Best music of 2015...so far

We're six months into 2015, and it is already shaping up to be one of the best.years. ever. for music. Classic albums in almost every genre are being released on the regular, and even the quiet weeks present some great music for our pleasure.

There have been so many solid releases in just half-a-year, I don't know how the second half can match it, but there are already signs that it could happen – Kanye! Frank Ocean! Tame Impala! Titus Andronicus! Carly Rae Jepsen! Disclosure!

I didn't think it would be this difficult to narrow down my list of the best albums thus far to 25, but that's a great reflection of the year we've had. Here's hoping the rest of the year keeps the streak alive.

Best albums so far (arranged alphabetically)

1. At.Long.Last.A$AP – A$AP Rocky

Rocky gets woozy and weird, and even sings to great effect on "L$D."

2. Coming Home – Leon Bridges

Click here to read my full review. 

3. Kintsugi – Death Cab for Cutie

Click here to read my full review. 

4. What A Terrible World, What A Beautiful World – The Decemberists

Click here to read my full review. 

5. Surf – Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment

Click here to read my full review. 

6. If You're Reading This It's Too Late – Drake

Click here to read my full review. 

7. I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside – Earl Sweatshirt

Easily my favorite album name of the year, if not ever. A lonely, dark and engaging listen. 

8. I Love You, Honeybear – Father John Misty

Click here to read my full review. 

9. Tetsuo & Youth – Lupe Fiasco

Lupe's best album in a long while, it shows his lyrical dexterity and sonic risk-taking. 

10. Goon – Tobias Jesso Jr. 

Click here to read my full review. 

11. To Pimp A Butterfly – Kendrick Lamar

Click here to read my full review. 

12. Strange Trails – Lord Huron

Absolutely lovely apocalyptic folk music, with a serious undercurrent of early rock. 

13. Dreams Worth More than Money – Meek Mill

The most cinematic and escapist hip-hop album of 2015 so far. It also benefits greatly from being buckets of fun.  

14. Wildheart – Miguel

Miguel injects psychedelia into his baby-making soul, and comes up with his most adventurous album yet.  

15. Pageant Material – Kacey Musgraves

Musgraves' second album is quieter than her debut, but no less stellar. Probably the loveliest album of the year. 

16. The Waterfall – My Morning Jacket

Click here to read my full review. 

17. QUARTERBACKS – QUARTERBACKS

Twee-punk done right. An album about love that gets under your skin in 22 minutes flat.

18. Uptown Special – Mark Ronson

My favorite album of the year for night driving. Sounds great with city lights flying by the window. 

19. Ratchet – Shamir

Click here to read my full review. 

20. Summertime '06 – Vince Staples

Click here to read my full review. 

21. Traveler – Chris Stapleton

Could well be the best country album of the year. This guy has a voice that'll just rock you back. 

22. The Epic – Kamasi Washington

The best jazz album I've heard in years. A three-disc monster that fully lives up to the name. 

23. Ivy Tripp – Waxahatchee

Click here to read my full review. 

24. In Colour – Jamie xx

Click here to read my full review. 

25. Second Hand Heart – Dwight Yoakam

Click here to read my full review.

Album of the Week: Jamie xx In Colour

It is tricky to write about something when you're not fluent in the vocabulary of the subject you're writing about. When I wrote about Dwight Yoakam's great new album the other month, I detailed my growing appreciation for country music, which was relatively easy to do, because I know the vocabulary of country music. I (for the most part) am familiar with the important eras, artists and the instruments they use in that genre.

It's a little trickier for me this time around, with Jamie xx's glorious debut solo album, In Colour, because I don't know a whole hell of a lot about electronic music. I've been a casual fan for a handful of years, and I know Daft Punk (thanks to Kanye West) and LCD Soundsystem, as well as a few modern artists like Avicii and Porter Robinson, but I certainly can't write with any authority on the genre's history. Which is a shame, because there have been some really well-written pieces on In Colour, pieces that cover the many references and throwbacks Jamie makes to the early days of English techno throughout the album.

However, you don't have to be any kind of electronic music expert to appreciate how incredibly beautiful In Colour is in every way, from the album art and production to samples and recording. It just sounds marvelous. Especially at night. In your car. Or at home. Anywhere, really.

Jamie is one third of The xx, a fantastic electronic-pop group out of England that really blew up a few years ago. They're working on their third album currently, and I'll be interested to see how In Colour informs that album. This album still sounds a lot like The xx, particularly since bandmates Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim both show up on a song or two. Croft's voice is still a fucking stunner, particularly when she coos, "I go to loud places/to search for someone/to be quiet with/who will take me home," on "Loud Places." Her delivery comes off like a whisper, but the way Jamie builds her voice up through backing vocals and some seriously gorgeous guitar lines makes the lyrics hit you in the sweetest possible way.

I dig electronic that is a bit more chill – stuff that you can dance to if you really wanted, but is more for swaying. And while I am by no means saying In Colour is a somber album, I'd characterize it more as subdued. Jack Ü this isn't, but there are some great builds and beats for those who are fans – see "Hold Tight" and "Just Saying," to get a sense of what I mean.

I mentioned it above, but I really have to dive in a little more on the recording and production, which is just luminous. Every instrument, beat, sample and vocal sounds like they were recorded on the highest quality equipment imaginable. The clarity improves every facet of the album's sounds. I have no idea how Jamie managed it, but I have a hard time believing there will be an album this year that will just sound anywhere as good as this.

In Colour is very much a cohesive album, in the spirit of electronic music, and flows together seamlessly. I've heard (and made) all kinds of jokes about the electronic music that gets played in the club and how it all sounds like one song, but Jamie provides a through-line that unites everything, while allowing each track to have its own spirit and sound.

The highlight of the album (and now my leading contender for song of the year) is "I KnowThere's Gonna Be (Good Times)" an absolute stunner of soul, electronic, reggae and hip-hop that completely burrows into your mind and stays there. It features Young Thug and Popcaan – two of the most exciting voices in hip hop and reggae, respectively - and they just go in over a Persuasions sample. Thug is back on his silly rap shit, and he's untouchable when he's in the zone, even when he's delivering batshit crazy lines like, "I'ma ride in that pussy like a stroller/I'll survive in a mothafuckin' gutter." I have no idea what that first line even means, but he makes me grin like an idiot every time. You can see why hip-hop artists like Drake tap Jamie for producing when they can – the guy can deliver on the hooks like nobody's business. I fully expect to listen to "Good Times" almost incessantly this summer, and I know I won't be the only one.

It's reductive and dismissive to say In Colour is an electronic album for those who don't like (or don't know) they like that music – instead, it's an album open to all, with plenty to dig through for purists and appreciators alike. It gives listeners a thrilling chance to see the world through one captivating artist's eyes – in brilliant color.

In Colour is out on Young Turks.

Album of the Week: Dwight Yoakam Second Hand Heart

Has Dwight Yoakam always rocked this hard?

Does country have some redeeming qualities?

Has my whole life been a lie?

These are the types of surprising questions you ask yourself when you come across something or someone great in a genre that you'd previously written off.

One of the best things about taking an eclectic approach to music (or any art medium, really) is that you can never really turn your back on any genre – definitions in music tend to be fluid things, and there's no telling when someone will came along and completely change the game. Sometimes these figures change it for everyone (your Miles Davis, your Bob Dylans, your Kanye Wests), but there are also artists who change things for you as a listener – artists who make you appreciate sounds or nuances to a genre you never did before.

For me and country music, Dwight Yoakam may just be that game changer.

A little background: country music has never really been my thing. As a kid in the 90s I'm fairly certain I listened to Garth Brooks (because, judging by the amount of people I saw wildin' about his return to touring, everybody my age did), though I couldn't tell you any of his songs now. For the longest time the only country I liked were the classics – Patsy Cline (still my favorite country singer, full stop), Johnny Cash and Hank Williams – and some of the early 2000s outlaw country – Hank III and Shooter Jennings. In recent years I've found a lot to like in the "newer" generation – Eric Church, Sturgill Simpson, Kacey Musgraves, Jamey Johnson and Miranda Lambert – but tended to skip everything between Cash and Lambert's Four the Record.

My one outlier was Yoakam's 2012 album 3 Pears, which hooked me hard on first, second and twenty-fifth listens. For my money, it's an underrated country gem that nowhere near enough young people pay attention to. Not knowing much about Yoakam at the time (he was just a name I'd heard country fans mention), I thought perhaps it was one of those rare great albums in the second half of an artist's career.

Now I'm forced to grapple with the first question I posed above, and after listening to Yoakam's fifteenth (!!!) studio album, Second Hand Heart, I think I have an answer – fuck yes.

Yoakam's second album is called Hillbilly Deluxe, a name that could just as fittingly apply to Second Hand Heart, which continues to embody what a producer told him when working on his first album in the 1980's – a sound "so hillbilly, they're going to call it rock 'n' roll."*

The rock vibe is there from the word go on the album, with "In Another World's" furious acoustic guitar riff and Tom Petty-esque electric guitar lines. In the middle of the song Yoakam breaks out harmony work that wouldn't be out of place on a Beach Boys track, and throughout the number he shows off his vocal range by going low and then sending his voice soaring above the music. He also has this kind of hiccup thing he does on a few words that is perhaps the most country thing I've ever heard.

He keeps up the strong vocal work on "She," wonderfully yelping his way through a plea for a woman to share herself and her heart with him. The song is hook-filled anthem that ably represents so much of what makes Second Hand Heart great – fantastic guitar work, an infectious melody and some stellar vocals.

Yoakam has the tears-in-your-beers front covered as well, with slower songs like "Dreams of Clay" and "Off Your Mind" – the latter of which is a right out of the Hank Williams stylebook and it's fantastic. History even gets a rockabilly update in Yoakam's Chuck Berry-infused cover of "Man of Constant Sorrow."

Guitar work is front and center on the album, and Yoakam taps into the style of some of his peers – specifically Tom Petty and John Mellencamp – who came up in the late 70s and early 80s. I'm not sure if this kind of folk-guitar rock is the secret carry-over from the 80s (as opposed to say, whatever the hell all that hair metal was), but Yoakam certainly treats it as if that's the case.

Album closer "V's of Birds" starts out like it's going to be some piano-driven weeper, then morphs into a sound-alike of "What A Wonderful World," before it settles into what it actually is – the prettiest damn song here. It has the most diverse instrumentation – not only incorporating the piano, but also an organ and mandolin – and Yoakam gives the lyrics the perfect lift and melancholy.

Yoakam was touring with Eric Church earlier this year as the opener, and I think that's a great match – Church is one of the most interesting artists modern country has to offer, and hopefully many of the young people who go to the shows (and Church himself) paid attention when he hit the stage. Yoakam shows all the signs of being in a legendary album run, and we're all lucky to be around for it.

Second Hand Heart is out on Warner Brothers.

*(The quote came from a lovely piece by NPR's Ann Powers that you can read here.)