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Music in 2015: 10 Year Album Anniversaries (Part 2 – July to December)

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Last week, we travelled back in time to 2015 and revealed the albums we were listening to in the first half of the year.

So before you delve into this article you can catch up on Part 1 here: Music in 2015: 10 Year Album Anniversaries (Part 1 – January to June) – Northern Chorus

There are plenty more records celebrating 10 year anniversaries in 2025, including what we believe to be a contender for album of the decade and more award nominees.

So it’s time to revisit 2015, starting with July and running month-by-month through the rest of the year to reminisce on the albums of 10 years ago

July saw the emergence of synth indie pop trio Years & Years, whose debut album “Communion” landed after scooping the BBC Sound of 2015 prize in January. The airwaves were dominated by “King”, “Desire” and “Shine”, and they also earned a BRITS’ Critic’s Choice nomination. This was followed by Public Enemy‘s thirteenth studio album “Man Plans God Laughs” and The Chemical Brothers“Born in the Echoes” which featured one of the tracks of the year in “Go”.

On 17th July, we were treated to one of the albums of the decade with Tame Impala‘s “Currents”. The psychedelic record was Kevin Parker‘s third under the Tame Impala project, and spawned “Let It Happen” and “The Less I Know The Better”. The end of the month brought the return of Sleaford Mods with “Key Markets”, the Mercury-nominated debut from C Duncan with “Architect”, and the swansong from indie stalwarts The Maccabees, who said goodbye (for a while) with the incredible “Marks To Prove It”.

August was host to Dr Dre‘s first album in 16 years in “Compton”. Frank Turner released his sixth studio album “Positive Songs For Negative People” and the critics were lauding FKA Twigs‘ third EP “M3LL155X”. Pop was dominated by The Weeknd, whose breakthrough second album “Beauty Behind the Madness” brought “The Hills” and “Can’t Feel My Face” to the music landscape.

Indie was also represented as Mac DeMarco returned with his second mini-LP “Another One”. The outstanding and underrated debut from Wirral’s Hooton Tennis Club graced our ears with “Highest Point in Cliff Town”, and one of the albums of the year was from Foals as “What Went Down” brought the energy to the end of the month.

August 28th also saw the final instalment from music royalty, Motorhead. “Bad Magic” was the iconic rock band’s 22nd studio album, followed four months later by the sad passing of founding member Lemmy, causing the band to call it a day after 40 years on the road.

September was packed full of album releases, including the Choice and Mercury-nominated “Syro” from Aphex Twin, which went on to claim the Grammy Award for “Best Dance/Electronic Album”. Another eagerly anticipated dance record landed with Disclosure‘s “Caracal”, followed by New Order‘s 10th studio album, “Music Complete”, and Chvrches‘ incredible sophomore synth-pop offering “Every Open Eye”.

There were some big debut releases too, including Travis Scott (Rodeo), Kwabs (Love + War) and Fetty Wap‘s self-titled LP which featured the double Grammy-nominated single “Trap Queen”.

It wasn’t just about the newcomers in September either, with Iron Maiden releasing their sixteenth studio album “The Book of Souls” and Prince‘s 38th and penultimate record arriving with “Hit n Run Phase One”. Lana Del Rey returned with “Honeymoon”, Stereophonics were back with “Keep The Village Alive”, and the long-awaited return of The Libertines was hitting headlines as “Anthems For Doomed Youth” became the band’s first release in 11 years.

October opened with “Stories”, the second studio album from electronic music producer Avicii, and “We the Generation” from Rudimental, two of the most prevalent names in pop at the time. The acclaimed fifth studio album from Editors landed with “In Dream”, along with Swim Deep‘s follow-up to their 2013 breakthrough album in the shape of “Mothers”.

The latter half of the month brought the debut self-titled album release from Nothing But Thieves, featuring popular single “Trip Switch”. Impressive releases also came from City and Colour with “If I Should Go Before You”, “Surrender” from Hurts, and “The Cool Before the Sun” from American prog-rockers Coheed and Cambria.

In case you were wondering what time of year X Factor was airing in the UK back in 2015, November was packed with pop albums ready to promote from One Direction (Made in the AM), Little Mix (Get Weird), Ellie Goulding (Delirium), and The Vamps (Wake Up). It was maybe more coincidental that Justin Bieber‘s “Purpose” album also arrived, with Bieber at the peak of his pop-dominating powers as “Love Yourself”, “What Do You Mean?” and “Sorry” soundtracked many playlists throughout the year.

Another behemoth pop release arrived in November with Adele‘s “25”, comprising the likes of “Hello”, “When We Were Young”, and “Water Under The Bridge”. As always, the reception was huge. Other notable releases from the penultimate month of 2015 came from Foo Fighters with their “Saint Cecilia EP, along with the “Vulcinura Strings” – the acoustic version of Bjork‘s earlier release that year – and the posthumous unveiling of Kurt Cobain‘s soundtrack home recordings with “Montage of Heck: The Home Recordings”.

December is typically a quiet month for albums, other than festive releases (and re-releases). But December 2015 had its fair share of non-festive records. Coldplay‘s “A Head Full of Dreams” arrived featuring the likes of “Hymn for the Weekend” and “Adventure of a Lifetime”. The second part of Prince‘s 2015 offering also landed with “Hit n Run Phase Two”.

Chris Brown, Kid Cudi, Jeremih, and Pusha T all released new albums in December 2015, along with pop breakthrough duo Sigma with “Life” and Cage The Elephant‘s critically acclaimed fourth studio album “Tell Me I’m Pretty”. And finally, the relatively unknown name of Lizzo released her second studio album “Big Grrrl Small World”, a year after performing at the inner-city music festival “Live at Leeds”. I wonder what happened to her?

So there you have it; those were the albums we were listening to 10 years ago. Feeling old yet?

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