The ADM Top 10 2015
The most acclaimed albums of the year: you can't argue with mathematics
Now everyone's had their say with the Best Albums of 2015
roundups, it's time to take stock of the cold hard facts of what
really were the most critically-acclaimed albums over the past 12
months.
The AnyDecentMusic top 10 of 2015 is the most reliable guide to
what earned the most extensive overall praise from reviewers. It's
the widest survey of worldwide critical opinion around, and you
can't argue with mathematics.
We have excluded from the rankings any albums with fewer than 10
reviews from our list of 50 sources from the UK, US, Canada,
Australia and Ireland, and the formula we apply to arrive at the
ADM rating takes the number of reviews into account.
Below, we give our analysis of what it all means.
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9.26
Kendrick Lamar
To Pimp A Butterfly
"This is an important - a very important - piece of work that
will stand the test of time. It's also an utter blast to listen to
and live with" - Drowned In Sound
More reviews
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8.77
Sufjan Stevens
Carrie & Lowell
"This is a challenging record of raw and visceral emotions, and
its consistency of tempo and even-keeled volume makes Stevens' pain
all the more heartbreaking and unsettling" - Pretty Much
Amazing
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8.74
Sleater-Kinney
No Cities To Love
"Electrifying throughout, Sleater-Kinney bristle with an energy
that threatens to drain the grid" - The Skinny
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8.60
Joanna Newson
Divers
"These are startlingly beautiful, fiercely inventive songs,
couched in the metaphysical, touching on the universal, born from a
deeply personal place" - Drowned In Sound
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8.58
Mbongwana Star
From Kinshasa
"A gripping mix of excitement, apprehension and sensory
overload" - The Guardian
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8.50
Father John Misty
I Love You, Honeybear
"An insightful, reflective and altogether very human record from
a truly authentic artist" - State
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8.46
Julia Holter
Have You In My Wildnerness
"This may well be Holter's most accessible album to date, but
it's this very approachability that renders it all the more
intriguing, drawing you in with open arms" - musicOMH
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8.42
Vince Staples
Summertime '06
"A triumph not just for Staples, who has never sounded this
engaging, but also for executive producer No I.D., who takes big
risks behind the boards" - AV Club
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8.31
Natalie Prass
Natalie Prass
"Rather than be known for a heartbroken album about breaking up,
this should go down as one of the most innovative and beautiful
debuts of recent times" - State
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8.30
Courtney Barnett
Sometimes I Sit And Think, and Sometimes I Just
Sit
"Make no mistake - this is a debut like few others" - DIY
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And the next 10
11. Björk - Vulnicura
12. FKA Twigs - M3LL155X
13. Jason Isbell - Something More Than Free
14. Lonelady - Hinterland
15. Jamie xx - In Colour
16. Donnie Trumpet & The Social
Experiment - Surf
17. John Grant - Grey Tickles,
Black Pressure
18. Young Fathers - White Men
Are Black Men Too
19. Floating Points -
Elaenia
20. Ryley Walker - Primrose Green
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There was never going to be any doubt that the album which
reigned supreme in our roundup of our sources' albums of the year
lists was also going to top the ADM top 10. 2015 belongs to
Kendrick Lamar.
And there are, as is frequently the case, several other names
common to both top 10s: Sufjan Stevens,
Father John Misty, Courtney
Barnett, Sleater-Kinney and Julia
Holter would be all be justified in claiming their 2015
releases are among the most important of the year.
However it is the anomalies that intrigue. What happened with
Mbongwana Star? The debut from the Congolese band
attracted fulsome praise on its release in May, including three
10/10 ratings and nothing lower than 8/10, earning it the No.5 slot
in our top 10, but in the year-end rankings it didn't even figure
in the top 50.
Similarly, albeit less strikingly, the debut from Natalie
Prass was sufficiently lauded to earn an 8.3 rating,
making it the 9th highest-ranked album of the year, but slid down
to No.26 in the poll of polls.
Could it be that critics displayed over-excitement on initially
hearing new sounds from new names, only for the albums' appeal to
wane somewhat over the course of the year?
It is slightly easier to explain why Art Angels, the 4th release
from Montreal's Grimes, is nowhere to be seen in
the upper reaches of the ADM ratings but is at No.4 in the poll of
polls. Her alternative electro-pop is a divisive sound which
garnered a couple of 4/10s and a bunch of so-so reviews as well as
its expected 10s and 9s.
But possibly the most mystifying oddity concerns Carly Rae
Jepsen. The Canadian pop singer's Emotion earned a
distinctly middling 7.3 ADM rating, putting it somewhere in the
200s. This came about not because a handful of extremely low scores
dragged down a plethora of rave reviews - the vast majority of
critics admired its consistency at the very least and gave it 6s,
7s and 8s. And yet come December, it somehow earned enough mentions
in the end of year lists to end up just outside the top 10 even
though it didn't figure in any of our sources' top 5s.
Could it be that music reviewers are, despite all their enthusiasm
for experimental jazz hip hop fusion, sludge metal or left field
electronica, just suckers for 80s-inspired pop songs about lust and
heart break?