Top 100 Music Albums of 2015 by RockyRaccoon

For more, check out my 2015 Honorable Mentions chart here: http://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=25272

Chart updated: 09/20/2022 20:15
(Created: 01/06/2015 23:31).
Chart size: 100 albums.

There are 26 comments for this chart from BestEverAlbums.com members and Top 100 Music Albums of 2015 has an average rating of 92 out of 100 (from 37 votes). Please log in or register to leave a comment or assign a rating.

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3. (=)

If I've Only One Time Askin'

Daniel Romano

One of the greatest qualities that country music can have is pure honesty. Country music often sounds like the "music of the people", it's relatable, you hear a country singer lament about a woman or someone's death or something and it sounds like it's coming straight from the heart. That's what country *can* be at least, within the past 10-15 years or so, country has stagnated a bit, more apt to glamorize the idea of being a "redneck" and blue-collar society than anything else, but Daniel Romano isn't about that. Romano is making an old-time country record with his own feel. He's got a voice about as close to Willie Nelson as I've ever heard, and a gift for melody that's just about as good as Willie ever had. Romano feels authentic, he feels honest. When he sings "What do you get from lovin' me/Why is our marriage in danger/Cause I get more happiness from a bottle/And get more love from a stranger", you feel his pain, you feel the broken marriage, the distanced lovers who once were so close, you feel like you just eavesdropped on a private conversation he was having with his wife. Romano's songwriting ability is absolutely top-notch, he takes his broken heart, his whole soul, and lays it bare for us to see. This album is full of old country sentiments, but it doesn't sound like it's trying to imitate old country note-for-note, rather this is Romano taking the influences he has and making it all his own, and with that, he has made one of the best country albums of the decade.

Highlights include: "Old Fires Die", "I'm Gonna Teach You", and "Let Me Sleep (At The End Of A Dream)" [First added to this chart: 08/05/2015]

Year of Release:

2015

Appears in:

15 charts

Rank Score:

Rank in 2015:

Rank in 2010s:

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Average Rating:

Comments:

12. (=)

Goon

Tobias Jesso Jr.

Tobias Jesso can write a song. Like, seriously, he's an impressively good songwriter. The whole album is exceedingly simple, it's mostly just Jesso and a piano, but you don't need a whole lot more than that with Jesso's songwriting ability. He harkens back to the piano-focused songwriters of the 70s, the Randy Newman's, Harry Nillson's and Elton John's of the world. Structurally, his music sounds very similar to Newman, his use of seven-chords to create a little bit of an unexpected feel in the middle of a nice ballad is exceptionally Newman-like. Vocally, he sounds very much like Nillson, just in the way his voice sounds, the timbre and everything. But he doesn't sound derivative of them, he doesn't sound like a cheap imitation, he sounds influenced, but he's his own person. Lyrically, this album is very strong, Jesso's lyrics are intensely personal and beautifully written. It's a special album for sure. [First added to this chart: 03/30/2015]

Year of Release:

2015

Appears in:

91 charts

Rank Score:

248

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Average Rating:

Comments:

49. (=)

Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress

Godspeed You! Black Emperor

At this point, Godspeed You! Black Emperor has acquired a well-deserved reputation for a band that consistently puts out quality post-rock albums. They are the definition of the big, epic, quiet-then-loud type of post-rock that's become so popular, and they could just do that exact type of thing over and over again and probably do just fine. But they don't, they continue to grow and change, and on this album (their shortest since their debut) they show a bit of a drone side to them. While the album moves fairly quickly (40 minutes is a blip for a GY!BE album), it flows together exceptionally well. The middle has the dip where the big powerful beginning falls into a drone that ultimately climbs right back up and becomes larger than life again. This is what GY!BE does and they do it well, and they took what they're good at and added a little more. While this album isn't "Lift Your Skinny Fists" or even "Allelujah, Don't Bend! Ascend!", this is still a really great release. [First added to this chart: 04/07/2015]

Year of Release:

2015

Appears in:

120 charts

Rank Score:

398

Rank in 2015:

Rank in 2010s:

655

Overall Rank:

3,661

Average Rating:

74 (238 votes)

Comments:

54. (53)

Poison Season

Destroyer

Every time I hear a Destroyer album, I'm just so impressed by it, just from a compositional standpoint. It was the same way with "Kaputt" and here again with "Poison Season". This album continues along in the same vein as "Kaputt", with the slow, sad atmosphere, and expands upon it. The string arrangements are absolutely beautiful, and Dan Bejar's voice fits in perfectly with them. The album as a whole is just so well-composed and so well executed that it's staggering, Bejar is quite the songwriter, and he hasn't shown any signs of weakness yet. If you liked "Kaputt", then no doubt you'll like this too. [First added to this chart: 09/30/2015]

Year of Release:

2015

Appears in:

148 charts

Rank Score:

571

Rank in 2015:

Rank in 2010s:

451

Overall Rank:

2,717

Average Rating:

76 (193 votes)

Comments:

55. (54)

Are You Alone?

Majical Cloudz

When you think of what a "sad" album would sound like, you generally might think of an album that is full of "pity me" lamentations, an album that you listen to when you feel like crap because "hey, this guy felt like crap too". Are You Alone is a sad album, but it's not your typical sad album, this is an album that's telling you "sadness isn't bad, it's life, and that's ok, there's needs to be a little bad with the good". It's a sad album that's reassuring, that comforts you like a warm blanket. Throughout the album there's constantly keyboards in some form, whether it's a light organ filling everything out or a harsher synth, it's always there, giving you a floor to lie down on, the music never drops out (though even if it did, it'd still fit in). Devon Welsh's voice is intimate, it feels like he's singing directly to you from his heart, it's personal and it feels like it, both lyrically and musically, and it makes for a beautiful, emotional listen. [First added to this chart: 10/28/2015]

Year of Release:

2015

Appears in:

26 charts

Rank Score:

150

Rank in 2015:

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Average Rating:

Comments:

91. (90)

Sun Coming Down

Ought

Ought are quirky, and strange, and odd, and that's what makes them unique, that's what makes this album something that stands out from the crowd. They have this Pixies-like weirdness that comes off as endearing rather than off-putting. If you heard their last album, then you've got a pretty decent idea of what this sounds like, the music is all over the place, it's antsy, it's always trying to move around and move forward, but that doesn't make it sound disjointed, rather it sounds cohesive, yet still gives you the image of an ADD kid getting distracted by everything that moves. It's fun, it's interesting and it's kind of jarring, but it's a great album. [First added to this chart: 10/02/2015]

Year of Release:

2015

Appears in:

94 charts

Rank Score:

353

Rank in 2015:

Rank in 2010s:

735

Overall Rank:

4,064

Average Rating:

77 (97 votes)

Comments:

99. (98)

Art Angels

Grimes

The entire music world has written ad nauseam about this album, so it's hard for me to say anything new. I give Grimes a lot of credit for making as big of a stylistic switch as she did with this album. Everyone was looking for Visions Part II and she gave us something entirely different, and probably better than whatever Visions Part II would've sounded like. At first, this kind of sounds like an over-the-top attempt at art pop, but as you listen, you realize that this is Grimes' commentary on pop music. We cover just about every style of pop, from dark synth-pop, to singable, glossy pop, to straight-up club tunes, you've got it all here, and it kind of feels like a retrospective on modern pop music. This works equally as an artistic statement, and as a pop album, and that's what makes it so unique and so interesting. [First added to this chart: 01/14/2016]

Year of Release:

2015

Appears in:

515 charts

Rank Score:

4,154

Rank in 2015:

Rank in 2010s:

Overall Rank:

434

Average Rating:

79 (638 votes)

Comments:

Total albums: 7. Page 1 of 1

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Top 100 Music Albums of 2015 composition

Artist	Albums	%

Artyom Manukyan	1	1%
Passion Pit	1	1%
VHÖL	1	1%
CHVRCHES	1	1%
Judicator	1	1%
Mini Mansions	1	1%
Oneohtrix Point Never	1	1%
Show all

Country	Albums	%

	59	59%
	11	11%
	7	7%
	4	4%
	4	4%
	3	3%
	3	3%
Show all

Top 100 Music Albums of 2015 chart changes

Biggest fallers
Down 1 from 51st to 52nd MCIII by Mikal Cronin
Down 1 from 52nd to 53rd Hand. Cannot. Erase. by Steven Wilson
Down 1 from 53rd to 54th Poison Season by Destroyer

New entries
Traveller by Chris Stapleton

Leavers
Running On Machinery by Megan Slankard

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Top 100 Music Albums of 2015 ratings

Average Rating:

92/100 (from 37 votes)

Showing latest 5 ratings for this chart. | Show all 37 ratings for this chart.

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Rating
Date updated
Member

Rating	Date updated	Member	Chart ratings	Avg. chart rating
90/100	02/01/2023 21:35	Moondance	455	85/100
85/100	02/01/2023 14:35	Johnnyo	2,020	80/100
90/100	02/01/2023 09:23	Tamthebam	555	85/100
100/100	07/17/2020 22:53	Rhyner	1,382	99/100
90/100	07/17/2020 20:17	StefanR10	83	88/100

Rating metrics: Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some charts can have several thousand ratings)
This chart is rated in the top 1% of all charts on BestEverAlbums.com. This chart has a Bayesian average rating of 91.8/100, a mean average of 92.7/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 93.4/100. The standard deviation for this chart is 7.1.

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Top 100 Music Albums of 2015 comments

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Rating:

90/100

From Moondance 02/01/2023 21:40

Really enjoyed checking out this year chart - the effort you put in to writing up such thoughtful comments puts this chart in a realm of its own. As an observation, I think it is too US-centric. Nice to see 3 Aussie albums make the cut.