2015 has – by any standards – been an extraordinary year for music.
Looking back over the year's main releases, the Clash team have been struck by the sheer breadth of sounds and ideas being thrown in our direction.
We're close to the end of our countdown, and even in this small sample you can find indie, left field electronics, spoken word and more. As we say, it's been a helluva year.
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10. Flako – 'Natureboy'
Clash said:
"'Natureboy' serves as an adept education on equilibrium, an accomplished piece of artistry which is prolific in its worldly influence but never self-indulgent enough to get lost in it."
9. Real Lies – 'Real Life'
Clash said:
"Lyrically fascinating, charmingly vulnerable and compulsively danceable – this is how to do a debut. It's an album that you're going to listen to in someone's kitchen when you're feeling invincible on a Friday and the one you'll cry to on the tube on Monday, contemplating the meaning of life. It's also one of the most important albums of 2015 so far."
8. Father John Misty – 'I Love You, Honeybear'
Clash said:
"The alter-ego of Josh Tillman, drummer and harmoniser of Fleet Foxes (remember how brilliant they were?) has taken the world by storm with his raucous stories, huge sound, TV appearances with massive orchestras and blend of heart-breakingly beautiful melodies and cheery pop songs, all with a hint of weird."
7. Sleater-Kinney – 'No Cities To Love'
Clash said:
"They keep us waiting 10 long years, and this is what we get? This… this… This absolutely golden, skin-electrifying, guts-knotting album-of-the-year contender. I appreciate that absence is supposed to make the heart grow fonder, but bloody hell: ‘No Cities To Love’ goes and bursts vital organs from the outset, flat-lining any expectations of a will-this-suffice comeback and representing, quite probably, this band’s best-ever album."
6. Darkstar – 'Foam Island'
Darkstar said:
"The North and the Northeast especially are in quite desperate times. Someone told me the other day, that by 2017 there won't be a public library open in Liverpool. I imagine that type of thing will happen earlier in Huddersfield. It's pretty grim. I mean, it's a beautiful place but what's going on up there in terms of austerity is fairly severe. I don't think anyone knows just how severe yet. And I don't think they will until they get to that point. But I think there will be a real harsh reaction once all the cuts are implemented, the welfare cuts especially."
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Check out Clash Albums Of The Year: 50 – 41
Check out Clash Albums Of The Year: 40 – 31
Check out Clash Albums Of The Year: 30 – 21
Check out Clash Albums Of The Year: 20 – 11
