Kendrick Lamar cover

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

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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?

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