Phil’s “Wait wtf you still use tumblr?” Official Top 10 Albums of 2015 List.

Musically, 2015 boils down to a whole mess of albums that are really great, but none that truly hit the bars set by the tops of years past. This wasn’t easy.

1. New Bermuda - Deafheaven: I thought Sunbather would be impossible to follow up, but Black Metal’s least favorite shoegazers have done it. There’s a whole lot going on here for what is essentially a straight up metal album. 

2. Thank Your Lucky Stars - Beach House: After four albums, Beach House was starting to seem out of ideas, and then they released the best thing they’ve ever done a month later. This is my most played. 

3. B’lieve I’m Goin Down… - Kurt Vile: It’s rare to find this delicate of a balance between the sad truth and loving acceptance of life’s complexity in a single album. Kurt is simultaneously vulnerable and witty to a Vonnegut extent.

4. To Pimp A Butterfly - Kendrick Lamar: This is the opposite of Kurt’s effort. Kendrick cannot deal with any aspect of life, and he just lashes out at everyone for a solid hour.

5. Carrie & Lowell - Sufjan Stevens: No quip will do this album justice. Sufjan let’s you right into his head. He doesn’t veil a an inch of his feelings. You feel his grief as if it was your own, and it’s beautiful and brilliant in every way.  

6. Fading Frontier - Deerhunter: I never thought I’d see the day Bradford Cox seemed happy in his music. This album is confident, free, and progressively Poppy. The more they channel The Cure, the more I like it.

7. Abyss - Chelsea Wolfe:  Abyss blends metal, drone, and electronic elements to accent what is easily the spookiest album of 2015. Seeing this live really sealed the deal for me. She’s a genius. 

8: Kannon - Sunn 0))): Sunn takes a break from their trailblazing collaborative drone efforts to make some straight up “I’m summoning satan, but I need to get this work done” music. Bless.

9. The Ark Work - Liturgy: It’s “not black metal.” We get it. That allows this album to be viewed without genre hangups. One bad rap song aside, this is a really innovative heavy album in a genre that often seems out of new ideas. 

10. Jenny Death - Death Grips: Death Grips broke up again, but now they’re back again, and they’re making hardcore punk. This a return to form for a band who have been all over the musical map since Exmilitary. 

Honorable Mentions: Rules / Trick - Alex G, DEATH MAGIC - HEALTH, Summertime ‘06 - Vince Staples, Joy, Departed - Sorority Noise

A few of my coworkers and I flew down to Texas to document Red Bull’s Cliff Diving series. 

Divers leap from as high as 90ft, a height from which even a mostly-perfect impact would maim someone who isn’t in remarkable physical shape. We followed around Rocco, the world’s foremost female cliff diver as she dominated yet another competition. 

More sentimental sap.

I met so many cool people on here back when it wasn’t all curated reblogs. I really wish there was still a refuge where so many people were expressing themselves across so many mediums. When I was young and incapable of social interaction sans-alcohol, people on Tumblr taught me that meaningful relationships can start on the internet.  We could come here to fearlessly express ourselves and have somewhat-compelling discussions without just being dicks to each other. I was talking to someone (that I met on the internet) tonight about how fucked the web is at this point. We agreed that the free spirit and sheer chaos of the early web is largely gone, and that was the internet I loved. Now brands want to be our friends, every site wants to be more “conversational,” and I can just drown my sorrows in amazon prime impulse-buys if any of that becomes too overwhelming. 

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I miss when we could all be our own little alter-egos on here, it wasn’t about building your brand, and that when we reached out to each other, it often led to the discovery that when the internet persona melted away, you were all pretty sweet.