These are my picks for the best LPs of the year. Scroll down to see what made it to the bottom.
1) IMMUNITY – JON HOPKINS Icy, post-dubstep beats click, pop, lock, and stutter over ambient synths and strings on the most rhythmically interesting album of the year.
2) NEPENTHE – JULIANNA BARWICK Get lost in an ocean full of the layered, angelic calls of the blissfully voiced Barwick.
3) SEASONS OF YOUR DAY – MAZZY STAR "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is the name of the game on this duo's beautiful comeback album.
4) WALKIN' ON A PRETTY DAZE – KURT VILE Unlike Spacemen 3, Vile doesn't need to take drugs to make music to take drugs to. Check out my full album review here.
5) MONOMANIA – DEERHUNTER Cox and company went back to punk rocking, which obscured the melodic pleasures of their new LP a bit. Sitting with it for a year revealed the infectious songs beneath the discord.
Why they are getting so much year-end love is confusing. Their music is over-produced, saccharine, and their lead singer Lauren Mayberry's voice is too cutesy. They can write melodies and have some tricks up their sleeve, but they need much more sonic range.
As a die-hard Radiohead fan, I was totally disappointed with this inert, aurally dull album. Thom Yorke's lyrics are also at an all-time low with him regurgitating common tropes and idioms. MBV and Tommorrow's Harvest are on here not because they were awful, but because both failed to break new ground in any major way. The same could be said for Mazzy Star but they were never groundbreakers the way these other three bands are.
 Her voice and production are shrill, and her music is bland and devoid of edge. There is absolutely nothing special about Katy Perry. Sky Ferreira is a close second. She held so much promise on her Ghost EP, but her debut is boring, Eighties inspired fluff with some of the most dull, no-fun lyrics of the year. When she gets weird on songs like "Omanko," you can hear her potential to be more interesting. Get weird, Sky.
Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think in the comments below. Happy New Year!
