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.