Two years later, and Isbell produced something just as great. Jason Isbell, formerly of the Drive By Truckers, reached widespread critical acclaim with his solo debut previous album I thought was his debut, Southeastern.
#8: Something More Than Free | Jason Isbell Dancing On The Grave serves as the most intimate and well.passionate look into Angelakos' psyche where he begs the listener to " come and celebrate, we're dancing on the grave". More downtempo and happier than previous Passion Pit (much of which has to do with front man and songwriter Michael Angelakos' bout with bipolar disorder), Kindred offered a more personal touch than Manners or Gossamer, which helps balances out the departure from the traditional Passion Pit style. In return, I only got the 9th best record of the year. After Lifted Up (1985) and Where The Sky Hangs, my excitement for this album was through the roof. This is without a doubt Passion Pit's worst offering, and that speaks volumes. The best way I can describe this album is what you think electronic music should sound like, very bold and purposeful, yet intricate and layered. Dangerous is the standout of the album, but Snowed In and Perfect Holiday are not far behind. Every song on this album sounds so incredibly distinct (due in no small part to the different features for vocals), but at the same time so coherent. This is a feature heavy piece, but that's far from a bad thing, especially when your feature list includes Joywave, Jamie Lidell, Rivers Cuomo, and Twin Shadow. #10 is a 10 track debut from Big Data, spearheaded by the bass-heavy Dangerous. Yes, you read Carly Rae Jepsen, we'll get to that later. But that's how stacked this year is, that Florence Welch, the best dang vocalist on this Earth, and A$AP's Rod Stewart feature psych rap albums don't even make the cut. I personally love every single one of those albums and it pains me to leave them off. Something I just learned by putting this list together, don't judge a year based off of what's on top of a list, but rather the bottom. How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful | Florence + The Machine AT.$AP | A$AP Rocky In Color | Jamie xx Surf | Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment Emotion | Carly Rae Jepsen Our Love | Caribou With that said, let's start cracking heads. It's quite fine to disagree with something. There's going to be something you loved that I didn't include or ranked too low, just as there's bound to be something I put high that you absolutely hated. Of course, this list is subjective, and yours will probably look different. To make sure this isn't just one person's opinion, Poseur will be joining to share his list and nominations.
There were sophomore albums that lived up to or exceeded the bar set by their predecessor, there were debut albums that shattered the glass and demanded attention, there were artists who have maintained the quality of work they have released during the years, and there were surprising, out of the blue drops that gave everyone whiplash. So in order to break from the non-stop thinkpieces about Miles, let's have a fun little debate and rank our top 10 albums of the year. This year was an absolutely huge year in music, probably the biggest of the 10's thus far. Oh, it's not like you didn't see this coming. Note: Given that last offseason's lists seemed to be pretty popular, we thought we'd bring them back in a more weekly format - Billy.