USA TODAY picks the 20 best albums of 2016 (so far)
The first six months of 2016 held more blockbuster releases than a good year sees in 12. Stars like Beyonce, Kanye West, Rihanna and Drake all dropped their long-anticipated albums, three of which were good enough to make our best-of list. Indie rock fans got surprise releases from both Radiohead and James Blake, rising young artists captured our attention with mission statements mature beyond their years, and David Bowie's Blackstar — released just days before his death — gave one of pop's most storied artists an outstanding final chapter.
It's a rare year where critics can pick 20 albums deserving of a best-of list midway through the year, but 2016 holds a certain kind of musical magic. Here are the albums USA TODAY's Maeve McDermott and Patrick Ryan will still be enjoying come December.
Listen along with our playlist:
Patrick's picks:
Anderson .Paak, Malibu
One of rap's fastest rising stars effortlessly fuses jazz, soul and hip hop on his breezy sophomore effort, which could be a spiritual sequel to Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly.
Anohni, Hopelessness
The bewitching vocalist (formerly of Antony and the Johnsons) marries social consciousness and cavernous synths on her ambitious electro-pop debut.
A$AP Ferg, Always Strive and Prosper
A modern classic from one of hip hop's most underrated MCs, whose boisterous rhymes and elastic flow are elevated by an eclectic group of guest stars.
Chairlift, Moth
A frothy glass of sleekly crafted pop songs, whose whip-smart lyrics and hummable hooks go down easy.
David Bowie, Blackstar
A stirring coda for the late music icon, who continued exploring new sonic terrain as he confronted his own mortality.
James Blake, The Colour in Anything
Stepping out of his London bedroom and into Rick Rubin's Malibu studio, the sensitive singer/producer takes a maximalist approach to exploring heartbreak, rife with piercing falsetto and throbbing bass lines.
Kanye West, The Life of Pablo
An ever-evolving body of work that's as messy as it is extravagant, Pablo pushes as many buttons with its lyrics as it does musical boundaries, showing Kanye at the peak of his artistic and cultural powers.
Kaytranada, 99.9%
The Haitian-Canadian producer colorfully blends tropical samples with hip-hop beats, creating the funkiest, feel-good dance album of the summer.
Radiohead, A Moon Shaped Pool
The British quintet's long-awaited return does not disappoint, as they continue to infuse their polarizing brand of stadium-ready art rock with existential dread and gut-wrenching melancholy.
Santigold, 99 Cents
Expertly critiquing commercialism and selfie culture under the guise of shimmering, playful pop, the genre-defying singer's third album is easily her savviest and most refined.
Maeve's picks:
Ariana Grande, Dangerous Woman
Last year, the fantastic pop album listeners weren’t expecting came from critical darling Carly Rae Jepsen. This year, it’s from Grande, a bonafide star whose Dangerous Woman didn’t need to be particularly good to win over fans and sell singles — and lucky for us; it is.
Beyoncé, Lemonade
Yes, Lemonade’s release was a capital-E event. But divorce (get it?) Beyoncé’s sixth album from its high-art short film and waves of controversy that followed, and it’s still possibly her most compelling work to date, dipping into snarling-guitar rawk and classic country before closing with Formation, a fiery statement of female power that captures Bey atop 2016’s pop throne.
Car Seat Headrest, Teens of Denial
Singer/songwriter Will Toledo has one foot in two indie rock zeitgeists, channeling ‘90s greats like Yo La Tengo and Pavement with deadpan lyrics and timeless guitar melodies, with a voice that’s a dead ringer for the Strokes’ Julian Casablancas.
Chance the Rapper, Coloring Book
After bursting onto the mainstream with his 2013 mixtape Acid Rap — and then thumbing his nose at critics by releasing its follow-up under his trumpet player’s name — the Chicago rap protégé gets a proper coming-out party with Coloring Book, a gospel-rap classic with big-name collaborators (Bieber, Kanye) who never come close to stealing Chance’s spotlight.
dvsn, Sept. 5
Drake and dvsn may share a label, a Toronto hometown, an April 2016 release month (Drake's Views came out weeks after) and a penchant for making R&B that alternates between sad and sexy — but the duo's 2016 debut album eclipses that of their more famous rapper benefactor.
Kendrick Lamar, untitled unmastered
From Kanye tacking songs onto the end of Pablo to Future’s near-constant mixtape releases, 2016 has been a prolific year for rap’s biggest stars, but the music’s quality not always matching quantity. Not so for Kendrick Lamar, whose untitled unmastered is a collection of outtakes that surpasses many of his peers’ fully-realized new albums.
Mitski, Puberty 2
Mitski Miyawaki is among her generation’s most essential young songwriters, making rock music that’s cinematic in both its soaring noise-pop melodies and starkly emotional stories of heartbreak, acceptance and growing up.
Pinegrove, Cardinal
1990s alt-rock isn’t the most fashionable starting point for many young bands. Luckily, Pinegrove eschews the irony that many young indie rockers wear as armor, instead making twangy pop punk that traces the emotional lives of its young, suburban protagonists in stark detail.
Rihanna, ANTI
On another Rihanna album, her bubbly 2016 single Work would be surrounded by soundalikes. But it’s an outlier on ANTI’s collection of curveballs, as the singer skips the singles and plays with genre on one of the most confounding, and interesting, releases of her career.
Tegan and Sara, Love You To Death
The most ambitious statement of their career, Tegan and Sara’s eighth album doubles as the Quin sisters’ hitmaking résumé, culminating in their transition from a modest indie-rock duo into master craftswomen of clinically-sharp synth-pop.