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The Best Albums of 2016

TM, ®, Copyright © 2016 Piero Scaruffi.
History of Rock Music | History of Pop Music
Reviews of 2016 albums | Best of last year | Best albums of all time | Back to music
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
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Ratings: 10=best rock album ever; 9=masterpiece; 8=buy it now; 7=buy it eventually; 6=buy it if you are a fan
Best of Rock Albums
(Read the reviews)

    8/10
  1. Impossible Nothing: Phonemenomicon (no label)
    7.5/10
  2. Julia Reidy: All Is Ablaze (self)
  3. Comet Is Coming: Channel the Spirits (Leaf)
  4. Roly Porter: Third Law (Tri Angle)
  5. Jpegmafia: Black Ben Carson (Trashfuck)
  6. Drose: Boy Man Machine (Orange Milk)
  7. Lonker See: Split Image (Music Is The Weapon)
    7/10
  8. Matmos: Ultimate Care II (Thrill Jockey)
  9. Nicolas Jaar: Sirens (Other People)
  10. Moor Mother: Fetish Bones (Don Giovanni)
  11. Dear Hunter: Act V - Hymns With The Devil in Confessional (Equal Vision)
  12. Parquet Courts: Human Performance (Rough Trade)
  13. Oranssi Pazuzu: Varahtelija (Svart)
  14. Ulrich Krieger: /RAW:ReSpace/ (XI)
  15. Yves Tumor: Serpent Music (PAN)
  16. Equiknoxx: Bird Sound Power (DDS)
  17. Troller: Graphic (Crucial Blast)
  18. 75 Dollar Bill: Wood/Metal/Plastic/Pattern/Rhythm/Rock (Thin Wrist)
  19. Vektor: Terminal Redux (Earache)
  20. Bon Iver: 22 A Million (Jagjaguwar)
  21. Kiran Leonard: Grapefruit (Moshi Moshi)
  22. Necks: Unfold (Ideologic Organ)
  23. Lil Peep:
    Hellboy
    (self)
  24. Young Thug: No My Name is Jeffery (self)
  25. Lycus: Chasms (Relapse)
  26. Run The Jewels: Run The Jewels 3 (BMG)
  27. Blush Response: Rebirthed in the Sprawl (Total Black)
  28. Robert Rich: Vestiges (self)
  29. Charles Rumback & Ryley Walker: Cannots (Dead Oceans)
  30. Jon Mueller: Tongues (Rhythmplex)
  31. Monika Roscher: Of Monsters and Birds (Zenna)
  32. Mare Cognitum: Luminiferous Aether (I Voidhanger)
EPs and Minis
  1. Bebawinigi: Bebawinigi (Strato, 2016)
  2. 7.5/10
  3. Chino Amobi: Airport Music For Black Folk (self), 7/10 (EP)
  4. Drowse: Soon Asleep , 7/10 (mini)
  5. Fucked Up: This Mother Forever (EP), 7/10
  6. Bitch 'n' Monk: We Are Peering Over (Lotus Arts Box)
Songs
( Click here to play them on Spotify (thank you Luke!))
  1. Leonard Cohen: You Want It Darker
  2. Nicolas Jaar: The Governor
  3. Dear Hunter: The Most Cursed of Hands/Who Am I
  4. Empath: Gut Feeling
  5. Run The Jewels: Panther Like A Panther
  6. Bebawinigi Did you Get
  7. Savage Young Taterbug: The Paperstud
  8. Comet is Coming: Star Furnace
  9. Drose: A Change
  10. Danny Brown: Ain't It Funny
  11. Parquet Courts: Dust
  12. Jpegmafia: Digital Blackface
  13. Equiknoxx: Timebird
  14. Parquet Courts: Pathos Prairie
  15. Troller: Not Here
  16. Peder Mannerfelt: I Love You
  17. King Goblin: Garadama
  18. Krallice: Hyperion
  19. Khun Narin: Long Wat
  20. Chino Amobi: Malmo
  21. Andy Stott: On My Mind
  22. Woods: Politics of Free
  23. Run The Jewels: Talk To Me
  24. Ergo: A Conviction
  25. Equiknoxx: Last Of The Mohicans
  26. Julianna Barwick: St Apolonia
  27. Bon Iver: 00000 Million
  28. Lil Peep: Worlds Away
  29. Chance the Rapper: Angels
  30. White Lung: Sister
  31. Stereo Total: Zu Schoen Fuer Dich
  32. Kevin Gates: Ain't Too Hard
  33. Cigarettes After Sex: K
  34. Death Grips: Bottomless Pit
  35. Nick Cave: I Need You
  36. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith: Rare Things Grow
  37. Nails: Made to Make You Fall
  38. Mitsky: Your Best American Girl
  39. Roy Montgomery: Six Guitar Salute To Peter Gutteridge
  40. Moor Mother: Deadbeat Protest
  41. Kanye West: Wolves
  42. Radiohead: The Numbers
  43. Moses Sumney: Doomed
  44. Girl in Red: I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend
  45. Mach-Hommy: Plenty
  46. Weezer: L.A. Girlz
  47. James Blake: Radio Silence
  48. Katie Gately: Lift
  49. Yves Tumor: Seed
  50. Pixies: Tenement Song
  51. Shit and Shine: BC Rich Celtic Virgo
  52. 1975: The Sound
  53. Lucinda Williams: Ghosts of Highway 20
  54. Lambchop: NIV
  55. Lil Peep: Yesterday
  56. A Tribe Called Red: Sila
  57. Kungs: Don't You Know
  58. Yung Lean: Hennessy & Sailor Moon
  59. Zammuto: Smolt
  60. Michael Kiwanuka: Black Man In A White World
  61. Miranda Lambert: Ugly Lights
  62. Algorithm: Userspace
  63. Elucid: Bleachwater
  64. Mach-Hommy: Bey Six
  65. Xenia Rubinos: Lonely Lover
  66. Lucy Dacus: Strange Torpedo
  67. Guerilla Toss: Perfume
  68. Ichiko Aoba: Kamisama no Takurami
  69. Yeule: About Her
  70. Sinners Are Winners: Like a Moth to the Flame
  71. Florist: The Birds Outside Sang
  72. Zeal & Ardor: Come on Down
  73. Petrol Girls: Phallocentric

Extended compositions
  1. Impossible Nothing: A
  2. Julia Reidy: All Is Ablaze
  3. Matmos: Ultimate Care II
  4. Impossible Nothing: D
  5. Nicolas Jaar: Three Sides Of Nazareth
  6. Roly Porter: Blind Blackening
  7. 75 Dollar Bill: Beni Said
  8. Impossible Nothing: P
  9. Roly Porter: Mass
  10. Lonker See: Split Image pt 1 2 & 3
  11. Necks: Timepiece
  12. Oranssi Pazuzu: Vasemman Kaden Hierarkia
  13. Ulrich Krieger: Trona
  14. Gnod: Sodom & Gomorrah
  15. Rhys Chatham: Pythagorean Dream
  16. Nate Wooley: Seven Storey Mountain V
  17. Cult of Luna: The Wreck Of SS Needle
  18. Aluk Todolo: B3
  19. Necks: Blue Mountain
  20. Merzbow: Planet Of The Cows
  21. Fucked Up: Our Own Blood
  22. Troller: Torch
  23. Vektor: Cygnus Terminal
  24. Cobalt: Elephant Graveyard
  25. Kiran Leonard: Fireplace
  26. Ascanio Borga: Porta Alchemica
  27. Richard Pinhas: TVJ33
  28. Car Seat Headrest: Vincent
  29. Sumac: Image Of Control
  30. Trio Puech-Gourdon-Bremaud: Puech Gourdon Bremaud
  31. Ulcerate: Chasm Of Fire
  32. Jute Gyte: Like The Woodcutter Sawing His Hands
  33. Jon Mueller: How You Look When You're Not Looking
  34. Wilco: Nope
  35. Roy Montgomery: Riding
  36. Krallice: Lotus Throne
  37. Mesarthim: Pillars
  38. Robert Rich: Spectre Of Lost Light
  39. Eluvium: Posturing Through Metaphysical Collapse
  40. Alcest: Je Suis D'ailleurs
  41. Avenged Sevenfold: Exist
  42. Minus 5: Michael Nesmith
  43. Blood Incantation: Vitrification of Blood Part 1
  44. Blush Response: Rebirthed in the Sprawl
  45. Mesarthim: Absence 6
  46. Qu'qu'matz: Tepeu
  47. Himukalt: I Started
  48. Supersilent: 13.9
  49. J Cole: 4 Your Eyez Only
  50. Charles Rumback & Ryley Walker : Cannots
  51. Bitch'n'Monk: Wee Nomad
  52. Goat: Goatfuzz
  53. Won James Won: Deisis II
  54. Sirom: Svetlobni Prelaz Cez Vrnitev
  55. Hope Sandoval: Into the Trees
  56. Moon Relay: ..../__ (;;;''___'',,,)
  57. Sex Swing: Grace Jones
  58. Monika Roscher: Full Moon Theatre
  59. Dwarfs of East Agouza: Baka of the Future
  60. Mare Cognitum: Constellation Hipparchia
  61. Dag Rosenqvist: Porcelan
Jazz

    7.5/10
  1. Leo Smith: America's National Parks (Cuneiform)
  2. Vijay Iyer & Wadada Leo Smith: A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke (ECM)
  3. Ken Vandermark: Site Specific (Catalytic)
  4. Comet is Coming: Channel the Spirits (Leaf)
    7/10
  5. Charles Rumback & Ryley Walker: Cannots (Dead Oceans)
  6. Kurushimi: Kurushimi
  7. Bathysphere: Bathysphere (Driff)
  8. SLM (Mark Dresser and Sarah Weaver): Source (Liminal)
  9. Peter Broetzmann: Beautiful Lies (Neos)
  10. Ingrid Laubrock: Serpentines
  11. Barry Guy: The Blue Shroud (Intakt)
  12. Rob Mazurek: Alien Flower Sutra (International Anthem)
  13. Taylor Ho Bynum: Enter The Plus Tet (Firehouse 12)
  14. Ergo: As Subtle as Tomorrow (Cuneiform)
  15. Peter Evans: Lifeblood
  16. Martin Archer: Story Tellers
  17. Michael Formanek's Ensemble Kolossus: The Distance (ECM)
  18. Tyshawn Sorey: The Inner Spectrum Of Variables (Pi)
  19. Nels Cline: Lovers
  20. Nate Wooley: Argonautica
  21. Henry Threadgill's Ensemble Double-Up: Old Locks and Irregular Verbs
  22. George Lewis: Creative Construction Set (Mikroton)
  23. Paul Dunmall: Maha Samadhi

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Best of the 1960s Best of the 1970s Best of the 1980s Best of the 1990s Best of the 2000s Best of the 2010s