Top 10 Songs of 2015

1. Ariana Grande, "Focus" — I think the day my neighbor snapped me sitting in my car thumping this song — with the caption "feeling it" — was the day I realized this was clearly my favorite song of the year. #noapologies #2k15

2. Adele, "Hello" — The lead single from Adele's record-setting album 25 — which sold more copies in its first week alone than any other album sold in the entire year — "Hello" is the highlight and distillation of her towering majesty. In four minutes and 55 seconds, this is peak Adele.

3. Elle King, "Ex's & Oh's" — A surprise top ten hit for the quick-witted new star, this simple perfectly-crafted song crackles and pops with thrilling production by Dave Bassett. This one will be a karaoke classic for decades.

4. The Weeknd, "Can't Feel My Face" — The Weeknd's riveting performance of "Can't Feel My Face," alone on stage at the VMAs, sealed the song's indelible status. This slinky number, with its goofy and indelible chorus, is pop R&B that feels up-to-the-moment yet totally unforced.

5. Kendrick Lamar, "King Kunta" — Released in 2014, "i" is a catchy single that became a calling card for To Pimp a Butterfly; "King Kunta," the album's third track, is the other bookend of one of this year's instant classics.

6. Silentó, "Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)" — This year's "Land of 1,000 Dances."

7. Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, "S.O.B." — An exhilarating, chilling encapsulation of the fight to climb out of alcoholism's dark, desperate pit.

8. Father John Misty, "I Love You Honeybear" — "Getting high on the mattress/ while the global market crashes." A swooping ballad for the end of the world — or, at least, what sometimes feels like it.

9. Grimes, "Flesh Without Blood" — The epic single that assuaged any doubts that Art Angels would be just as great as we hoped.

10. Ciara, "I Bet" — The lead single from Ciara's satisfying sixth album, this sweet kiss-off is redolent with '90s R&B realness.

Top 10 Albums of 2015

1. Grimes, Art Angels — An exuberant, inexhaustible collection that somehow managed to surpass even the sky-high expectations Grimes had built up for her years-in-the-making album. Art Angels makes the case for Grimes as not just a cult favorite but a complete artist who's capable of just about anything she set her mind to. Fortunately, this year she set her mind to transcendent indie pop.

2. Kendrick Lamar, To Pimp a Butterfly — A major statement from one of music's most promising young artists, To Pimp a Butterfly is so relevant that it's painful, which was exactly the intention. It's a mark of a great album that it's more than the sum of its parts, and it was fascinating to hear the bouncy lead single "i" become a towering anthem in the context of this wide-ranging statement about pride and prejudice in 2015.

3. Jamie xx, In Colour — This album became the soundtrack of summer for me and countless other listeners who were seduced by its elusive charms and inexorable build.

4. Waxahatchee, Ivy Tripp — A dream of a disc, full of tumbling lo-fi rockers that burst out of the speakers, this is the kind of album you want to lock yourself in your room with, smoking cigarettes and writing graphic novels.

5. Ryan Adams, 1989 — I allow that much of my enjoyment of this album is due to the fact that it puts Swift's radio-ready songs in the musical context of the AOR '80s, when both Adams and I were boys. Still, it was much more than a gimmick to record these hyper-sincere, often hushed covers of songs that their author encased behind a bulletproof wall of sound.

6. Lana Del Rey, Honeymoon — This was originally described as Del Rey's return to accessible pop after the dark musings of Ultraviolence. In fact, it's nothing of the sort: it's a quietly wild ride that pushes the signer's trademark style almost to its breaking point. Essentially, this album is one long heavy breath. Hot.

7. Carly Rae Jepsen, Emotion — How does Carly Rae Jepsen make a list that doesn't include Björk, or Courtney Barnett, or Sleater-Kinney, or Wolf Alice, or Drake? All I can say is that at some point while reviewing the year in music, I lost my taste for Major Statements — but somehow I never got tired of this breezy, hook-laden collection. It just makes me happy.

8. Braids, Deep in the Iris — This Canadian trio, who have been building quiet cathedrals for years, embraced a bolder canvas — and made a clearer statement of purpose — with their third album. It wasn't their big breakout, but that's the world's fault, not theirs.

9. Sufjan Stevens, Carrie & Lowell — Stevens's hushed style has never been more perfectly fit to his material than in this ambiguous but affectionate exploration of his family history.

10. (tie) Selena Gomez, Revival; Justin Bieber, Purpose. This on-again, off-again couple somehow managed to grow up together — in public, as always — with a pair of polished pop albums that stand alone, yet somehow are hard to dissociate from one another. Justin's sorry, Selena's sassy, and everybody wins.

Vote for your Top 89 of 2015!