But an incredible amount of artists did have something new to say. Some of them challenged us. Some of them broke our hearts. Some of them made us feel good. The best of them are gathered here for your perusal. Cheers to 2015, and here’s to the year to come.

Leon Bridges

Coming Home

Coming Home is a record that should have existed in the 1960s. Leon Bridges is performing music that intersects perfectly with soul and R&B and gospel music. Who knew that this nostalgic sound could be so formidable in 2015?

What Bridges lacks in originality — even Bridges would say he owes Sam Cooke a beer — it makes up for with songwriting and smooth style. Leon Bridges’ debut is a comeback record for 1960s R&B/soul, but it’s also a hugely compelling charmer that makes Bridges feel like one of the most exciting soul performers of his generation — despite his retro leanings.

Read our review | Listen: Amazon / Apple Music / iTunes / Spotify

Girlpool

Before the World Was Big

Girlpool’s charming folk-influenced pop music feels startlingly original while remaining clearly influenced by greats like Velvet Underground. At just twenty-five minutes, Before the World Was Big feels like a giant tease, as if the band is still warming up to something bigger.

But they never break free of their simple guitar riffs and dual harmonies. In spite of that, the record holds some sort of mysterious raw power and energy to it: when Cleo Tucker and Harmony Tividad sing together, it doesn’t matter whether they’re intentionally ironically stripping away both folk and punk at the same time. The two of them have the emotional weight of an eighteen-wheeler. The rest of it is just candy.

Read our review | Listen: Amazon / Apple Music / iTunes / Spotify

HOLYCHILD

The Shape of Brat Pop to Come

HOLYCHILD came out of nowhere and claimed to invent a new genre of pop music. While that’s not necessarily the case, the band sounds amazing and has a ton of momentum going for them. This duo is politically aware and socially conscious, with lyrics that read more like scathing indictments of the genre than they do pop songs.

Almost every track on Brat Pop is insanely catchy, and the biting tone — one that is both sarcastic and glaringly truthful — doesn’t spare anybody in its path. HOLYCHILD’s debut was glossed over by mainstream publications last year, but it’s a record you shouldn’t miss.

Read our review | Listen: Amazon / Apple Music / iTunes / Spotify

Petite Noir

La Vie Est Belle / Life Is Beautiful

South African Yannick Ilunga doesn’t care about your conception of pop music. His experimental electronic pop dares to be completely different and sounds entirely new. While he’s not necessarily have writing tracks you can dance to, his 80s-influenced, genre-mashing take on the genre feels like something straight out of the future and completely ahead of its time.

La Vie Est Belle (Life Is Beautiful) feels like a near-perfect record that dares to dream. It’s music that doesn’t believe in the boundaries of genre, and in the process of defying convention while remaining deeply rooted in what’s come before, Petite Noir’s debut earns respect and commands attention.

Read our review | Listen: Amazon / Apple Music / iTunes / Spotify

Kamasi Washington

The Epic

The Epic is authentic jazz. For a brief moment in time, Kamasi Washington was “that guy who played on Kendrick’s new record”. Immediately after The Epic dropped, he became the jazz aficionado who appeared out of nowhere, dropping what may be one of the genre’s masterpieces as a debut.

The Epic is remarkably unhinged. Just shy of three hours long, Washington somehow keeps his jazz music accessible despite his monolithic-sized ideas. It’s the product of a virtuoso clearly obsessed with defying expectations of critics and the culture surrounding jazz, and it’s hard to say that any other record in the genre has commanded as much attention in the past year.

Read our review | Listen: Amazon / Apple Music / iTunes / Spotify

Raury

All We Need

All We Need establishes nineteen-year-old Raury Tullis as a voice to be reckoned with in modern hip hop music. With influences that range from Kid Cudi and Kanye West to Marvin Gaye, Father John Misty, and Bon Iver, he’s also got an incredibly compelling and eclectic sound that separates him from many of his peers.

This sound feels nearly perfectly-honed on All We Need, an immense debut that surprises — particularly because of his age. The genre-jumping album is comfortable with melancholy, comfortable with doling out wisdom, and dealing with doling out the unexpected. He’s the opposite of cynical, and that makes his record one of hip hop’s best in a very strong year.

Read our review | Listen: Amazon / Apple Music / iTunes / Spotify

Alabama Shakes

Sound & Color

Sound & Color feels more varied than its predecessor, with Alabama Shakes spreading their wings on their sophomore effort and beginning to welcome their inner weird. While their first album was incredibly strong, Sound & Color reveals that the band has much more to say. Sound & Color is, as the title alludes, as much about texture as it is about the album’s pure unhinged sonic qualities.

Most importantly, though, Alabama Shakes avoids the sophomore slump with their expanded palette and collection of new sounds. With some of the most beautiful songs put on record in 2015, and a smattering of fantastic singles, Sound & Color makes a strong statement that Alabama Shakes is at the top of their game.

Listen: Amazon / Apple Music / iTunes / Spotify

Sleater-Kinney

No Cities to Love

Sleater-Kinney’s first record in ten years is one of 2015’s best. The rock band’s comeback is more a statement that urges and commands our attention, nearly staccato with intensely brief three-minute tracks that sound more punk than they do rock ’n roll.

It’s easy to forget that the women in Sleater-Kinney are some of rock’s elder states-women when it sounds like the band still has so much to say. As political as ever, No Cities to Love carries a sense of urgency in its riffs that would make Dave Grohl jealous. While the trio was nothing to scoff at before, their new album is undoubtedly their best work: an absolute celebration of a band aging well and perhaps finally at their best.

Read our review | Listen: Amazon / Apple Music / iTunes / Spotify

Grimes

Art Angels

Claire Boucher said she wrote hundreds of songs for Art Angels, but ended up scrapping most of them. What’s left behind are fourteen perfectly-polished alt-pop tracks that are somehow radio-friendly without ever pandering to her audience. As Grimes, Boucher grabs the pop wheel and — instead of re-inventing things that are never broken — just takes the whole convertible off-roading.

Art Angels is fearless and incredibly ambitious as a result, broad and friendly while remaining singularly weird and individual. Refusing to be white-washed into everybody else’s definition of pop songwriting, Claire Boucher instead made a visionary and uncompromising pop record that the genres’ fans and detractors can listen to with pride.

Read our review | Listen: Amazon / Apple Music / iTunes / Spotify

Sufjan Stevens

Carrie & Lowell

Sufjan Stevens isn’t know for his predictability. He’s leaped from one genre to the next, even making multiple Christmas albums, but Carrie & Lowell feels like a return to his original form as a lo-fi singer/songwriter. As Sufjan charts the life and death of his mother, as well as reflect on his own complicated feelings about her, it strikes not with grand musical statements, but with a series of small, gut-wrenching emotional moments.

Carrie & Lowell is perhaps the epitome of Sufjan Stevens’ sound, stripped back to its most basic and essential. As a result, in a career with seemingly one golden album after another, it could be the best record he’s ever made.

Listen: Amazon / Apple Music / iTunes / Spotify

Father John Misty

I Love You, Honeybear

Josh Tillman’s sophomore effort as Father John Misty, he continues to demonstrate his outstanding songwriting ability. Better than his solo debut by any reviewer’s metric, I Love You, Honeybear feels challenging and rewarding without losing any of its approachability. Lush and complex soundscapes are perfectly produced, revealing the mastery Tillman has over his genre at this point in his career.

There’s a lot to take apart with the album, but it’s Tillman’s lyrical approach that truly sets it apart. Most of the album explores the relationship he has with his wife, and he’s at turns loving and cynical about their time together and their future. The fascination of I Love You, Honeybear is trying to decode the way Tillman sings about his wife and their life together into something understandable and comfortable — because the staggering openness that Tillman presents as Father John Misty feels nearly voyeuristic.

Read our review | Listen: Amazon / Apple Music / iTunes / Spotify

Kendrick Lamar

To Pimp a Butterfly

It wasn’t surprising that Kendrick’s latest record was good; it was largely expected to be an excellent record from one of hip hop’s brightest stars. But the level of intelligence and thought surrounding the album, the provocative way that Lamar literally takes it to the White House, took us all by surprise.

To Pimp a Butterfly is an album that shines because of Lamar’s singular skill as a lyricist and a storyteller. Music aside — and the backing music on TPAB is worth deeper discussion in and of itself — the record shines because Kendrick shines behind the mic. More than the best record of the year, it feels like an important moment in pop culture.

Read our review | Listen: Amazon / Apple Music / iTunes / Spotify

The post The Best Albums of 2015 appeared first on Unsung Sundays.

From there, we saw the birth of jazz fusion: jazz and rock primarily, but occasionally with funk or R&B instead. Jazz-rock became a big thing in the ’70s, with groups like Chicago or Frank Zappa being largely responsible for its uprising. Cream and the Grateful Dead were largely responsible for its popularity as well. In particular, The Grateful Dead’s jam-based performances were largely responsible for jazz-rock’s growing acceptance, since improv as an art form was so jazz-like to begin with.

But since the ’80s, it seemed like a lot of crossover jazz was fading away as the industry moved towards smooth jazz and its contemporaries on the radio stations. And, as far as I can figure, jazz hasn’t been a popular mainstay on the radio since then.

But it feels like there’s something changing in music. It’s hard to notice it, but once you do, you’ll start hearing it everywhere. Jazz — and jazz fusion — just might be making a comeback.

Jazz and Hip Hop

Jazz’s biggest return came in the form of last year’s To Pimp A Butterfly, Kendrick Lamar’s newest record. Stylistically, it’s very different from his earlier work, and the list of producers on the record — aside from familiar names like Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg — were puzzling to hip hop fans. But TPAB was undoubtedly the best record of the year, and certainly its most important — perhaps the most important of the decade. And it’s jazz fusion through and through.

If modern jazz fusion has a hero, that hero is Kendrick Lamar.

Billboard has a fantastic interview with jazz legends and newcomers Terrace Martin, Robert Glasper, Ambrose Akinmusire, and Kamasi Washington — all of whom played on To Pimp A Butterfly. In the long and short, it’s an interview in praise of hip hop, but also in praise of Kendrick — more than once, the article refers to Kendrick as the John Coltrane of hip hop.

To Pimp A Butterfly is this new version of jazz fusion that’s a lot like the old one: there’s no need for jazz fusion to be restricted to its rock leanings anymore; now, the world’s most popular genre and its most important progenitor has harnessed it to make the genre more soulful again. If modern jazz fusion has a hero, that hero is Kendrick Lamar.

But hip hop has always had its roots in jazz music. A Tribe Called Quest felt like it picked up right where ’70s jazz left off, particularly with The Low End Theory. The mentality, the rhythms, they’re all similar. The feeling of improvisation is there, the experimentation, the braveness, and perhaps even the lack of brevity are all in that record — and many others in hip hop.

Hip hop’s association with jazz has always been a known quantity too — maybe not amongst popular rappers’ fan bases, but certainly to the core followers of the genre. Pioneering producer Madlib’s 2003 record, Shades Of Blue, is a collection of jazz remixes using records from the legendary Blue Note Records collection. (Perhaps fittingly, Blue Note released Shades of Blue as well). Shades of Blue was dubbed an experiment, but at the same time, that’s not necessarily the case for most instrumental hip hop. Groups like 40 Winks or The Land Of The Loops owe everything to jazz.

So while jazz bands are making a comeback now in hip hop music, particularly thanks to Kendrick, there might be something bigger going on beneath the surface.

Rock’n’Jazz

Even before David Bowie passed away, Blackstar was a revelation: a rock album that largely avoided rock and roll, the record is jazz fusion at its finest (read our review). The title track and Lazarus both reveal an innate understanding that Bowie had about jazz music. And generally speaking, Bowie’s had a history of leading the way in rock music. Blackstar imitators are no doubt on their way.

But the jazz thing’s already making a comeback in rock records. It was noticeable before Bowie’s newest record came out, but it wasn’t something that could be tangibly stated as a comeback. For example, Guy Carvey’s (of Elbow fame) debut record as a solo artist, Courting The Squall, is loaded with jazzy moments.

And progressive rockers have been keeping up the jazz tradition for decades. Progressive death metal band Opeth has been experimenting with this style for nearly half a decade now, with their record Heritage being an obvious candidate for a jazz comeback retrospective. And that came out in 2011, although it’s undoubtedly aging well; it’s perhaps a better album now than it was when it was released.

Indie rock is also beginning to develop an understanding of jazz. There are jazz notes throughout Harriet’s debut record, not to mention Nickel Creek’s unusual jazz-inspired arrangements on their comeback record A Dotted Line.

Jazz is the live band at its most untamed and its most natural, a cacophony of high-flying instrumentation all in the name of making popular music feel more organic again.

It seems like every ten years, we’re talking about jazz music making a comeback. Did it ever leave? I’m not sure. Is it coming back? I don’t know. I don’t want to look like a fool ten years from now, but I’d be surprised if this is the last we hear about a jazz fusion comeback in the next couple years.

In today’s musical environment — one which feels predicated on electronic synths and R&B-inspired chill pop — jazz feels ripe for a comeback. When more people like Kendrick Lamar start relishing in the live band again, jazz becomes a natural result: jazz is the live band at its most untamed and its most natural, a cacophony of high-flying instrumentation all in the name of making popular music feel more organic again.

And if it takes jazz to bring back a sense of invention to modern pop, I’m all for it.

The post Jazz Fusion’s Comeback appeared first on Unsung Sundays.

Partially, that was to avoid being reactive: while it’s easy to hop on the same bandwagon as everybody else and claim a record to be the best of the year, it’s also very easy to make a mistake with claims like that and look foolish later. Hindsight is 20/20, but I needed time to step back before saying anything that would look ridiculous later.

At this point, it seems conclusive — and even President Obama agrees — that Lamar owned 2015.

What’s not as conclusive is how important To Pimp A Butterfly will be five years from now. I’d go so far as to say that the album is the most important of the decade thus far. It’s not just its jazz experiments — although that’s definitely a part of it — but it’s also the album’s cultural significance.

As Lamar explores his status as a rich black man exploring Africa for the first time and going back home to Compton, he incidentally sheds light on his generation’s biggest plight in cities like Ferguson. As black people (and other non-white nationalities) are mistreated and abused by police, To Pimp A Butterfly feels like a call to act — and a call to recognize each other as people. It’s an incredibly important record that shines a light on the way music can speak for our culture, and how it draws attention to the real issues we otherwise might not have even noticed.

The standout from the record is, no doubt, How Much A Dollar Cost. Against a laid-back jazzy beat, Kendrick discusses an encounter with a homeless man who asks him for money and reveals himself later to be God. Kendrick’s lyrical and rhythmic abilities as a rapper here are unparalleled, as he explains and justifies his behaviour despite knowing he’s sometimes no better than the white racist.

It’s not just that song, of course. Alright has become the theme song for the Black Lives Matter movement. The Blacker The Berry is powerful, and Kendrick’s live performances of the song seem to generate a simultaneously rabid and uncomfortably tense response from its audiences. And at the end of i, Kendrick breaks out a spoken word performance that’s hard to top.

But top it he does, with a so-well-done-it-feels-real interview with Tupac that Lamar scraped together with a bunch of unreleased tapes. It caps off an unbelievable album on a somber note: some things never change.

It’s more than the lyrics that make the album stand out, though: the music itself is incredible. To Pimp A Butterfly is one of the jazziest hip hop records ever made. It’s not a jazz record, but it has so many of the greats on it (like Terrace Martin and Thundercat) — as well as some new faces (like the immensely-talented Kamasi Washington). And it oozes the same sort of sexual, raw, and kinetic energy that the best jazz records eked.

Not to mention the way Kendrick Lamar uses jazz’s best inclinations to continually surprise the audiences with unpredictable beats, rhythms, and song structures. It makes To Pimp A Butterfly immensely rewarding with deeper listening.

There’s a point in the album, around the For Sale? Interlude, when you realize you genuinely have no idea what Kendrick is up to or where he’s going with the whole record. It’s full of surprises. And by the time it’s done, you let out a giant exhale, no matter how times you’ve heard it before. While Alright and King Kunta are great singles, it’s clear that the album is best when you listen to it from beginning to end without skipping a track.

Every ten or fifteen years, an artefact comes out of our pop culture that seems to be the perfect depiction of something happening in our society. It happened fifteen years ago with The Lord Of The Rings, a film trilogy that seemed perfectly time to capture our fears and hopes concerning the War on Terrorism. With To Pimp A Butterfly, we have something similar: a time capsule that is perhaps the closest thing to a perfect record that we’ve ever had, but it also means so much more. It’s our time, no matter how bad it is, recorded onto vinyl. It’s a thing of beauty.

The post Kendrick Lamar: To Pimp A Butterfly appeared first on Unsung Sundays.

But then I listened to the album, and you know what? Three hours doesn’t feel that long.

The Epic truly lives up to its name: it’s 170 minutes long. Even on CD, it’s spread over three discs. (On vinyl, it’s three records with two sides each.) It’s long.

It’s also epic in a scope that goes beyond the track listing: Kamasi leads a ten-part group that includes names like Thundercat and Miles Mosley. And beyond those ten band members, there’s also a twenty-person backing choir — and a thirty-two piece orchestra. (But who’s counting?)

Despite all this, the album never falls under the weight of itself, which is an accomplishment. More importantly, though, it doesn’t feel three hours long.

Let me clarify a little bit here: three hours is a long record, and The Epic is very long. But if somebody told you they could tell you everything you needed to know about a topic, and it would take three hours, would you consider taking them up on their offer if the topic interested you?

That’s how The Epic is, except the topic at hand is jazz music. Over the course of three hours, Washington will inaugurate you with the basics and surprise you by teaching you some advanced jazz skills as well. The length of the record is a small price to pay for what you’re getting in return.

Washington’s been playing jazz with a lot of people for a long time, and he’s well aware of the form. In fact, The Epic includes some classic material. But what makes Washington so approachable is his ability to appropriate other genres into his understanding of jazz, giving the album moments that feel funk-inspired, or soul-like, or even influenced by hip hop.

It’s a unique combination only Washington could be blessed with, thanks to his extensive repertoire. Prior to this album’s release, he was most well-known for playing saxophone on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly. His hip hop influence is obvious. But for a moment, it looked like that would be what he was known for. The Epic will silence everybody who thinks of him as a one-trick wonder.

The wonder we see in Kamasi Washington and hear in The Epic are nearly inseparable from one another: Washington is the equivalent of a musical chameleon, playing phenomenal, complex music that pushes genre forms forward regardless of who he’s playing with. That ability to shape shift is so jazz-like, it shouldn’t be surprising that The Epic lives up to its name.

For once, though, it’s nice to be surprised: The Epic is epic non-ironically, and it’s going to launch a public conversation around jazz we haven’t had together in many years.

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