So like the best rap albums, it's possible to listen to this album on a surface level without going to far into the lyrics, since they flow so well over the beats. But if you do listen to the lyrics, you'll find a lot of hilarious jokes and serious statements about life. In essence, you'll laugh, you'll cry, etc. Somehow, this group has managed to both meet and surpass my expectations.--Warioman86, RateYourMusic
#20. Run the Jewels | Run the Jewels 3
(367.16 Points | 17 Votes)
Critics' List: Unranked (Surprise late December release)
Biggest Fans: Mindrocker (#2), Dan (#4), Bootsy (#5), Nassim (#7), GucciLittlePiggy (#9), Matski (#11), BleuPanda (#15), Jackson (#15)
Songs in the Top 100: "Talk to Me" (#75)
The cosmically talented Chance The Rapper returns with yet another slab of smart, slippery soul-natterings. His clipped, champion croak is in fine chimpish form and his beatific backing tracks are more vibrant than ever.--Rupert_X, RateYourMusic
#19. Chance the Rapper | Coloring Book
(433.88 Points | 18 Votes)
Critics' List: #13
Biggest Fans: Bootsy (#3), Nassim (#4), RockyRaccoon (#6), NotBrianEno (#7), BleuPanda (#8), Bruno (#8), GabeBasso (#8), PlasticRam (#9), Chris K. (#10), StevieFan13 (#11), TimmyWing (#13), FutureCritic (#15), OtisRedding (#15)
Songs in the Top 100: "No Problem" (feat. 2 Chainz and Lil Wayne) (#32)
This record is simply so honest and beautiful. It feels like I’m jumping into an old polaroid picture of Malibu and entering a fictonal sunny and gorgeous world every time I listen to this. Anderson .Paak has emerged as a force to be reckoned with and Malibu might end up as one of the best records this year.--Tuk20, RateYourMusic
#18. Anderson .Paak | Malibu
(498.70 Points | 23 Votes)
Critics' List: #16
Biggest Fans: Panam (#3), RockyRaccoon (#3), Schaefer.TK (#3), GucciLittlePiggy (#4), Antonius (#5), Slick (#6), Leandre (#8), FutureCritic (#11), Chris K. (#14), Pierre (#14), Bruno (#15), TimmyWing (#15)
Songs in the Top 100: "Come Down" (#37), "Am I Wrong" (#51)
Wildflower isn't heavy at all, of course, but it's as emotionally resonant and as powerful as any work of art. This album sounds like a summer's day, a soundtrack to a beach party, a light breeze, so it's tempting to say that that's all it is, accept it as "entertainment" and nothing more. That's a mistake; ebullient joy and wonder is as worthy an emotion to express as righteous anger or dark depression or painful heartbreak, and if expressed correctly it can be just as devastating.---Cosmiagramma, RateYourMusic
#17. The Avalanches | Wildflower
(506.05 Points | 21 Votes)
Critics' List: #33
Biggest Fans:
amnt1882 (#1), Whuntva (#2), Acroamor (#3), Nassim (#3), Maschine_Man (#4), PlasticRam (#4), EmilienDelRey (#8), Jackson (#11), Bootsy (#12), Chris K. (#12), DaveC (#12), M24 (#13), Nick (#14)
Songs in the Top 100: "Because I'm Me" (feat. Camp Lo) (#31), "Frankie Sinatra" (feat. Danny Brown and MF Doom), "If I Was a Folkstar (feat. Toro Y Moi) (#77), Subways (#91)
it is in many ways an encapsulation of social media 2016: Ye gets the drift, he's spitting Internet's Collective Manic Ever-morphing Creation right back at us, and smothering it in gospel
on repeat... through a passage of tears...
my heart goes out to you, ye
thank you for this--blindmowing, RateYourMusic
#16. Kanye West | The Life of Pablo
(534.01 Points | 21 Votes)
Critics' List: #7
Biggest Fans: GucciLittlePiggy (#2), GabeBasso (#3), Bruno (#5), EmilienDelRey (#7), Mindrocker (#7), andyd1010 (#8), Nick (#8), Bootsy (#9), JamieW (#10), Nassim (#10), NotBrianEno (#10), Acroamor (#11), Brad (#11), amnt1882 (#12), OtisRedding (#12), PlasticRam (#14), Slick (#15)
Songs in the Top 100: "Ultralight Beam" (feat. Chance the Rapper, The-Game, Kirk Franklin, and Kelly Price) (#3), "No More Parties in L.A." (feat. Kendrick Lamar) (#36), "Famous" (feat. Rihanna) (#47), "Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1" (feat. Kid Cudi) (#64), "Real Friends" (feat. Ty Dolla $ign) (#83)
All told, this album's just lovely. It feels and sounds incredible, with influences ripped across the map, brought together in what feels like an entirely new project and not done to manipulate people's nostalgia. There's genuine heart and feeling running rampant and it's good to just sit back and feel it. Feel heartbroken, feel oppressed, or feel melancholic that life isn't perfect. It's okay. And with Love & Hate, Michael Kiwanuka has give us an album that allows us to do just that.--Clockwork1, RateYourMusic
#15. Michael Kiwanuka | Love & Hate
(541.19 Points | 25 Votes)
Critics' List: #26
Biggest Fans:
JamieW (#1), Andyd1010 (#3), Jirin (#4), Schaefer.TK (#5), Antonius (#7), Jackson (#7), Romain (#7), FutureCritic (#10), Phil (#13), Slick (#13), Panam (#14), Dan (#15), DaveC (#15)
Songs in the Top 100: "Cold Little Heart" (#23), "Black Man in a White World" (#48)
this album deals with: race, fighting off unwanted feelings of being a generally inferior person, aging, desperately wanting to die, desperately not wanting to die, feeling inextricably bound & attracted to those who society generally looks at as being less important, the wreckage of unchecked male ego, deconstructions of white western culture, feeling like your fans will only love you if you're miserable, and cum. cum is always a bonus.--Cal50, RateYourMusic
#14. Mitski | Puberty 2
(544.40 | 23 Votes)
Critics' List: #20
Biggest Fans:
Acroamor (#1),
DaveC (#1), Maschine_Man (#3), Phil (#3), Chambord (#4), Matski (#4), DocBrown (#6), BleuPanda (#7), NotBrianEno (#9), GabeBasso (#10), M24 (#11), StevieFan13 (#13)
Songs in the Top 100: "Your Best American Girl" (#5)
Emotionally charged in its method but indescribably political, ANOHNI takes us on a love story through an apocalypse that feels both intimate and inevitable. Playing several roles from the victim to the oppressor, a sense of guilt and loss permeates every song as she understands that the consequence is just as much her fault as it is everybody else's. Some may find the lyrics overtly obvious and bombastic, but I found the unabashed approach more humbling than shoving cryptic metaphors down our ears. Subtlety be damned. The album displays a morphing relationship between the artist and America, her lover, and the audience in an environment on the verge of collapse. I rarely listen to insecurity, loneliness, and destruction with this much vitriol and bitterness. --Pulpfuertes, RateYourMusic
#13. ANOHNI | HOPELESSNESS
(546.02 Points | 21 Votes)
Critics' List: #12
Biggest Fans:
Maschine_Man (#1),
OrdinaryPerson (#1), Nick (#2), M24 (#4), Romain (#4), Whuntva (#5), Bruno (#7), TimmyWing (#7), Dan (#9), BleuPanda (#9), RockyRaccoon (#9), Chris K. (#11)
Songs in the Top 100: "Drone Bomb Me" (#8), "4 Degrees" (#24)
A few months prior his death Cohen said "I am ready to die" and that state of mind surrounds this album. He doesn't sound angry. He doesn't sound sad. He sounds content. Peaceful. At one with a life that is coming to a close. He's happy. This is not the sound of a man desperate trying to cling on to life but one who has made peace with the inevitable.
Voltaire once sad "Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats." Here Cohen follows his advice.--Weekend_Cigar_Smoker, RateYourMusic
#12. Leonard Cohen | You Want It Darker
(561.42 Points | 27 Votes)
Critics' List: #11
Biggest Fans:
Chambord (#1), Miguel (#3), Acroamor (#4), Phil (#7), OtisRedding (#7), Whuntva (#8), Nicolas (#9), Bruno (#12), M24 (#12), BleuPanda (#14), Nick (#15)
Songs in the Top 100: "You Want It Darker" (#7)
It’s the sound of a crisis, a meltdown, so vulnerable yet too afraid to let anyone know. Confused, tweaking out, but too pretentious and embarrassed to outright say it. And so it hides. It hides beneath flawed noises, clipping and distorting like it’s from some perfectionist producer’s worst nightmare, fragments of ideas breaking apart as if the sad peacefulness of the previous album has been digitised by a buggy system. To synthesise the sorrow. To shy its injured soul beneath the wreckage so that no one can truly look at it for what it is. And by doing so, Bon Iver has once again created something truly magical. A record unlike anything in existence, a fractured glitchiness of disordered beauty that has a powerful impact so different from every other record I’ve ever heard, that I’m equally spellbound by its affectionate strangeness as I am concerned about Vernon’s mental health. Please talk to someone, friend. I want more albums from you.--WarmGunHappy, RateYourMusic
#11. Bon Iver | 22, a Million
(565.80 Points | 21 Votes)
Critics' List: #6
Biggest Fans:
NotBrianEno (#1), PlasticRam (#2), Nick (#3), OtisRedding (#3), Andyd1010 (#4), FutureCritic (#5), GucciLittlePiggy (#5), Chris K. (#7), GabeBasso (#7), Bootsy (#8), amnt1882 (#9), Bruno (#9), M24 (#9), Dan (#13), Nassim (#14)
Songs in the Top 100: "22 (Overs∞∞n)" (#39), "33 'GOD'" (#55)