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| Clockwise from top left: Beyoncé; David Bowie; Anohni; Mary Halvorson; Andrew Cyrille; Chance the Rapper. Credit Clockwise from top left: Andrew Harnik/Associated Press; Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images; Ryan Pfluger for The New York Times; Jacob Blickenstaff for The New York Times; Laurel Golio for The New York Times; Michael Zorn/Invision, via Associated Press |
The music critics of The New York Times share their picks for
the best pop and jazz albums of the year.
Jon
Pareles
1. BEYONCÉ “Lemonade” (Parkwood/Columbia) As a set
of songs, “Lemonade” plunges into one troubled marriage: a cycle of distrust,
betrayal, fury, loyalty and wary reconciliation. It moves sure-footedly through
styles from the rooted to the futuristic; it touches down in gospel, blues,
soul and country with all the programming expertise of the 21st century. And it
presents Beyoncé the singer in guises from ethereal grace to raw ferocity and pain. Then, as a multimedia work,
“Lemonade” goes even further: Its video album, directed by Beyoncé and Kahlil
Joseph with crucial interludes of poetry by Warsan Shire, magnifies the personal
to the archetypal, situating Beyoncé among generations of African-American
women in a long, unselfish, unfinished struggle. (Read the review | Listen to the Popcast)
THE BEST IN CULTURE 2016
Highlights from the year
in Movies,Television, Theater, Pop Albums,Pop Songs, Performances,Classical Music, Dance, Art and Podcasts as chosen by the
critics of The New York Times.
2. DAVID BOWIE “Blackstar” (ISO/Columbia) Bowie made his final album not a summation but a
final metamorphosis. He assembled a studio band of forward-looking jazz musicians to play
songs full of tense ambiguities: harmonic, structural, verbal. The album
confronts mortality with a last burst of probing, passionate invention. (Read
the review | Listen to the Popcast)