Best of 2015: 10 best pop music albums in 2015 include works by Earl Sweatshirt, Jlin, Natalie Prass

Earl Sweatshirt, “I Don’t Like … I Don’t Go Outside� (Tan Cressida/Sony): A meditation on the life of a 21-year-old rapper who earned fame while he was still in high school, Earl Sweatshirt’s album rumbles with claustrophobic bass while midrange melodies and plunked piano tones guide tracks forward. As a lyricist, his couplets are precisely rendered and wildly evocative, one of many reasons why fellow Angeleno Kendrick Lamar recently dubbed the record one of his favorites.

Deafheaven, New Bermuda (Anti- Records): “New Bermuda� balances on a razor’s edge separating heavenly beauty and hellish darkness. Based in Los Angeles but formed in San Francisco, the quintet built an extreme five-song album whose shortest track exceeds eight minutes. Sheets of guitar recall the shimmering distortion of My Bloody Valentine’s noisy Brit-pop, while double bass-kick drums and vocalist George Clark’s guttural grunts suggest Norwegian black metal. Harsh, yes, but also a long overdue metallic construct forged for a new era.

Julia Holter, “Have You in My Wilderness� (Domino): Holter’s labyrinthine new album is a tough first listen in a way that recalls Joni Mitchell’s “The Hissing of Summer Lawns.� Both explore musical dialects that approach pop structures without committing to them, gleefully enunciating a language with its own rules and accents. “Lucette Stranded on the Island� seems to hover through its seven minutes, reveling in melodies supported by strings, piano and synthesizers. “Everytime Boots,� by contrast, is a romp that suggests Mitchell’s “The Jungle Line.�

Jlin, “Dark Energy� (Planet Mu): The unsettling, impatient electronic music by the Gary, Ind.-based post-footwork producer born Jerrilynn Patton hits hard. Featuring ridiculous beats that sound unlike anything else issued in 2015, her structurally sophisticated tracks leap from measure to measure like a gymnast working the uneven bars. While oft-disconcerting voice samples — including Faye Dunaway’s classic “No wire hangers!� tantrum from “Mommy Dearest� — maneuver through the rhythms, Patton’s crisp, clean textures provide instrumental exhilaration.

Kendrick Lamar, “To Pimp a Butterfly� (Top Dawg Entertainment): A complete artistic statement from the most striking voice to come out of Los Angeles in a generation, “To Pimp a Butterfly� draws from a convergence of hip-hop, jazz, funk and experimental electronic music. It’s also a Los Angeles unifier, one that gathers together area innovators such as Kamasi Washington, Thundercat, Terrace Martin and Flying Lotus to create what’s destined to be a California classic.

SIGN UP for the free Essential Arts & Culture newsletter >>

Natalie Prass, “Natalie Prass� (Spacebomb/Columbia): This orchestral pop album by a new voice with the confidence of a superstar mixes grand arrangements (courtesy of co-producer Matthew E. White) with a vocal approach that lifts each song by the mere virtue of its presence. On opener “My Baby Don’t Understand Me,� Prass confronts the titular concern with bafflement and, ultimately, resolve. “Your Fool� dwells on the singer’s frustrating acceptance of an unbalanced situation, while the showtune-esque “Christy� obsesses over the allure of an ex’s new love.

Protomartyr, “The Agent Intellect� (Hardly Art): Protomartyr is a rock band from Detroit, and you can tell. Its no-nonsense approach to post-punk is as unflinchingly direct as it is memorable. That’s the result of two things: the nut-and-bolt tightness of the band; and the vocal attack of Joe Casey. In “Boyce or Boice,� he rails against the intrusions of the smartphone era — “What have they wrought?/ From screen to self.� Elsewhere he rails against pretty much everything else.

Joan Shelley, “Over and Even� (No Quarter): On the surface, “Over and Even� might seem like your standard singer-songwriter album. Songs are driven by folk guitar and Shelley’s delicate voice, and explore the kind of intimate emotions that make ripples, not waves. As accompanied by the Grammy-nominated guitarist Nathan Salsburg, Shelley’s language is poetic without being pretentious. The title track feels feather-light, opening as it does with morning coffee and a flowing river. But, like the music throughout the album, confusion and despair are seldom far from the surface: “I miss you some inside,� she sings to a distant lover. “Or I can ride this/ Over and over.�

Sufjan Stevens, “Carrie & Lowell� (Asthmatic Kitty): Like the late singer Elliott Smith, Stevens prefers delicacy to bombast as he tours his back story, and as a result the record approaches, but avoids, the trappings of white-dude soft rock. Or maybe it’s just a really good version of the same. Either way, “Carrie & Lowell� is a strikingly successful exploration on youth, mortality and the passage of time.

Kamasi Washington, “The Epic� (Brainfeeder): The shape of jazz to come? If Washington’s revelatory album-release performance of “The Epic� at the Regent in downtown L.A. was any indication, most definitely. The joint was packed with twenty- and thirtysomethings rejoicing and applauding with each massive groove, start-stop maneuver or chorale interlude. It made contemporary jazz feel shockingly relevant, and the same could be said for this triple-volume release, one that’s as compositionally inventive as it is groove-heavy.