Nobody’s short of lists in December but why hold back? Here are my songs, albums and articles of the year.
First up, my songs of the year (minus Joanna Newsom and other streaming refuseniks) are on Spotify in a three-hour highlights version and the full six-hour marathon.
My Top 40 albums of 2015:
- Father John Misty – I Love You, Honeybear
- Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly
- Courtney Barnett – Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit
- Joanna Newsom – Divers
- New Order – Music Complete
- Chvrches – Every Open Eye
- Carly Rae Jepsen – Emotion
- Laura Marling – Short Movie
- Tobias Jesso, Jr – Goon
- Vince Staples – Summertime ‘06
- Django Django – Born Under Saturn
- Julia Holter – Have You in My Wilderness
- Tame Impala – Currents
- Belle & Sebastian – Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance
- Miguel – Wildheart
- John Grant – Grey Tickles, Black Pressure
- Donnie Trumpet & the Social Experiment – Surf
- Kacey Musgraves – Pageant Material
- Blur – The Magic Whip
- Destroyer – Poison Season
- The Chemical Brothers – Born in the Echoes
- A$AP Rocky – At.Long.Last.A$AP
- Jamie Woon – Making Time
- Wire – Wire
- FFS – FFS
- Hot Chip – Why Make Sense?
- Baio – The Names
- Sufjan Stevens – Carrie & Lowell
- East India Youth – Culture of Volume
- Panda Bear – Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper
- Hudson Mohawke – Lantern
- Kurt Vile – b’lieve I’m goin’ down…
- Grimes – Art Angels
- Blanck Mass – Dumb Flesh
- Guy Garvey – Courting the Squall
- The Libertines – Anthems for Doomed Youth
- Jessica Pratt – On Your Own Love Again
- Four Tet – Morning/Evening
- Susanne Sundfør – Ten Love Songs
- Shamir – Ratchet
Some articles I enjoyed reading:
Swoonatra by Ian Penman (London Review of Books)
Lady Gaga Goes to the Middle by Lindsay Zoladz (New York)
We’ll All Go Down Together: Billy Joel Says Goodbye to Nassau Coliseum by Maura Johnston (The Concourse)
Taylor Swift Is Definitely in Her Zone by Jia Tolentino (The Muse)
The Franzen of It All: ‘Purity’ and the great American Novelist by Brian Phillips (Grantland)
The X Factor review by Julia Raeside (The Guardian)
Was Banning Tyler, the Creator the Victory International Feminism Needed? by Julianne Escobedo Shepherd (Jezebel)
Age of ‘Compton’: NWA With Artifical Sweeteners by Wesley Morris (Grantland)
The death and life of the great British pub by Tom Lamont (The Guardian)
Unfollow by Adrian Chen (The New Yorker)
The Third Revelation of Father John Misty by Sean Fennessey (Grantland)
Some articles I enjoyed writing:
Attack of the feminist superheroes (The Guardian)
Kendrick Lamar interview (The Observer)
Remembering Amy Winehouse (Billboard)
The Libertines interview (The Guardian)
The stagnation blues (The Long + Short)
How the compact disc lost its shine (The Guardian)
Chuck D interview (The Guardian)
The sound of the year:
DORIAN LYNSKEY is the author of 33 Revolutions Per Minute: A History of Protest Songs, published by Faber and Faber (March 2011) and Ecco (April 2011). He writes for the Guardian, The Word, Q, Spin and Empire.