Obligatory top 10 list (with 5 honorable mentions)

Let me preface this by saying I know I haven't updated this in ever.

So, let me promise you, random reader, something: I will try and write more in 2016. A disproportionate amount of my time so far has been spent on Team Fortress 2, random manga, and reddit, with Facebook as a close second. In other words, time I could have spent writing and providing hot takes on current issues has been used to dick around on the internet and stave off any feelings of boredom. With that being said, let's begin this completely arbitrary list that shall in no way influence your musical taste and serve as an outlet for me to just talk about music.

The 10 albums I'm going to list will not be ranked because that's too damn hard and I'd rather not do that. So, this'll be done with the 10 albums that have stuck with me the most throughout 2015.

1. Clarence Clarity: "No Now"

The debut record from UK-based electronic producer Clarence Clarity is something astonishing. It's a lot better than you'd expect from a guy who got his name from a meme. "No Now" is the musical representation of the phrase "order in chaos." There are so many things going on in songs that it takes multiple listens to locate all the hidden nuances in songs. It's so crazy and ridiculous and poppy and glitchy and just all around anarchic that it shouldn't work. And yet it does. The best way to describe this record would be "maximalist glitch-pop." And that's one of the reasons why it sticks out, unlike Holly Herndon's "Platform." In indie music, there is a sort of resistance against going all out on projects. Modern techno, for example, does place a focus on minimalism and subtlety (see: Jamie xx's rework of Rolling In the Deep or the Levon Vincent record that might be on this list a little later.) So, it's most definitely nice to hear something that goes all out with its production and weirdness and pop tones. Songs like "Meadow Hopping, Traffic Stopping, Death Splash" and "Alive in the Septic Tank" definitely fall on the poppier side of the album while other songs like "Let's Shoot Up" and "Bloodbarf" fall on the more electronic side of things. Overall, Clarence Clarity's "No Now" is a brilliant debut by an artist with a definite focus on aesthete while not forgetting the substance to back up his style.

2. Neon Indian: "VEGA INTL. Night School"

Wow. That was all I had to say after I finished after I finished this album. Because wow, this is phenomenal. This album sounds like the color scheme of the cover, which is a weird thing to say but I stand by it. Songs like "Slumlord" or "61 Cygni Avenue" definitely feel like candy-colored tropical-themed dance anthems, as the beat kicks in and Alan Palomo begins to serenade you. This is one of the records I caught rather late into the year because of the genre this album is placed in. See, Neon Indian was originally a chillwave group and I have a disdain of chillwave since Toro Y Moi's "Anything in Return" burned me with its sheer lack of dynamism. Granted that was years before, but still, I stayed away from chillwave. But, with this record, Palomo and his group have gone beyond the stereotypes associated with chillwave. There's more groove to this, and less chilled out music. The vocal parts of it are front and center, and don't fade into the backing tracks like stereotypical chillwave. There's a distinctly weird element to the electronics on the song, with "Street Level" opening with this odd squelching sort of synth before Palomo's voice comes in and "61 Cygni Avenue" featuring this distorted horn sound that I can't really place. In short, "VEGA INTL. Night School" is a brilliant reinvention of a chillwave band into something more groovy, danceable, and tropical. Don't miss this one.

3. Floating Points: "Elaenia"

From the opening moments of "Elaenia", you become aware this is not your typical UK avant-garde house record. But that's rather fitting for a man who isn't your typical UK avant-garde house DJ. Sam Shepard, better known as Floating Points, is a DJ with a Ph.D who held off on making his debut album because he needed to finish school. And even when he finally did make the record, he made a record that focuses on jazz, rather than the typical thing of making unique club bangers. And because of its focus on jazz, "Elaenia" differentiates itself from something like "Morning / Evening." The opener, Nespole, features this looping high-pitched synth that forms the core of the track and has its surroundings shift around it, in a sense, as horn-like synths are introduced and taken away and more odd-sounding synths are introduced. It's utterly unique in my eyes. This is followed by the album's crown jewel "Silhouettes (I, II, & III). Silhouettes is the most jazz-like song on the record, featuring light snares and drums that sound less punchy than those on a typical d&b track. With the bass cello kicking in, the track moves along in to phase II. There, some gorgeous vocal harmonies are introduced with the primary synth as they dovetail together and soaring violins take the vocal's place. As the vocals and violin flow together, the synth wildly alternates like the brass section on a jazz piece and for a moment everything just feels right. I'd hate to describe it more to you as that would spoil the track's brilliance. The rest of the album does veer into house territory but maintains the same amount of musical ingenuity that highlights Nespole and Silhouettes (I, II, and III). Rest assured, "Elaenia" is brilliance.

4. Death Grips: "Jenny Death"

 Death Grips fans were just cruising for rusing when it came to this album. I almost miss the hype cycle behind it because of Death Grips' previous shenanigans when it came to their records: leaking their record, fake Twitter accounts whose veracity couldn't be identified, break-up notes inciting the wrath of Trent Reznor. But, even with all that exempt from my experiences with "Jenny Death", it wouldn't change the fact Death Grips created the most punk record I've had the pleasure of listening. See, it is my firm belief that Death Grips embody the entire ethos of punk. They don't give a fuck when it comes to record label contracts or cultivating fan bases or even making lyrical songs. "The Money Store" is still the most hard-hitting electronic album I regularly listen to, and "No Love Deep Web" was an artistic improvement on that.With "Jenny Death", Death Grips abandon the electronic style that made them famous and go way back to "Exmilitary" for some guitars. "Jenny Death" bombards the listener with just pure unadulterated sound, blending guitar, Zach Hill's drums, Ride's hobo screams, and reverb-drenched moments fuzzing up guitar noises with the occasional moments of vocodered voices. You do get some synths and electronics in the mix like "Pss Pss" but it works well with the album's analog feel. It's chaos and its beautiful to listen to. It's music that wants you to get up and break shit. And its the best music to break shit to, too.

5. Colin Stetson & Sarah Neufeld: "Never Were The Way She Was"

Colin Stetson plays saxaphone and other horn and reed instruments. Sarah Neufeld plays violin. Both played with Arcade Fire, but now act as their own solo artists. They came together on this joint project, and the results are astonishing. There are tracks on this album that feel as if they wouldn't be out of place in some grimy room in Berlin filled with clubgoers enjoying the final track after a night of sweat and debauchery. There are tracks that feel as if they wouldn't be out of place in a concert hall being played by an orchestra as the crowd feels the emotion the songs hold. In short, the sheer variety of tracks coming from a violinist and horn & reed player feel unimaginable. Colin Stetson's playing form the base of the tracks as he plays his various horns in such a way that they mimic the low bass in most house tracks while Neufeld's violin accompanies him. Their partnership on this album doesn't feel like one person did something and the other added something to it a la Drake & Future's "What a Time to Be Alive." Rather it feels as if both musicians played together and the tracks that came out of their sessions needed each other's parts to feel complete. The album itself, wordless as it is, evokes this excellent feeling of somberness coupled with trace feelings of sadness, regret, longing, and ennui. (Pitchfork, hire me now!) The thing I love about instrumental albums like these is that even with nothing being said, people can still put across the emotions they wish to represent. Getting back to the album, Stetson & Neufeld have created a phenomenal album, creeping with melancholy but never going to an emotional extreme. The technical mastery both musicians demonstrate in this album is nothing short of masterful, and deserves a listen on that alone. In short, please listen to this record.

6. Shye Ben Tzur, Jonny Greenwood, & the Rajasthan Express: "Junun"

Junun was one of the projects this year that was so far of my radar I didn't even think I would even listen to it.  I remember looking at the NYFF announcement of the showing of the documentary accompanying it and just thinking "Well, Paul Thomas Anderson thought this was cool enough to film, and its got one of the dudes from Radiohead in it, so it can't be all bad?" And I was right, it was phenomenal. One of the highlights of living in New York so far is getting to sit in Alice Tully Hall and just listen to this phenomenal album being played loud and getting to hear every little detail in the tracks, juxtaposed with PTA's phenomenal eye for visuals. But, let's talk about the music more and the film less. The album starts out with its title track "Junun" which begins with this drum machine pattern reminiscent of some of the tracks on "Kid A." Then, come in the tabla and guitar twangs with the trumpets following quickly behind it. And then everything just coalesces into something beautiful. It's musically bold in a way that I can't really describe because I'm not as well-versed in older Hindustani music as I'd like. But, believe me when I say, that this brings back to the forefront a style of Hindustani music that has been used sparingly over the past couple decades. The album itself contains songs that are either in Hindi, Hebrew, or Urdu, a testament to the artistic capabilities of the three core parts of the record. The album also bounces between uptempo songs like "Roked" to more melancholic and slower placed songs like "Hu". I could talk more about the album, but I need to write for 9 more albums. So, I'll just leave it at this: "Junun" is an excellent example of the way music can be used to reach across barriers and create something wholly unique as a result of its circumstances. Each of the three parties that made the record add something vital to the record and as a result, the album shines.

7. Arca: "Mutant"

Arca has always been a genre breaker. Confined to his origin genre of glitch, Arca has since gained a strong sense of melody that had been missing from his earlier works. He, thankfully, returns to his protoglitch style that made him such a fascination and uses his experience with artists like FKA twigs and Bjork to make something that is both an acknowledgement of his past as well as a broadening of his future. Arca, real name Alejandro Ghersi, has been an artist whose main thematic focus is gender. His debut album, Xen, was named after the feminine spirit Arca claims to have, with the title art depicting the aforementioned spirit. Xen, he said, was "how I viewed my own sexuality and how I engaged with people through the lens of sensuality. Xen is an ‘it’. I lean towards calling Xen ‘her’ in response to the fact that society historically leans towards men having more power." With Xen representing in a way Ghersi's own feelings towards his sexuality, what does "Mutant" exactly represent? I'll be damned if I know, but what it is is an excellent album. I wasn't a big fan of Xen because it veered into many areas very unlike Arca: moments of piano mixed with his synth work mixed with songs more accessible that what he normally makes. "Mutant" takes it back to Arca's wonky roots, with disorted synths and drums forming the large majority of his songs. This time, however, he imbues these songs with some actual melody. They're no longer just musings, they feel like full-fledged songs, rising and falling, building to a climax and watching it all fall away. "Snakes" is a brilliant example of this. It starts of vague with some icy synths against some bursts of bass. The core melody is alluded to but not yet performed as Arca builds up to that moment of coalescence. And when that moment finally comes, it is beautiful as he lets all these parts come together into something beautiful, resembling a pop melody but nuanced by the unusual electronics and bass. It's a summation of who Arca is; an artist influenced by pop but more than willing to allow the weird side to toy with it. Another plus for "Mutant" is the fluidity of the album. I've been a long believer in the idea that the best albums have songs that flow into one another, whether it be intentional e.g. matching outros and intros a la the Avalanches "Since I Left You" or unintentional. For an album that is about an hour long, it feels like it barely passes the 40 minute mark. I could go on, but I've already talked a bit too much on this one. But going back to what each album represents, if "Xen" was about coming to terms with his sexuality, "Mutant", to me, seems to be Arca celebrating it. Songs here are bolder, more melodic, more weird, deeper, and the album benefits from this. 

8. Everything Everything: "Get To Heaven"

I love pop music. I really do. Pop music is the point of intersection for catchy melodies, great production, and accessibility. But, mainstream pop music (which is kind of redundant as the "pop" stands for "popular") faces the issue of perception and rightfully so. Mainstream pop is derivative of whatever genre is popular and contains unoriginal songwriting along with the desire to pander to the lowest common denominator. They're the equivalent of Adam Sandler movies; they're dumb products meant to create some bastardized form of entertainment that sells well and appeals to as wide an audience as possible. But, once every so often, someone manages to create pop music that proves the genre has worth. Two years ago, it was Jai Paul. Last year, it was FKA twigs. This year, it is British band Everything Everything. Everything Everything managed to create a record that had the catchy hooks of pop music and gave it some actual depth with great and, more importantly, varied production across the album. The songs on this record alternate between more straight pop rock songs to electronically tinged works like "Fortune 500" or "Blast Doors." "Blast Doors" is my personal favorite because of the way those crushing synths kick in towards the end of the song as frontman Jonathan Higgins' falsetto soars. But, these electronically tinged moments elevate these songs into something unique, turning EE from another Britpop band to something...cooler. There's not really much else to the record, except it being a collection of some well-made, catchy. and unique songs. Each song has its own catchy hook that gives it some character. So yeah, listen to this record. I'd link you to a Spotify page of the band, but unfortunately, their music hasn't made it on US shores just yet. I think it comes to the US in February of next year, so who knows, maybe it'll end up on next year's iteration of this list. 

9. Kendrick Lamar: "To Pimp a Butterfly"

You've heard the praise for this album, so now its time to bring it back down to Earth. I'm getting it out to the way, TPAB is NOT a masterpiece in my eyes. It is not the instant classic "Good Kid" was for multiple reasons. Let's get into them, shall we? The first mark against this record is its lack of coherent narrative. This album has been praised all over the board for its narrative but I think that the narrative Lamar presents is unstable. Take "These Walls." In the second verse, Lamar jumps his metaphors of walls from a vagina to society without even a warning to the listener this is happneing. And we he does use the wall metaphor on society, it feels like his raps on it are too obtuse, never clueing in the listener to what the purpose of the switch was. And then in the third verse, it turns out the first verse is him revenge-fucking the girlfriend of a person who killed his friend, presumably the one from "Swimming Pools." Again, no link between the second verse and the third. And that's where my issue with the album comes in. This album is one that doesn't coherently tell its story and when it does try to tell one, Lamar doesn't give the listener any details about the song's meaning. On "u", one of the most emotional songs on the album, the theme is very evidently guilt but that doesn't connect back to what he was talking about on "These Walls"; one minute, he talks of using his fame to hurt someone, the next he feels depressed presumably because of it. One minute, he relishes it, the next, he (by proxy of the character rapping) hates it. And then it transitions to "Alright", and then he's fine again. It's this tonal and conceptual inconsistency that also gets to me. Now, I wouldn't blame you if you thought I hated this album because of this. But, don't get me wrong, there's a reason its in this list in the first place. While trying to think of an album to put on my top 10, I kept coming back to this album as a potential candidate but the criticism I had for it meant I thought it shouldn't be on it. Then, I sorta realized that there really was no other album this year that was as ambitious as this. Kendrick released an album that actively invites the listener to posit their own theories as to what the album is about, while making some profound statements on fame, depression, black empowerment, and other relevant topics. While I have issue with the way he brings them up, the fact of the matter is Kendrick Lamar created one of the most culturally relevant, discussion-inciting, and ambitious albums of the year. He shot for the moon, and ended up in the stars. And for that, he gets a place on this list.

10. Vince Staples: "Summertime '06"

I want to start off this blurb by paralleling the trajectories of two rappers: Vince Staples and Kendrick Lamar. While both are rappers who are stuck in the genre deemed conscious rap and come from Southern California, the two couldn't be more different. While Kendrick went a much more ambitious route with his career path, creating concept albums and killing features, Vince went a much more low-key and almost star-resistant path. Once affiliated with the now-dead Odd Future, Vince grew from an object of interest, after his mixtapes blew up in that segment of the internet, to a rising star after "Stolen Youth" (his collaborative album with Mac Miller) and "Hell Can Wait", his debut EP with the phenomenal "Blue Suede" and "Hands Up". This is Vince Staples' next step: from rising star to star in his own right. "Summertime '06" is one of the rare modern examples of a double album done right, with Vince using each of his album's 58 minutes to give the listener an insight into the life of a Long Beach Crip trying to redeem himself while struggling with his sins. I commend this album for properly developing a cohesive mood and atmosphere, something most modern rap albums don't really do as often as they should. The opening moments of this record ("Ramona Park Legend Pt. 1") feature ominous synths against some heavy bass, churning water, and the sounds of seagulls before concluding with a gunshot, a fantastic way of introducing the listener to the atmosphere of the Long Beach Vince conjures up for us as well as the album's sonic palette. From there, the listener gets thrown into a series of fantastic songs, one after another, on Disc 1. "I'm just a nigger until I fill my pockets / and then I'm Mr. Nigger, they follow me while shopping" is one of those lines that just hits you, and sticks with you. It's one of the many lines addressing the issue of materialism, a theme that runs through the record and ties in with the macroscopic theme of who Vince was versus who he is now. Another thing I feel I must commend the album for is the variety built into the record without sacrificing the sonic palette. Within the record, there are your bangers ("Senorita"), your slower melancholic songs ("Summertime"), your songs with a message ("Might Be Wrong"), and so on. In essence and to tie it all back to the beginning, even though Vince and Kendrick started from the same place and took different paths, both managed to create albums about the violence in their hometowns as well as the larger issues tackling the black community. And for what its worth, I enjoy this record a lot more than I do "To Pimp A Butterfly." I could write more, but I'd like to finish this before the year ends, so I'll leave it at that.

Phew, god that took forever, I'm glad I'm finally do-

Oh, I'm not? I said I'd write an honorable mention list? Can't I weasel out of it?

Fine.

So, the danger of writing a top ten list in a year stacked with great music is the fact great albums get shafted. So the next five albums are the albums that I would put in if I had a top fifteen instead of a top ten. The following albums are all albums I really enjoyed but didn't put in my top ten because there was some flaw to them, I didn't give them enough time to sink in, or various other reasons. I'll elaborate within the bodies of the writeup. And once again, these will be written in no particular order.

11. Carly Rae Jepsen: "Emotion"

First, let us address the elephant in the room. Your eyes are not deceiving you. Carly Rae Jepsen, 2012's de facto one hit wonder with "Call Me Maybe", is in this honorable mention portion. "Why?", you are probably (not) asking yourself. Well, the answer is she produced a veritably immaculate pop album. Armed with a whole list of pop's A-list producers and indie hitmakers (Max Martin, Ariel Rechtshaid, Dev Hynes, Rostam Batmanglij) and her own talents as a writer (she says she wrote near 250 tracks for this, and sold one to K-pop group f(x), fun fact!), she managed to create an album free of EDM or even hip-hop influence. The mix of instruments against punchy synths must be why people designate this an 80s throwback album, but I digress. Nearly every track on the regular edition of the album has some sort of catchy earworm of a hook alongside its lyrical content on, you guessed it, the emotion of love. It does get a bit same-y lyrically, but the production makes up for it. "Boy Problems" begins with a backing track that really reminds me of French House, "Run Away With Me" has this horn coupled with Charli XCX's vocals backing Carly Rae Jepsen's on the hook, "Warm Blood" with its bass heavy backing with its punchy drums, and so on. Each song on this album has its own distinguishing production which is really what makes this album great. The lyrical side of things may let it down, but that coupled with the amazing production is just amazing. This album is a revelation for me as it single-handedly changed my view on Carly Rae Jepsen. And if only people would listen to the damn thing would their opinions change. So, this is me doing my part to get more people to listen to this hidden gem from 2015.

12. Jamie xx: "In Colour"

As you might have guessed, Jamie xx is, in fact, one-third of indie band the xx. I never really cared for the band at all, except for the occasional single song and this mashup between “Touch The Sky” and “Intro”, but I did care about Jamie’s work. I first listened to Jamie xx courtesy of his song “Girl.” “Girl” rocked my world because of the synth work on the track, along with the vocal harmony towards the end of the track. It was aural bliss. So, naturally, I was quite looking forward to “In Colour”, although he did lie to me when I asked him when his new LP was coming out, and he said 2014 (stealth humblebrag). Regardless, “In Colour” is one of the strongest debut albums I’ve listened to this year. “In Colour” acts a summarization of what I see are the three facets of Jamie xx; the producer of the xx tracks, a DJ inspired by UK hardhouse, and a hip-hop beatmaker. Songs like “Obvs” which fall back on the steel drums, an instrument Jamie clearly likes given its prominence in “All Under One Roof Raving” and “Far Nearer”, are some of the highlights of the LP as they rely on off-kilter rhythms that make sense as soon as another element is added, like bass or vocals. In fact, speaking of highlights, I find the LP, with the notable exception of some of the transitions e.g. “Just Saying” and “Hold Tight, fantastic. I love “SeeSaw” with Four Tet and Romy Madley-Croft because of that chirping lead synth that just sounds utterly unlike anything I’ve heard this year, and “I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times)” with fucking Young Thug flowing across Jamie’s beat even though my disdain for his lyrics must be mentioned (“Imma ride in that pussy like a stroller”? Really? “Come and play, I’m molesting? “ Really? “I’m coming red like Co-Cola” REALLY?). “The Rest Is Noise” is great as well, as well as the previously released “Girl” and “Sleep Sound”. So then, why is resigned to this honorable mention section? Well, to be honest, I find diminishing returns every time I listen to this album. While it is of course a natural fact of listening to music that once you listen to something enough times, you slowly lose any enjoyment from it, I find that not to be the case with genuinely phenomenal albums. Things like the top ten, “Madvillainy”, Jai Paul’s songs, “Good Kid M.A.A.D. City”, “Channel Orange”, etc. And yet I found it happening here, and I feel because of that, it didn’t deserve a place of my top ten. Just my opinion of course. Who knows, maybe I’ll return to it next year and start loving it again, but this is my opinion as of now.

13. Earl Sweatshirt: "I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside"

Let’s start off with the title and the artwork. If you couldn’t have guessed from the name alone, the album art demonstrates to a potential listener that the ensuing 30 minutes are not going to be a very upbeat, at all. “IDLS, IDGO” is an album I didn’t expect Earl to make. It’s a dark album that rather heavily deals with depression, abandonment, anger, regret, and self-hatred. The lead single off this, “Grief”, has a hook that goes “Good grief, I’ve been reaping what I sow / nigga I ain’t been outside in a minute / I’ve been living what I wrote / and all I see is snakes in the eyes of these niggas / Mama taught me how to read them when I look / Miss me at the precinct getting booked / Fishy niggas stick to eating off of hooks.” Within this hook alone, we get a sense of what Earl has been living with since his “comeback” record, “Doris” (a record I feel was unfairly critiqued for Earl’s monotone voice. If DOOM can do it, so can Earl). This parallels with rumors of Earl losing his girlfriend, being addicted to painkillers after an accident, some conflict between him and his “big brother” Tyler, and the dissolution of the collective OFWGKTA. But, we are not here address the events surrounding the album, simply the album itself. And the album itself is great. The production is moody and fairly barebones, the rapping is just as great as it was on “Doris”, and the album nails this feeling of a void of sorts where there is just a spiral of anguish, depression, and sadness. “With all this praise”, you might be asking, “why isn’t this record on the top ten?” Answer: because this album feels more like a bait and switch more than anything. Let’s take it back to just before “Doris” came out. Earl had promised his listeners a followup to the project entitled “Gnossos.” And the hints as to where “Gnossos” was going were pretty great: an Alchemist song called “45”, some trap flavored stuff a la “Pre”, and the sheer malleability Earl’s flow had on any producer’s beat. Seriously, on “Doris”, he nails beats courtesy of the Neptunes, the RZA, Mac Miller, the Alchemist, BadBadNotGood, etc. I thought for sure “Gnossos” would be another showcase and I wondered which producers he’d team up with: Alchemist once more? Harry Fraud? Madlib? And then this came out, and it destroyed my expectations. This album was a let-down for me because it didn’t live up to Earl’s potential. He could have come out with something so much better, more compelling, more…phenomenal, and he didn’t. Objectively, I’d say this album is great, but subjectively, it’s a disappointment to see Earl go in a completely different way than I would have hoped. This raises the question of whether it is valid for me to dock this album for disappointing my expectations, a discussion I'd love to have if someone chooses to read this.

14. Hudson Mohawke: "Lantern"

"Lantern" is something of a reinvention for Hudson Mohawke. For a man known for his rap bangers and "creation" of trap as an electronic genre, "Lantern" features none of those highlights. Instead, Hudson chooses to explore and go into more odd territory. Take, for example, "Ryders". The core of the song relies on this soul sample loop, simple to old school chipmunk soul-sampling Kanye. The track then builds on it with this series of frenetic drum kicks and D&B-esque rhythms powering it forward, along with some strings and horns. It feels completely outside HudMo's wheelhouse and yet he delivers this banger with such aplomb. He even goes R&B with songs like "Deepspace" or "Resistance", showcasing a much more low-key side than what he normally presents with his club bangers. Especially on "Deepspace", the warbling synths in the background against Miguel's pleading voice in the intro of the song feels phenomenal. As the song transitions into this R&B song of longing and pain, the backing track maintains these lowkey drums against barely audible alternating synths and just as the chorus hits, those synths come front and center with some bass. And with that, Miguel's voice just creates a moment of beautiful harmony. HudMo knows when to pull back and when to showcase the instrumentation, and "Deepspace" feels like the best example of that. The more experimental electronic cut on the album is without a doubt "Lil Djembe", as HudMo elaborated on back in May to Spin. "I wanted to make something on the record which was not necessarily a melodic lead, but more drum-focused, and just something that based on purely rhythmics. Even though there are little melodic aspects of it, I wanted to make kind of more fucked-up rhythmically...I wanted something that was kind of darker and little bit more off-kilter, just to balance the record out." In essence, HudMo's album balances his experimental side with some more conventional bangers ("System", "Shadows") and some throwbacks to his days of happy hardcore ("Sex", a bonus track that should have been on the regular album). With all this positivity done with, here comes the criticism. When HudMo linked up with Lunice, he inadvertently created a genre of music that has become a $4 billion industry. And yet on "Lantern", none of the genre-breaking sound that launched him has appeared. It all feels like a resume of sorts, as if HudMo were saying "Yeah, I can do R&B, and scoring, and club bangers, and some potential top 40 hits too." It doesn't feel as boundary pushing as a release on Warp Records should be. And that's why I kept it off my top ten.

15. Pusha T: "King Push: Darkest Before Dawn (The Prelude)"

And finally the record I had pushed back this list for. With "Darkest Before Dawn", Pusha T has really perfected the art of a hype-creating mini album. He did this before with "Wrath of Caine II" for "My Name Is My Name", though that mini-album got accused of being too safe and too similar for it to be memorable. With "Darkest" however, Pusha T really does push (heh) himself by teaming up with producers from Very G.O.O.D. Beats and some rising stars too to produce an immaculately produced album. The instrumentals on this thing are phenomenal, from "Intro"s use of this looped vocal sample against some trap drums to "Crutches, Crosses, and Caskets" very minimal horn based beat with some punch drums and ominous bass to "F.I.F.A"s drums and recurring guitar-like synths. Props to Push for compiling only the best of the "King Push" rejects for this mini-record. And running barely over 30 minutes, the album feels tight, with no real weak links in the tracklisting, with the exception of "M.P.A." "M.P.A." feels like a weak link despite the song actually being quite good. The reason behind this? The fact that Pusha T somehow got Kanye West and J. Cole to produce a song, with Kanye and Rocky acting as features, and it ended up being this...static. The production on the track is good, with piano and a guitar with a ton of reverb a la "Gorgeous". But, with Kanye and Rocky just doing hook duty, the song itself falls to just being a cautionary tale on the temptation of money, pussy, and alcohol. It's not as great as the rest of the tracks, but its still a great song on its own. The actual rapping on the album is, of course, focused on coke rhymes and creative metaphors on dealing coke, being the kingpin of coke, shooting rival coke dealers, etc. etc. If you've heard a Pusha T song in your life, you know what this album is going to be about. And that's really why it is down here. I know Pusha T loves to rap about coke, and he actively disagrees with haters on this. But, I'd like something a bit more, Push, than just references to "Narcos" and coke dealing. I'd love to see him attempt some actual narrative in the final version of "King Push." Also, despite all the tracks being consistently good, there is no real "holy shit" moment like there was when "Numbers on the Board" or "Nosetalgia" or even "Lunch Money" came on. It plays a bit too safe for me. All in all, fantastic album with some gripes, but 2015 turned out to be such a good year that even some gripes led to honorable mention status.

So, yeah. This is my list. 

I've been working on this lost for about 3 weeks now, and I hope you guys like it. Like I may or may not have said, this is really just a passion project for me. Hopefully, I can continue writing more reviews in 2016 if I have the time, and I hope you guys like this. All 2 of you that'll read this. If you have issues with this list, please post a comment. If you guys have any feedback, please post a comment. If you want to fight me over my criticism of TPAB, leave a comment and I'll wreck you 1v1 noscopes fox only final destination.

Merry Christmas all.