Top Ten Albums of 2016

I’ve pretty much accepted that I will never complete this list before the end of January, let alone the end of the year. I’ve got no excuse for this aside from pure laziness (though I was in Peru for all of January, but that should be no reason why I didn’t get it done in December).

While 2016 had a number of releases from big name artists including Beyonce, Kanye, Chance, Frank Ocean, Bon Iver, James Blake, and Radiohead (just to rattle off a few), as a whole, I was slightly disappointed with the year when compared to 2015. While it is by no means as disappointing as 2014 was for me, many of these releases from these big artists didn’t really live up to their hype for me. All this being said, there were plenty of albums by artists new to me that really surprised me. Stuff like Helado Negro’s Private Energy, Injury Reserve’s Floss, or Laura Gibson’s Empire Builder really impressed me (along with several others, but I don’t want to spoil the list).

Anyway, I’ve done enough deliberating as it is; it’s time for my top ten favorite albums of 2016. As usual, I’ll leave a link to a Spotify playlist of my favorite tracks and singles of the year at the end of the article.