top five
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Blood Orange. Freetown Sound. Domino. Empowering, decidedly “woke” alt-R&B anthems with the flavor of your favorite 1990s R&B jams.—SK Danny Brown. Atrocity Exhibition. Warp Records. Detroit rapper’s thrilling, nonstop stylistic mélange.—SK Gavin DeGraw. Something Worth Saving. RCA. Definitely upbeat, but you don’t miss the message. I want to be able to tell people off this effectively (and with this much fun and pep).—RB Dorothy. ROCKISDEAD. Universal. Though her voice isn’t quite as powerful as Lzzy Hale from Halestorm, it’s in the same ballpark. The songs are just as hard and sassy, and I’m looking forward to hearing more from Dorothy.—RB Tigran Hamasyan, Arve Henriksen, Eivind Aarset, & Jan Bang. Atmosphères. ECM. Aptly titled quartet improvisation built around themes by Armenian composer Komitas Vardapet.—SK The Hamilton Mixtape. Atlantic. There is some real genius in this set of songs you know and songs inspired by the songs you know. Favorites: Kelly Clarkson’s rendition of “It’s Quiet Uptown” and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Cabinet Battle #3.”—RB Jenny Hval. Blood Bitch. Sacred Bones Records. Norwegian singer/composer’s homage to menstruation and time-traveling vampires.—SK Vijay Iyer/Wadada Leo Smith. A Cosmic Rhythm with Each Stroke. ECM. Trumpeter Smith and pianist Iyer radically shift between jazz and free-form improvisation.—SK KING. We Are KING. King Creative. A flawless album. The three ladies of KING make delicious, 1990s electro-R&B slow jams with harmonies you’ll want to fall into.—SK Kendrick Lamar. untitled unmastered. Interscope. If How To Pimp a Butterfly was “rap’s great American novel,” untitled unmastered is a collection of literary short stories. A worthy sequel.—SK Naqsh Duo. Narrante. ECM. A sparse, Iranian recording of Golfam Khayam (guitar) and Mona Matbou Riahi (clarinet) gorgeously merging Persian and contemporary classical music.—SK Frank Ocean. Blonde. Boys Don’t Cry. Sequel to the game-changing 2012 album channel ORANGE, by one of R&B’s most daring auteurs.—SK Angel Olsen. My Woman. Jagjaguwar. She’s been compared to Fiona Apple, Patti Smith, and Dolly Parton. My Woman is a record made for listening on repeat.—SK Pentatonix. A Pentatonix Christmas. RCA. The arrangements of the songs you know are so good, and the new songs are catchy, too. Definitely peps up the Christmas season.—RB Emeli Sandae. Long Live the Angels. Virgin. Sounds like throwback soul, and I can’t get enough. It’s on constant repeat, either on a device or in my head.—RB Myles Sanko. Just Being Me. Kudos. Though it’s often classified as blues, this album doesn’t sound bluesy to me, more like a retro soul CD with some jazz elements. He was a new artist to me, and now I can’t wait to hear more.—RB Sun Ra/Merzbow. Strange City. Cold Spring. Japanese noise artist’s homage to an eccentric jazz legend.—SK A Tribe Called Quest. We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service. Epic Records. Hip-hop legends’ final album, anticipated for nearly two decades.—SKWe are currently offering this content for free. Sign up now to activate your personal profile, where you can save articles for future viewing
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