June 2016 edit: Since writing this list in December, I've fall hard for the Hamilton musical, which was released last year, but I didn't discover it until April. It's clearly my favorite album of the year, if not the decade so far, so I amended the list. I made a couple of other changes as well.
- Hamilton: An American Musical - Original Broadway Cast
- Adele - 25
- Alabama Shakes - Sound & Color
- Carly Rae Jepsen - E-mo-tion
- Tame Impala - Currents
- The Weeknd - Beauty Behind the Madness
- Natalie Prass
- Kamasi Washington - The Epic
- Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly
- Lana Del Rey - Honeymoon
- Jamie XX - In Colour
- Florence + The Machine - How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful
- Leon Bridges - Coming Home
- Madonna - Rebel Heart
- Father John Misty - I Love You Honeybear
- Years & Years - Communion
- Twenty One Pilots - Blurryface
- New Order - Music Complete
- Janet Jackson - Unbreakable
- Donnie Trumpet& the Social Experiment - Surf
- Kelela -Hallucinogen
- Fifty Shades of Grey - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
- Courtney Barnett - Something I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit
- One Direction - Made in the A.M.
- Mumford & Sons - Wilder Mind
