We’re over halfway through what always feels like the longest month of the year, and while we have reflected on our favourite albums, songs, and live moments of 2024, it’s now time to look back even further.
2015 was a great year for music, and this feature will take us on a month-by-month journey through the artists that soundtracked our year, and the albums celebrating 10 year anniversaries in 2025.
It was a year that saw the Star Wars franchise revived with “The Force Awakens“ topping the box office ahead of Jurassic World. The Apple Watch was launched, and Game of Thrones fans were coming to terms with the shock death of Jon Snow.
In the world of music, Adele made her huge comeback with “Hello”, Madonna took a tumble on stage at the BRIT Awards, and Glastonbury was headlined by Kanye West, The Who, and Florence & The Machine. The latter replaced Foo Fighters after Dave Grohl’s broken leg in Sweden.
And there were plenty of album releases for music fans to indulge in, so settle in and let’s take a journey back 10 years…
Uptown Funk was sweeping the pop world with Mark Ronson‘s “Uptown Special” album in January 2015, alongside Meghan Trainor‘s major label debut, “Title”, which featured the huge hit, “All About That Bass”. Two northern indie comebacks saw Belle and Sebastian and The Charlatans back on the scene with “Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance” and “Modern Nature” respectively.
In the same month, the genre-shifting Enter Shikari returned with “The Mindsweep” and Fall Out Boy‘s “American Beauty/American Psycho” spawned successful airplay with lead single “Centuries”. One of the highlights of a packed opening month was the return of Bjork. The enigmatic Icelandic artist’s eighth studio album “Vulnicura” landed to widespread acclaim and managed to stand the test of time to grace the majority of critics’ end-of-year album rankings.
January was also host to two Mercury Prize nominees, one of which went on to win. Supergrass frontman Gaz Coombes‘ second studio album “Matador” made the final shortlist, but it was the surprise package in the shape of Benjamin Clementine‘s debut album, “At Least For Now”, that won the Mercury gong. A “Pointless answer” in years to come I’m sure.
Following a busy opening month in 2015, February was kicked off in style by Bob Dylan‘s Grammy-nominated thirty-sixth record, “Shadows in the Night”. It then saw returns for Imagine Dragons (Smoke + Mirrors), Public Service Broadcasting (The Race for Space), and Father John Misty (I Love You, Honeybear).
Drake followed up mainstream breakthrough success with “If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late”, and it was also a great month for indie music. Peace returned with their second studio album “Happy People“, which featured popular single, “Lost on Me”, and The Libertines‘ Carl Barat launched his “Carl Barat and The Jackals” project, with debut album “Let It Reign” landing.
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds followed an exceptional debut in March with second album, “Chasing Yesterday”. Noel certainly led the way for post-Oasis Gallagher brother success… (for the time being). And March turned out to be a hit with the critics, with Mercury-nominated “Shedding Skin” by Ghostpoet, Courtney Barnett‘s “Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit”, and Kendrick Lamar‘s “To Pimp a Butterfly” all resounding successes.
While Noel represented the Gallagher brothers, the Jarman brothers of Wakefield also returned with The Cribs‘ “For All My Sisters”, featuring live favourite “Pink Snow”. And there were two stellar debuts to round off the month, as BRITS Critics’ Choice winner James Bay released “Chaos and the Calm”, and Liverpool‘s Circa Waves delivered their flawless indie debut, “Young Chasers”.
Another surprise shortlist for the Mercury Prize arrived in April as Eska‘ eponymous debut album made the cut. Other debuts arrived that month in the shape of Blink-182‘s TomDeLonge with “To the Stars”, and incredibly the debut studio album from a teenage American singer Sabrina Carpenter with “Eyes Wide Open”. Whatever happened to her?
Elsewhere in April, Young Fathers returned with their second studio album, “White Men Are Black Men Too”, Alabama Shakes unveiled their third record “Sound & Color”, and the divisive Tyler, The Creator followed up “Wolf” with “Cherry Bomb”.
The Wombats and Passion Pit graced the world of indie with their third albums, “Glitterbug” and “Kindred” respectively, but it was Britpop stalwarts Blur who stole the month. “The Magic Whip” was the band’s first studio album in 12 years and it was worth the wait, propelling Blur back to the forefront of British music.
May turned out to be an incredible month critically. Four of the Mercury Prize nominations were handed to May releases, including Soak‘s “Before We Forgot How to Dream”, which went on to scoop the Choice Music Prize. Other nods went to Roisin Murphy‘s “Hairless Toys”, Jamie XX‘s stellar solo debut “In Colour”, and Florence & The Machine‘s outstanding “How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful” record, which featured hit single “Ship to Wreck”.
It was also the month that we were treated to Mumford & Son‘s sonic shift as the indie folk went arena rock with “Wilder Mind”, featuring the stadium-ready anthem “The Wolf”. Twenty One Pilots were back with “Blurryface”, Hot Chip‘s “Why Make Sense?” landed, and The Vaccines were back on form with “English Graffiti”. We also saw The Killers‘ frontman Brandon Flowers going it alone again with his second solo album, “The Desired Effect”.
And wrapping up Part 1 of our month-by-month guide to 2015 album releases is June, where we saw the emergence of a fresh new punk outfit in “Slaves”. Now Soft Play of course, their Mercury-nominated debut album “Are You Satisfied?” was a huge breakthrough for the punk duo, including big hits in “Cheer Up London”, “The Hunter”, and “Sockets”.
Another important Mercury-nominated debut followed in the shape of “My Love Is Cool” by Wolf Alice, and we look set to see their re-emergence in 2025. The ever-consistent Everything Everything provided art rock perfection with “Get to Heaven”, featuring “Distant Past” and “No Reptiles”, and we were also treated to Muse‘s “Drones” album which triggered some ambitious live shows on the “Drones Tour”…
So that was the first half of the year in 2015. Plenty of huge album releases already. Keep an eye out for Part 2 covering July to December – follow our socials below for the latest updates.
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