20 ALBUMS
11. SONGS OF EXPERIENCE - U2 The band spent the 90s and Noughties changing their sound but now seem to be happy with being U2. While Songs of Innocence was a raucous memory of the band’s Irish youth, Experience is more personal after Bono’s “brush with mortality” with songs like Love Is All We Have touching the heart. 13. LUST FOR LIFE - LANA DEL REY She hasn’t really changed her style since Video Games – Hollywood fascination, glamour, doomed young love, dark stories and 60s pop – but why change what you do so well. It’s particularly evident on Tomorrow Never Came and the cinematic Love. 14. 4:44 - JAY-Z The title track sees the rapper apologising to wife Beyonce. “I apologize for all the womanizing/ Took my child to be born to see through a woman’s eyes.” Those turned off by his boasting on Magna Carta Holy Grail may return to Jay-Z. He’s never been more vulnerable. He even references the lift attack by Beyonce’s sister in Kill Jay Z. 17. MELODRAMA - LORDE SHE’S been given the role of Kate Bush for the selfie generation. An intense, slightly weird female singer who understands more than her years should. Her second album is a musical Instagram thread of a life many young women are leading. 18. HARDWIRED..TO SELFDESTRUCT - METALLICA Boom. For modern metal fans, this is a cracker of a beast. A double album, it sounds closer to Master of Puppets than anyone could have dared hope for. 12. SLOWDIVE SLOWDIVE The shoegazer’s first album since Pygmalion in 1995 is manna for the soul. While 22 years is a long time to get lost, the band don’t disappointment with swirling dreampop songs from Slomo and Sugar for the Pill. 15. COMMON PROBLEM - THE LAFONTAINES We all know by now about this Motherwell outfit’s unique blend of styles, dance, rock, rap, pop and drum and bass all blitzed together somehow to devastating effect. Here, though, there’s a revolution as rapper Kerr Okan unleashes his rage at an industry that’s shunned his band’s sugar-sweet choruses and glorious pop melodies in favour of Ed Sheeran. 16 HARRY STYLES HARRY STYLES Not since Robbie left Take That and tried to be Oasis has a pop star so blatantly tried to gain credibility. But Sign of the Times was an epic that Noel would be lucky to write nowadays. Taking its cue from LA rosk songs like Kiwi showed the album wasn’t just one song. 19, ALL WE HAVE IS NOW ELEPHANT SESSIONS The Inverness group won the Scots Trad Music Awards album of the year for All We Have is Now. They mix traditional folk with modern grooves as well as jazz and bluegrass. Check Wet Field Day first for an upbeat power punch that will have you jigging in your living room. 20. LUV IS RAGE 2 - LIL UZI VERT Did you know there was such a thing as emo hip hop? Me neither, but Symere Woods from Philadelphia is one of a new breed or rappers fusing them together on songs like The Way Life Goes: “I know it hurts sometimes but you’ll get over it”.