1. EMELI SANDÉ “Our Version of Events” (Capitol) It’s mostly the voice: clarion clear and full of judiciously doled-out power. This British soul singer’s unerringly beautiful debut album is all bright colors and bold shapes, loud as a sunrise.
2. TAYLOR SWIFT “Red” (Big Machine) Tay Tay goes Day-Glo on the most unexpected moments of this album, her fourth and the first that stops pretending she’s anything but a pop megastar, one with grown-up concerns, like how two bodies speak to each other and how taste in records can be a stand-in for moral turpitude.
3. WAXAHATCHEE “American Weekend” (Don Giovanni) Purple bruises, charred tatters, scattered breaths: only images of devastation can capture this album. Waxahatchee is the new project of the ex-punk singer-songwriter Katie Crutchfield, and it’s bracing, blinding, self-lacerating stuff, the sound of pure emotional asphyxiation.
4. FRANK OCEAN “Channel Orange” (Def Jam) It’s funny how much ink was wasted on Mr. Ocean’s secrets, especially when this album, his debut, was as transparent as they come. His lyrics about fractured relationships are narratively detailed and emotionally precise and simmering in slow-stew funk and soul.
5. KESHA “Warrior” (Kemosabe/RCA) Pulse and thump and cowabunga: Kesha is on a fun rampage. Her second album comes without apologies — she’s going to rap, O.K.? And sing. And sneer. And schmooze with Iggy Pop. And write some of the smartest, most timeless pure pop of the day. And forget it all in the morning.
6. KENDRICK LAMAR “good kid, m.A.A.d. city” (TDE/Aftermath/Interscope) Mid-1990s rap from someone who grew up on it and took careful notes. Mr. Lamar is an outrageously good technician who, on this major-label debut, examines how a boy gets manhandled by society until he becomes a man, if he ever gets there.
Continue reading the main story7. NAS “Life Is Good” (Def Jam) Mid-1990s rap from someone who set the blueprint. Nas has strayed far but this homecoming, his 10th album, was invigorating. Once a young seer, he’s now a veteran using the tools of his youth to heal old-man wounds.
8. TNGHT As a style Southern hip-hop hasn’t been native to the South for some time, but now it doesn’t have to be native to hip-hop either. TNGHT is a team-up of electronic music producers — Hudson Mohawke and Lunice — with a beastly, thundering, buoyant sound on this self-titled EP (Warp/LuckyMe) — 960 seconds long, none of them dull.
9. FUTURE “Pluto” (A-1/Freebandz/Epic) A study in the beauty of decay. In places Future is happy to dwell on strip clubs and drugs, and is good at it. But then he starts applying disorienting effects to his voice, and the songs turn darker and vulnerable. He’s a blustery hero and a bleeding cyborg — at the same damn time.
10. LEE BRICE “Hard 2 Love” (Curb) Country music’s new machismo is all internal, male singers flaunting scars the eye can’t see. Of these Mr. Brice is the best, an unflamboyant singer whose ballast-heavy songs hold steady through the tears.
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