I'm going to break these down one by one. Good? Absolutely. Album of the year or even close? Not all at all, it's not even close to the best albums Death Grips have put out or the best hip-hop/rap/noise albums of the year which takes me to... See here, I share some of the same sentiments as 8bit and cgod. Which isn't to say I completely dislike TPAB, but I will say that I liked Vince Staples. the Lupe Fiasco mixtape, and Earl Sweatshirt more. Once again an unpopular opinion, but I've never cared much about Tame Impala. They're kind of psychedelic, I'll give them that. But it has that vague psych, somewhat disco and funk influenced sound that everyone has been doing this year and while they may have done it better than a lot of other people...looking at you El Vy...it's still not a sound that grabs as much. To directly answer your question: Sufjan put together an incredibly fragile album that could have fallen apart at any moment, indulged itself too much in its arrangements, or could have gone so far off the rails lyrically to the point that the story of Sufjan lost it's power. But it did none of those things because the songs are so well written and raw...I have a lot of thoughts about Carrie & Lowell beyond this. In the course of an album I was completely drawn into a persons life, the first time I listened to Carrie & Lowell front to back there were some tears, there's a lot to be said for that kind of emotional response. Edit: If you take a look at my last.fm or Spotify you'll see that in general composition isn't nearly as important to me as the feeling, unless your name is Destroyer or something like that. Different strokes.Jenny Death
To Pimp a Butterfly
Currents
What did you think of LA Priest's Inji? Might be a more grabbing sound than Tame Impala.
I haven't listened to that! But I will and will report back with an opinion! Currently working on a Spotify playlist for 2015, would be happy to send a link to anyone who is interested (note: this is a playlist that caters to my tastes and does not present a wide ranging view of 2015).