Now that we’ve crossed the haflway threshold, all mid-year stragglers have had their chance to make it for consideration. The year is long, but we’ve seen some incredible records hit the deck in the last two seasons, with hip hop making a remarkably strong showing. Check out Crave’s picks for the Best Albums of 2015… at least so far.
Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly
To Pimp a Butterfly is a work of art – an angry, indulgent, romantic blast of self-critique and declaration inside a molotov cocktail. A dense jazz flourish of racial narratives, throwback soul and confident funk, this sociopolitical barometer is better than we hoped for – and our hopes were damn high.
Dr. Dre – Compton
The end of an era is upon us, and the brilliance of the goodbye sets a gorgeous new jewel in Dre’s hip hop crown (read our review). It’s clear from every second of the recordings to the promotional framework that Dre’s intent is to wax nostalgia on a tricked future ride, and it works damn well in all its complicated bells & whistles.
Wild ambition is met with a familiar soul and astoundingly airtight accomplishment on Andre Young’s most politically aware and ambitious album yet. Hats off to a veteran champion slugging back to the top with nearly flawless design, and walking the best walk an icon OG ever could: he’s dedicating all profits from Compton to an arts center in the beleaguered town.
Action Bronson – Mr. Wonderful
Action Bronson’s latest album is not unlike icon assassinations and lost virginities; a cinematic blaze of Scorsese glory too perfect to be real. Each song feels like a home-game overtime triumph, each track building to the grandest of finales: a sensational track called “Easy Rider”.
This is why he topped our SXSW bill this year. Picture this if you will: as Bronson’s set concludes, just as on Mr. Wonderful, “Easy Rider” is greeted with arena-level roars in the club. The man led the crowd in the repeated closing line: “Ride the Harley into the sunset” as the track’s motorcycle sounds blasted through the PA. When the chant-along hit full unison, Bronson tossed the mic over his shoulder in a hilariously obnoxious arc, and with right hand raised in a throttling motion stepped offstage and into the crowd. A trail of blunt smoke followed the double-wide superstar locomotive as he moved to and through the exit with what seemed like the whole venue in tow. He rolled round the corner and up the block, leading a throng of fans in a victory lap down 5th ave to the roaring chant of “Bronson! Bronson!”
That’s the feeling Mr. Wonderful leaves you with.
Doomtree – All Hands
We’ve been waiting YEARS for this news: remarkable Minneapolis hip-hop collective Doomtree has delivered an impeccably powerful return, which we celebrated with a headlining set at Crave’s SXSW show this year.
The title nods to the nautical rally cry, “All hands on deck,” and the album stands as the most collaborative and cohesive project the crew has yet produced. The production from Cecil Otter, Lazerbeak, Paper Tiger, and P.O.S twists through 13 booming tracks, building the raw and epic soundscapes that the group has become well known for, while adding more of-the-moment musical elements and techniques for a genre-spanning effect. This is the sound of old friends fine-tuning their craft, both together and individually, for over a decade, and it shows.
Lyrically, All Hands sounds hungry as all hell. The three-year gap between Doomtree albums has given each of the five emcees substantial time to grow as solo artists, and the group’s return finds everyone tour-tested with plenty to prove. Sims, P.O.S, Mike Mictlan, Dessa, and Cecil Otter drive home razor-sharp cadences, hard-hitting punchlines, and monstrous choruses, passing the spotlight back and forth until the house lights come up.
Father John Misty – I Love You, Honeybear
“My ambition, aside from making an indulgent, soulful, and epic sound worthy of the subject matter, was to address the sensuality of fear,” Tillman explained in an open letter about the album (read our review), “the terrifying force of love, the unutterable pleasures of true intimacy, and the destruction of emotional and intellectual prisons in my own voice.”
He has undoubtedly succeeded. Since meeting his future wife Emma in 2011, Joshua Tillman – better known as Father John Misty – has transformed from a beacon of coy narcissism to a gracefully mordant romantic. I Love You, Honeybear is, quite literally, a collection of songs detailing Tillman’s love for this woman, and the road of excess, indulgence and raunch that lead him to her. It’s a nakedly open documentation on love, true love, its myriad consequence on the spirit, and feels entirely as much. Brimming with orchestral strings and oddities like the occasional mariachi band, ragtime jazz combos, electronic drum solos and beyond (“I’m pretty sure there’s a sitar in there somewhere,“ Tillman muses), the album embraces a lush atmosphere that’s dauntingly, classically romantic.
6. Chelsea Wolfe – Abyss
7. Hot Chip – Why Make Sense?
8. Sufjan Stevens – Carrie & Lowell
9. Courtney Barnett – Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit
10. JD McPherson – Let The Good Times Roll
