Melbourne, Florida (Chapter Music/Trouble in Mind)
Papas Fritas and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci references will only make sense to those who were college radio deejays in the mid-90s, but they’re apt when listening to Dick Diver’s third album, the languid and beautiful Melbourne, Florida. Previously, the band dabbled in standard Aussie pop (two years ago Calendar Days was a winner in that category), but quirk and majesty propel these songs to another level entirely. From folk that veers towards Steely Dan (“Private Number”) to The Fall–meets-Tall Dwarfs pounce of “Beat Me Up,” the LP never quite sits still stylistically, yet there’s nothing but style in these simple compositions.

4. Kendrick Lamar,  To Pimp a Butterfly (Interscope Records)
Not much left for me to say. I think Kendrick’s opus (for now) is an essential text, as dense and enlightening as Fear of a Black Planet and perhaps more important these days. I taught this in an English class, so I suppose it’s the Faulkner novel of the 2015 hip-hop renaissance.

3. Salad Boys, Metalmania (Trouble in Mind)
That the Salad Boys are everything a classic New Zealand trio should sound like is almost a detriment to the transcendent songs that comprise Metalmania. They hail from Christchurch, back up the legendary David Kilgour when touring the homeland, and pack enough bittersweet, wandering guitar jangle into their music that they may as well be the second coming of The Clean. But somewhere a sense of modernity jars them to their senses, and the riffs get sharp, purposefully melodic, and urgent—all qualities that run counter to their brethren. Metalmania is not merely homage, it’s the natural evolution of “Tally Ho” to how these NZ kids think it should sound in 2015.

2. Carly Rae Jepsen, Emotion (Interscope Records)
The iTunes don’t lie. Emotion is, according to stats, the album I listened to the most in 2015. There is no such thing as a guilty pleasure; it’s a sparkling pop gem. Supposedly Jepsen recorded upwards of 40 songs in the making of Emotion, cut it down to 18, and put 12 on the proper album. It’s perhaps the first pop album of the new millennium that demands a boxset down the road. The album stands at the crossroads of the wide spectrum of glossy mega-pop—Quarterflash, Duran Duran, Max Martin, Blood Orange—where nostalgia and innovation collide.

1. Vince Staples, Summertime ’06 (Def Jam Recordings)
In a year that I’m tempted to call the new golden age of hip-hop, Vince Staples trumps Kendrick. The message might be construed as lesser, but the visceral impact, both thematically and sonically, is hands down more poignant and innovative. In a year when “Compton” is the hashtag, Staples makes his Crip-tainted narratives vital. But it’s not gang- or squad-centric; it’s ex-shooter, ex-Crip. It’s something CNN (still) doesn’t talk about. It’s still happening and Staples nailed it to wax. This album is like one of those warped bass cassettes from ’87 or Death Certificate from the bottom of a well or the future without Future or pop when revolutionary nihilism reigns.

The Next 10

20. Jeremih, Late Nights (Def Jam Recordings)
19. EZTV, Calling Out (Captured Tracks)
18. Dawn Richard, Blackheart (Our Dawn Entertainment)
17. Tobias Jesso Jr, Goon (Arts & Crafts)
16. Björk, Vulnicura (One Little Indian Records)
15. Jamie XX, In Colour (Young Turks)
14. Ultimate Painting, Green Lanes (Trouble in Mind)
13. Empress Of, Me (Terrible Records)
12. Deerhunter, Fading Frontier (4AD)
11. Kamasi Washinton, The Epic (Brainfeeder)