Our critics Jon Pareles and Jon Caramanica share their picks for the best pop albums of the year, and Giovanni Russonello selects the best jazz albums.

Jon Pareles

1. ST. VINCENT “Masseduction” (Loma Vista)

The hefty programmed beats, emphatic electronic hooks and gargantuan choruses of current pop are the framework that Annie Clark, a.k.a. St. Vincent, chose for songs about pleasure, fame, lust and drugs — and their extreme, even deathly consequences. The songs ended up cryptic and emphatic, tragicomic and bold: taking things to the limit in taut three-minute packages. [Read the review | Read the Q. and A.]

2. RESIDENTE “Residente” (Sony Music Latin)

Residente, the rapper from Calle 13, tested his DNA and followed the results worldwide to collaborate with musicians in, among other places, China, Burkina Faso, Bosnia, France and South Ossetia, as well as his native Puerto Rico, letting each locale suggest lyrics. Then he built hardheaded songs about war, impending apocalypse and the resilience of the world’s poorest people. [Read the interview]