Photo by Allyce Andrew
For the rest of the year, we'll be spotlighting our KEXP DJs Top Albums of 2015. Click here to check out other lists from our DJs, staff, volunteers, and interns, and click here to see the Top 90.3 Albums of 2015, as voted on by KEXP listeners!
Hi y'all! 2015 was a great year of music so here's a big 'ol list of things I loved this year. 'Cause our listeners are so great, I added another entry to my Top 10, too! (Also, because the Grimes album came out after I submitted my original list, so there's that...) So, in no particular order, here's my Top 11 of 2015. Click through for links to songs and videos! Other albums I enjoyed this year are listed below, so go crazy.
Sean's 2015 Top Ten Eleven Albums
artist album label U.S. Girls Half Free 4AD Mommy Long Legs Life Rips EP + Assholes EPself-released Beach House Depression Cherry Sub Pop Chastity Belt Time to Go Home Hardly Art No Joy More Faithful Mexican Summer White Poppy Natural Phenomena Not Not Fun Kendrick Lamar To Pimp a Butterfly Top Dawg Entertainment TheeSatisfaction EarthEE Sub Pop Pinkshinyultrablast Everything Else Matters Shelflife Viet Cong Viet Cong Flemish Eye Grimes Art Angels 4AD
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Guitar / Indie Pop / Dream Pop / Shoegaze / Noise Pop / Ambient Pop / Slowcore / Punk Stuff I Loved This Year (bold denotes the album produced a crazy feeling of *_* and / or ^_^)
Sarah Bethe Nelson - Fast-Moving Clouds Jenny Hval - Apocalypse, Girl Jim O'Rourke - Simple Songs Tamaryn - Cranekiss DIAT - Positive Energy Screaming Females - Rose Mountain Speedy Ortiz - Foil Deer Jessica Pratt - On Your Own Love Again Sui Zhen - Secretly Susan Lemon Meringue Die - Nobody Wouldn't See Good Things Braids - Deep in the Iris Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - A Year With 13 Moons Girlpool - Before the World Was Big C.C.T.V. - C.C.T.V. (7") Blank Realm - Illegals in Heaven Regal Degal - Not Now Julia Holter - Have You in My Wilderness Downtown Boys - Full Communism Royal Headache - High Deaf Wish - Pain Pixx - Fall In GABI - Sympathy Colleen Green - I Want to Grow Up Ava Luna - Infinite House Nicole Dollanganger - Natural Born Losers Echo Lake - Era Hinds - Very Best of Hinds So Far Shilpa Ray - Last Year's Savage Westkust - Era Shopping - Why Choose Laura Groves - Committed Language Circuit Des Yeux - In Plain Speech Ducktails - St. Catherine Chelsea Wolfe - Abyss Widowspeak - All Yours Molly Nilsson - Zenith Joanne Robertson - Black Moon Days Cold Beat - Into the Air Mac DeMarco - Some Other Ones
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Synth Pop / R&B / Electronic / Ambient / Drone / Weird / Experimental / Funk / Techno / House / Dance / Bass / Rap / Meditative Stuff I Loved This Year
Thundercat - The Beyond / Where the Giants Roam Adesse Versions - Wash My Soul (12") + Pride (12") Beat Detectives - Climate Change Elysia Crampton - American Drift Fit Siegel - Carmine (12") Lil B & Chance the Rapper - Free (The Based Freestyles Mixtape) Dam-Funk - Invite the Light Jlin - Dark Energy Kelela - Hallucinogen Cherushii - Memory of Water DJ Richard - Grind Rahel - Alkali Felicia Atkinson - A Readymade Ceremony Negative Gemini - Real Virtual Unison Alexandria - Bad EP Vince Staples - Summertime '06 Eartheater - RIP Chrysalis Hidden Spheres - Waiting (12") Main Attrakionz - 808s & Dark Grapes III Lifted - 1 Ahnnu - Perception Smurphy - A Shapeless Pool of Lovely Pale Colours Suspended in the Darkness Holly Herndon - Platform Dasha Rush - Sleepstep Colleen - Captain of None TALsounds - All the Way Sean McCann - Ten Impressions for Pianos and Strings F ingers - Hide Before Dinner Oneohtrix Point Never - Garden of Delete Floating Points - Elaenia Julio Bashmore - Knockin' Boots Bullion - Rooster Prurient - Frozen Niagara Falls The Mystic Jungle Tribe - Solaria Chaos in the CBD - Midnight in Peckham Paper Dollhouse - Aeonflower Co La - No No Earl Sweatshirt - I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside Loke Rahbek & Puce Mary - The Female Form Young Thug - Barter 6 Future - DS2 Pearson Sound - Thaw Cycle (12") Visionist - Safe Travis Porter - S.A.Q. Grant - The Acrobat Surfing - Surfing John T. Gast - Excerpts Len Leise - Lingua Franca Fit of Body - Health Is Wealth Vol. 1 Lil Jabba - Keep V/A - Workshop 21 (12") Rae Sremmurd - SremmLife Gesloten Cirkel - M-011 (12") + M-012 (12") Palmbomen II - Palmbomen II DMX Krew - There Is No Enduring Self Frank & Tony - Apprentice EP CFCF - The Colours of Life Nef the Pharaoh - EP Kornél Kovács - Radio Koko Lolina - Relaxin' With Lolina FIS - The Blue Quicksand Is Going Now Kuedo - Assertion of a Surrounding Presence Anthony Naples - Body Pill Father - Who's Gonna Get Fucked First? Denzel Curry - 32 Zel / Planet Shrooms Chicklette - Unfaithful Aurora Halal - Shapeshifter J.G. Biberkopf - Ecologies FKA twigs - M3LL155X Yves Tumor - When Man Fails You Everything on Lisbon's Príncipe label (esp. Nidia Minaj and Niagara)
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Compilations / Reissues I Loved This Year
Sounds of the Universe: Art & Sound 2012-2015 I Can't Give You the Life You Want Sunset Silk [Cease & Desist] DIY! (Cult Classics from the Post-Punk Era 1978-1982) Trevor Jackson Presents: Science Fiction Dancehall Classics Musik for Autobahns 2 Arthur Russell - Corn Dance Mania: Ghetto Madness Sounds from the Far East Lil Noid - Paranoid Funk Fatima Yamaha - What's a Girl to Do (12") Planète Hurlante Ata Kak - Obaa Sima Shinichi Atobe - Ship-Scope (12") Vincent Floyd - I Dream You (12") Patrick Cowley - Muscle Up Mariah - Utakata No Hibi
Local Stuff, All Genres, I Loved This Year
Strategy - Noise Tape Self Bardo:Basho - Bardo:Basho DoNormaal - Jump or Die Raica - Dose Potatohead People - Big Luxury La Luz - Weirdo Shrine Cat Hoch - Look What You Found Freak Heat Waves - Bonnie's State of Mind ILLFIGHTYOU - CASHINTHEBATHROOM Childbirth - Women's Rights Weed - Running Back Nacho Picasso & Blue Sky Black Death - Stoned & Dethroned Project Pablo - I Want to Believe Pony Time - Rumours 2: The Rumours Are True Pender Street Steppers - The Glass City / Golden Garden (12") Natasha Kmeto - Inevitable Briana Marela - All Around Us Lilac - Dream Journal Jack J - Thirstin' / Atmosphere (12") Helen - The Original Faces G.L.O.S.S. - Demo Cindy Lee - Act of Tenderness Destroyer - Poison Season Wimps - Suitcase CC Dust - CC Dust (12") Hibou - Hibou Vexx - Give and Take (7") Sister Girlfriend - Knock Nail Polish - Abrupt Crater - (Singles) iji - Whatever Will Happen Casual Hex - Sex Cells Midday Veil - This Wilderness Valet - Nature
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Sean is on the air every Thursday morning from 1AM -6AM. You can follow his musings on Twitter [@seanmorroww ] and check out old and new music he posts on Tumblr .