10. Dr. Dre, Compton: A Soundtrack By Dr. Dre (Aftermath\/Interscope Records)<\/strong> 9. Screaming Females, Rose Mountain (Don Giovanni Records)<\/strong> 8. Blueprint, King No Crown (Weightless Recordings)<\/strong> 7. Bj\u00f6rk, Vulnicura (One Little Indian Records)<\/strong> 6. Run the Jewels, Meow the Jewels (Mass Appeal)<\/strong> 5. Faith No More, Sol Invictus (Reclamation Recordings)<\/strong> 4. D\u2019Angelo and The Vanguard, Black Messiah (RCA Records)<\/strong> 3. Various Artists, Hamilton: Original Broadway Cast Recording (Atlantic Records)<\/strong> 2. Kendrick Lamar, To Pimp a Butterfly (Interscope Records)<\/strong> 1. Sleater-Kinney, No Cities to Love (Sub Pop Records)<\/strong> Obnox, Boogalou Reed (12XU Records) Top 10 Albums 10. Dr. Dre, Compton: A Soundtrack By Dr. Dre (Aftermath\/Interscope Records) After 11 years, Dr. Dre threw in the towel on the mythical Detox record. Instead, he broke his hiatus with this relative quickie album inspired by his involvement with the Straight Outta Compton movie. It raises the question: If he could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4130,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2479],"tags":[1169,478,1537,1538,1308,1512,1057,988,1139,1056],"class_list":["post-4179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-best-of-the-year","tag-bjork","tag-blueprint","tag-dangelo-and-the-vanguard","tag-dr-dre","tag-faith-no-more","tag-hamilton","tag-kendrick-lamar","tag-run-the-jewels","tag-screaming-females","tag-sleater-kinney"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nAfter 11 years, Dr. Dre threw in the towel on the mythical Detox<\/i> record. Instead, he broke his hiatus with this relative quickie album inspired by his involvement with the Straight Outta Compton<\/i> movie. It raises the question: If he could just bang this record out, why in the world did Detox<\/i> never get off the ground? That\u2019s a quandary for another time, but if Compton<\/i> is Dre in throwaway mode, then everyone should be nervous. The beats and production are stunning, and everyone\u2014including Dre\u2014brings their A-game to the mic. Of course, no Dre album is complete without guests, so you have the usual subjects (Snoop and Eminem), as well as old friends like Ice Cube, Cold 187um, and the West Coast\u2019s favorite son, Kendrick Lamar. It\u2019s nearly a perfect return to form, which unfortunately means some cringeworthy misogyny in the form of a skit that goes way too long and seems to mainly exist for shock value. Nevertheless, there\u2019s no denying that there\u2019s a reason people have stayed interested for so long and the why is in full display. As with others on this list, let\u2019s hope it won\u2019t be as long a wait for the next one.<\/p>\n
\nScreaming Females have a sound as visceral and immediate as their name. Bandleader Marissa Paternoster is the key factor in that equation, an undeniable guitar hero who tends to reduce listeners to slack-jawed stares. They\u2019ve always had a heavy edge, but for this go around, they leaned into it and recruited Matt Bayles, known for his work with bands like Mastodon and Isis. And while it would have been easy for the band to just crank up the amps and go at it, Rose Mountain<\/i> finds the Females incorporating more melodic passages and even slowing it down a bit. That may be due to the fact that Paternoster wrote the record while dealing with illness. Perhaps the time made her a bit introspective, but still feeling the need to rock out. Rose Mountain<\/i> has a clean sound that doesn\u2019t sacrifice the power and is a heck of an emotional, sonic ride.<\/p>\n
\nBlueprint is easily the most prolific of his peers, with each new year usually bringing a new release. While it would be easy to tread water, he keeps evolving while managing to balance the old with the new. His latest, King No Crown<\/i>, builds off the DNA of his 2011 album, Adventures in Counter-Culture<\/i>, and finds Print as concerned about the details of real life as being the best rapper. He deals with the deaths of family and friends while still threading the record with optimism. When it comes to the production, he uses a light touch that keeps it from becoming a slog even during the darker moments. It\u2019s a record that\u2019s both thought-provoking and head-nodding. Blueprint is the everyman that hip-hop pretends it doesn\u2019t need, but should be thankful it has.<\/p>\n
\nTo invoke a cliche, an album is a snapshot in time. With that in mind Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s ninth record is a window into her break-up with her longtime romantic partner Mathew Barney. After floating in space and the abstract for most of her career, Vulnicura<\/i> finds the Icelandic chanteuse more lyrically grounded than ever before, but in her own idiosyncratic way. She\u2019s not naming names, but the emotions hit like a wet towel snap. Joined by Arca and The Haxan Cloak, she fuses strings and acoustic instruments with beats in a manner that\u2019s classic Bj\u00f6rk. It\u2019s a stunner of an album in a catalog that has a bunch of them.<\/p>\n
\nA pre-order package goof morphed into a Kickstarter that raised the $40,000 goal plus an additional $26,000. (The band donated the entire amount to charity.) And while Killer Mike and El-P fell slightly short of recreating the Run The Jewels 2<\/i> album, they came mighty close only using cat sounds. There\u2019s no reason that it should have worked, but with help from Prince Paul, Just Blaze, Portishead\u2019s Geoff Barrow, Blood Diamonds, Boots, Zola Jesus, The Alchemist, and Massive Attack\u2019s 3D, it actually turns a goofy idea into a fairly genius re-imagining. There\u2019s a heightened sense of menace that develops from having even more focus on the words. And fun fact, cat purrs make really effective sub-bass.<\/p>\n
\nFaith No More got back together for a series of reunion shows between 2009 and 2010, with a brief South American tour in 2011 and a one-off in France in 2012. After that they suggested that the reunion had run its course, though they would possibly be recording a new record. Well, it turns out that the bait and switch was just that, and after 18 years, the band released its first new album, Sol Invictus<\/i>. There\u2019s no denying the preserved in amber aspect of the album. It\u2019s almost like they didn\u2019t want to get too weird on the first outing back, though there\u2019s nothing that will slide comfortably into a Target commercial. Nevertheless, what it may lack in surprise it makes up for in sheer songcraft and performance, with delicate moments balanced with instances of raw power. It\u2019s almost unnerving how locked in and note perfect the band is. Sol Invictus<\/i> is the type of reunion album for which you usually can only hope.<\/p>\n
\nThis record actually came out in the waning days of 2014, so with just a few days between the release and end-of-year deadlines, it perhaps didn\u2019t get the recognition it deserved. While D\u2019Angelo may never return to the straightahead R&B sound of his debut, he still has jams and grooves a plenty. And although not directly political, its mix of rock, funk, jazz and soul seemed to capture the zeitgeist in the same way Sly and the Family Stone\u2019s There\u2019s a Riot Going On<\/i> once did. Fittingly, it helped inspire Kendrick Lamar\u2014and you know how that turned out. Let\u2019s just hope it isn\u2019t another 14 years before the next record.<\/p>\n
\nIf you were to tell someone back in January that one of the hottest things to hit pop culture would be a Broadway musical that used hip-hop to explore the life and times of the first Secretary of Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, you might get looks that were a mixture of confusing and pity for the hangover you\u2019d be suffering through when you sobered up. Yet here we are with Hamilton<\/i>, the show people just can\u2019t stop talking about. For those who didn\u2019t score tickets to one of the long soldout performances, the soundtrack is the next best thing; at two hours and 46 tracks, it\u2019s the entire show. Overseen by Questlove and Black Thought of The Roots and the show\u2019s creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda, it\u2019s an ambitious mix of hip-hop, pop, R&B, jazz, and show tunes. It\u2019s the rare Broadway album that plays just as well to both the hardcore theater geek and the pop fan and an impossibly audacious accomplishment.<\/p>\n
\nTo paraphrase every cartoonish goombah in pop culture, it certainly took a pair of brass ones for Kendrick Lamar to release To Pimp a Butterfly<\/i>. The idea that Lamar would follow up his string of radio-embraced songs for an album that casually dropped free jazz into the mix certainly seems ballsy. To be fair, he telegraphed that things were going to be different in his TV performances prior to the album\u2019s release. The result is a difficult, dense record designed to be consumed as a whole. It seemed to reject even the idea of singles, despite the fact that the album spawned five. It\u2019s a record that will leave the casual fan or the folks looking for \u201cSwimming Pools Part 2\u201d cold. But if you\u2019re willing to stick with it, the audacity pays off.<\/p>\n
\nIn the year of our Lord 2015, bands reuniting is the least surprising aspect of the current music scene. After all, there are lots of festival stages that need populating. But reunion albums are nerve wracking. Usually, the best one can hope for is that it won\u2019t be cringe-inducing. So when Sleater-Kinney announced that after a decade-long hiatus they had a new album coming out, there was cautious excitement. It turns out that there was no need for worry. No Cities to Love<\/i>, the band\u2019s eighth album and second for Sub Pop picked up as if no time had transpired. Revisiting some of the pop overtones of previous albums and adding some new tricks, it is the logical next step with no asterisk. The balance and chemistry is just as great as it ever was so hopefully the band is back to stay.<\/p>\nHonorable Mentions<\/h4>\n
\nObnox, Know America (Ever\/Never Records)
\nPanda Bear, Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper (Domino Recording Co.)
\nDam-Funk, Invite the Light (Stones Throw Records)
\nDamn the Witch Siren, Back to Dreaming (self-released)
\nRosin Murphy, Hairless Toys (PIAS Recordings)
\nDeath, N.E.W. (TryAngle Records)
\nThe Good Life, Everybody\u2019s Coming Down (Saddle Creek Records)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"