50 Best Albums of 2017 So Far

We Say: Seemingly exhausted with the burden of constantly pushing hip-hop forward into concept operas, electric Miles explosions and Flying Lotus electronic burbles, Damn. seemingly takes a classicist route to rap music. If To Pimp a Butterfly was the best rap album in 2015, Damn.is the platonic ideal of the best rap album of 1995, a dazzling display of showy rhyme skills, consciousness-raising political screeds, self-examination and bass-crazy-kicking. Kendrick has many talents – pop star, avant-garde poet, lyrical gymnast, storyteller. But here he explores what we traditionally know as a “rapper” more than on any of his albums to date. The rhymes on songs like “DNA,” “Element,” “Feel,” “Humble” and “XXX” come fast, furious and almost purist in nature. In an era where “bars” seems almost old-fashioned in the age of Drake’s polyglot tunesmithery, Young Thug’s Silly-Putty syllable stretching and Future’s expressionist robo-croak, Lamar builds a bridge to the past.

We Say: Drake calls his superb new More Life a “playlist,” not an album or even a mixtape, yet that might be why it sounds so expressive, so emotional, so quintessentially Drakean. When you get right down to it, Aubrey Graham is a playlist – a true pop visionary who’s always a fan at heart, an omnivore with a raging appetite for his next favorite sound. More Life is his finest longform collection in years, cheerfully indulgent at 22 tracks and 82 minutes, a masterful tour of all the grooves in his head, from U.K. grime (“No Long Talk”) to Caribbean dancehall (“Blem”) to South African house (“Get It Together”) to Earth, Wind & Fire (“Glow”). 

We Say: Now 20, Lorde signals a new order straightaway, with lonely piano chords where Pure Heroine’s pure electronic palette was. They open the single “Green Light,” a barbed message to an ex who the singer can’t quite shake. The song grows into a stomping electro-acoustic thrill ride, its swarming, processed vocal chant “I want it!” recalling another precocious, hyperliterate, synth-loving auteur singer-songwriter – Kate Bush, who insisted “I want it all!” back in 1982 on “Suspended in Gaffa.” Give Lorde credit for wanting it all too – the massive vistas of electronic music alongside the human-scaled and handmade.

We Say: [O]n his superb solo debut, the One Direction heartthrob claims his turf as a true rock & roll prince, a sunshine superman, a cosmic dancer in touch with his introspective acoustic side as well as his glam flash. He avoids the celebrity-guest debutante ball he could have thrown himself – instead, he goes for a intimately emotional Seventies soft-rock vibe. No club-hopping or bottles popping – it’s the after-hours balladry of a 23-year-old star wondering why he spends so much time in lonely hotel rooms staring at his phone. Harry digs so deep into classic California mellow gold, you might suspect his enigmatic new tattoos that say “Jackson” and “Arlo” refer to Browne and Guthrie.

We Say: Bob Dylan’s third foray into songs previously recorded by Frank Sinatra isn’t only the largest set of new recordings he’s ever released (three CDs, 30 songs), it’s also majestic in its own right. Dylan moves through this area – the region of Sinatra, and also of standards songwriters like Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Hoagy Carmichael, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein – as if it’s territory for him to chart and command. 

We Say: On ÷, his first album since 2014’s X, Sheeran doubles down on the blend of hip-hop bravado and everyday-bloke songwriting that helped him break out at the turn of the decade.The first chart-topper from ÷, the feather-light “Shape of You,” might have hinted at a different direction; it’s a beat-heavy, body-focused track that Sheeran used as a Grammy showcase for his impressive collection of loop pedals. But for the most part, ÷ puts Sheeran and his guitar center stage. 

We Say: Halsey shows off all her wild musical ambitions on Hopeless Fountain Kingdom, a bold second album that consolidates all the strengths of her 2015 debut Badlands. It’s her sprawling science-fiction breakup tale, indulging her taste for wide-screen melodrama – she begins the album by reciting the prologue from Romeo and Juliet, introducing a tale of star-crossed lovers trying to break free from the fatal loins of their families. (Halsey even has a line from Romeo and Juliet inked on her arm: “These violent delights have violent ends.”) But of course, in her hands, it turns into the story of a restless young pop star who jets around the world, leaving shattered hearts in her wake, yet still can’t find true love, admitting, “I have spent too many nights on dirty bathroom floors.”

We Say: Hndrxx, his sixth album, arrives a week after his fifth, Future, an hour-plus collection of menacing thug raps that promptly shot to Number One on the Billboard charts upon release. Clearly, Future doesn’t need to sing urban pop love tunes for mass appeal anymore. Still, the warmth he displays on Hndrxx is striking. … A digital display of computerized delights from over a dozen producers, including Southside, K-Major and Jake One (the mattress-thumping bass drums on “Lookin Exotic”) and DJ Mustard (the Guy-inspired R&B thrust of “Damage”) underscores Hndrxx as a late-night erotic dream.

We Say: He may appear to be a thick-bearded Seventies outlaw-country throwback, but make no mistake: Chris Stapleton is a soul singer, with a preternaturally creaky voice that can turn wizened or brawny, full of pained howls and distended vowels. … Arrangements – for guitar, bass and drums, with touches of steel guitar and harmonica – are spare and lean. Songs smolder rather than blaze, amble instead of bolt, and generally keep the volume reined in. Even “Second One to Know,” a fierce rocker with rhythm guitar that attacks like John Henry’s hammer, still leaves space for Stapleton’s vocals to match it, blow for blow.

We Say: [T]he jazz world gathered uptown to celebrate Coleman, who passed away on June 11th, 2015, at 85 of cardiac arrest. His memorial service, on June 20th at Riverside Church, was an epic procession of memories, praise and music including solo farewells from two veteran improvisers, pianist Cecil Taylor and saxophonist Pharoah Sanders. … Coleman’s service was filmed and recorded with care, and the music made that day is shared, in full, in an appropriately monumental release, Celebrate Ornette. Produced by [Coleman’s son] Denardo and issued by his label, Song X Records, the set – in a five-disc CD/DVD package and a deluxe box with those discs, four vinyl albums and an LP-size book – also contains a June 2014 tribute concert, also called “Celebrate Ornette,” staged at the Prospect Park Bandshell in Brooklyn. That show included Coleman’s last public performance, in a night of homage to his iconic works and creative evolution by peers, sidemen and devotees. Among them: guitarists James Blood Ulmer, Thurston Moore and Wilco’s Nels Cline; saxophonists Henry Threadgill and John Zorn; the Patti Smith Group; and bassist Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

We Say: Run the Jewels 2 was the rare sequel that topped the original, as the skull-busting tag team of Atlanta street intellectual Killer Mike and Brooklyn indie-rap veteran El-P synchronized their punches with the aggro precision of a brilliantly choreographed superhero fight sequence. The third installment, which dropped digitally weeks ahead of schedule on Christmas Eve, thrums with similar urgency, but a lot’s changed since 2014. Mike spent the summer bro’ing down with Bernie Sanders, moonlighting as a CNN talking head, and his no-nonsense anti-racism is increasingly the language of black activism. Meanwhile, El-P’s cyberpunk-tinged premonitions of dystopia sound more like straight-up journalism every day.

We Say: On his new album, the 83-year-old singer probes his own mortality and wrestles with death head-on for the first time on record. … Set to longtime producer Buddy Cannon’s sparse, elegant country arrangements, these songs are brimming with bleak prophecy and spiritual acceptance, as Nelson ponders his eternal home (“Little House on the Hill”), everlasting compassion (“True Love”), and his fallen comrade Merle Haggard (“He Won’t Ever Be Gone”).

We Say: “Picture a shithouse with no fucking drains/Picture a leader with no fucking brains,” snarls Roger Waters near the start of his first proper rock LP in nearly 25 years, unsubtle as a hammer between the eyes. But the grim charm of this set, a 12-track dystopian concept LP that makes The Wall read like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, is precisely his emeritus off-the-leash ranting, a fitting response to the stench and stupidity of our present moment.

We Say: Well, here’s an album nobody thought would happen – the first-ever collabo from Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie. It’s full of surprises, considering we’ve all spent years already listening in on both their private worlds. But these two Fleetwood Mac legends have their own kinky chemistry. When McVie jumped back in the game for the Mac’s last tour, the songbird regained her hunger to write. And Buckingham remains one of the all-time great rock & roll crackpots, from his obsessively precise guitar to his seething vocals. They bring out something impressively nasty in each other, trading off songs in the mode of 1982’s Mirage – California sunshine on the surface, but with a heart of darkness.

We Say: Recorded live in July 2015, this concert LP gathers Jennings’ family and friends with all-star acolytes for the rarest of things: a tribute album that almost never flags, with performances that approach or match the originals. Jennings was both interpreter and writer, and when he claimed a song, he owned it. But the gender flips here are illuminating: Kacey Musgraves teases the pathos from “The Wurlitzer Prize (I Don’t Want to Get Over You),” from Waylon & Willie; Alison Krauss reprises her heavenly cover of “Dreaming My Dreams With You.” Jennings’ running buddies shine, among them Bobby Bare, Willie Nelson, of course, and Kris Kristofferson, whose ravaged “I Do Believe” – Jennings’ masterpiece from their Highwaymen days – is a tear-jerker. 

We Say: What “pop” can be in 2017 is open to question, and on After Laughter Paramore thankfully decides to junk large chunks of the concept as it’s currently practiced. (“I can’t imagine getting up there and playing a Max Martin song – at that point we might as well just stop,” guitarist Taylor York told The New York Times in April, shortly after the album was announced.) Instead, they embrace “pop” as a musical vibe, with a record that’s so sunshine-bright it gives off a glare at times, rooted in fleet basslines and beats made for open-road drives and solo bedroom dance parties. … But while the surfaces of After Laughter might glint, Hayley Williams’ lyrics evince a weariness that makes that brightness seem garishly empty.

We Say: Migos’ second LP doesn’t break from the Ramones-like consistency of the onslaught of mixtapes they’ve released during the past six years, or their official 2015 debut, Yung Rich Nation. The beats are booming, the flows still rattle off like Tommy Guns and there’s dreams about swimming in a pool full of cash. If Migos are indeed the new Beatles, Culture could be any of their pre–Rubber Soul albums: A taut, infectious, reliable, no-bullshit collection of 12 songs, almost all of which could be singles. 

Mis Planes Son Amarte – Juanes’ first studio release in three years and reportedly the first “visual album” by a Latin artist – rewards traditional immersion, taken in full. Made with the Puerto Rican director Kacho Lopez and starring Juanes as a love-struck archaeologist caught in a loop of astronaut flashbacks and earthly, emotional commitments, the hour-long live-action production (with an animated coda) is sleek, earnest and effective in the narrative staging of Juanes’ 12 new songs. It is the blues of loneliness with the funk of desire and tripping-rock vibrations in a stark deep-soul music – Juanes channeling the prime solo George Michael and Seventies records by Donny Hathaway while facing forward with self-assurance. 

We Say: Pleasure, her first LP in six years, trades the sweater-wearing kitchen-jam vibe of her breakthrough The Reminder for a stark intimacy that can suggest Kate & Anna McGarrigle if they’d been big fans of the Young Marble Giants’ post-punk bedroom mumblings or PJ Harvey’s blues-wrath epistle To Bring You My Love. “It’s my pleasure and your pleasure,” Feist sings, her voice low, raw-nerved and right in your ear against dank, stressed-out guitar roil.

We Say: As many of us navigate between headline-driven panic attacks and insomniac social–media tantrums, Pure Comedy distills terabytes-worth of doomsaying Facebook rants into a 75-minute comic-existential opus that functions like a despair inoculation. The humor is strictly gallows, even when it seems quipped. … What makes this more than glib is a golden-era songwriting craft evidently shaped by [Josh] Tillman’s tenure with Fleet Foxes, and his unsparing self-examination.

We Say: The folk-rock band’s long-awaited latest sort of feels like Neil Young’s Buffalo Springfield collage-dream opus “Broken Arrow” if it lasted a whole album. Their sound is still rooted in the lush, beardly harmonies and sky-bound strumming that made their first two LPs coffee-shop staples. But they’ve upped their prog ambitions – tracks wash together, song titles abound with opaque punctuation, and the sweeping melodies often wander into moody places, away from the safety of the campfire.

We Say: The DPs’ self-titled seventh LP is filled with freaky cyber-crooning, outrageous beats, startling sample flips and tasty guitar heroics; think 808s & Heartbreak: The Next Generation. To be sure, it’s a breakup record – presumably involving [leader David] Longstreth’s relationship with ex-Projector Amber Coffman. The sense of separation is palpable. Once defined by talented female singers (Coffman foremost), the band is down to one lonely dude crooning into a digital hall of mirrors. “Now I’m listening to Kanye on the Taconic Parkway, riding fast,” Longstreth reflects on “Up in Hudson,” envisioning an ex “out in Echo Park blasting Tupac, drinkin’ a fifth for my ass.”

We Say: [A] lofty concept piece about a man wandering a desert with a curse over his head set to swirling, frenetic guitars and gut-rumbling drums. The LP is their most ambitious outing since 2009’s proggy Crack the Skye – following two relatively pared-down LPs – and at its best (the radio-ready pop-rocker “Show Yourself,” the triumphal outro of “Ancient Kingdom,” the Zappa-inspired synthesizer-and-bells duet midway through “Clandestiny”) it’s a glorious metal miasma.

The first major-label full-length from Top Dog Entertainment’s SZA (you may remember her from Rihanna’s “Consideration” and collaborations with Schoolboy Q and Jay Rock) is full of hiccuping beats and glitched-out synths. The presence at its center projects immense strength even (and perhaps especially) when she’s expressing self-doubt, as on the sun-dappled “Drew Barrymore.” SZA has a strong, clear alto that fuels the fire of songs like the stuttering move-along command “Broken Clocks,” the filthy and feisty lady-power manifesto “Doves in the Wind” and the vitriolic kiss-off “Supermodel.” It’s no surprise that she more than holds her own amidst big-name guests like Kendrick Lamar and Travis Scott. Power can come from radical honesty, too. 

We Say: Her second LP is louder and more confident than her beguiling debut, steeped deep in electric blues and old-time folk, gilded in country twang and gospel yearning, with a hypnotically gnomish voice that suggests a brawnier Joanna Newsom. Near-perfect front to back, its politics are subtle and sly, mostly implicit and matter-of-fact, transmitted through sketches of lovers and other strugglers. The emblematic song is “Got Soul,” which June croons over Stax/Volt horns, banjo and bluegrass fiddle, celebrating cultural intersection as it’s lived, and defining America’s sustaining greatness in the process. 

We Say: Even when they were screaming Vancouver scrappers recording songs like “Darkness at the Edge of Gastown,” you knew there was a classic rock act at the punk heart of Japandroids. On their third LP, that band is out of the closet. “It got me all fired up, to go far away/And make some ears ring from the sound of my singing, baby!” hollers Brian King on the title track. The song’s about a kid leaving behind his small-ass town for big-ass dreams, and when the voices harmonize on the “whoa-oh!”s, thick with top-shelf reverb, you hear every cheeseball Eighties pop-metal chorus chant in history distilled and vindicated. It’s awesome.

We Say: The breathy voice of London singer/songwriter Sampha Sisay, 27, is a remarkable instrument: indelibly evanescent, fragile yet powerful across his entire range. He’s hook man to pop’s most advanced megastars – see Solange’s “Don’t Touch My Hair,” Kanye West’s “Saint Pablo,” Frank Ocean’s “Alabama,” Drake’s “Too Much” – but his debut LP proves him their peer.

We Say: Van Zandt is, for the first time in many years, focused on his lapsed solo career. … Thanks in part to his proximity to Springsteen and his habit of giving away some of his best songs to other artists (Southside Johnny, Gary U.S. Bonds and, recently, Darlene Love), Van Zandt is among the most underrated songwriters of the rock era. … Soulfire is Van Zandt’s first album since [1982’s] Men Without Women to embrace his signature style … where Stax-Volt horn-section blasts collide with power chords and Motown hooks.