Kieran's Pretentious Crap: Best Albums & Songs of 2015

ALBUMS

25. No Closer to Heaven – The Wonder Years

Middling Wonder Years No Closer to Heaven may be, but even at their most average they’re more uplifting, raucous and reflective than a dozen other pop-punk bands collectively.

24. Jenny Death – Death Grips

A seamless, immaculately collated fusion of Death Grips’s trademark seething Hip-Hop beats and the novelty of raging Hardcore and Post-Punk descants.

23. The Most Lamentable Tragedy – Titus Andronicus

A '28 song Rock opera' sounds pitifully pretentious, and at times Most Lamentable titters on the edge of kitsch, but when it works it makes you want to punch the air and scream 'FUCK YEAH' like the biggest wanker imaginable.

22. White Men Are Black Men Too – Young Fathers

These Edinburgh, globally inspired Hip-Hop nerds returned with their second LP; cleaner, more refined, but also their most ambitious work to date.

21. Have You in my Wilderness – Julia Holter

Julia Holter shifts from Ambience to Pop in stunning fashion, her graceful harmonies and intricate, elusive lyrics comprise a remarkable entry into the mainstream.

20. I Love You Honeybear – Father John Misty

Easily, and wrongly, discarded as Hipster-Folk, this is intelligently written, beautifully executed Country with a great deal to say.

19. Wildheart – Miguel

R&B's most endearing sexfiend concocts a Pop classic effusing 80s guitars, mellifluous synths and typically gorgeous vocals.

18. Poison Season – Destroyer

Destroyer are notoriously equivocal, drowning in vague, buoyant sentimentality, intangible sadness and interesting instrumentation, and Poison Season is no exception. At times achingly wonderful.

17. No Cities to Love – Sleater Kinney

These Punk goddesses are truly back with a bang; not only one of the most banging records of 2015, but importantly also one of the most fun.

16. Garden of Delete – Oneohtrix Point Never

This is a Goth album in the world of Electronica, which naturally embraces furious synths and violent kickdrums, but also tender vulnerability.

15. Sprinter – Torres

One of a surprising number of female-led Indie-Rock records on this list, Sprinter evinces admirably aggressive Rock bangers supplemented by a claying, heart-felt sincerity.

14. In Colour – Jamie xx

The Deep-House dynamo's debut LP is splendid, bubbling over with unifying Summer anthems and tender chilled Garage.

13. My Love is Cool – Wolf Alice

A concoction of melancholic 90s Alternative sensibilities and an alarmingly life-affirming sentiment, My Love is Cool is a simply divine contradiction to experience.

12. B’lieve I’m Going Down – Kurt Vile

The king of stoner-folk has returned, with an existential meditation as entertaining as it is profound.

11. New Bermuda – Deafhaven

I never considered myself remotely into Metal before Deafhaven’s Sunbather in 2013, and New Bermuda just as good. Intricate, devastating, and at times discordantly beautiful.

10. Divers – Joanna Newsom

Joanna is arguably one of the most brilliant singer-songwriters of her generation, and Divers is conceivably her best work. Pristine arrangements and oblique poetry par for the course.

9. Currents – Tame Impala

The sonic-scapes from Tame Impala’s third album are loud, trippy and honeyed, with some endearing ideas about identity and the complexity of human interaction.

8. Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit – Courtney Barnett

Shifting herself up a gear, Barnett swaps stoner Dream-Pop for scintillating Folk-Punk and, well, it's really bloody good.

7. Carrie & Lowell – Sufjan Stevens

Sufjan's dedication to his eponymous parents is lathered in nostalgia, regret, longing, fondness, pain, and it is achingly beautiful.

6. After – Lady Lamb the Beekeeper

An album firing on all cylinders, confronting love both requited and unrequited, heartbreak, socio-economics, and family feuds; it is a palpable, compelling life captured in catchy choruses and pleasing melodies.

5. Summertime 06 – Vince Staples

Another of the 'debut album' crowd, Staple's impeccable flow and sultry beats are only the foundation of an absolutely indignant, terrifyingly pertinent indictment of US policing.

4. Painted Shut – Hop Along

This is Indie Rock at its most earnest, with lo-fi guitars, gloriously flawed vocals, and a breathtaking candour equalled by an incredible songwriting talent.

3. Art Angels – Grimes

Indie darling no more, Grimes brings her earnest Dream-Pop A game so intensively that she harmoniously marries feminist anthems with dancefloor fillers.

2. Harmlessness – The World is a Beautiful Place and I’m No Longer Afraid to Die

It’s easy to forget that Emo stands for Emotion; but these guys don’t. An honestly incredible document about coping with depression and fighting with everything you have to resurface above the vacuum, it tears you down and rebuilds you up again. Awe-inspiring, and in any other year would top everything else.

1. To Pimp a Butterfly – Kendrick Lamar

But this isn’t any other year. It was never going to be anything else. Nothing comes close. This year, or pretty much any other year. My favourite Hip-Hop album, and easily one of the greatest albums of all-time.