It's been a long journey but we've finally come to the number one spot in my top ten albums of 2016. This album's meant so much to so many in so little time. Ladies and gents, the one and only Solange with A Seat At The Table.

This album could not have come into the world at a more necessary time. Every person I've spoken to about this album has had it touch their life in a personal way, whilst also hearing it talk to so many relevant issues going on in the world and grating issues we experience on the day-to-day. It also just goes to show how important timing is. Up until this I feel like to most, Solange was just "Beyoncé's sister" or "that chick from Bring It On" but it's not like she hasn't released many other great pieces, written many tunes for other artists or collaborated on so many other ventures. She's been working on this record supposedly since around 2008 and now in 2016 it couldn't be a more perfect time to hear it. If this had dropped back then, I doubt it would have had quite the same reception. I mean it still would've been appreciated because the quality is undeniable, but it might not have hit Number 1 on Billboard so easily. 

Music wise - it's always been "Don't Touch My Hair (feat. Sampha)" for me. First time I heard this song, I woke up with it stuck in my head almost every day for over a week. When a song is so good that it can inflitrate my dreams, that's a pretty good sign for me. As lyrically, instrumentally and just all around vibe-wise perfect the track "Cranes In The Sky" is, something about "Don't Touch My Hair" resonated more for me. My critic brain is telling me that Cranes is by far the better track but I know what my heart says here. Aside from those two big hitters, the rest of the tracks on this album don't fail to disappoint (interludes included). I don't feel like I've listened to another album recently that's made me as thoughtful whilst listening. I always come out feeling like I've just enjoyed a beautiful 52 minutes of music and had a dance and a sing, but then I remember how pensive I actually am throughout. As well as being an ultimate bop, it's an important think-piece...what more could you ask for?

Rounding up, I just have to mention the collaborators. The phrase "too many chefs spoil the broth" isn't always true in music I believe. Some of my favourite records come from artists who collaborate with many other musical geniuses. This record in particular has a lot of my favourites credited and so it's no surprise it took my top spot. If you somehow haven't yet listened, take a seat at the table.

My true love (Beyoncé) gave to me... Lemonade - and it was good! Oh my goodness! The only album on my list that has only changed positions once. Up until yesterday this album was cemented in my number one spot, but I listened to this and my current number one back-to-back yesterday and I had to switch it up. I'll explain why more clearly tomorrow but for now let me tell you why I loved this album so much in the first place.

This is 100% without a doubt my favourite thing that Beyoncé's put out since I Am... Sasha Fierce. Every album that she has released since then has only ever been able to make it onto my "Honorable Mentions" list and some (sorry 4) wouldn't even make it onto that. When this came out, I watched the movie at least once every single day for an entire week. As suddenly as this album came into my life; it took over my life just as quickly.

I've been saying for the longest time, "what ever happened to music videos being such a big deal that people would go to watch them in the cinema?" (s/o Michael Jackson). Well, if I had one criticism for this album, it'd be the fact that she didn't release it in movie theatres first. I would've happily paid money to see this. It's not the first visual album Beyoncé's done and it's not even the first that she's dropped out of the blue, but there's something distinctly different about this album. At first I thought might be it's because she's being so raw and honest but I don't really know if that's true. Beyoncé in recent times hasn't really held anything back from her music; she's pretty much allowed herself to be herself throughout. I guess she is talking about more personal life topics and such, but the beauty of doing it through song is that music is so up for interpretation that we still don't even really know whether she's being candid or writing fiction. To this day, none of us really know if Jay-Z cheated, and hopefully no-one really cares any more, because all that speculating overshadowed the music at first.

In regards to the music, my current favourites are "Don't Hurt Yourself (feat. Jack White)", "Freedom (feat. Kendrick Lamar)" and "All Night". That changes every time I listen and for the longest time "Formation" was my one and only, but I might have slightly overdone it with that one. As always, Beyoncé's voice continues to effortlessly soar and tower above all tracks whilst seamlessly accompanying the instrumentals. Also, of course I couldn't go the whole review without noting that Beyoncé has attempted several genres on this record from rock to country, and successfully might I add. No easy task but she somehow found a way to slay them all. I guess that's why they call her Queen B.

Now, if you've not listened to this album in full yet, please watch it in it's visual form first.

The man who won 2016 - Chance The Rapper here with Coloring Book. This wasn't even an album! Whoever said mixtapes were irrelevant - eat your heart out. The only mixtape to make it onto every single 'top albums of the year' list this year. Chance has given this year all the lift that it needed.

I never really thought of Chance as a soul/gospel rapper but this record did everything for my soul. To be honest I shouldn't have been surprised after his soulful feature on Kanye's The Life Of Pablo earlier this year but here we are. He even had believers and non-believers alike singing "how great is our God?", he managed to move so many people with just 14 songs. In less than an hour, he managed to become one of the most powerful and recognisable voices around at the moment. It didn't even stop with the record, every time Chance has appeared live with this album, he's captivated people and managed to take each track to a new level. He is pretty much the living embodiment of creativity.

On top of all that, this album brings out just about every kind of good emotion you'd ever associate with listening to music. I say that with confidence. It makes you laugh, feel uplifted, smug, joyful, thoughtful and just overall content. The first time I listened to this I was travelling to work and by the time I got in, nothing could've made that day go wrong for me. Some personal go-to favourites for me when I need a pick-me-up are "No Problem (feat. Lil Wayne & 2 Chainz)", "Blessings", "Juke Jam" and "All Night (feat. Knox Fortune)". Nothing but good vibes with this record for me. In a year that's had so much go wrong with it, this is one of the few things that's brought pure light to a multitude of lives. If you haven't already claimed your blessing yet - do yourself a favour and have a listen.

This will be a difficult one to top, a commendable peak in anyone's career - but I have faith that Chance will find a way to move upwards. I don't know when we'll hear something new but I know it'll be a blessing no matter what nor when. I can only hope that I get to see this live someday.

We have A Tribe Called Quest with We Got It From Here... Thank You 4 Your Service - the tribe's sixth and final album. What a blessing. I never thought this day would come, and I definitely wasn't expecting anything new to come about after we lost Phife earlier this year but here we are.

It's so beautiful to hear Phife's voice on something new even after he's passed - he left us with a hell of an album, and more than that, a legacy of game-changing hip-hop. I've often said that ATCQ are my favourite hip-hop collective - without them, the genre would've meant something completely different to me today. Having them back with that classic Tribe flow, accompanied by some of the today's current greats, it's exactly the way I'd have expected them return and it maybe even turned out better than I'd hoped.

Immediate stand outs from me were of course "Dis Generation", "We The People..." and "Conrad Tokyo (feat. Kendrick Lamar)". I've got to say that these three tracks might just have to be in the top ten instrumentals of the year for me (if I were making that list). These tracks go off! The first time to listened to "We The People..." I actually had to take it back to the beginning after 30 seconds. It ws too much - Q-Tip has most certainly not lost his touch with his bars or his beats.

Aside from this album, all I've had to listen to from Tribe was released either before I was actually born or before I could even remember anything - I've been listening to them for over 20 years and even now their new material stands out to me just as much as their old. Talk about ahead of their time! I can only hope that this record is something that, like me, future generations will be listening to as if it only just came out. Visionaries; every one of them, and they've left us with a beautiful piece of work. Really and truly, thank you 4 your service A Tribe Called Quest.

Here we go, welcoming us into the top five is ScHoolboy Q with Blank Face LP. This album has been a blessing to my 2016. Some of my favourite songs of the year come from this record alone; it's just great to have one of the masters of Top Dawg Entertainment back for what I think is his best album yet.

I'd be surprised if you managed to go the whole year without hearing "THat Part (feat. Kanye West)" played somewhere - this song has been all over the place and for me, everytime felt like the first time. The amount that I listened to it, I should have been bored with it towards the end but I was just as hype every time. With a 17 song tracklist, I was definitely expecting the album to waver at some point during the middle, but ScHoolboy showed his lyrical strength the whole way through - I can only imagine how many songs didn't make the cut.  I was left smiling, head nodding and sometimes even laughing at the lyrics and brilliance of the beats throughout. Q truly put a lot of a work into curating and producing these tracks.

Some of my favourites from the album are "Groovy Tony/Eddie Kane", "WHateva U Want" and "JoHn Muir" but that changes with almost every listen. Each song has been a favourite at some point. After catching his set in Birmingham last week (gig review pending), it simply solidified his spot on the list. His personality comes through strongly on the album, not even close to being overshadowed by a crazy list of features. Quincy gave me one of my favourite rap albums of the year (there were many other amazing ones) and it stood out so much to me because he spoke about life as candidly as J. Cole but gave us some of the best beats in the business whilst keeping it fresh and thought-provoking. Also, the visuals to back the singles up were some of the most memorable I've seen all year.

ScHoolboy's given us a classic with this one, I'll definitely be referring back to this for years to come. A big future must be on the cards for Q after this gem.

Coming in hot with Architects masterpiece All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us. This band really can do no wrong. Ever since hearing their song "Day In Day Out" in like 2010 on Kerrang, everything I've heard from them hasn't managed to disappoint me yet.

Devastatingly, I write about this album as the last one that Tom Searle will feature on as he passed earlier this year. I genuinely believe that Architects would not be close to the band that they are today without him - as a founding member and phenomenal guitarist, it's a huge loss for the boys but of course they continue to honour him through the music and in life. In terms of his work on the album - would you just listen to those instrumentals?! Architects have mastered the art of making songs sound humungous both on record and on stage. Just listening to the first 30 seconds on the album should vouch for that.

After seeing them at Rock Im Park earlier this year I can comfortably place them in my top 10 favourite bands around right now. Their energy is almost unmatched. Also, one thing that's always blown me away about them as a metal/hardcore/post-hardcore band is their amazing lyricism. Anyone that I've shown their lyrics to has been impressed regardless of whether they like metal or not. In fact, one of my favourite lyrical performances on the album is actually in their first song "Nihilist", so cleverly put together it just astounds me. Another couple of favourites on the album for me are "Gone With The Wind" and "Gravity"

I don't know if they'll be putting out another album after but if they do, I definitely expect big things. They set the bar higher with every new record they drop. And even if they don't put out something new, they've left off on a hell of a note.

The album that's probably jumped about on the list the most, in at seven here's Kaytranada's 99.9%. It's crazy to think that this time last year, the only thing I really knew about Kaytranada is that he produced The Internet's song "Girl" and now his album is taking up the majority of my most played list this year.

Essentially, my entire summer was sponsored by Kaytranada. Almost every single flight, car journey, heck even tram journey I took after this album was released, featured at least one song from it. I actually remember the day that I listened to this album for the first time - I was sitting in the office trying to get on with some kind of work and I know my colleagues must've been annoyed because my foot was tapping for damn near every single song! The instant hits for me were "Vivid Dreams" and "Bullets". The instrumental on Vivid just comes through so hard, I was close to flailing my arms in the office on first listen and as soon as I heard Yukimi's voice on "Bullets" I was sold (and obviously that first drum fill was pretty convincing too).

Since the release of this album nobody has been able to stop Kaytranada - he. is. EVERYWHERE. Some of my favourite albums this year include features from him, production credits from him, wherever there is good music, there's usually some help from Kaytranada there. He has one of the most unique production sounds around at the moment - as soon as I hear one of his beats, I know that it's him. As well as being a huge plus for him this may become a bit of a vice - nobody really wants one of their songs to sound like it would go better on somebody else's album. However, let's not count him out, as good as he is now, he hasn't hit the glass ceiling yet - the next few years for him will be interesting for sure.

After catching his set at Sonar Festival earlier this year, although great, I could see room for improvement there. The only reason I say this is because, Kaytranada is one of the most talented producers around at the moment and he still has mounds of potential - more is indeed possible! I look forward to the sophomore.

Finally, here's a quick clue about what the rest of the days of Christmas might look like - this album is the only debut album to make the list! I guess that says enough.

Numero ocho goes to the lovely Laura Mvula and her album The Dreaming Room. It's been a long time since I could say that I've enjoyed a sophomore album noticeably more than the debut but Laura's definitely done it.

Don't get me wrong, Sing To The Moon had some gems on it for sure but every single song on this album is a gem. Whether I'm listening to it upside down, back to front, shuffled up - this album has not disappointed once yet. In fact, my most played song on Spotify this year was actually "Phenomenal Woman" - the last song on this album. After first hearing this song, I'm pretty sure I woke up to it consistently every day for close to a month. What a way to get the day started! Such an uplifting song! There's no way that I can listen to this and not "jig me foot" as Laura's Nan says.

One criticism I may have for the album itself is that although I enjoy every song on there, lyrically and instrumentally, there may be portions where it falls a bit short and where some others have surpassed it this year. However, the reason this made it onto my list is because it played such a huge part in my day-to-day - it truly served to lift my spirits and keep my head up, and for me, that's reason enough. As cliche as it sounds Laura's music was there for me this year, and I enjoyed every note! Although, don't just take my word for it - The Dreaming Room was also nominated for The Mercury Prize this year over and against some other very big british names, so I guess I wasn't the only one.

I hope that Laura continues to go from strength to strength after this one, she's always had the talent, there's no question of that - I just never know what creative direction she might take next. Another few favourites from the record for me were "Overcome" and "Let Me Fall". If you haven't already given this a listen or if you've never even heard of her - give up a good 36 minutes of your time to listen to this album. I guarantee it will leave you with a smile on your face.

Okay, it's already started to become difficult. Up until a couple of days ago, this spot was reserved for James Blake's The Colour In Anything. However, after listening to it in full and then listening to my current number nine - I had to go with Awaken, My Love by Childish Gambino.

I really didn't think that this was going to make it into the list after being released so close to decision time. Especially since I've been lucky enough to see James play his album twice this year; but the feeling just wasn't the same after listening to them both back to back. Childish really stepped up for this album and as well as being musically brilliant (which James' record also is) it sent me through a myriad of emotions throughout and held my attention the whole way through (something that I had trouble with in parts on James'). Anyway, enough comparison...

Aside from the singles, upon first listen my favourite track was "Boogieman". It hits you in the gut right from the first second and has such a performance feel to it; it wouldn't be amiss in a musical broadway show (sans cheesy-ness) and as far as grooves are concerned, this has just the right one for me. This instrumental has so many avenues for development in a live show - definitely an enjoyable bop. However, after listening again and again, I have to go with "Redbone" as my current favourite. It's just such a smooth track and the vocals at first made me thing of Prince which is of course, never a bad thing. Childish sounds like a whole different person on this record.

The fact that he found the time to put an album of this quality amidst writing and starring in TV shows, movies, producing, and overall just doing life is astonishing! He must have been building this material for quite some time and it never ceases to amaze me how artists can put together a cohesive and flowing body of work that they've produced over years and years. Surely as you change, the sound and lyrics would vary too?! Well, no use in questioning genius. Very deserving of a spot on the list.

... I decided to pick Not To Disappear by Daughter as my number 10 this year. If you'd have asked me where I expected they'd be on the list after I reviewed the album here, I would have told you somewhere around the middle so to have them at number 10 should already to you how high the calibre of the rest of the albums on this list are. It should also indicate how much I've listened to the rest of these albums because I have a habit of overplaying Daughter's albums.

As I've already given you a track-by-track review of the album I'll just briefly touch on how my feelings about the tracks have changed after listening to it over and over again. I suppose the most unexpected change for me was that I think I might have overdone the track "Numbers"! My feelings about this track really have been up and down - from not really appreciating at first, to loving it and overplaying and to now only being able to listen to it when I'm really in the mood. I'm sure that soon enough after a good break it'll be something for me to come back to but for now "How" has taken over as my favourite track on the record. Something about the way the whole song just swells over you on that track gets me every single time. Also, I'm super happy to see that they did go with "No Care" as a single in the end - as soon as I heard it I thought that it just had to be.

After Daughter on my Album Wishlist this time last year, it would seem that my wish has been granted and with interest. This album was indeed everything I wanted and more. In fact while we're in the spirit of making Christmas wishes - I would love to see Elena collaborate on more people's albums in the next couple of years actually... a voice like that deserves to be shared.  Aside from my feelings towards "Numbers" and "How", my feelings on the album have remained more-or-less consistent after listening to it countless times. I think that, if anything, is a sign of a very solid album. The only thing I would say, is that once again, Daughter have officially given me another classic that I'll continue to overplay and I'm hoping for the same feeling after their next few.

The only thing that I'm upset about in regards to this album is the fact that I haven't been able to see it played live yet. I feel like potentially if I had; it might've ended up a little further up the list.

Okay so it's that time of the year again! Everyone's albums/songs/artists of the year lists are coming out and it's about time I did mine. This year has without a doubt been the hardest year to write this list since I started this blog. 2016 has given me so much good music I can't even comprehend!!!

Usually, (with last year being the exception) I countdown my top 7 albums with the "7 days of Christmas". However, because I was so incredibly spoilt for choice this year, I've upped it to 10 days. I almost went for the more traditional 12 days but thought that might be a few too many album reviews in such a short space of time.

The countdown will start this Friday, on the 16th of December, ending on Christmas Day with my number one pick. Even as I write this, the numbers aren't final so I'm just as in the dark as you. Until then, here's a Christmas track to prepare you...