We tend to underestimate albums because of music's over abundance. We tend to discount years as the twirl of time spins faster each year turning into decades. I only get 50 (if I'm lucky) more #1 albums of the year in my lifetime. In the grand scheme of things, that's not whole a lot of albums. My eyes will gray and so will Frank Ocean's. But his voice will always remain on Blonde, my #1 Album of 2016, and his lyrics will always be on the page. These are the best albums of my life.

Just like I wrote in my Top 25 Albums of 2012 when Frank Ocean's debut album Channel Orange was my #1 Album, Ocean's music has a beauty that feels fragile and naked but completely confident. His songwriting - both lyrically and musically - drastically expanded on this album. Thematically, Ocean covers similar topics to Channel Orange, including longing and heartbreak, loneliness, cars, Hurricane Katrina and trinkets from New Orleans life, drugs, and love. He was great lyrically on Channel Orange and continues to be here. None better exemplifies this than my favorite lyrics from "Solo,"

It's hell on Earth and the city's on fire
Inhale, inhale there's heaven.

In "Ivy," a track about longing after an ugly breakup, Ocean's whispers,

All the things I didn't mean to say
I didn't mean to do
There were things you didn't need to say
Did you mean to? Me too
I've been dreaming of you

Blonde took me time to fully appreciate. I remember sending a text to someone after listening to it for a day that "it's no Channel Orange," but now having listened to this album hours and hours on end, I think it's better. It's exploratory and unique, and the songs sound so different yet they all work together.

His opus is "Nights," my #2 track of the year, and a song with so many layers it makes onions cry (I'm not proud of that line, either). My god it's like three or four songs in one with all sorts of rhythms and vocals from Ocean. It's a masterpiece of a song, only comparable to something he previously did on "Pyramids"

I had a discussion with another guy I quickly realized loved music as much as I did and was more than pleased to pass on all the usual chit chat to get directly into the people that have inspired us the most. That delved into a darker conversation when I asked him if there were any living artists that he would cry for if he/she had died. It's a morbid question but a curious one. He didn't have an answer. Do you? Mine is Frank Ocean.

Moving on to Radiohead's A Moon Shaped Pool, an album draped in the haunting beauty of all sorts of strings and horns. This album feels wildly underrated in Radiohead's canon. I think it's their fifth best album after OK Computer, Kid A, In Rainbows, and The Bends. Considering three of those are thought to be classics (critics don't like the angsty 90s sound of The Bends), I'd say that's pretty high praise.

It's the saddest album they've ever written due to Yorke and his girlfriend of 23 years breaking up. So it was clear the album wasn't going to be about sunshine and lollipops. (NOTE: I JUST REALIZED HE ACTUALLY DID WRITE ABOUT LOLLIPOPS on "True Love Waits" - are you serious?)

Let's start the sadfest with the aptly titled "Decks Dark":

Then into your life, there comes a darkness
There's a spacecraft blocking out the sky
And there's nowhere to hide
You run to the back and you cover your ears
But it's the loudest sound you've ever heard
And all we trapped rag doll cloth people
We are helpless to resist
Into our darkest hour

"Daydreaming" continues Yorke's despair. These are the lyrics to the whole song:

Dreamers
They never learn
Beyond the point
Of no return
Then it's too late
The damage is done
This goes
Beyond me
Beyond you
A white room
By a window
Where the sun comes
Through
We are
Just happy to serve
You

Then he sings "Half My Life" in a backwards loop over and over and over again. Wow.

But the whole album is all about the last track consisting of a piano and Yorke's quavering vocals. "True Love Waits" is the most once beautiful and now sad song they've ever written (a song I did not include in my Top 100 because it was written decades ago but never formally recorded). This song was first played in 1995 in what was believed to be a love song to his now ex-girlfriend. The song ends, "Just don't leave. Don't leave." But she did. UPDATE: I didn't think this story could get sadder, but Thom Yorke's ex-girlfriend just passed away from cancer.

Some people don't love all the automation of Justin Vernon's voice on Bon Iver's new album, 22 A Million, but I think it was a way for him to get away from the folklore of his falsetto. It was a way to create something new from something that he seemed to lose control of. I can't imagine being a celebrity in the world of today and losing ownership of the things you created. I'm sure his songs have helped millions of people in this world, but I also wonder how he holds on to songs when so much of its meaning is whatever the listener wants it to be.

There's something for everyone on this list. The 1975 is a really great pop album. I'm kinda pissed I didn't put "She's American" on my Top 100. How catchy!?

Sturgill toes the line on country and bluegrass, lots of rappers of differing styles, Nothing for the Deftones fans out there, Tourist for the EDM crowd, Syd Arthur and Andrew Bird for the cerebral folks, Night Moves, Car Seat Headrest, Angel Olsen, and Amber Arcades for rocking out, and more!

My best piece of advice is to listen to my Top 100 Songs of 2016 and then if you like a song and the artist is on my top 25 Albums list, that's a pretty damn good indication you're gonna dig the album!

Top 25 Albums of 2016

Frank Ocean - Blonde
Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
Bon Iver - 22, A Million
Isaiah Rashad - The Sun’s Tirad
Night Moves - Pennied Days
A Tribe Called Quest - We got it from here…Thank You 4 Your service
Anderson Paak - Malibu
Sturgill Simpson - A Sailor’s Guide to Earth
Drake - Views
Chance the Rapper - Coloring Book
Whitney - Light Upon the Lake
Kendrick Lamar - untitled unmastered
Nothing - Tired of Tomorrow
Glass Animals - How To Be A Human Being
James Blake - The Colour of Anything
The 1975 - I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it
St. Paul & The Broken Bones - Sea of Noise
Tourist - U
Andrew Bird - Are You Serious
Schoolboy Q - Blank Face LP
Car Seat Headrest - Teens of Denial
Syd Arthur - Apricity
Angel Olsen - MY WOMAN
Carl Broemel - 4th of July
Amber Arcades - Fading Lines