59.
It’s here to make you think, and it’s here to make you dance. It is the most clearly delivered result of Monáe’s vision so far – the android rebirthed from the fire as a queer phoenix.Janelle MonaeDirty ComputerWondaland, 2018
58.
The straight lines have been replaced by a glorious wooziness, such as the eerily discordant vocals and thumping drum beat of the title-track. The playful instant gratification of ‘Ice Cream’, for example, is eschewed for tastier morsels, such as the irresistible allure of ‘We Want To’ or the bewitching adrenaline of ‘Dolls’. Both are every bit as detectable, but with a darker, more persistent flavour.New Young Pony ClubThe OptimistThe Numbers, 2010
57.
He seems to have appeared fully-formed from a stylishly madcap dream, as somnambulantly surreal as any René Magritte painting, and in a modern age when eccentricity is usually frowned upon by major labels, he is the very antithesis of popstar by focus group. A committee could not create somebody this sharp, this realised, so full of flair and so unlike anything else around.StromaeRacine CarréeVertigo, 2013
56.
Microphone Champion is appropriately named, as it marks a period where Skepta was in his prime both as an MC and producer. Two years previously, he released his debut album Greatest Hits and although grimey to the core, it was unpolished and raw. Two years after Microphone Champion, meanwhile, Skepta dropped Doin’ It Again to the dismay of his grime fan base with a pop-leaning album that saw many questioning whether he’d lost his way. But Microphone strikes that beautiful balance of industrial self-produced sounds, fused with astute song writing. The tape also served as one of the last authentically grime albums, before many of its artists fled to the greener pastures of the mainstream. SkeptaMicrophone ChampionBoy Better Know, 2009
55.
It was surprising to go back to something all those years later. We hadn’t really spoken for a while – we’d been kind of in touch, but to all get back together and work on something that we all felt connected to was surprising. Yeah, on so many levels it was such a great thing to be able to do, to recreate with those people and reconnect with that band and make art in a powerful new way. It was really intense, and one of the luckiest things to happen in my life.Faith No MoreSol InvictusReclamation!, 2015
54.
Beneath every wonderfully infectious chorus – and there are plenty of them here, from the colossally silly ‘The Ballad Of Roy Batty’ and the anthemic synth-pop of ‘Dancing Light’ to ‘Clear Path’s meditative, acidic folk – rhythms are allowed to tumble and slip in and out of phase with one another, while synthetic sounds whip like wind or hang low and foglike in the atmosphere.Grumbling FurGlynnaestraThrill Jockey, 2013
53.
Eugene McGuinness has been dismissed as a mere revivalist by many, and throughout his career the East Londoner has cherry-picked his fair share of aesthetics from his forebears. However on An Invitation To The Voyage McGuinness proves himself a peacocking, genre-hopping star in his own right with songwriting strong enough to throw off the copycat-calling naysayers and then some.Eugene McGuinnessAn Invitation To The VoyageDomino, 2012
52.
It’s the scope, not the size, of this record that’s really the rub. The architecture of Ys, though intricate and arcane, was uniform, and the otherworld it implied, for all it bristled with life, seemed consistent and contained. By contrast, Have One On Me sprawls out, somehow both larger and stiller, less inhabited than haunted. For all the loving feel of the arrangements, this is often macabre terrain.Joanna NewsomHave One On MeDrag City, 2010
51.
American Dream is shot through with fear and uncertainty, yet in many ways it’s Murphy’s most full-blooded, vital statement to date. Strident, clever and brilliant is one thing, but it takes real, hard-won confidence to be this vulnerable.LCD SoundsystemAmerican DreamDFA, 2017
50.
FKA twigs has managed to explore this existential condition of the performer, succeeding in accepting, diverting, turning and owning the male gaze. At the same time, she explores the strangeness of the dom, sub and switch that exists in all relationships, as they sit on a sliding scale between old-time monogamy, the letters pages of Cosmo and the hardest BDSM. That she’s done this on such an uncompromising and weird album – and one which is now flying so far into the mainstream – is surely one of the most exciting things to happen in pop music for quite some time.FKA TwigsLP1Young Turks, 2014
49.
Every track operates in a hyperstitious state of mania without hope of reprieve; groaning under blue-note distress, and around every corner a sputtered percussion event: consolidation and the corollary of several cutting-edge regional dance scenes in currency right now. Meaning you get a largely kick-drum free convergence of near infrasonic bass and micro-detail – unsegmented tom rolls, pitched-up vocal chirps, snare clusters, and re-sequenced 808 brickbat.Death GripsEx-MilitaryThird Worlds, 2011
48.
A swaggering fifth column of monolithic audio, a crushing, sub-laden majesty capable of upending trees and pulling you into the vortex of infinite space, With The Dead, more than live up to the underground anticipation that accompanied initial announcements of the project. Formed by ex-Electric Wizard rhythm section Tim Bagshaw and Mark Greening with Rise Above boss and former Cathedral and Napalm Death singer Lee Dorrian providing vocals, their self-titled debut LP is one of the most caustic slabs of malevolent, chaotic, fuzzed-up brutality of the past few years.With the DeadWith The DeadRise Above, 2015
47.
Twice Grammy nominated future soul quartet Hiatus Kaiyote’s debut album Tawk Tomahawk was long enjoyed in their native Australia before the rest of the world got in on their secret. Erykah Badu, Questlove and Prince are among the big names that celebrate these thirty minutes of neo-soul. It’s a whirlwind experience in which frontwoman Naomi ‘Nai’ Palm hypnotises is with sultry vocals that float atop an organic merger of hip-hop canon and warm jazzHiatus KaiyoteTawk TomahawkFlying Buddha, 2012
46.
The arrangements are more accomplished, their intricacies clearer with each listen, and the inspirations are more elegant too. There’s still heartache and loneliness here but it’s softer – a lovelorn vulnerability that has a more lasting effect.MitskiBe The CowboyDead Oceans, 2018
45.
Chromatics’ new album Kill For Love, their second for the Italians Do It Better label, at first listen surrenders its pleasures readily, all nocturnal, cigarettes-and-tears gothisms stretched over 92 minutes, like a worry that you can’t shake. When I first heard the record, it initially earned far more time in the ears than Liars’ at-first perplexing WIXIW. Since then, that record has mutated into a dark Janus, while Kill For Love‘s sweet pop echo is a lighter soundtrack to 2012, a reminder that much beauty can be found in the artfully, and prettily, maudlin.ChromaticsKill For LoveItalians Do It Better, 2012
44.
Freetown is a cosmopolitan album: one could easily argue it’s just as fitting a soundtrack for the streets of Sierra Leone as it is for New York or London or just about anywhere else; the operative word is “free.” The sound of free music gives us the freedom to go wherever it is we want to go. Freedom is rhythm. Rhythm is movement. That we live in a climate where politicians are so obsessed with the movement of bodies from one place to another (dark bodies that often look like Hynes’s parents) makes Freetown’s interrogation of what it means to be black all the more poignant.Blood OrangeFreetown SoundDomino, 2016
43.
This is garage rock yes, but not teeth grindingly basic 4-4, it’s four to the forest floor, bouncing off the superfuzz pedal and rebounding into space, and from their multifarious albums, Mutilator Defeated At Last is undeniably a star.Thee Oh SeesMutilator Defeated At LastCastle Face, 2015
42.
Even with everything that comes before it, it’s closer ‘Run Gospel Singer’ that leaves a lasting impression. A soul drenched slice of scuzzy Spector-pop, the song brilliantly doubles as a master class in songwriting for the current crop of cassette trading lo-fi acts.Is Coconut the sound of a band finally surpassing expectation, then? More like a powerful slap in the face by a group of men who have long deserved our lasting attention.Archie Bronson OutfitCoconutDomino, 2009
41.
What Herndon achieves is an album of ten disparate pieces that sound unified, knit together by the composer’s wholehearted embrace of contemporary culture. For one, it’s resulted in some of her finest tracks: opener ‘Interference’ is juddering and strobey, glancing partly at techno but eschewing hammering kicks in favour of Herndon’s voice skating across the speaker cones in myriad iterations, as if she’d been able to convert the silent information exchange of an internet connection into pure, vocalised sound.Holly HerndonPlatform4AD, 2015
40.
Lea Cho and Russ Waterhouse are one step ahead of the rest of the sprawling(ly) American rock-not-rock underground in terms of which unloved dollar-bin sounds to revive. Or maybe they aren’t, and rickety fusion meandering and negative-budget kung fu movie soundtracks will remain aridly unmined. The important thing to impart is that Blues Control, by accident or design, sound like nothing you’re likely to hear this year.
