Nobody’s short of lists in December but why hold back? Here are my songs, albums and articles of the year.

First up, my songs of the year (minus Joanna Newsom and other streaming refuseniks) are on Spotify in a three-hour highlights version and the full six-hour marathon.

My Top 40 albums of 2015:

Father John Misty – I Love You, Honeybear
Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly
Courtney Barnett – Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit
Joanna Newsom – Divers
New Order – Music Complete
Chvrches – Every Open Eye
Carly Rae Jepsen – Emotion
Laura Marling – Short Movie
Tobias Jesso, Jr – Goon
Vince Staples – Summertime ‘06
Django Django – Born Under Saturn
Julia Holter – Have You in My Wilderness
Tame Impala – Currents
Belle & Sebastian – Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance
Miguel – Wildheart
John Grant – Grey Tickles, Black Pressure
Donnie Trumpet & the Social Experiment – Surf
Kacey Musgraves – Pageant Material
Blur – The Magic Whip
Destroyer – Poison Season
The Chemical Brothers – Born in the Echoes
A$AP Rocky – At.Long.Last.A$AP
Jamie Woon – Making Time
Wire – Wire
FFS – FFS
Hot Chip – Why Make Sense?
Baio – The Names
Sufjan Stevens – Carrie & Lowell
East India Youth – Culture of Volume
Panda Bear – Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper
Hudson Mohawke – Lantern
Kurt Vile – b’lieve I’m goin’ down…
Grimes – Art Angels
Blanck Mass – Dumb Flesh
Guy Garvey – Courting the Squall
The Libertines – Anthems for Doomed Youth
Jessica Pratt – On Your Own Love Again
Four Tet – Morning/Evening
Susanne Sundfør – Ten Love Songs
Shamir – Ratchet

 

Some articles I enjoyed reading:

Swoonatra by Ian Penman (London Review of Books)

Lady Gaga Goes to the Middle by Lindsay Zoladz (New York)

We’ll All Go Down Together: Billy Joel Says Goodbye to Nassau Coliseum by Maura Johnston (The Concourse)

Taylor Swift Is Definitely in Her Zone by Jia Tolentino (The Muse)

The Franzen of It All: ‘Purity’ and the great American Novelist by Brian Phillips (Grantland)

The X Factor review by Julia Raeside (The Guardian)

Was Banning Tyler, the Creator the Victory International Feminism Needed? by Julianne Escobedo Shepherd (Jezebel)

Age of ‘Compton’: NWA With Artifical Sweeteners by Wesley Morris (Grantland)

The death and life of the great British pub by Tom Lamont (The Guardian)

Unfollow by Adrian Chen (The New Yorker)

The Third Revelation of Father John Misty by Sean Fennessey (Grantland)

 

Some articles I enjoyed writing:

Attack of the feminist superheroes (The Guardian)

Kendrick Lamar interview (The Observer)

Remembering Amy Winehouse (Billboard)

The Libertines interview (The Guardian)

“A Public Menace”: How the fight to ban The Birth of a Nation shaped the nascent civil rights movement (Slate)

The stagnation blues (The Long + Short)

How the compact disc lost its shine (The Guardian)

Chuck D interview (The Guardian)

 

The sound of the year: