Honorable Mentions
Arca Arca, Joey Bada$$ All-Amerikkkan Bada$$, Father John Misty Pure Comedy, King Gizard & the Lizard Wizard Flying Microtonal Banana, Migos Culture, The Mountain Goats Goths, Nine Inch Nails Not the Actual Events, Priests Nothing Feels Natural, Sampha Process, Sun Kil Moon Common as Light and Love Are Red Valleys of Blood, Thundercat Drunk, The xx I See You
10. Feist
Pleasure
The long-awaited fifth studio album by Leslie Feist is also her most daring, varied, personal, and open. Feist holds nothing back, experimenting with electronic sounds on the opening title track, spoken word on the fabulous "Century," and minimalism on "I Wish I Didn't Miss You" and "Baby Be Simple." Her patented quirky take on indie-folk-rock is still present on the fantastic "Get Not High, Get Not Low," with a chorus of overlapping vocals joining her on every chorus. She's also not afraid to go heavy, opening an entirely new pathway for her sound that's adventurous, contemplative, and overwhelmingly listenable.
Uyai
The London-based world-dance group's sophomore effort is anything but sophomoric. Fun all the way through, Uyai combines electronic, West-African funk, post-punk, and new wave in equal measure for a truly unique musical experience. What should be a chaotic mess, Ibibio Sound Machine mix all the influences effortlessly to make their 70s-Nigerian-meets-LCD-Soundsystem album about liberation, beauty, and the power of women the most enjoyable album this year.
8. Wiley
Godfather
A thoroughly entertaining record, Godfather manages to feel forward-thinking and deeply satisfying, while still sounding elemental and vital. Wiley may have tried to shake off the "grime" label, but here he purposefully owns it, taking a victory lap around his peers and pushing them to succeed at the same time. It may be Wiley's last album (that remains to be seen), but if it really is, its single-minded focus, charisma, and unapologetic club-pop beat make for a hell of a swan song.
Brutalism
Imagine Joe Strummer and David Yow had a permanently-angry love child. That child fronts Idles, a band whose debut is so harsh and gloriously punk that Margaret Thatcher rolled over in her grave. They're heavy, dark, and abrasive, and Joe Talbot's lyrics are witty, sardonic, and biting. It can honestly be said that nothing--nothing--sounds this loud, pissed-off, or crushingly awesome. It is called Brutalism after all, and it is brutal.
6. Xiu Xiu
Forget
Xiu Xiu has always been polarizing: are they art-rock or just a mess; is that cacophonous drone a beautiful wash or just accidental feedback; are they electronic or rock; are their themes intentionally disturbing or just ugly? The beauty of constantly leaving listeners on the fence about these questions is that it frees Xiu Xiu to do whatever they want musically, including compiling an album of wondrously varied arrangements that walk the fine line between dance, folk, punk, and noise. Forget is a stunning testament to experimentation, minimalism, and arresting performance.
Crack-Up
It has been six years since blues-folk troubadours Fleet Foxes gave us Helplessness Blues, perhaps the best album of its release year, but you should have no doubts as to how much work they were doing in the meantime. Crack-Up is as good as they've ever been, if not even better, their music growing in complexity and density. And while Fleet Foxes try their best to make their third album as pop-inaccessible as possible, its compositions are almost excessively beautiful, drenched in orchestration and narrative arc. Crack-Up is overwhelming, exhilarating, and ultimately a rewarding experience very much worth the long wait.
4. Perfume Genius
No Shape
No Shape
Mike Hadreas' fourth album as Perfume Genius is his most decadent and realized yet. While his 2014 single "Queen" declared "no family is safe when I sashay," the songs on No Shape are no longer concerned with bigots, relegating them to the past where they belong, and instead focusing on love as transcendence, addiction recovery as heaven, and stability as sacrament. No Shape also removes a lot of the electronic frills of Too Bright, but keeps the lessons learned from them, inflating the album with brazen confidence and outlandish extroversion. No longer afraid of identity and derision, Hadreas exclaims his mantra of survival: "I'm here, how weird."
Run the Jewels 3
I know, I know, RTJ released this as a "Christmas f**king miracle" in 2016, but it came out too late for last years' lists. Killer Mike and El-P's third attempt is too good to not include on a best-of list, so now it's here. 3 is a manifesto of outrage, defiance, and nonconformity that's so epic it's deadly. The trio of "Talk to Me," "Legend Has It," and "Call Ticketron" may be the the best triplet of songs this decade, and guest verses from Danny Brown ("Hey Kids"), Trina ("Panther Like a Panther") and even Tunde Adebimpe ("Thieves!") just elevate Run the Jewels sound from exceptional to god-like. Their craft is so finely tuned and their message so sharp it will most certainly be the soundtrack of the many riots to come.
2. Mount Eerie
A Crow Looked at Me
Death, as a thematic element, was once called "literary ambulance-chasing" by a New York Times critic. It's a way to force readers/viewers/listeners to feel without having to work for it. But while the death that occurs in young adult novels and Lifetime movies is meant to shock and then disappear again, Phil Elverum's eulogy to his late wife is no surprise: it is a long, painful culmination of an insidious disease; and it does not disappear: real grief lasts forever. But instead of being overly morose for hours, A Crow Looked at Me simply remembers. Yes, memories can be painful, but they can also heal. For grief to lead to catharsis is the most sought-after human experience; it's intimately personal, yet bigger than the whole world. Elverum helps us, and hopefully himself, journey from desolation to appreciation. Life is not guaranteed.
Damn.
This entry could be entirely about "DNA.," a song so fantastic it puts the rest of the hip-hop world to shame, but that would be a disservice to the peerless, furious, precious, funny, vivid, precise, intimate, merciless, distinct, inimitable, stirring, effortless, original, electric, curious, enthralling, sincere, philosophical, fun, tender, sheepish, bouncy, fast, lucid, schizophrenic, fluent, scathing, smooth, homegrown, seamless masterpiece that is every single moment on DAMN. Kendrick Lamar is a wordsmith of unknowable proportions, buoyed ever higher by insanely talented guests from Rihanna to, inexplicably, U2, and Lamar squeezes every sound for all it's worth by filling the space with lots of words. But not a single word is wasted--each is specifically chosen to tell his story exactly how he wants, with every recitation so flawless you wonder when, or even if, he breathes. And while DAMN. is a beyond-extraordinary rap album, it is also a phenomenal dissertation on fate, and how, no matter where you come from, you can chase it, rather than run from it.
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