- Kanye West.
- source
- Matt Sayles/AP
Each year in music, one album stands out from the crowd as the most critically acclaimed work of the year.
Since the turn of the new century, review aggregator Metacritic has compiled an annual list of the years’ most well-received albums, by assigning scores based on their composite critical reception.
We selected the top album from each year, starting with 2000 (and including the best album of 2017 so far). The resulting list includes appearances from great artists like Kendrick Lamar, Bob Dylan, and Kanye West, as well as a few lesser-known but incredible LPs.
Check out the best album of each year in the new century so far:
2000: Outkast — “Stankonia”
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- Arista
Critic score: 95/100
User score: 8.9/10
What critics said: "Stankonia reeks of artful ambition rendered with impeccable skill - or as one song title so concisely has it, 'So Fresh, So Clean.'" - Entertainment Weekly
Notable songs: "So Fresh, So Clean," "Ms. Jackson," "B.O.B."
2001: Bob Dylan — "Love and Theft"
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- Columbia
Critic score: 93/100
User score: 8.8/10
What critics said: "The remarkable achievement of 'Love and Theft' is that Dylan makes the past sound as strange, haunted and alluring as the future." - Rolling Stone
Notable songs: "Mississippi," "Bye and Bye," "High Water (For Charley Patton)"
2002: The Streets — "Original Pirate Material"
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- VICE/Atlantic
Critic score: 90/100
User score: 8.9/10
What critics said: "'Original Pirate Material' is England's first great hip-hop record mostly because it isn't a hip-hop record. It's hard to say exactly what it is." - Village Voice
Notable songs: "Has It Come To This?," "Let's Push Things Forward," "Weak Become Heros"
2003: The White Stripes — "Elephant"
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- XL
Critic score: 92/100
User score: 8.6/10
What critics said: "This is not garage rock; this is art rock. And that's a compliment." - Spin
Notable songs: "Seven Nation Army," "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself," "Ball and Biscuit"
2004: Brian Wilson — "Smile"
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- Nonesuch
Critic score: 97/100
User score: 8.0/10
What critics said: "The end result is a great album, albeit one more lighthearted than its myth would suggest." - Pitchfork
Notable songs: "Good Vibrations," "Wonderful," "Heros and Villains"
2005: Sufjan Stevens — "Illinois"
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- Asthmatic Kitty
Critic score: 90/100
User score: 9.0/10
What critics said: "A brighter, bouncier counterpart to its wintry predecessor 'Michigan,' 'Illinois' contains some of the most beautiful pop you will hear all year long" - Billboard
Notable songs: "Chicago," "Casimir Pulaski Day," "John Wayne Gacy, Jr."
2006: Ali Farka Toure — "Savane"
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- World Circuit
Critic score: 94/100
User score: 8.4/10
What critics said: "This is an African classic." - The Guardian
Notable songs: "Erdi," "Savane," "Banga"
2007: The Field — "From Here We Go Sublime"
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- Kompakt
Critic score: 90/100
User score: 6.6/10
What critics said: "This is one of those rare albums that makes you wonder how you ever got by without it.'" - BBC
Notable songs: "Over The Ice," "Everyday," "From Here We Go Sublime"
2008: The Bug — "London Zoo"
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- Ninja Tune
Critic score: 90/100
User score: 6.4/10
What critics said: "'London Zoo' provides the perfect showcase for its colourful menagerie of MCs and singers. And the Bug's no-nonsense clank and grind production fosters a rare intensity of focus." - The Observer
Notable songs: "Angry," "Freak Freak," "Skeng"
2009: Serge Gainsbourg — "Histoire de Melody Nelson"
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- Light In The Attic
Critic score: 96/100
User score: 8.7/10
What critics said: "Frequently labeled as a lecherous rogue or public provocateur, Gainsbourg is also one of the most important artists of the 20th century, and this masterpiece is the proof." - Tiny Mix Tapes
Notable songs: "Melody," "Ballade de Melody Nelson," "En Melody"
Note: "Histoire de Melody Nelson" was originally released in France in 1971. The album was released for the first time in North America in 2009.
2010: "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" — Kanye West
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- Def Jam
Critic score: 94/100
User score: 8.9/10
What critics said: "'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy' is his most maniacally inspired music yet, coasting on heroic levels of dementia, pimping on top of Mount Olympus." - Rolling Stone
Notable songs: "Power," "Monster," "Runaway"
2011: Ry Cooder — "Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down"
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- Nonesuch
Critic score: 92/100
User score: 6.8/10
What critics said: "The humour is often savage-a sprightly accordion heralds a story of damaged troops-but Cooder's aim is true. He's become a Woody Guthrie for our times." - The Observer
Notable songs: "No Banker Left Behind," "Quick Sand," "Dreamer"
2012: Wadada Leo Smith — "Ten Freedom Summers"
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- Cuneiform
Critic score: 99/100
User score: 4.8/10
What critics said: "In four and a half hours, Wadada Leo Smith writes one of America's defining events in sound, and the story is all of ours." - PopMatters
Notable songs: "Malik Al Shabazz and the People of the Shahada," "September 11th, 2001: A Memorial," "The Freedom Riders Ride"
2013: Deafheaven — "Sunbather"
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- Deathwish Inc.
Critic score: 92/100
User score: 8.3/10
What critics said: "Deafheaven's second outing is wondrous celebration of boundless ambition and pure artistic vision." - Sputnik Music
Notable songs: "Dream House," "Sunbather," "Irresistible"
2014: D'Angelo — "Black Messiah"
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- RCA
Critic score: 95/100
User score: 8.7/10
What critics said: "'Black Messiah' confirms that music holds the power to challenge and comfort, to take us someplace spiritual, political, and existential. It's beautifully, devastatingly human." - The AV Club
Notable songs: "Sugah Daddy," "Really Love," "Back to the Future (Part 1)"
2015: Kendrick Lamar — "To Pimp A Butterfly"
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- Top Dawg/Aftermath
Critic score: 96/100
User score: 9.0/10
What critics said: "[A] bravura masterpiece. There is no sugar rush of digital synthetic beats and radio-friendly hooks. This is a dense, intricate mesh of free-flowing jazz, deep Seventies funk and cut-up hip hop." - The Telegraph
Notable songs: "Alright," "King Kunta," "The Blacker The Berry"
2016: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds — "Skeleton Tree"
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- Bad See Ltd.
Critic score: 94/100
User score: 8.8/10
What critics said: "No other record released this year will provoke such conflicting emotions in you. 'Skeleton Tree' is both beautiful and harrowing, hard to listen to but even harder to look away from." - NME
Notable songs: "Jesus Alone," "Rings of Saturn," "Skeleton Tree"
2017: Kendrick Lamar — "DAMN."
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- Interscope
Critic score: 95/100
User score: 8.8/10
What critics said: "Damn. is a brilliant combination of the timeless and the modern, the old school and the next-level. The most gifted rapper of a generation stomps into the Nineties and continues to blaze a trail forward." - Rolling Stone
Notable songs: "HUMBLE.," "DNA.," "ELEMENT."
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