The Best Albums of 2015

Kendrick Lamar has the best-reviewed major album of 2015

There may not have been much suspense, but that doesn't diminish Kendrick Lamar's achievement. We have known since March that the Compton-born rapper's third album would likely be unsurpassed for the remainder of 2015, and that indeed proved to be true.

But To Pimp a Butterfly isn't just this year's highest-scoring (and thus best-reviewed) album. It is also the highest-scoring release since Brian Wilson's SMiLE back in 2004. And Butterfly is also the best-reviewed rap album of the 21st century, period, surpassing OutKast's 2000 classic Stankonia and Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

In fact, 2015 was a good year for music all around. We tracked 659 albums this year that received at least 7 reviews from professional critics. Of those, 133—or over 20%—received universal acclaim (with a Metascore of 81 or greater). That's far ahead of last year's 13% rate. And Lamar was not the only artist to score 90 or higher, as both Sufjan Stevens and Sleater-Kinney did so as well.

Below is this year's final ranking of the best albums (in Metacritic's database) released during 2015 as determined by their Metascores—an average of all reviews by professional critics at the time of each album's original release. Note that live albums, reissues, compilations, and the like are excluded from this chart, though they are listed separately a bit further down this page.

The 40 best-reviewed albums of 2015 (min. 15 reviews)

... and the rest of the top 40:

Album/Artist			Score	Stream It	Buy It
11		Vulnicura by Björk	87
12		I Love You, Honeybear by Father John Misty	87
13		In Colour by Jamie xx	87
14		Natalie Prass by Natalie Prass	86
15		Surf by Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment	86
16		Poison Season by Destroyer	86
17		The Agent Intellect by Protomartyr	85
18		Elaenia by Floating Points	85
19		New Bermuda by Deafheaven	85
20		Fantasy Empire by Lightning Bolt	84
21		Wildheart by Miguel	84
22		Currents by Tame Impala	84
23		Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress by Godspeed You! Black Emperor	84
24		Purple by Baroness	83
25		Foil Deer by Speedy Ortiz	83
26		White Men Are Black Men Too by Young Fathers	83
27		Star Wars by Wilco	83
28		Primrose Green by Ryley Walker	83
29		b'lieve i'm goin' down... by Kurt Vile	83
30		Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper by Panda Bear	82
31		Frozen Niagara Falls by Prurient	82
32		Shadows in the Night by Bob Dylan	82
33		Compton by Dr. Dre	82
34		Grey Tickles, Black Pressure by John Grant	82
35		Sauna by Mount Eerie	82
36		Fading Frontier by Deerhunter	81
37		Never Were the Way She Was by Colin Stetson and Sarah Neufeld	81
38		Ivy Tripp by Waxahatchee	81
39		After by Lady Lamb the Beekeeper	81
40		Platform by Holly Herndon	81

What about albums with fewer reviews?

Here is a look at the albums that received extremely positive reviews, but not enough of them to qualify for our list above. (In other words, consider them the year's best under-the-radar releases.) Albums on this list received 7-14 critic reviews. (Titles with fewer than 7 reviews are excluded from all year-end charts.)

Album/Artist			Score	Stream It	Buy It
1 (tie)		The Fade in Time by Sam Lee & Friends	89
		Hand.Cannot.Erase. by Steven Wilson	89
3		That's the Spirit by Bring Me the Horizon	88
4		From Kinshasa by Mbongwana Star	88
5		Complicated Game by James McMurtry	87
6 (tie)		John Howard & the Night Mail by John Howard & The Night Mail	87
		Ten Love Songs by Susanne Sundfør	87
8		Choose Your Weapon by Hiatus Kaiyote	87
9		Painted Shut by Hop Along	87
10		Remembering Mountains: Unheard Songs By Karen Dalton by Various	87

Albums released between January 1, 2015 and December 31, 2015 with 7 or more reviews (15 or more for the first chart) in Metacritic's database were eligible for inclusion. Reissues and other older material, EPs, live albums, holiday albums, greatest hits albums, multi-artist soundtracks, and other compilations are excluded from the above lists. The Metascore is a weighted average of scores from top professional critics, on a scale from 0 (bad) to 100 (good). Albums are ranked by Metascore prior to rounding. All scores on this page are from December 27, 2015.

More bests and worsts

Now that we've heard from the critics, what about Metacritic users? Here are the 2015releases receiving the highest average user scores:

2015 Releases Most Liked by Metacritic Users (Min. 15 User Reviews)

Album/Artist		Buy It	Listen	User Score
1	96 To Pimp A Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar			9.0
2	78 Honeymoon by Lana Del Rey			8.9
	75 Froot by Marina and the Diamonds			8.9
4	83 The Epic by Kamasi Washington			8.8
5	80 Thank Your Lucky Stars by Beach House			8.7
	87 Vulnicura by Björk			8.7
	77 How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful by Florence + the Machine			8.7
	88 Art Angels by Grimes			8.7
	80 The Book of Souls by Iron Maiden			8.7
	90 Carrie & Lowell by Sufjan Stevens			8.7

User scores represent an average of scores assigned by Metacritic.com site visitors, from 0 (bad) to 10 (good).

If you read the fine print under our list of high-scoring albums above, you noticed that reissues, compilations, live sets, and other album types were excluded from our best-reviewed albums charts (which are intended to include only new full-length studio albums). Here are the highest-scoring "disqualified" albums of the year:

Best-Reviewed Reissues, Box Sets, and Compilations of 2015 (Min. 7 Reviews)

Album/Artist			Score	Stream It	Buy It
1		Sticky Fingers Deluxe reissue by The Rolling Stones	100
2		The Bootleg Series, Vol. 12: The Best of the Cutting Edge 1965-1966 Box set by Bob Dylan	99
3		Physical Graffiti Deluxe reissue by Led Zeppelin	97
4		The Smithsonian Folkways Collection Box set by Lead Belly	95
5		Miles Davis at Newport: 1955-1975: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4 Live box set by Miles Davis	92
6		Bouquets from a Cloudy Sky: The Complete Pretty Things Collection Box set by The Pretty Things	92
7		The Ties That Bind: The River Collection Box set by Bruce Springsteen	91
8		Ork Records: New York, New York Box set by Various	91
9		Elitism for the People 1975-1978 Box set by Pere Ubu	91
10		G Stands For Go-Betweens, Vol. 1 Box set by The Go-Betweens	90

Thousands of albums are released each year, and most of those don't even make their way to reviewers; as a result, the vast majority of the awful albums recorded each year do not show up on Metacritic. However, there are always some major releases this year that fail to impress critics, and we now share with you the 10 disappointing albums receiving the worst reviews in 2015:

The Lowest-Scoring Albums of 2015 (Min. 7 Reviews)

Album/Artist			Score	Stream It
1		Coming Up for Air by Kodaline	51
2		New Glow by Matt and Kim	52
3		Wiped Out! by The Neighbourhood	53
4		HitNRun: Phase One by Prince	54
5		Wilder Mind by Mumford & Sons	54
6		American Spring by Anti-Flag	54
7		Déjà-Vu by Giorgio Moroder	54
8		Jekyll + Hyde by Zac Brown Band	55
9		Kylie Christmas by Kylie Minogue	55
10		Full Speed by Kid Ink	55

What do you think?

What were your personal favorite and least favorite albums of 2015? Let us know in the comments section below, and don't forget to vote for your favorite albums of the year in our Best of 2015 User Poll. And for more of 2015's best albums, see which titles critics are including on their year-end top 10 lists.