Neon Icon is either the greatest social commentary on 21st century music, a moderately funny joke or a terrible hip-hop album. It is this conundrum which makes it such an endearing listen and one of this year's must hear albums.

Great art takes pain and turns it into something that can help us heal. Vulnicura does exactly that.

You don't have to be a strict devotee of the R&B underground genre to realise that this is a great album. The sound is her own, and she's capable of making an album work as an album rather than just a collection of songs.

As a project that's substantially left-field in good kid m.A.A.d city's wake, To Pimp A Butterfly will almost inevitably receive more acclaim from critics than fans. Kendrick clearly wasn't focused on retaining the considerably large audience he attracted with its predecessor, and the album's stronger for that. Proving that he'll keep us guessing for years to come, Kendrick has truly solidified his place in rap history with this album.

Carpenter here brings together the themes from 13 of his movies to remind us exactly how pervasive is his influence on modern culture.

It’s still a functionally and otherwise dazzling work, one that sits nicely among the band's compositions.

This is a lush, intellectual and brilliant collection, constantly teeming with sounds, innovations and ideas.

By turns distant and unknowable, fleeting and eerie, and even serenely gorgeous, Apollo found Eno continuing to toy with, and reach for the edges of, a sound he himself perfected. ... The album stands out of time, never ageing, forever seeming to beam in from a future just out of reach. Much like the event it memorializes, forever there may it stay.

Hadreas let a little light in, upped the production values and expanded his sonic repertoire, creating a near-masterpiece of hair-raising emotional evocation.

50 Song Memoir is as much the story of Stephin Merritt’s life as it is a love letter to song. It is a certifiable masterpiece and one that music lovers ‘round the world will not soon forget.

This is Kendrick Lamar playing the game, and making everything else look dangerously irrelevant while he's at it. Be afraid.

We've had countless albums predicating calls for mobilisation before, and they're generally provocative and valued but ultimately specious, but on RTJ3 there's a visceral directness that cuts to the aorta.

On The Dusk In Us, we have a handful of tracks that see Converge pushing at the boundaries of their sound, even escaping it entirely. This leads to some of the most accessible, catchy, and (uncoincidentally) most emotionally resonant work of their careers.

The sum of its parts adds up to Bon Iver’s most challenging work to date; 22, A Million is an album that rejects comfort and expectations in favor of provoking listeners to make new discoveries. If this challenge is taken, it is a rewarding experience that only grows in beauty with each listen.

They can sneak serious explorations of mental health, of the rise of ISIS, of the political machinations that erode the human connections between us, past their listeners because they have wrapped these high-minded concerns up in a package of eminently re-listenable, deliriously creative pop tunes.

Carrie & Lowell is just the latest in a long line of unimpeachable achievements.

With this album, The World is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die has stepped up to the challenge of their name (as well as their previous lyrics riffing off the name), and show that they are willing to fight to make it a reality. While this battle may be a substantially uphill one, Always Foreign stands as an impeccable call to arms.

On their past albums Wild Beasts have shown us their savage and raw sides, which have been gloriously charming and exciting, but by opening up on Present Tense and revealing their true hearts, their music has ascended to new heights.

This record is a wholly singular work; not only does it defy expectations of what a Flying Lotus album should sound like, it totally obliterates any preconceptions about what can be released by a remotely popular contemporary musician.

Never does this album sound more genuine than when it's low-key, because it's then that Clipping. foregoes the satire--the very lifeblood that runs through CLPPNG's veins.

All Love's Legal is the kind of record that reaffirms your faith in the power of music.

Whether it be pushing past the anxieties of sitting still with no particular sense of home, both in a figurative and literal sense, or even the bittersweet memories of failed relationships, Peck’s desires are timeless and unveiled for all to cherish and cry to.

Aromanticism is an album that is heartfelt and heartbreaking, and, from the opening chorals to the closing moments of ‘Self Help Tape’, is an album like no other.

On Devotion, she cordons off her own corner of modern Rn’B with a statement destined to become a genre staple.

Moves the bar considerably higher from their brilliant debut album of 2017 Come Play the Trees.

This album is contemplative and, maybe more important than anything else, stirs you delve into your own mind and those demons we all have.

Burn Your Fire, through increased complexity of instrumentation, creates a new dynamic--the vocal is more understated and reserved, less elusive and divergent --it's autonomy partially tethered by the whole ensembles balanced interrelation.

Preoccupations is a tough, black and resilient modern rock album.

While Parquet Courts show here that they can tackle lost love brilliantly, some of the more interesting lyrics come from those where they portray the less tangible mental issues that are rife in modern society.

This is 100% bittersweet, but it's honest, it's genuine and we see Li's true colours, hopefully shining back on us.

It's easy to stand in awe at the masterful abrasiveness and thrashing communication of anger and unease on Dog Whistle, but its pacing is an equal wonder to behold and a perfect reason to deem Show Me The Body as ambassadors of hardcore’s future.

This is what the whole record has managed to capture; that truth is indeed a beautiful thing, and it is explored with vulnerability and grace wholeheartedly.

They don't shatter boundaries or expectations, but instead provide a grand, bedrock-solid opus stuffed with 10-tonne emotional blows and tranquillity most indie-pop groups shun.

What elevates Turn Out The Lights is that it’s sensory as well as earnest, personally destabilising while artfully assured; it oscillates in the spilling synaesthesia of panic attacks, the dizzying clarity of epiphany, the paralysing futility of depressive episodes, the unfathomable locus of being okay.

He has further upgraded, re-geared and honed the sound The War On Drugs have been working towards, taking the style and vision of 80s rock titans and updating it to something that sounds truly modern, but with that nostalgic haze.

Though it’s a record perspiring uncertainty and the fear of becoming stagnant, Be The Cowboy is Mitski’s most personal and confrontational thus far. It’s violently poignant and the mark of an artist who’s barely tapped into her singularity.

The Julie Ruin have moved closer to the show tunes influenced half of punk, and further from the grunge influenced half. In its honest mapping of the experiences of being a women involved in music scenes though, it is consistent with the very best of their previous work.

Very few records are able to transport the listener to a different world full of visceral, palpable feeling for even just one listen. A Moon Shaped Pool manages to do it over and over again with the feelings deepening rather than cheapening with each successive listen.

Nothing feels forced. The ease with which the compositions flow and lyrics are sung is something any aspiring musician should hope to accomplish. case/ lang/ veirs wrote an album that captures the beauty in pain and the flaws in magnificence.

He wants to continue to be happy the way he is and that contentment is helping him to produce some of his finest work. For a musician, that's truly unique.

The Talkies is rough around the edges, is of a debased, primal nature, yet is incredibly on-point with the unsettling atmosphere it communicates. Girl Band is officially the crown jewel of Irish punk, if a beautifully horrific crown jewel.

If you can convince yourself of TMLT being a novel, a musical, or five EPs crammed into one record, the experience becomes more immersive and rich.

Fitting snugly right alongside the likes of Vashti Bunyan and Julie Byrne, Bare is of the class that just may stick with you for a lifetime.

Whatever headspace produced Swimming, it captures this perfectly.

It may not be one you play often, but it's also one you will never forget. It's omnipresent. Words fail.

Whilst an extraordinary album from start to finish--there are moments that really stand out.

The world it creates is in many ways richer, more affecting and bolder than the ones that came before.

After years of delivering on her promise, it comes as no surprise that Hiss Spun is as good as it is. The instrumental tracks dance around Wolfe’s soaring vocals and ultimately collide with them perfectly to create a collection of songs that are a joy to listen to.

A Seat At The Table--like the headlines of 2016--is the score of black pain, black rage, black strength and black joy. And for everyone else enjoying the enticing R&B, it's for the rest of us to quiet ourselves, listen, learn and respect.

It's an album that, despite its placement more as high art, isn't afraid to embrace pop music for everything it's worth, managing to be accessible while also challenging, drawing the listener in with familiarity to then unleash upon them this cryptic, paradoxical world that just begs to be explored over and over again.

As a careening, breakneck listen, this will be up there as one of the best of the year.

Slugger is a no-holds-barred art-pop surge of iron-clad beats, and acute lyricism that goes beyond post-breakup reflections and confronts the listener to actually think about the state of being a biological, self-identifying, or perceived female in today’s world and the ardent misogyny they face.

This is not an album for a breakthrough, nor is it a bastion in the storm. It's something grander.

Too Bright is a strident and bold statement from an artist who has finally undone the knot of his past. It won't be the record which brings him mainstream success but it will be the record that frees him from the pigeonholing of his bruised and broken singer-songwriter image.

By having more passion, more energy, more imagination than most of the field combined. By making an album that's weird and wild and I suspect unlike anything else that'll be released this year.

This album is perhaps even more ambitious than its predecessor and, unlike East India Youth's debut, finds the artist stepping out from the shadows to produce a stunning, transformative electronic record.

The production isn't the only platinum facet of LIZZOBANGERS. Her technical ability is unparalleled. She doesn't just summon narratives or tell stories, she uses pace and rhythm and dialect to shape a song.

Unlike so many reissues of late, the out-takes and demos on Painful genuinely do give an insight into how the record was made, how the band honed their sound and what direction they were headed.

This is a world to become truly lost within. Fair warning, you may not want to come out.

A complement to Homer, whose exquisite myth catapulted the bard himself into the realm of myth, Crampton fashions a performative poetics that performs its own brown, queer, and sublime reality.

It is a wholly singular and groundbreaking release that, while adhering to many past and present genre trends, seems prepared to go further in collating and collaging influences than most other electronic releases dare to go.

When it's as gloriously complex, grandiose and naturally magnificent as what he's presented on Sauna and the couplet of albums that preceded it, you can entirely empathise.

Although it is thoughtfully sequenced, Central Belters is more of an anthology to dip in and out of, mainly due to its running time.

Vocally, Black Messiah is sparse, but sonically, it is accomplished and fulfilled. Every sound, every instrument, every lyric and harmony is in the place it needs to be.

Their ambition and drive is truly ‘Beyondless’, and that’s the galvanising effect and feeling you get as a listener when finishing Iceage’s latest statement album.

This is as close to pop perfection as music as seen in quite some time.

The slow pacing of the tracks, particularly the likes of 'Feet of Clay', 'Mister Skeleton' and 'Secrets of the Earth', are almost meditative. Richly detailed, so you're constantly finding new sounds and curiosities, but not so busy as to draw too much attention away from the trip.

However she managed it, whatever we will take from it as it settles, delving further past its placid surface into its cavernous mystery will surely remain one of the year's earliest true pleasures.

At just under 30 minutes long, the record is as brief as it is uncompromising.

A scary, fucked up kind of beauty. Consider Lavender a salve. Or, at least, an honest, genuine listen.

Though there are a million details about BEYONCÉ to examine--from the release strategy to the visual aspect and more--the strongest ideas are still found solely in the music. She addresses topics like beauty, body image, miscarriages, jealousy, sexuality, marriage, motherhood and self-worth.

The album is riddled with heart-rending affirmations of self-worth.

OIL’s resonance and bravery--underlined by its acutely mapped volatile and enrapturing production--is inspiring, and the conception and execution of its testimony remarkable.

Total Strife Forever is a brutal electronic album, but one that still retains a very humanistic core--this juxtaposition is a thematic thread which runs throughout the album. Doyle then sculpts and defines the music in order to create tension between these two disparate elements, or else uses their differences in order to surprise and engage the listener.

Fleet Foxes return with a grand, theatrical approach to music as a whole, and although they reminisce on their grand, prog-folk glory days, Crack-Up as a musical statement is genre-less.

Whether he's taking himself to task, tossing shots in every direction (see: ‘Bam’), or simply reminiscing as on the glorious glide of ‘Marcy Me’, he sounds perfectly at home. ... 4:44 presents a renewed Jay-Z.

Here there is less pop, more disco, less experimentation, more thought, less anthem, more groove and unjustly more quality, less attention.

Historian is a complete album, cavernous in its emotional depths and regally sophisticated in its songwriting, yet palatably relatable at the point of contact. It’s a work of perfectly realised ambition in which anyone who’s ever waded the swamp of heartache can recognise themselves.

While it undoubtedly packs in a humongous swath of influences and touchstones from today’s pop culture, the overall piece created is completely unique, unreplicable and ultimately undescribable.

It's an album that you need to experience for yourself, to have it ease into your world and make a home, to feel its freedom, to visit and revisit again and again.

Time to Go Home is an unrepentant triumph that will ultimately establish the group has one of the most important musical voices showcased in 2015.

With Gold & Grey, Baizley and his cohorts have produced a monumental work of art that’s as dark and forbidding as it is bright and triumphant. It perfectly balances light and dark, revels in the creative possibilities of music-making, whilst plumbing emotional depths that might have you worrying a little for Baizley’s state of mind.

Named both in recognition of this being the band’s fourth studio album and for the passing of lead singer Jeremy Bolm’s mother from cancer in 2014, Stage Four is a towering record. Few albums this year, if any, have felt more capable of telling such vivid, striking stories with such clarity and palpable emotion.

McNany's own sensitivity on Museum of Love can, at times, feel like fastidiousness; each track is so carefully structured that the album as a whole suffers from a slight lack of flow, as if the listener is simply moving from one exhibit to the next. However, that is a small complaint on what is overall a satisfying and deeply rewarding project.

A record rich in fruits to reap, the result of unbridled enthusiasm, masterful craft and, yes, a long gaze sunwards.

As a breakup record City of No Reply is truly refreshing. It’s vulnerable without being either self-defeating or overly-aggressive and it’s both honest and warm, admitting blame without being overly-dramatic.

Put simply, Animated Violence Mild is an excellent album which is imbued with righteous vitriol. This isn’t just the best Blanck Mass album to date, it’s also the best record that Power has been involved in, which really is saying something.

Overall Capacity is an album brimming over with emotion and love, giving us a sharp and unforgettable insight into this person’s acute view of the human condition.

This is middle-aged angst done right.

It’s emotionally rich, and intelligent, and purposeful, and firmly cohesive.

In some ways, Microshift is Hookworms’ equivalent of that album [Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion]. A band with an established sound embracing electronics and pop songwriting like never before, but managing to do so without it feeling remotely forced, and finding their biggest audience yet as a result.

The new release of Twin Fantasy never panders to the original. Nor does it feel like Toledo is forced to adhere to the limitations of his previous work. It’s a development, not a remake; the full realisation of what was always supposed to be--and it sounds all the more incredible for it.

It's fun, it's queer and your straight friends will like it too because, ultimately, it's about being less alone. Everyone can relate to that. And the world genuinely feels like a brighter place with PWR BTTM in it.

Through 11 effortlessly sophisticated and deeply-layered torch songs, Adele's powerful vocals glide between thunderous roars and rib-cracking falsettos over large dramatic piano swells to fuzzy, warm lower-register rumblings. Ballads are bold and demanding.

He continues to hold our attention as he makes sense of his own findings on God and race and legacy and perfection.

Sulphur English strips the band’s sound of much of the colour and light that they had increasingly let in over their past few releases, to send listeners careening, disorientated, into a dark and stormy night of the soul, with little promise of a brighter dawn.

This is not a record for the faint-hearted. Hell, it should come with a health warning, but if you give it a chance you'll be rewarded with the most innovative electronic albums in a long time.

Guidance is not only Russian Circles' best album yet, but a standard-bearer for heavy, guitar-based instrumental music.