LONDON - Beyonce’s politically charged visual album Lemonade is the music critics’ favourite album of the year. The record, which tackles themes of black empowerment and female identity, topped a “poll of polls” compiled by the BBC.
It beat David Bowie’s elegiac swansong Blackstar, which was released two days before his death in January.
Third place went to Frank Ocean’s Blonde, a sprawling, impressionistic take on art-soul. Beyonce’s sister Solange also fared well. A Seat At The Table, her soulful, thoughtful portrayal of the struggles faced by black women, both historically and in 2016, came fifth.
The results were compiled from 25 “album of the year” polls, published by the most influential magazines, newspapers and blogs in music - from specialist publications like Billboard and Q Magazine to more mainstream outlets, such as Cosmopolitan and Digital Spy.
The records were assigned points based on their position in each list - with the number one album getting 20 points, the number two album receiving 19 points, and so on.
There was a huge diversity in the critics’ picks, with 145 albums cited across the 25 polls surveyed by the BBC.
However, Beyonce’s album featured in all but one of those lists, and was ranked number one nine times.
“Lemonade sums up everything that Beyonce is about,” said The Independent. “She delights in the power of her sexuality, of her swagger, and her sheer genius of innovation. That’s without getting into how she tackles police brutality, capitalism, and standards of beauty for black women.” Her album “feels larger than life yet still heartbreakingly intimate,” added Rolling Stone, “because it doubles as her portrait of a nation in flames.”
Best albums of 2016 - poll of polls
1) Beyonce Lemonade 376
2) David Bowie Blackstar 341
3) Frank Ocean Blonde 309
4) Chance The Rapper Coloring Book 278
5) Solange A Seat At The Table 256
6) Kanye West Life Of Pablo 204
7) A Tribe Called Quest We Got It From Here 192
8) Radiohead A Moon Shaped Pool 191
9) Angel Olsen My Woman 188
10) Mitski Puberty 2 169
