19.
If they have a muse, it’s the point at which disgust and pleasure meet. Those videos filled with dead meat and live flesh, unusual faces shot from jarring angles, only make visible what the records are doing: your head in. Strong melodies with jagged contours, brain-wronging phrases chanted in lieu of choruses, forgotten garage rock licks mixed with artful post-punk aesthetics. They conjure the thrill of scrambled signals when you’re off your rocker on booze and drugs, project an uncensored phantasmagoria.Fat White FamilySongs For Our MothersFat Possum, 2016
18.
“Taking a step back from the shimmering, groove-led sounds of 2012’s True EP, A Seat At The Table sees Solange produce an album that very much reflects the time in which it was made, setting its sights on the Black Lives Matter movement and analysing what it means to be a black woman in 2016. Making reference to past history and current happenings, Solange intersperses these musings with deeply personal interludes in the words of her mother and father, and above all, comes out triumphant amidst affecting, uncertain times.
SolangeA Seat At The Table
17.
Ellie Roberts is one of the best lyricists this island has coughed up in the last ten years and Good Throb are… I hesitate to say ‘important’ because assessing bands’ ‘importance’ is a mug’s game, but they mean more to me than 99% of other music from the same timeframe.Good ThrobFuck OffWhite Denim, 2014
16.
Liar’s fifth album is, in part, the band’s take on L.A. This being Liars, though, it’s a far cry from the (Faustian) allure of the Hollywood celebrity dream or the good vibrations of the city’s sun-kissed clichés. Instead, it’s a record informed by the city’s sprawling expanse. A decentralised metropolis filled with pockets of affluence, the poorer districts filling up the spaces between. Areas populated by those for whom the social promise of two cars, kids and a nice house of their own hasn’t materialised, the prema-grin optimism paraded around in the mainstream media bearing little resemblance to their day to day livesLiarsSisterworldMute, 2010
15.
There are more stylistic ideas here than in ten contemporary pop records put together. Think of any character archetype or scenario in America cinema, and Born To Die has it covered.Lana Del RayBorn To DieInterscope, 2012
14.
The band are both vigil keepers for the doorway of no return and custodians for the door of the cosmos – which isn’t some far flung outer space place, it’s here, now, in a continuum where the past, present and future all coexist in the same rhythmic slipstream. In the same way that revolution becomes pedestrian, afrofuturism becomes mundane on this album. The future we’re reaching for rests outside of that space, while remaining fully aware of all that has come before.Sons of KemetYour Queen Is A ReptileImpulse!, 2018
13.
Although scaled-up by elegiac strings (a new addition to January’s Ocean-previewed version) Channel Orange‘s surprisingly low-key opener remains a gorgeously private affair. A slow-release torch song the colour of caramel and bathed in low voltage lighting, a buzzing but soothing synth cycle and muffled beats evoke touching and kissing in a velveteen womb. Poised, considered, classy and moving, this is uniquely Frank Ocean.Frank OceanChannel OrangeDef Jam, 2012
12.
Whether or not he’ll ever find his place, what West has achieved right here and now with Fantasy is nothing short of remarkable: it’s an album which not only firmly cements his place in the rap pantheon, but one on which he has overcome his ego, his doubts, his loves and his losses to create a work which will live long in the memory and which, crucially, once again brims with life. It’s a record simmering with musical flair, the sound of man once more embracing the spotlight with open arms.Kanye WestMy Beautiful Dark Twisted FantasyRoc-A-Fella, 2010
11.
When you actually stop and think about it, it’s a miracle that this gig was allowed – by forces outside of the group’s control – to be as good as it was, and miraculous again that we have such a perfect document of it. Put simply, this is one of the most exciting live albums to be released in many, many years.Carter TuttiTransverseMute, 2012
10.
This album calls to mind many different artists from Shack to The Dream Academy to Slowdive to Alexander Tucker. Like Tucker his songs initially appear to be gentle, rueful folk ballads on cursory listen but a decent pair of headphones reveals deep pools of shimmering reverb and a submarine world of echo. These are still audio waters containing complex depths worth diving into, revisiting, pondering over, dwelling over, dwelling in. And given repeated listens his lyrical concerns also reveal the more modern concerns of serial killing, urban architecture and isolationGravenhurstThe Ghost In DaylightWarp, 2012
9.
Beyoncé continues to play with pop conventions as she chips away somewhat at the veneer of her carefully-controlled public image and unveils an album imbued with rage, dealing in the same collection of songs with apparent relationship complications as well as US police brutality.
BeyonceLemonade
8.
A worthy follow up to its platinum-selling predecessor, To Pimp A Butterfly stands as a fearless and uncompromising manifestation of Lamar’s desire to push the culture of rap forwards – a crusade that’s as much in his blood as the city of Compton.Kendrick LamarTo Pimp A ButterflyTop Dawg, 2015
7.
In this flawless peach of a record, Wild Beasts pay close attention to the fundamental rules of seduction: they offer something different and new, devilishly handsome but aware of their vulnerabilities, and possessed of an enticingly empty dancing card. Oh Wild Beasts, come clasp us close to your sturdy chests, and do your very, very worst.Wild BeastsTwo DancersDomino, 2009
6.
The estuarine landscape of Field Of Reeds is best seen in two ways: in grand panorama from an aircraft banking over London, when sun glints off the water of the Thames widening toward the North Sea. Or, on the other hand, oozy intimacy along the rough shoreline, traditionally a site for dumping the waste of London. Here, alongside creeks where air bubbles rattle from the mud with the ebbing tide, a rutted horizon offers up gifts of ancient marmalade pots, broken clay pipes, fused and rusted metal. It’s a landscape that refuses, like memory or dreams, to be defined or contained, that forever shifts and opens itself up to new narratives and fresh explorations. These are the images foremost in my mind whenever I listen to Field Of Reeds, a rich, complex album that, similarly, rewards both the grand overview and close attention, and offers up fresh details, insights and emotions with each listen.These New PuritansField Of ReedsInfectious Music, 2013
5.
In 2007, Harvey lifted out of a mid-career plateau (as high as this was) with White Chalk and now with Let England Shake she has shown that not only is she is her generation’s pre-eminent songwriter but, amazingly, that she is also still in her ascendancy.PJ HarveyLet England ShakeIsland, 2011
4.
The sonics of London Zoo are surprisingly easy on the ear in fact, the bass frequencies slithering in the same foreboding depths as dubstep but with less of the over-riding emphasis on murk. Indeed where this album really wins is in how powerful the colours and textures of Martin’s sounds are. The mindflashes of clashing technicolor tones are great, because not only do they make the music hallucinatory and engaging, they make it fun. Listen to Tipper Irie on opener ‘Angry’. He uses a basic rant against US imperialism simply as fuel for a passionate flow, but with the music exploding into lurid psyche-dancehall behind him, you picture Tipper as some pipe-cleaner-limbed, pink-dreadlocked Fraggle, preaching with bulging eyes and a snarling mouth. Where cutting-edge urban music’s other favourite son, Burial, uses dread to paint a requiem for London, Martin just makes the town into a cartoon jungle.The BugLondon ZooNinja Tune, 2008
3.
The Next Day elicited the usual cries of best album since time immemorial on its release in 2013, but ★ reveals it to be a neoteric John the Baptist preparing the way for the all-singing, all-dancing Second Coming. Whether or not this is the best thing since Let’s Dance is too early to say, but by God is it a cohesive collection that contains the same inscrutable attention to detail that a latter Scott Walker album surely would. And rejoice, because David Bowie hasn’t sounded this relevant in an age.David Bowie★ (Blackstar)ISO, 2016
2.
Nothing Important is a remarkable record – at times deeply, painfully intimate, but also witty, bawdy, surreal, disquieting, nostalgic, brash and fearlessly individual. While Dawson draws loosely on folk traditions, be it from the North East of England, the Appalachian Mountains or the Gulf of Arabia, his sound also brings to mind more modern sources – Beefheart, Earth, Loren Mazzacane Connors, Bill Orcutt, Sun City Girls, tiny glimpses of drone, minimalism, avant-metal, math-rock, psychedelia. It’s all of these things and yet none of them. As if aware of the difficulty of summing up his aesthetic, Dawson himself offers a perfect if oblique self-portrait towards the end of ‘The Vile Stuff’. Domestic mysticism. Football. Folk horror. Childhood. Looking back to move forward. A voice like a domestic heating appliance.Richard DawsonNothing ImportantWeird World, 2014
1.
Few would ever have expected Sunn O)))’s modus operandi to elevate their brand of avant-atavism to quite this lofty plateau, but credit is due to their accidental blurring of spurious notions of high and low culture in the process: Monoliths And Dimensions has all the sturm-und-drang one could wish from a metal record, yet genuinely takes the blissful noise of heavy amplification into thrilling uncharted territory. Indeed, with dark forces like this to contend with, those black clouds on the horizon suddenly seem more irrelevant than ever.Sunn O)))Monoliths & DimensionsSouthern Lord, 2009
tQ Writers’ Albums Of Our Lifetime
- 1: Sunn O))) – Monoliths & Dimensions
- 2: Richard Dawson – Nothing Important
- 3: David Bowie – Blackstar
- 4: The Bug – London Zoo
- 5: PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
- 6: These New Puritans – Field Of Reeds
- 7: Wild Beasts – Two Dancers
- 8: Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp A Butterfly
- 9: Beyoncé – Lemonade
- 10: Gravenhurst – The Ghost In Daylight
- 11: Carter Tutti Void – Transverse
- 12: Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
- 13: Frank Ocean – Channel Orange
- 14: Sons Of Kemet – Your Queen Is A Reptile
- 15: Lana Del Rey – Born To Die
- 16: Liars – Sisterworld
- 17: Good Throb – Fuck Off
- 18: Solange – A Seat At The Table
- 19: Fat White Family – Songs For Our Mothers
- 20: Manic Street Preachers – Journal For Plague Lovers
- 21: Insecure Men – Insecure Men
- 22: Oxbow – Thin Black Duke
- 23: Matana Roberts – COIN COIN Chapter Three: River Run Thee
- 24: Grimes – Visions
- 25: Jam City – Classical Curves
- 26: Jah Wobble and Julie Campbell – Psychic Life
- 27: Nils Frahm – Spaces
- 28: Eddy Current Suppression Ring – Primary Colours
- 29: British Sea Power – Do You Like Rock Music?
- 30: Belbury Poly – From An Ancient Star
- 31: Travis Scott – Birds In The Trap Sing McKnight
- 32: John Grant – Queen Of Denmark
- 33: Stara Rzeka – Cień chmury nad ukrytym polem
- 34: Algiers – The Underside Of Power
- 35: The Icarus Line – Slave Vows
- 36: Electric Wizard – Black Masses
- 37: Babyfather – ”BBF” Hosted By DJ Escrow
- 38: L’Orange and Jeremiah Jae – The Night Took Us In Like Family
- 39: The Fall – Imperial Wax Solvent
- 40: Blues Control – Valley Tangents
- 41: Holly Herndon – Platform
- 42: Archie Bronson Outfit – Coconut
- 43: Thee Oh Sees – Mutilator Defeated At Last
- 44: Blood Orange – Freetown Sound
- 45: Chromatics – Kill For Love
- 46: Mitski – Be The Cowboy
- 47: Hiatus Kaiyote – Tawk Tomahawk
- 48: With The Dead – With The Dead
- 49: Death Grips – Ex-Military
- 50: FKA twigs – LP1
- 51: LCD Soundsystem – American Dream
- 52: Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me
- 53: Eugene McGuinness – An Invitation To The Voyage
- 54: Grumbling Fur – Glynnaestra
- 55: Faith No More – Sol Invictus
- 56: Skepta – Microphone Champion
- 57: Stromae – Racine Carrée
- 58: New Young Pony Club – The Optimist
- 59: Janelle Monáe – Dirty Computer
- 60: Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds – Skeleton Tree
- 61: James Holden – The Inheritors
- 62: St. Vincent – Strange Mercy
- 63: Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring For My Halo
- 64: Laurel Halo – Quarantine
- 65: Årabrot – The Gospel
- 66: Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport
- 67: Black Bananas – Electric Brick Wall
- 68: Pinch & Shackleton – Pinch & Shackleton
- 69: Pet Shop Boys – Electric
- 70: Jessy Lanza – Pull My Hair Back
- 71: Peter Bruntnell – Ringo Woz Ere
- 72: The Indelicates – Songs For Swingin’ Lovers
- 73: Durutti Column – A Paen To Wilson
- 74: Amebix – Sonic Mass
- 75: Burial – Rival Dealer
- 76: East India Youth – Total Strife Forever
- 77: Alasdair Roberts – Alasdair Roberts
- 78: VNV Nation – Automatic
- 79: Objekt – Flatland
- 80: D’Angelo – Black Messiah
- 81: Snapped Ankles – Come Play The Trees
- 82: The Body – I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer
- 83: Lou Reed And Metallica – Lulu
- 84: Julia Holter – Have You In My Wilderness
- 85: Chora(s)san Time Court Mirage – Live at the Grimm Museum Volume One
- 86: Wolf Eyes – Undertow
- 87: Kiasmos – Kiasmos
- 88: Cate Le Bon – Mug Museum
- 89: American Music Club – The Golden Age
- 90: Dawn Of MIDI – Dysnomia
- 91: Ameira Kheir – Alsahraa
- 92: TV On The Radio – Dear Science
- 93: Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto – Glass
- 94: Oumou Sangaré – Seya
- 95: Björk – Vulnicura
- 96: Ursula K. Le Guin & Todd Barton – The Music Of The Kesh
- 97: Factory Floor – Factory Floor
- 98: Teeth Of The Sea – Your Mercury
- 99: The Horrors – Primary Colours
- 100: Oneohtrix Point Never – Replica
