Albums of the year 2017 #2 — The critics’ view

From the critics’ perspective 2017 belonged to Damn by Kendrick Lamar.

Critics’ favourite album for 2017 — Damn by Kendrick Lamar

A long way back Melodrama by Lorde beat CTRL by SZA by the narrowest of margins into second and third place respectively.

Critics’ #2 and #3 — Melodrama by Lorde and CTRL by SZA

There was another big gap back to American Dream by LCD Soundsystem and MASSEDUCTION by St. Vincent at fourth and fifth position.

Critics’ #4 and #5 — American Dream by LCD Soundsystem and MASSEDUCTION by St. Vincent

Another gap back to the rest of the top ten and spread out fairly evenly were (#6) Big Fish Theory by Vince Staples, (#7) Process by Sampha, (#8) A Deeper Understanding by The War on Drugs, (#9) Sleep Well Beast by The National and (#10) 4:44 by Jay-Z.

Critics’ #5 and #6 — Big Fish Theory by Vince Staples snd Process by Sampha

These rankings are taken from the year end list aggregate at albumoftheyear.org (AOTY) as at 30 December 2017. This aggregates 122 year end lists from various critics and publications around the world, including well-known publications such as Billboard and Rolling Stone and sites like Allmusic. I prefer the list aggregate to meta-ratings on AOTY and Metacritic because ranking albums at end of year may force critics to separate albums that might have received the same ratings when initially reviewed.

Critics’ #8,#9,#10 — A Deeper Understanding by The War on Drugs, Sleep Well Beast by The National and 4:44 by Jay-Z

The critics’ top 50 is shown in the table below. Join me in the next instalment when I’ll explore the top 50 in more detail.

Critics’ top 50 albums 2017