SO MUCH good stuff has been in my Discman lately. Like, I’m burning through a 48-pack of Duracell AAs a week just trying to keep up! And that has a lot to do with 2015 being an incredible year for new music. So incredible, in fact, that I feel quite comfortable listing 10 albums that could go head to head against any of my previous top 10s (in the pathetic music-list cage matches that constantly take place in my mind):

10. Goatsnake – Black Age Blues

Sunn O))) guitarist Greg Anderson resurrects his old band and churns out some pure Black Sabbath doom candy.

 

9. Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp A Butterfly

Can an album be a masterpiece and also a tiny step backwards? That’s what this feels like for K-Dot, who gives an inspired, chameleonic, relentless performance over some gorgeously fiery jazz fusion workouts. Maybe if I didn’t know how great he was at rapping, I could accept those poetry slam segues at face value. As it stands, I skip ’em – these ears ain’t free.

 

8. Screaming Females – Rose Mountain

Marissa Paternoster’s voice is a lit fuse. Her guitar is an explosion. And her sense of control is what keeps us from breathing in the asbestos.

 

7. Shamir – Ratchet

“Why not go out and make a scene?” asks 20-year-old Shamir Bailey on his skeletal dance-pop earworm of a debut. His voice is so convincingly, casually joyful, you’re in the street banging pots and pans before you know it.

 

6. Bjork – Vulnicura

The sad dusk to Vespertine‘s blissful dawn. Like that 2001 masterpiece, Vulnicura is fearlessly confessional. But instead of exploring feelings of love and safety and sexual nirvana, it mines beauty from their curdling. An intense, unforgettable listen.

 

5. Father John Misty – I Love You, Honeybear

If you need a Vulnicura chaser, might I recommend the last song on Joshua Tillman’s swooningly self-conscious second album. “I Went to the Store One Day” is a love song for the ages, a life raft for anyone who’s been laughed at for believing in fate.

 

4. Drake – If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late

I was ready to give Drizzy a pass on this, an album he basically described as a palate-cleanser mixtape to hold us over until his actual fourth album drops. Unnecessary. Absolutely no one is delivering hooks like this right now. He tosses them off like involuntary functions. He makes moody, icy synthesizers feel bright as ukuleles.

 

3. Sleater-Kinney – No Cities To Love

The greatest rock comeback album ever.

 

2. Young Thug – Barter 6

His Lil Wayne title-biting is pretty stupid. But Young Thug is also the best rapper alive, so it’s within his rights. On Barter 6, Thugga’s incredible sense of melody, squawking banshee ad libs, and sixth sense for syllabic perfection are all on display, without a trace of perspiration.

 

1. Courtney Barnett – Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit

Only the very best songwriters can describe the everyday and have us hanging on every word. On her debut album, Courtney Barnett writes about going to an open house, staring at a wall, and taking a swim. It’s better than most short stories.