10. Bon Iver – 22, A Million 
Proving to be more divisive than one might expect for a Bon Iver album, 22, A Million still stands heads and shoulders above his prior outputs in terms of sheer ambition alone. From experimental, dream pop vibes, to his more traditional singer-songwriter acoustic number, 22, A Mllion was a deeply emotive experience. His first two albums buried themselves in grief and loss and allowed listeners a cathartic release of pain. 22, A Million, while still frequently dealing with exponentially big questions about life, is also offering up a chance for hope, a collective sigh of relief. It’s richly produced, undoubtedly beautifully performed and memorable past the first initial listen. – Allyson Johnson
9. Rihanna – ANTI
I can’t think of another artist I’ve heard described as a non-album artist this decade more than Rihanna. According to friends, fellow critics, and even myself, a consistent full-length album was just outside her abilities. Well she sure showed us, with a strong pop LP that managed to be the one saving grace in a dreadful year for the top 40. (Did anyone expect “Love on the Brain” to make it as high as it did?) Beyond the singles, album cuts like “Woo,” “Desperado,” “Consideration,” and (from the deluxe edition, which is worth paying extra) “Sex with Me” deserved to be ranked among her very best songs. – Matt Rice
8. Carly Rae Jepsen – Emotion Side B EP
Emotion Side B ostensibly acts as a companion piece to Jepsen’s critically adored 2015 album Emotion,and features eight songs that were left off of that album. However, it never once feels like a collection of outtakes. Instead, the EP’s eight tracks are as top-rate as its parent album. The songs even have a unified sound running throughout that revisits the late ‘80s dance-pop and Latin freestyle influences found on Emotion, and also introduces Laura Branigan-esque italo disco into the mix. Side B was Jepsen’s “thank you letter to her fans” and she certainly delivered something that will have them hotly anticipating her next move – Ryan Gibbs
7. Parquet Courts – Human Performance
Comparisons to Pavement have paid off. They’ve gotten better, more distinctive, more themselves. Comparisons keep coming, though. This time: The Velvet Underground. Sure. Next time? I dunno. Mott the Hoople, maybe? – Matt Rice
6. Frank Ocean – Blonde
Waiting for the new Frank Ocean album came with more than its fair share of frustration. What was originally supposed to be Boys Don’t Cry, the highly anticipated record had a number of fake release dates and rumors that never substantiated to anything until August of this year. Prefixed by Endless, a surprise visual album, Blonde finally landed on Apple Music—at this point—as unexpectedly as the album itself. Full of raw and understated emotion, Blonde may not have been the album we wanted, but the one we needed. Frank needed the extra time to craft an album so heavy on thoughts and one that stretches his talent into something that feels a lot more innovative and unconventional. – Gabrielle Bondi
5. Solange – A Seat at the Table
On her Saint Heron website, in an interview titled A Seat With Us, Solange describes her intentions for crafting A Seat At The Table as nothing more than “an invitation to allow folks to pull up a chair, get very close and have these hard uncomfortable truths be shared. “It’s not going to be pretty,” she continues. “It’s not going to be fun, you may not get to dance to it, you’re not going to breathe easily through it, but that is the state of the times that we’re in right now”. Co-executive produced by both Solange and Raphael Saadiq, A Seat At The Table is an anthem-like celebration of blackness, where universal truths of self-discovery and self-love can be derived from the humanity of a woman working to forge her own identity against decades-long impositions and restrictive labels placed upon her. While the singer has spent most of her career existing on the fringes of the pop and R&B world, this record brilliantly clarifies her voice at a time when such a voice is desperately needed. – Jennifer Baugh
4. Car Seat Headrest – Teens of Denial
“They got a portrait by Van Gogh on the Wikipedia page for clinical depression/Well it helps to describe it,” Will Toledo sings on “Vincent.” This led to my favorite misheard lyric of the year: “They got hell to describe,” I initially heard, which I still prefer. Throughout Teens of Denial, Toledo describes a world of hell. Depression, self-hatred, alcoholism, and other forms of numbness that are tossed aside and dismissed by an unforgiving world are all covered over the course of the album’s 70 minutes (which fly by). Along the way, he tosses off unforgettable tune after unforgettable tune, climaxing with the “How was I supposed to know?” monologue in “The Ballad of the Costa Concordia.” On a lesser record, that might seem hokey. Here, it feels earned. – Matt Rice
3. A Tribe Called Quest – We Got It From Here… Thank You 4 Your Service
A close listen of Tribe’s album indicates that they expected Hillary to win, but, released just two days after we all woke up to President-Elect Trump, it’s almost unbelievable that Tribe didn’t record We Got It From Here after stumbling upon some prophecy that had shown them the future. And despite features like Andre 3000 and Kendrick Lamar having made the album look like a star-studded farewell tour, A Tribe Called Quest dominates throughout, right down to what Phife Dawg could record before he passed. Quite an accomplishment for an act that hasn’t dropped an album in eighteen years and didn’t expect President Trump to be the best encapsulation of the prevailing feeling of the moment, and while it doesn’t deliver us hope it delivers us something more valuable, more powerful: focus. Let’s make something happen. – Joey Daniewicz
Advertisement
2. Beyoncé – Lemonade
Beyoncé’s personal life has been the center of this album, somewhat understandably. When one of the most famous people in the world sings, “What a wicked way to treat the girl that loves you,” it’s hard not to draw your attention to that. But in a way, that voyeurism undercuts the power of Lemonade. If it turned out the album was completely non-personal, merely a work of skillful storytelling, the production, the themes, and (most of all) the songs would still position it as both an all-time great break-up (sorta) album and a tremendous political work of art. Of course, the fact that it’s Beyoncé singing these songs from her perspective does give it some extra juice, which is why it’s a more memorable record than A Seat at the Table, regardless of what Pitchfork tells you. – Matt Rice
1. Chance the Rapper – Coloring Book
“Let’s make it so free and the bars so hard that there ain’t one gosh darned part you can’t tweet.”
Back in 2012, I saw an upstart Chicagoan open for Childish Gambino with a pretty poor set. It’d be about a year and a few listens into the incredible Acid Rap that I’d realize I had seen Chance The Rapper, but even by then, it’d be difficult to imagine him being able to call a year his. But by the time he dropped “Sunday Candy,” it should have been apparent to all that we were going to get blown away by Chance’s third.
Chance’s “Ultralight Beam” verse was so scene-stealing that it’s best thought of as a prelude to 2016’s finest album, Coloring Book. As with “Ultralight,” the gospel influence is everywhere. But there are so many other styles woven through the tracklisting, from the gentle guitars of “Juke Jam” to the trap onslaught of “Mixtape” back to the string-accompanied bloat of “Same Drugs” all the way to the somber “Summer Friends.”
Advertisement
But Coloring Book is the album of the year because of how Chance takes his youthful exuberance and turns it into gospel. It’s no secret that 2016 has been pretty hard for many, and Chance himself is moving with some romantic woes and getting past a Xanax addiction. And on “Finish Line” in particular it sounds like he’s showing us all a path to something greater. And this guy’s 23. If he can show us a way out, there may be hope for us yet. – Joey Daniewicz
Home | 50-41 | 40-31 | 30-21 | 20-11 | 10-1
Advertisement
