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" As summer draws to a close, and with the big surge of fall releases on the horizon, it&amp;#039;s time to take stock of the year in music so far. By May, we were already gifted with top-notch releases from some of the biggest names of our time. Sonically speaking, this is already one of the best years of the decade, and the wave of greatness shows no sign of slowing down. Here is Esquire&amp;#039;s official list of the best albums of 2016, which we&amp;#039;ll update throughout the year\u2014because trust us: There will be many more great albums between now and December. And you can listen to our full playlist on Spotify and below.       David Bowie \u2014 &amp;#039;Blackstar&amp;#039; January 8 This album will most certainly go down as one of the most chilling and beautiful musical farewells. Filled with musings on Bowie&amp;#039;s own mortality, Blackstar was released two days before his death. It&amp;#039;s a final statement so stunningly perfect that it couldn&amp;#039;t have been made by anyone else.       Anderson .Paak \u2014 &amp;#039;Malibu&amp;#039; January 15 Effortlessly moving between soul, R&amp;amp;amp;B, and hip-hop, Anderson .Paak is Southern California&amp;#039;s strongest voice in the genre since Frank Ocean. Perhaps what&amp;#039;s impressive is his versatility as a musician\u2014.Paak raps, sings, and sometimes even plays drums alongside his band.       Rihanna \u2014 &amp;#039;Anti&amp;#039; January 28 Rihanna has no intentions of being anything we&amp;#039;ve come to expect from a pop star. She&amp;#039;s not going to release safe music. She is not a role model for your kids. With Anti, she covers some insane ground: jazz, &amp;#039;80s-tinged pop, EDM, dancehall, and reggae. And in doing so, she&amp;#039;s once again defied our expectations.        Sunflower Bean \u2014 &amp;#039;Human Ceremony&amp;#039; February 5 Psych rock is in a good place right now. Sunflower Bean lands on the cool-New-York-chic end of the genre&amp;#039;s spectrum. Fronted by bassist and singer Julia Cumming, the band touches on some of the great traditions of New York rock, from psych to metal to noise to garage. It&amp;#039;s exactly what you would expect froma artists who grew up on playlists of Sonic Youth and the Strokes.       Pinegrove \u2014 &amp;#039;Cardinal&amp;#039; February 12 I was at a recent Pinegrove show in New York, six months or so after the release of their debut LP, and was shocked to see just about every person in the venue singing every word to every song. And it makes sense: There&amp;#039;s just something inherently relatable about this band\u2014both lyrically and, with their stripped-down folk rock.       Kanye West \u2014 &amp;#039;The Life of Pablo&amp;#039; February 14 Is Kanye West a product of his own celebrity, or is his celebrity a product of Kanye West? Where does the man end and the brand begin? Is he a PR failure or a PR master? While haters try to bring him down, West continues to reaffirm his musical acumen with songs that define and guide the next few years of hip-hop. An obsessive and neurotic album that may or may not even be complete, TLoP gives listeners a glimpse into the mind of a mad genius.       Kendrick Lamar \u2014 &amp;#039;untitled unmastered&amp;#039; March 4 How does one follow-up one of the most important hip-hop albums of the 2000s? If you&amp;#039;re Kendrick Lamar, you do so by releasing a mostly-fusion-jazz album of b-side recordings from the first album&amp;#039;s studio sessions. Lamar&amp;#039;s b-sides from To Pimp a Butterfly are better than most rappers&amp;#039; a-sides.       Frankie Cosmos \u2014 &amp;#039;Next Thing&amp;#039; April 1 An endearing collection of soft-rock bedroom songs, Next Thing is a diary of sorts, made up of streams of thoughts\u2014&amp;quot;You are bug bites on vacation / You find the sad in everything&amp;quot;\u2014that are both innocent and insightful.       Charles Bradley \u2014 &amp;#039;Changes&amp;#039; April 1 Bradley has an incredible story. If you watch or read any interview with the singer, you&amp;#039;re immediately hit by his sincerity. He wants to help people, he wants to say things that matter, he wants to make the most of this gift he&amp;#039;s been given late in his life. On Changes, this passion is obvious in every song, translated through his classic, road-hardened voice.       Parquet Courts \u2014 &amp;#039;Human Performance&amp;#039; April 8 Most bands can hit a slump after a critically acclaimed early release, but Parquet Courts\u2014like the band&amp;#039;s grooves\u2014has remained remarkably consistent. That isn&amp;#039;t to say the band doesn&amp;#039;t experiment; rather, they know the limits of their range and where they should push it.       Beyonce \u2014 &amp;#039;Lemonade&amp;#039; April 23 No one else could have done what Bey did this year: She created a fearless concept album supposedly about her husband&amp;#039;s infidelity. She filled it with music that leapt over genre boundaries like they were cracks in the sidewalk. And she released it without any warning and to near-universal acclaim. The world completely fucking stopped when Lemonade dropped, and it still hasn&amp;#039;t started spinning again.       King Gizzard &amp;amp;amp; the Lizard Wizard \u2014 &amp;#039;Nonagon Infinity&amp;#039; April 29 I have no idea what Nonagon Infinity means. It might not mean a damn thing. Likewise, I don&amp;#039;t really know why songs on this album are titled things like &amp;quot;Robot Stop&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Gamma Knife&amp;quot;. Here&amp;#039;s what I do know: This album is never-ending psych-rock greatness. And when I say never-ending, I mean that literally. This record is one entire loop. When you put on King Gizzard &amp;amp;amp; the Lizard Wizard, you enter one inescapable new dimension of riffs, solos, and alien-chanting vocals.       Drake \u2014 &amp;#039;Views&amp;#039; April 29 While Drake mostly plays it safe on Views, the album has no doubt caught on, having broken every type of record that you can think of. Any one of these tracks will probably end up as this year&amp;#039;s song of the summer. Though it will probably be the megahit &amp;quot;One Dance,&amp;quot; I wish it was the brilliant and cheesy &amp;#039;80s-influenced ballad &amp;quot;Feel No Ways.&amp;quot;       Kaytranada \u2014 &amp;#039;99.9%&amp;#039; May 6 Gone are the days of the macho producer relying on heavy drops for cheap thrills. What catches listeners today in electronic music is subtlety. Such is the defining sound of producers like Jamie XX, Flume, and Kaytranada. Relying on a list of upcoming collaborators (including Anderson .Paak) Kaytranada&amp;#039;s beats are based more in hip-hop and R&amp;amp;amp;B than in traditional EDM.       White Lung \u2014 &amp;#039;Paradise&amp;#039; May 6 In a year defined by the most soul-sucking election in recent history, sometimes all we need is a way to release the built-up frustration that comes from just a brief glance at the headlines. White Lung, thankfully, decided to put an album out this year that does a pretty fantastic job of capturing a feeling of stifling discontent.       Radiohead \u2014 &amp;#039;A Moon Shaped Pool&amp;#039; May 8 You have to be in the right patient, attentive mood to play Radiohead&amp;#039;s A Moon Shaped Pool. It&amp;#039;s probably not one to put on at a party. But once you listen to the vivid production, nuanced melodies, and complex arrangements, you&amp;#039;ll be endlessly rewarded.       Chance the Rapper \u2014 &amp;#039;Coloring Book&amp;#039; May 12 In trying times, Chance the Rapper released the most optimistic album of the year, filled with honesty, confidence, and lush choir-and-horns compositions. This is the gospel-rap album Kanye never made.        Twin Peaks \u2014 &amp;#039;Down in Heaven&amp;#039; May 13 No one is having more fun playing music than Twin Peaks. Listen to the band&amp;#039;s latest record\u2014complete with hoots of joy and the lively atmosphere of making tunes with your friends\u2014and you so clearly get that sense. And if you&amp;#039;ve ever seen Twin Peaks live, you know this band is in it for the sole purpose of throwing a big party. That&amp;#039;s the most rock-and-roll thing I can think of.       Car Seat Headrest \u2014 &amp;#039;Teens of Denial&amp;#039; May 20 Will Toledo&amp;#039;s music could never succeed on the radio. Like some prog-rock indie singer-songwriter, he writes tunes that are long, discursive, complex. He&amp;#039;ll begin with a slow ballad, build into a mid-tempo groove and end with some all-out rock freakout. Toledo doesn&amp;#039;t care about typical song construction, and he makes a strong case for why no one else should either.       Joey Purp \u2014 &amp;#039;iiiDrops&amp;#039; May 26 A colleague of Chance the Rapper&amp;#039;s, Joey Purp is another young rapper unafraid to think big. Also like Chance, he has no interest in making people pay for his music. Available for free on Soundcloud, iiiDrops opens with Purp telling you &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ll show you how it feel to see a homicide.&amp;quot;       Whitney \u2014 &amp;#039;Light Upon the Lake&amp;#039; June 3 Like the fading light on a warm summer evening, the glow of Whitney&amp;#039;s Light Upon the Lake is one you&amp;#039;ll still be thinking about in the throes of winter. With grinning melodies, nostalgic guitar work, and horn sections that can be triumphant and emotional, this album is already the soundtrack to some of your fondest memories of the year.       Mitski \u2014 &amp;#039;Puberty 2&amp;#039; June 17 What does it mean to be an adult? Do we ever grow out of our childhood fears and anxieties, or do we simply get older and maintain all of the flaws we think will vanish? As Mitski&amp;#039;s aptly named Puberty 2 demonstrates, you&amp;#039;re not alone in being anxious about your own anxiety, and it&amp;#039;s okay to be uncertain about adulthood.        Blood Orange \u2014 &amp;#039;Freetown Sound&amp;#039; June 28 An album of many voices that explores the ways in which individuals define their own identity, Freetown Sound somehow manages to feel very of-the-moment while at the same time harnessing the sound of &amp;#039;80s funk and R&amp;amp;amp;B. Like D&amp;#039;Angelo&amp;#039;s Black Messiah and Kendrick Lamar&amp;#039;s To Pimp a Butterfly before it, Freetown Sound has become the soundtrack of a year defined by social injustice.       The Avalanches \u2014 &amp;#039;Wildflower&amp;#039; July 1 It&amp;#039;s so weird to think of The Avalanches having a place in electronic music 16 years after their debut\u2014and, until now, only\u2014release. Music production changes very quickly each year. What sounded cool in 2000 very well may&amp;#039;ve sounded lame in 2006, let alone in 2016. But even without many significant changes to its style, The Avalanches&amp;#039; music feels as relevant as it did nearly two decades ago.       Jamila Woods \u2014 &amp;#039;HEAVEN&amp;#039; July 11 Also a collaborator with Chance the Rapper, Woods unsurprisingly offers her new album for free on Soundcloud\u2014a trend that seems consistent with many of this year&amp;#039;s most influential releases. Somehow HEAVEN simultaneously pushes the boundaries of experimental production while at the same time maintaining its share of palatable hooks.  &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;span id=&amp;quot;selection-marker-1&amp;quot; class=&amp;quot;redactor-selection-marker&amp;quot; data-verified=&amp;quot;redactor&amp;quot;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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