Music & Films for
Common People
Semper femina
laura marling
49
Marling is unable to deliver something that isn't elegant and passional at once. Her songwriting is deep and forceful, and she dares to go out of some comfort zones to be at her most stylistically varied point in her career.
painted ruins
grizzly bear
48
Painted Ruins is complex and demanding, the most elaborated side of the spectrum of indie rock-pop, but still quite accessible for wider audiences. The instrumentation is able to evoke a wide range of emotions and atmospheres that enrich the listening experience.
orc
oh sees
47
The ever-changing name of the band reflects their ability to reinvent themselves with evry album. Adding slight metal touches to their psychedelic rock, they explore a more violent and dense sound; here's a band that doesn't stop in their ambitious explorations.
pleasure
feist
46
Once the most cheerful woman in alternative music, Leslie Feist continues the evolution line of her sound with a much more raw style that gets closer to PJ Harvey. It's the most empowering and defying that we've ever seen her, and that's a very welcome turn.
Okovi
zola jesus
45
A deep exploration of life and death, Okovi displays a masterful production and instrumentation to take the dark and cold atmospheres of Danilova beyond her usual gothic ice kingdom to a ferocious battle to the underworld.
Villains
Queens of the stone age
44
Even if by the end of the year, Josh Homme decided to turn himself into a true music villiain, this album offered a new path for the band, flirting with dance music to create a postmodern version of classic rock and roll that still holds their incendiary attitude.
near to the wild heart of life
japandroids
43
If the sound remains mostly similar, the vibe behind their songs has entirely change; they have changed the youth nostalgia for hope and certitude. This third album doesn't explode immediately like Celebration Run, but builds a fire that illuminates our dark times.
Uyai
ibibio sound machine
42
Uyai is a triumph for music made within the African continent, because not only it crafts a potent sound full of cross-cultural references that take tribal rhythms to modernity, but also does it while dealing with complex themes of liberation and female empowerment.
50 songs memoir
the magnetic fields
41
A beautiful conceptual album that is composed by one track for every year that Stephen Merritt has lived so far. It is a beautiful love letter to himself while being petulant, and a testament of life and recent history through the eyes of a single individual.
take me apart
kelela
40
With the same spirit of 90's R&B pop divas like Aaliyah and Destiny's Child, Kelela puts together a great collection of sexy and subtle tracks coated with hints of contemporary minimal dark electronics that are an over stimulation to the senses.
the witch
pumarosa
39
Indie rock with vintage touches that remind us of the best from the 90s, Pumarosa offers one of the best debuts for a British band this year. They play with dark atmospheres and a very focused instrumentation to create an album that never loses its momentum.
Ash
ibeyi
38
Ibeyi's mix of R&B, electronic music and tribal rythms represents the richness of a cosmopolitan cultural exchange. Ash is a combination of the past and the present, of magic and reality, of their historic background and their goals as female musicians.
4:44
jay-Z
37
The strength of Beyoncé's Lemonade forced Jay-Z to reinvent himself as a man and as a musician, and both of this versions are very clear in 4:44. It's a mature and honest rap album that delves into themes of race, gender, and very surprisingly, love.
arca
arca
36
This bold and inventive effort show us an artist very compromised with his craft; Ghersi dares to go to places where other musicians rarely dare to go to show us the endless possibilities that sonic art has to offer, pushing boundaries and challenging the listener.
Visions of a life
wolf alice
35
One of the most exciting rock bands right now dares to go in very different lines for each of their new tracks, from intimate shoegaze to raging punk, as if they were teasing 12 potential bands, but assembles them in a way that the whole is entirely cohesive.
infinite worlds
vagabon
34
An intimate but powerful rock album that let us into the mind of Tamako, and explores ideas of identity in gender, race and migration. Laetitia Tamako is decided to make her voice heard in an averse world, so this album is, over all, an act of bravery.
nothing feels natural
priests
33
Priests exposes their frustrations with modern society in a powerful punk album, charged with electrifying riffs and a passionate vocal performance. A non-conformist band daring to raise their fist and shout some existential truths, while exploring punk possibilities.
crack-up
fleet foxes
32
The musical compositions that are contained in Crack-Up are a demonstration on how folk music can keep evolving and showing new textures and arrangements. The richness in its harmonies and its poetic lyrics are compelling and transgressive.
capacity
big thief
31
Capacity is sweet and contemplative, a big leap for a band that has just moved to an upper league by baring their emotions and giving the right space to each of the elements they use. It's indie folk rock that goes straight to the heart and leaves a deep mark.
drunk
thundercat
30
If we let slip the occasional microsexism in there, Drunk is an inventive and entirely fun R&B album that plays with instruments and rhythms to create a funky mood that is suave and elegant. Here's a versatile album that always have a good surprise around its corners.
lotta sea lice
courtney barnett & Kurt Vile
29
Like long-lost soulmates, Barnett and Vile have an undeniable chemistry, and this pair of misfits who are in discomfort with the social structures, channel their energies in clever music for "uncool" people that is plagued of witty lyrics and amazing riffs.
V
the horrors
28
The Horrors keep finding ways to evolve their sound in meaningful ways. V is modern new-wave done right, a perfect connection between deep introspection, thoughtful structure and, for the goth standards of the band, even some pop enjoyment.
The underside of power
algiers
27
Mixing gospel, industrial noise and punk, Algiers denounce the institutionalized racism that has never stopped and that now, in the verge of a fascist regime in the United States, needs to be addressed with the same ferocity that this band displays.
rest
charlotte gainsbourg
26
The intertextuality of Gainsbourg's art reveals intricate levels of complexity in her explorations on the possibilities of synthetic music. With all the shiny synths in Rest, in the whole she still appears as a raw artist enjoying the emotional liberation of her art.