The following are my (as of today) favorite albums of the year. Each selection is ‘in the running’ for consideration into my “Best Albums of 2016” top 10 list (really, these are the records I need to listen to, over and over, until the end of the year so I can whittle down the list). Without further adieu, in no particular order:

• Mystery Jets – Curve of the Earth
• J Dilla – The Diary Instrumentals
• The Coral – Distance Inbetween
• Nada Surf – You Know Who you Are
• From Indian Lakes – Everything Feels Better Now
• The 1975 – I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it
• Jimmy Eat World – Integrity Blues
• Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool
• Paper Route – Real Emotion
• Conor Oberst – Ruminations
• Blood Orange – Freetown Sound
• Your Boy Tony Braxton – Adult Contempt
• Sturgill Simpson – A Sailor’s Guide to the Earth
• Wilco – Schmilco
• Civil Twilight – Story of an Immigrant (Acoustic)
• Local Natives – Sunlit Youth
• Sia – This is Acting
• Thrice – To be Everywhere is to be Nowhere
• Kings of Leon – WALLS
• Band of Horses – Why Are You OK
• Sarah Watkins – Young in All the Wrong Ways
• Bon Iver – 22, A Million

These albums are still to come, highly-anticipated releases of 2016:

• The Japanese House – Swim Against the Tide EP
• Jim James – Eternally Even
• Ryan Adams – (Untitled November Release)
• Nada Surf – Peaceful Ghosts