#2: Björk – “Vulnicura”

With her loyal fanbase, incredible natural ability, and established reputation as one of music’s innovators, it would have been easy for Björk to coast on her ninth album, Vulnicura. Instead, she released her most personal album yet, a heartbreaking and challenging work that is as far from traditional pop as she has ever gone. The result is an album that is classic Björk: it sounds alien, but is also deeply human.

Björk’s separation from longtime partner Matthew Barney sets the stage for Vulnicura, which has the most traditional concept of any recent Björk album. However, her execution remains singular. Bringing back the strings that defined 1997’s Homogenic, Vulnicura has a sweeping beauty that portrays her heartbreak in majestic tones, with the music becoming more dark and formless as the sadness increases. The chronological narrative gives Vulnicura a sense of momentum, and also adds to its “plunging into the depths of despair” feeling as the listener pretty much follows Björk during and after the separation.

Heartbreak is such a common, enduring theme in music, to the point that many artists sing about it because that’s just what musicians do. I always wonder if some of them have ever really had their heart broken. With Björk, there is no doubt: Vulnicura has too much intense personal energy in it and too many specific, brutal observations. This makes it one of the more difficult albums of the year, but also a vital listening experience that offers a deep, honest portrayal of the artist’s life while sounding like nothing else.

#3: Beach House – “Thank Your Lucky Stars”

There are many theories as to why Beach House released Thank Your Lucky Stars just a couple months after putting out their first album of 2015, Depression Cherry. Personally, I’ve started to think they did it just to make me feel insane. I’m not one to necessarily share consensus opinions ever, but I felt pretty alone in loving this album and in perceiving a wide gap in quality between it and its predecessors.

Worst of all, I still don’t have a satisfying explanation for why I like Thank Your Lucky Stars so much more than the rest of Beach House’s work, which drives me nuts as a writer and just as someone who likes to think about why I like the things I like. So I’m left trying to explain the unexplainable, that subjective aspect of music that makes it click for me, but maybe doesn’t impact other people the same way. If nothing else, the decision to release two albums in a year made for an interesting litmus test on taste and what we all value in the music we listen to.

My not-at-all-widely-shared perspective is that Thank Your Lucky Stars taps into something that other Beach House music doesn’t. While the band’s previous music was known for being warm and inviting, this album has a dusty chill that makes the songs feel more ambiguous. Thank Your Lucky Stars ends up feeling different while still absolutely sounding like Beach House due to some kind of musical butterfly effect: the band twiddles a couple knobs, changes some small details, and suddenly the end product feels entirely different.

These are pretty much the accepted differences in Thank Your Lucky Stars, and from there it’s a matter of subjectivity and taste. I think this vibe suits the band much more and feels a lot fresher than the played-out “warm and sunny” sound. Victoria Legrand’s vocals feel less processed and more natural, the lyrics are more interesting (especially the doomier passages like “Elegy to the Void”), and the band’s usual collection of guitars and organs actually sound better because of the different context.

Those are my basic attempts at explaining why I love this album, but I’ve accepted that part of what makes Thank Your Lucky Stars great is that it is so inscrutable and just makes me feel how I do at a gut level. It’s the album I always wanted Beach House to make, even if I’m not entirely sure why.

#4: Chelsea Wolfe – “Abyss”

Perhaps the most aptly named album of the year, Abyss combines thunderous doom metal guitar riffs and quiet folk to create an experience that is like being thrown into a bottomless pit and eventually forgetting what sunshine and happiness feel like. This is high praise that I don’t toss around lightly.

Chelsea Wolfe is a prolific artist who never feels limited by genre, and her ability to effortlessly switch between the folk and heavy sounds on Abyss is an impressive musical feat. I’ve heard metal bands that try to mix in a quiet folk song and fail, and I’ve heard a lot of folk artists who (*shudder*) attempt to go heavy to try to gain rock cred and fall flat on their faces. Wolfe does both styles, often in the span of the same song, but it always feels cohesive and natural.

The album takes dynamics to the furthest possible limit, which makes for very dramatic and theatrical songs, with roaring crescendos mixed with near silence. Very little of this album is at a normal, reasonable volume. The dynamics also provide the fascinating duality of Abyss: somehow this album manages to feel epic and intimate at the same time. Wolfe’s voice and lyrics shine in the folkier stretches, but she’s not afraid to sometimes let her voice get buried by the guitar and noise, and the music really does sound like an abyss.

Abyss seems like a difficult album to love given its relentless bleakness, but I really love Wolfe’s artistry and intensity as a performer. She pushes her music to its limits here, going as deep into this hole as she possibly can and emerging with something that sounds truly special.