THE 20 BEST ALBUMS OF 2016 (SO FAR)
The first six months of 2016 held more blockbuster releases than a good year sees in twelve. Stars such as Beyoncé, Kanye West, Rihanna and Drake all dropped their long-anticipated new 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.
ANDERSON PAAK
MALIBU
One of rap’s fastest-rising stars effortlessly fuses jazz, soul and hip-hop on his sophomore effort.
ANOHNI
HOPELESSNESS
The bewitching vocalist marries social consciousness and cavernous synths on her ambitious electro-pop debut.
ARIANA GRANDE
DANGEROUS WOMAN
Last year, the album listeners weren’t expecting came from Carly Rae Jepsen. This year, it’s from Grande, a bona fide star whose Dangerous Woman didn’t need to be particularly good to win over fans and sell singles — lucky for us; it is.
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.
BEYONCÉ LEMONADE Lemonade’s release was a capital-E event. But divorce (get it?) Beyoncé’s sixth album from its high-art short film and controversy, and it’s still possibly her most compelling work to date, dipping into guitar rawk and classic country before closing with a fiery statement of female power that captures Bey atop 2016’s pop throne.
CAR SEAT HEADREST TEENS OF DENIAL Singer/songwriter Will Toledo channels ’90s greats such as 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.
CHAIRLIFT MOTH A frothy glass of sleekly crafted pop songs, whose whip-smart lyrics and hummable hooks go down easy.
CHANCE THE RAPPER COLORING BOOK The Chicago rap protégé gets a proper come-out with Coloring Book, a gospel-rap classic with big-name collaborators (Justin Bieber, Kanye West) who never come close to stealing the spotlight.
DAVID BOWIE BLACKSTAR A stirring coda for the late music icon, who continued exploring new sonic terrain as he confronted his own mortality.
DVSN SEPT. 5TH Drake and dvsn may share a label, a Toronto hometown, a 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 debut album eclipses that of their more famous benefactor.
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.
KENDRICK LAMAR UNTITLED UNMASTERED From Kanye tacking songs onto the end of Pablo to Future’s nearconstant mixtape releases, rap’s biggest star’s 2016 has been a prolific year for rap’s biggest stars, but the music’s quality does 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 melodies and starkly emotional stories.
PINEGROVE CARDINAL 1990s alt-rock isn’t the most fashionable starting point for many young bands. Luckily, Pinegrove eschews the irony, making twangy pop punk that traces the emotional lives of its young protagonists in stark detail.
RADIOHEAD A MOON SHAPED POOL The British quintet’s longawaited return does not disappoint, as they continue to infuse their polarizing brand of stadium-ready art rock with existential dread and gutwrenching melancholy.
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, one of the most confounding, and interesting, releases of her career.
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.
TEGAN AND SARA LOVE YOU TO DEATH The most ambitious statement of their career, this 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.