Tag: top 10 albums list
Top 10 Artists to Watch in 2026
Janky Smooth Central Command
January 9, 2026
It’s that time of year again- the beginning. And in the beginning of the year we always like to spotlight Artists to Watch and 2026 promises to be overflowing with new, ascending and/or generational type talents. Janky Smooth sole mission is to turn you on to artists you may or may not heard of yet. To put a face and a name to the music and to try to be one of the first to take notice of that diamond in the ruff when the first band of the night takes the stage. Here are some bands and artists we’ve spotlighted that we expect to take the next step in their careers… in alphabetical order Béton Armé related: Top 25 Artists to Watch in 2020 Béton Armé represented a strange phenomenon in underground punk on their come-up. Hailing from Montreal, they were one of a few bands playing skinhead Oi! in French. Along with Rixe, they would play underground shows for Nacho Corrupted and Nothingless Booking for the longest time, generating hype as one of the more energetic, chaotic, and hard-hitting international acts. Then something happened. They took a divergent route, landing on mainstream punk lineups like Punk Rock Bowling.
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Janky Smooth Top 10 ALBUMS of 2025 Rated by Contributors
Janky Smooth Central Command
December 22, 2025
Year end lists don’t define many music publications anymore. But we’d like to change that. The Janky Smooth Year End Lists are personal to each of our contributors that participated and our contributors define the focus of our music blog. And while everyone can post their personal year end lists on social media with varying degrees of traction, it’s the collective that has always defined Janky Smooth and what we cover. It’s hard to tell if 2025 was a banner year for Independent Music or if Janky Smooth covered it in a way that we never have in the last 11 years. It would be strictly rhetorical to ask if the volatile times we live in were feeding artists inspiration that led to their most seminal works of art, but it would not be if we asked if we covered more new releases than we ever had in our history. In the latter half of 2025 we introduced Janky Fresh Friday to focus on artist in the studio as much as we spotlight the artists onstage. As a result, the contributors at Janky Smooth have felt like we have been able to offer a more holistic view of bands and
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Janky Smooth Top 10 ALBUMS of 2024 Rated by Contributors
Janky Smooth Central Command
December 31, 2024
2024 came and went with some of the most dramatic and tense moments in the country’s political and cultural history. As any true music head knows, great shifts are predicted in a culture’s music first, so if there’s anything the music of 2024 can tell us about the state of art and the future, we should be very excited for all things to come.Just as entire status quos of thought went challenged and overturned in 2024, many bands changed the dynamics of entire genres will releases that blew our contributors away. Here are the top ten albums of 2024, ranging from every category, from the underground to the mainstream. You will see the Janky signature in these lists with our selections that show appreciation for a huge range of music so unique that you’ll need to listen to these albums yourself to truly understand why 2024 was so monumental for music. Publisher, Danny Baraz Nox Novacula – Feed the Fire Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere Amyl and the Sniffers – Cartoon Darkness Mannequin Pussy – I Got Heaven Hong Kong Fuck You – 1978-1981 Kendrick Lamar – GNX Tyler The Creator – Chromakopia The Cure – Songs of a Lost
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JANKY SMOOTH Top 10 Albums of 2023 Rated By Contributors
Janky Smooth Central Command
December 31, 2023
2023 wasn’t just the year we saw many of our Janky favorites mature into their true selves, 2023 was the year these favorite bands put out the career defining material that will be pointed to years from today as the moment the band began creating the music they became iconic for. Some of these bands include groups we’ve followed for years, bands like Zulu, Spiritual Cramp, Scowl, and Angel Du$t. Yes, the hardcore scene provided the soundtrack for some of 2023’s most inspired and diverse jams, yet this was not the only underground providing the year’s best records. In the worlds of goth, synth, darkwave and beyond, artists like Model/Actriz, Madeline Goldstein, Nation of Language and Panther Modern made us dance, swoon and make-out harder than previous years. In metal, we see the same dynamism as Tomb Mold created one of the year’s most powerful and transcendent musical rollercoasters. Genre veterans Cannibal Corpse and Cavalera continued ripping, as did Liturgy, adding a new book to her musical gospel. Hip hop didn’t disappoint either with alternative and mainstream bangers galore be they the collaboration between JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown or grouptherapy’s latest brilliant record. Art pop female badasses stole the show
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Top 10 ALBUMS of 2021 as Rated by Contributors
Rob Shepyer
December 21, 2021
Across every known genre in the musicverse, 2021 saw incredible releases from artists new and old proving that pressure really does create diamonds. The pandemic certainly put a strain on every performer’s bottom line but the real bottom line behind every dollar is the artistic inspiration that drives people’s ears to your art. We saw game changing albums in 2021, from Turnstile’s Glow On which may just be the first “dreamcore” album, to Dry Cleaning’s New Long Leg which reinvigorated British post punk with cool feminine ennui. Plenty of Jankysmooth favorites came out with new albums like Viagra Boys’ Welfare Jazz, Shannon and the Clams’ Year of the Spider, Surfbort’s Keep on Truckin’, Angel Du$t’s Yak, and so many more. We discovered new favorites along the way too, like Pixel Grip’s Arena, Magdalena Bay’s Mercurial World, Squid’s Bright Green Field, and so many more. Icons were created in 2021, like Japanese Breakfast after their album Jubilee, Idles after Crawler, and King Woman after Celestial Blues. The list goes on and on, so to make things more concise, our contributors rated their top ten favorite albums of the year. Check it out. Publisher, Danny Baraz Turnstile – Glow On Black Midi –
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