Another year comes to a close and so a year-end wrap-up of the best albums must be done. The biggest trend this year in my personal listening was to embrace artists off the beaten path more. Of course, long-time greats like Charli xcx and Waxahatchee were played more than others, but a large portion of this list comes from artists that either came from nowhere or were only slightly on my radar in years past. It’s the result of needing to expand my horizons in certain fields and also simply those artists leveling up their sound. Also of note will be the amount of widely-loved albums that will not appear here; albums from Beyoncé, Vampire Weekend, Kendrick Lamar, and Tyler The Creator certainly weren’t the most exciting releases I engaged with this year and so I’m promoting more interesting work from lesser-known artists.

I hope the list ended up an eclectic summation of the best albums from any genre or any popularity status, and that it’s dissimilar enough from the hundreds of other year-end lists put in front of us in December.

40. Navy Blue – Memoirs in Armour 

39. Tinashe – Quantum Baby

38. Floating Points – Cascade 

37. Chief Keef – Almighty So 2 

36. Chuquimamani-Condori – Find Me 

35. Mach-Hommy – #RICHAXXHAITIAN 

34. Fennesz – Mosaic 

33. Los Campesinos! – All Hell 

32. Djrum – Meaning’s Edge 

31. Kelly Moran – Moves in the Field 

30. Friko – Where we’ve been, Where we go from here 

29. Hurray for the Riff Raff – The Past Is Still Alive 

28. Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere 

27. Jeff Parker & ETA IVtet – The Way Out of Easy 

26. Still House Plants – If I Don’t Make It, I Love U 

25. Helado Negro – PHASOR 

24. Loidis – One Day 

23. KA – The Thief Next to Jesus 

22. Julia Holter – Something in the Room She Moves 

21. Sabrina Carpenter – Short n’ Sweet 

20. Rafael Toral – Spectral Evolution 

19. Adrianne Lenker – Bright Future 

18. Astrid Sonne – Great Doubt 

17. Cassandra Jenkins – My Light, My Destroyer 

16. Tyla – TYLA 

15. Arooj Aftab – Night Reign 

14. Nilüfer Yanya – My Method Actor 

13. Bladee – Cold Visions 

12. Mabe Fratti – Sentir Que No Sabes 

11. Mk.gee – Two Star & the Dream Police 

10. Nala Sinephro – Endlessness

9. Mannequin Pussy – I Got Heaven

8. Magdalena Bay – Imaginal Disk 

7. Mount Eerie – Night Palace 

6. Kim Gordon – The Collective 

5. MJ Lenderman – Manning Fireworks

4. Jessica Pratt – Here in the Pitch 

3. Cindy Lee – Diamond Jubilee

2. Waxahatchee – Tigers Blood

1. Charli xcx – BRAT 

Thank you for reading!