By Siddharth Jejurikar ’16, Entertainment Editor
2015 has been a fantastic year for music. Many artists, both experienced and novice, released albums this year that astounded critics and commercial audiences. In this list, I will tell you the five albums from this year that had the most profound effect—whether in the music industry, the emotions of the listener, its cultural significance, sales-wise, or some mixture of all of these.
5.) Beauty Behind the Madness by The Weeknd
Coming off of the critical acclaim of his previous Trilogy and Kiss Land, The Weeknd’s newest LP, Beauty Behind the Madness, blew up as his first massive chart-topper. In this album, Abel Makkonen Tesfaye unleashes a raw look at his inner-self and his struggles with drugs, sex, and crime. A brilliantly produced album, Beauty Behind the Madness can be insanely catchy while still being lyrically and musically creative. A great case study for this ability is the track “Can’t Feel My Face”, which I am sure many of you have heard on the radio several times by now. Metaphorically comparing cocaine to a woman, Tesfaye describes its simultaneously destructive and alluring nature in the song, which is set along to an instrumental that is high-energy and melodic. My personal favorites from the album are the tracks “Losers” and “The Hills”, both of which utilize nearly-flawless production work that highlights and emphasizes their tonal themes. “The Hills” especially divulge a feeling of utterly hopeless depravity, and I mean that in the best way possible. Overall, Beauty Behind the Madness is an excellent album that demonstrates The Weeknd’s tonal mastery.
4.) The Epic by Kamasi Washington
Some people say Jazz is over; it left its golden age in the 40s behind to a world without any respect for the genre. Kamasi Washington takes that statement and completely turns it around with his first solo album, The Epic. The Epic is a testament to the past, drawing distinct influences from the likes of Coltrane and his free-jazz contemporaries, but is also a very modern album in a lot of ways. It uses lounge stylings that have been popularized by Lana Del Rey and features modernist musicians like Thundercat, a bassist who played a major role in the production of Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly (featured at number one on this list). Kamasi Washington uses The Epic as a vessel to make jazz more accessible to modern audiences, and is successful in doing so. The only short fall of this album is its daunting length, reaching almost three hours of straight jazz. This can make the album difficult to listen to, but it is certainly worth it to both lovers of jazz and newcomers to the genre.
3.) Currents by Tame Impala
Led by front-man Kevin Parker, Tame Impala has been a major player in the indie-rock and psychedelic-rock scenes since their first album in 2010, Innerspeaker. Their music has an aura of mystery and an ethereal feel, but lacks much of the edge and bitterness of shoegaze bands from the 90s that invented the whispering, almost ghost-like tone. Lyrically, Parker uses each song as a vehicle to tell personal stories and observations on the world. Though his song-writing ability is not groundbreaking, his songs to have a good amount of relative meaning. Parker took the reins on this album, writing and recording most, if not all, of the album on his own. The result was Currents, a multifaceted work that emulates the vocals of shoegaze greats like Loveless while utilize appealing melodies from pop in an unbelievably successful way.
2.) Carrie and Lowell by Sufjan Stevens
When his mother died in 2013, Sufjan Stevens began work on this album, Carrie and Lowell, dedicated to her and his memories of her. Named after his mother and step-father, Carrie and Lowell is an emotional trip to Oregon full of acoustic sounds and nostalgic lyrics. A multi-instrumentalist and prolific artist, Stevens has released six albums before this, including other acoustic-heavy albums and most recently Age of Adz, an electronic album. With Carrie and Lowell he returns to his roots with a very hi-fi indie-folk sound, and pulls it off brilliantly. The sadness that his soft voice portrays is unrivaled, with songs like “Fourth of July”, which discusses the inevitability of death, provoking emotions that are relatable to everyone. Though Carrie and Lowell is a personal album, its ability to be touching to anyone who has lost people close to them is what makes it powerful.
1.) To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar
Not only did this record have an incredible impact on the world of music, but also on the world in general. In To Pimp a Butterfly Kendrick Lamar uses a massive cast of producers and musicians such as the psychedelic-funk legend George Clinton and Jazz Saxophonist Kamasi Washington (whose solo album reaches number four on this list) to create an album that bridges the gap between jazz, funk, and hip-hop. Smooth transitions between each track amplifies the importance of each song and makes the album feel much more like a single work rather than a simple collection of different 4 minute pieces with varying quality. But all of these factors only support the greatest point of the album: Kendrick Lamar’s lyrical mastery. Themes of survivor’s guilt, death, crime, consumerism, and alcoholism all surround the highly metaphorical and deeply rhythmic language that is used throughout the album. Songs like “Blacker the Berry” and “Alright” also reach a level of historic significance considering current events in America: the killing of unarmed black men throughout the country and general police brutality and the start of a new era of civil rights, surrounded by the Black Lives Matter movement. To Pimp a Butterfly is labyrinthine and heavily layered, reaching deep into Kendrick Lamar’s personality and into the soul of America today.
