Though our culture of fast distraction seems hell-bent on crushing the album beneath its endless scroll, the form remains a pillar of art, something to aspire to. In music, when you want to make a statement, you make an album. And right now, those statements are perhaps more varied and fluid than ever before.

The 50 Best Albums of 2017

The 100 Best Songs of 2017
In a time defined by unpredictability, artists stepped up with their own expressions, embracing the beauty of life and protesting its injustices. Across more than a dozen features, Pitchfork looks at the moments that defined the year—the best albums and songs, along with the most emotional live sets, the sharpest literature, the savviest TV syncs. These are the best of the best. December 12 December 11 December 29 December 4 Play Now. December 19 December 18
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Follow Billboard. All rights reserved. You probably remember as the year of the Event Album , a seemingly endless stream of huge artists unleashing monolithic statements -- often from out of nowhere, and usually while you were still trying to digest the album dropped by a different megastar just weeks earlier. It was overwhelming enough to make us wonder if this was what every year was going to be like as a music fan: eleven months of hopping from major release to major release, with one month at the end to scramble to sort through it all. Well, was much more merciful on us. But that was fine: It just meant that we had more of a chance to search for personal favorites, and more time to spend with those we found. Not like the stars totally let us down, either -- from commercial breakthroughs to solo bows to artistic rebirths to however the hell we're referring to More Life these days, our best and brightest certainly still made an impact, just without sucking up all the oxygen in the pop universe around them. Between the records that announced their presence with authority to the ones we're still trying to get to come out of their shell, here are the Billboard staff's 50 favorite albums of
The year is young, but that doesn't mean there haven't been impressive, original, and essential new songs dropping in the last few weeks. It can be hard to keep up with all the mixtapes, records, and " visual albums " in any given year, but is shaping up to be a particularly busy year. Just in the month of January, there were weeks when it was hard to know what to focus on -- and there wasn't even a new Rihanna album out like last year. Things will only continue to heat up, so why not take a break and decompress with these seven records that deserve all your attention. Close your eyes, put down your phone, and let them take you away for a few hours.