All we know about eagerly awaited records from Lorde, LCD Soundsystem, Chromatics, Dirty Projectors, Grizzly Bear, Vampire Weekend, St. Vincent, Kelela, and more

From David Bowie's swan song to Beyonce's call to arms, Anohni's war lament to Frank Ocean's return, 2016 was a year of big artists making big statements. These are our picks for the best songs of the year.

From #RunAwayWithMeme to tiny perching Drakes to TLOP’s surprisingly versatile cover, these are 2016’s best music-related memes

From Lil Wayne to Max B to Nicki Minaj, a look at the best free downloads, tapes, and CD-Rs released since 2000

Here is a list of albums from vital artists who are supposed to gift us with new music this year; we know more about some than about others, but all of them are making us very optimistic for the future.

The Pitchfork Readers Poll features your picks for the best (and worst) in the world of music, including your choices for Top Albums and Top Tracks, along with Most Underrated and Overrated Albums, Best New Artists, Best Musician Twitters, plus your answers to a number of either/or questions.

Jeff Weiss details Drake’s two high-profile rap wars this year—the hot one with Meek Mill and the cold one with Kendrick Lamar—and how his flouting of traditional hip-hop ethics runs parallel to our accelerating world of nihilist-flavored capitalism.

Pitchfork ranks the best (worst?) of 2015's musical memes, all in 140 characters or less. 

World weary rap courtesy of Vince Staples and Future. Vulnerable folk from Joanna Newsom and Sufjan Stevens. Thundercat and Kamasi Washington’s astral musings. The welcomed comebacks of Dr. Dre and Sleater-Kinney. All of that and more makes up our Top 50 albums of the year.

From Drake's dominance to Adele's return, Tame Impala's blissful psych to Kendrick Lamar's politically charged hip-hop, 2015 marked another diverse and strong year for music. These are our picks for the best songs of the year.

Ah, 2015—another year of shocking heartbreaks, childish beefs, and WTFs. We’ve compiled a few of the year's most captivating news stories, from beef wars to unexpected returns, with accompanying comics by illustrator Johnny Sampson.

From Nicki and Beyoncé’s ecstatic Coachella road trip, to David Bowie’s haunting interstellar hallucination, to Oneohtrix Point Never’s epic LARP-ing battle, to Charli XCX’s psychotic death-by-selfie freak show, to Kendrick’s powerful levitating act, here are our 20 favorite videos of the year.