The 10 Best Albums of 2017

In a year when world events seemed to push pop culture aside—or else become pop culture itself—the albums that hit most deeply for me were about individuals, not issues. Many of the picks below are autobiographies of sorts, and even the more “political” records blend their songs of social crackups with ones of personal breakups. The other albums here offer much-needed escape, whether with guitar solos, rave immersion, or, in one case, a new word game: “raindrop / drop top.”

1. Kendrick Lamar, Damn

The title of refers in part to a divine curse, which in turn ties in with the Black Hebrew Israelite theology the Compton rapper flirts with throughout his . But Lamar raps about damnation as not only a spiritual state, but also an inheritance of history, of society, and of one’s own past. The dizzying “”establishes the controlling metaphor: Each person is a double helix of information and attributes, containing and war and peace. The album then makes clear