This year, rather than put out some democratically totted up list, I have embraced the era of the dictator. This is both my and “our” list. I did consult my lieutenants, and paid attention to what was written on the site throughout the year. I've also been keeping tabs on records that were adored on our boards during the year.

As Editor-At-Large, I’ve spent the year listening to music for pleasure as much as for dutiful research. Whether it’s been making the Independent Music Monday playlist every week for most of this year, ensuring DiS' Best of the Year Spotify playlist is up-to-date, or keeping up with the internet at my day job (doing social media for BBC Radio 6 Music), there has been - as there has been each of the seventeen years DiS has existed - a relentless deluge of amazing new releases every week.

As music fans, we’ve been truly spoilt by 2017. This list could have featured a 100 more albums in varying orders. Every Friday there were so many interesting and notable records coming out of different genres, from various new artists and plenty of favourites who’ve previously topped our “list”.

Like all good dictators, I reserve the right to do-a-Kanye and amend this list (especially as it’s too soon to decide about the Bjork album). We also conducted a staff poll, collating the editorial staff's and the contributor's Top 3s, which you can view here. There's also the not insignificant matter of the DiS Forum User Poll, which is open to our entire community of users.

For now, I invite you all to explore the records below, to start petitions, and to join the conversation on our forums where you can eloquently argue for the albums you feel others should investigate (every year I discover some extraordinary album I hadn't even heard of when putting this list together). I would especially love to see you celebrate and highlight those lesser known albums that didn’t have the resources to reach more people in a year filled with so many great releases.

Drowned in Sound's Favourite Albums of 2017

Editor's Cut

1) Wolf Alice - Visions of A Life

2) Kelly Lee Owens - Kelly Lee Owens

3) EMA - Exile in the Outer Ring

4) St. Vincent - MASSEDUCTION

5) Noveller - A Pink Sunset For No One

6) Austra - Future Politics

7) Feist - Pleasure

8) Jane Weaver - Modern Kosmology

9) Laura Marling - Semper Femina

10) Juana Molina - Halo

11) Soulwax - From Deewee

12) Thundercat - Drunk

13) Paramore - After Laughter

14) Jean Michel-Blais & CFCF - Cascades

15) Bjork - Utopia

16) Mogwai - Every Country’s Sun

17) Zola Jesus - Okovi

18) Kendrick Lamar - DAMN.

19) Protomartyr - Relatives in Descent

20) Grizzly Bear - Painted Ruins

21) Hannah Peel - Mary Casio: Journey to Cassiotopia

22) Slowdive - Slowdive

23) Loyle Carner - Yesterday’s Gone

24) Eyre Llew - Atelo

25) Perfume Genius - No Shape

26) Nadine Shah - Holiday Destination

27) LCD Soundsystem - american dream

28) Lorde - Melodrama

29) Hurray For The Riff Raff - The Navigator

30) The Big Moon - Love In the 4th Dimension

31) Princess Nokia - 1992 Deluxe

32) Colin Stetson - All This I Do For Glory

33) The Horrors - V

34) Queens of the Stone Age - Villains

35) RIDE - Weather Diaries

36) Sylvan Esso - What Now

37) IDLES - Brutalism

38) Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - Before The Flood

39) Cigarettes After Sex - Cigarettes After Sex

40) Girl Ray - Earl Grey

41) The Mynabirds - Be Here Now

42) SZA - Ctrl

43) Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton - Choir Of The Mind

44) Johnny Jewel - Windswept

45) Jesca Hoop - Memories Are Now

46) Katy Perry - Witness

47) Clark - Death Peak

48) Grandaddy - Last Place

49) Tired Lion - Dumb Days

50) William Basinski - A Shadow In Time

51) Four Tet - New Energy

52) Sløtface - Try Not to Freak Out

53) Beck - Colors

54) Bicep - Bicep

55) Alvvays - Antisocialites

56) Juanita Stein - America

57) Phoebe Bridgers - Stranger in the Alps

58) Broken Social Scene - Hug of Thunder

59) Chelsea Wolfe - Hiss Spun

60) Liars - TFCF

61) Kamasi Washington - Harmony of Difference

62) Japanese Breakfast - Soft Sounds from Another Planet

63) Ghostpoet - Dark Days + Canapes

64) Charlotte Gainsbourg - Rest

65) The National - Sleep Well Beast

66) Jen Cloher - Jen Cloher

67) Do Make Say Think - Stubborn Persistent Delusions

68) Mount Kimbie - Love What Survives

69) Lana Del Rey - Lust for Life

70) Wiley - Godfather

71) Father John Misty - Pure Comedy

72) Max Richter - Three Worlds: Music from Wolf Works

73) Molly Burch - Please Be Mine

74) Rose Elinor Dougall - Stellular

75) Big Thief - Capacity

76) Casey Dienel - Imitation of a Women To Love

77) The Shins - Heartworms

78) Destroyer - Ken

79) Stormzy - Gang Signs & Prayer

80) Cherry Glazerr - Apocolipstick

81) Mura Masa - Mura Masa

82) Fever Ray - Plunge

83) Ryan Adams - Prisoner

84) Depeche Mode - Spirit

85) Laurel Halo - Dust

86) Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile - Whole Lotta Sea Lice

87) King Krule - The Ooz

88) Kelela - Take Me Apart

89) This Is The Kit - Moonshine Freeze

90) Sampha - Process

91) Lapalux - Ruinism

92) Afghan Whigs - In Spades

93) Cloud Nothings - Life Without Sound

94) Circuit des Yeux - Reaching For Indigo

95) Rapsody - Laila’s Wisdom

96) The War on Drugs - Deeper Understanding

97) Public Service Broadcasting - Every Valley

98) Future Islands - Far Field

99) Blanck Mass - World Eater

100) Arcade Fire - Everything Now

If we were to revise this list, who should be higher?

Share your views and read some of our commentary by joining the conversation on our forums.

To see the results of the DiS Staff Poll, and to see everyone's Top 3 Albums Of the Year, click here. For the DiS Forum User Poll, click here.

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