The Red Headed Stranger and the Boss broke hearts , revealing their anxieties as each meditated on legacy and mortality, and FKA twigs warped heartache and depression into the most glinting sounds of tomorrow imaginable. LP smashed through the public consciousness. Extreme lyrical confession is the mode du jour, and the real winners are us, the listeners. These are the best albums of Nearly a decade into her dizzying career—one full of futuristic sounds, dreamy vocals, and physics-defying dancing—British born artist Tahliah Barnett arrived with her finest work yet as FKA twigs in It's incredible to see Earl Sweatshirt completely reject popular hip hop music. After his breakthrough solo album, Doris, it seemed that he was primed to be the next big star in the genre.

15. Jaime by Brittany Howard
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Metascore: User Score: 8. The second full-length release for the Welsh artist features a guest appearance from John Cale. The fifth full-length studio release for the singer-songwriter features new sparser recordings with just her voice and guitar of several tracks from 's All Mirrors. User Score: 7.
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The album won't go down without a fight. As the algorithmic thinking of the streaming music era tightens its grip on the record industry and consumer listening habits, artists are still writing and recording collections of new material, releasing them as cohesive units on specific dates, and suggesting that you listen to them in a pre-established order. As a format for enjoying multiple songs and a way of thinking about creative development, it remains essential. Even with all its tumult, didn't change that. There's always good new music out there, providing the soundtrack to the highs and lows of daily life. Sometimes it comes from a new artist you've never heard of before; sometimes it comes from a reliable veteran you perhaps stopped listening to consistently.
Clubs are closed. So are bars and arenas and coffee shops and theaters. But while live music has come to a terrifying halt , artists have been anything but silent during the coronavirus crisis. Musicians are currently bringing their art directly to their fans through live streams, surprise releases, and digital concerts. And we need it now, perhaps more than we have in a long time, for comfort and escape, and to make sense of the world around us. Acts like Waxahatchee and Fiona Apple have released albums that are—in hindsight—prescient snapshots of our current time, whether they offer beacons of hope or solitary musings on individuality and the human spirit. Others, like Jamie xx, have gifted surprise releases as a welcome distraction from the world around us; tracks that are primed for quarantine dance parties and nightly releases of pent up energy.