Year in Review: Best Albums of 2016
December 30, 2016
2016's been terrible! Well, at least that's been the common narrative. Losing icons like Prince, Bowie, Maurice White, Phife Dawg, and George Michael (it's been rough...), in one year offers credence to many of those sentiments. But, for everything we lost we got a little ray of sunshine through the music these artists left us with, as well as other artists. Bowie and Phife offered two, now posthumous albums with Blackstar and Thank You 4 Your Service... We Got It From Here; some great music from young artists like KING, Chance The Rapper, and Nao; TWO albums from Frank Ocean (don't think anyone saw that coming); Radiohead even put out an album - their first release in five years. 2016 also saw artists at the peak of their commercial relevance offer solid projects, as Beyonce, Rihanna, and Kanye West's respective albums matched, or exceeded, many expectations. Musically, there's not much more you could ask for over the course of a year. So, without further ado here are the top 20 albums for 2016:
20. Terrace Martin — Velvet Portraits
19. Robert Glasper Experiment — ArtScience
18. KING — We Are KING
17. Rhianna — ANTI
16. NAO — For All We Know
15. Esperanza Spalding — Emily’s D+Evolution
14. Chance The Rapper — Coloring Book
13. Bruno Mars — 24K Magic
12. KAYTRANADA — 99.9%
11. Saba — Bucket List Project
10. Radiohead — A Moon Shaped Pool
9. David Bowie — Blackstar
8. Kanye West — The Life of Pablo
7. Kendrick Lamar — untitled unmastered
6. Childish Gambino — Awaken, My Love!
5. Beyonce — Lemonade
4. A Tribe Called Quest — Thank You For Your Service… We Got It From Here
3. Frank Ocean — Blonde
2. Solange — A Seat At The Table
Anderson .Paak — Malibu
