The 15 Best Rock Albums Of 2019
After a decade of genre-blending, globalization and the growth of micro-niches, the definition of rock is very much up for debate. But for us — and for the purposes of this list — it means one thing: Guitars. Big, loud, fuzzy guitars. Sharon Van Etten put out one of our favorite albums of the year and there are some guitars on it. But not really rock and roll. Same with Angel Olsen's All Mirrors or Brittany Howard's Jaime, two more albums we loved this year. (Honestly, we're not sure what you'd call them.) At the same time, it'd be easy to label the Nigerian artist Mdou Moctar as "world" or global music, but his incredible album Ilana (The Creator) is a brick house of glorious, gritty guitar noise (and on this list).
Regardless of where you come down on the rock debate, the 15 albums listed below erupt with the kind of epic solos (see ), existential angst () and riff-rage () that quicken the blood, raise the temperature and ignite waves of fist pumps and jumps. Who wants to
