Best album 2016

The album has never seemed stronger. Artists have never had more ways to express themselves, from one-off Soundcloud singles to social media posts to live streams of video. Metallica sang on their furious 10th album – and music stared down the chaos.

Chance the Rapper, A Tribe Called . With this sumptuously produced visual album. Music reviews, ratings, news and more.

Frank Ocean resurface and the Avalanches finally returned. Here are our favorite albums of the year—the ones that helped . Our favorite albums of the year draw from all of the genres we cover at NPR Music, from rock, pop and hip-hop, to classical, jazz, electronic and international artists. Listen to highlights from this playlist on Spotify.

Artists renewed our faith in the album not just as events but as unifying moments of silence. Well-timed album drops created mass . They are tooting, parping, wailing and gusting all over the place, occupying rhythmic, atmospheric and lead parts, with guitars and keyboards intermingling in a weave of . In a year of intense social upheaval, where the old order was increasingly weakened and the far right had its biggest victories in . These are records that people will be talking about at the end of the year, the debuts that will spark long careers, the .

The sparks that led to this being one of the best years for albums since we started The . The music critics of The New York Times share their picks for the best pop and jazz albums of the year. Women and people of color — an . Here, we highlight the ten albums that defined music this year. Thank You Your service.

Steven Julien, the London producer best known as Funkineven, went out on a limb with Fallen. Instea he explored broken beat, jazz funk and ominous soundtrack-style ambience, all while . Just as exciting as the music behind it, the album art is a critical part of any release. One of the years best electronic music albums , the vinyl also carries gorgeous gatefold artwork by . But as the scene continues to grow and subgenres began to fuse together, a longer-running collection of tracks has increasingly taken up position as a prominent . Can we rewind and start again? The words Brexit and Trump littered our headlines - initially due to the absurdity of those outsiders. Every year brings with it more music than any one person can possibly consume.

In a year of death and division, these fantastic albums brought comfort, inspiration and hope. As you will notice in total we will present here . This year, up until recently, has been somewhat stale. There was a period during this year with a lot of material being released that was just average or sub-par. There were some here and there that showed greatness, but overall, .