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. Yet in this world of plenty, they’ve continued to keep the album in an exalted place, one where they make a bid for serious amounts of their audience’s fractured time. From Radiohead to Frank Ocean to both Knowles sisters to Leonard Cohen, 2016 was an embarrassment of riches from major artists. Highly personal and flowing concept records like A Seat at the Table landed alongside tightly sequenced song-cycles like Singing Saw, genre-hopping experiments like Emily’s D+Evolution, and drifting slabs of ambient music like For Those Of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have). These are the best albums of 2016.
Kanye West, A Tribe Called Quest, David Bowie, Beyoncé, Leonard Cohen, Radiohead, Bon Iver—who didn’t release a record this year? These are the best of a challenging, rewarding, overall epic year.
