Best New Music Of 2015

New year, new playlist. We’re listening to great new music for 2015.

The calendar turns.  And so do playlists.  Old music is great.  But so is new.  Sleater-Kinney is out with new music for the first time in years: "No Cities to Love,” their new album, comes out this month.  And there’s more, from Frank Ocean, EULA, Mark Ronson, Miguel, Sharaya J and Screaming Females.  Want to hear the future?  That’s where we’re going.  This hour On Point:  new music for 2015, with critics Maura Johnston and Puja Patel.
-- Tom Ashbrook

Maura Johnston, editor of the online culture publication, Maura Magazine. Former music editor for the Village Voice. (@maura)

Puja Patel, music writer and critic. Contributor to Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Stereogum, and more. Former editor at Spin and Wondering Sound. (@senari)

NPR Music: Musicians You'll Tell Your Friends About In 2015 -- "In the spirit of surprise and open possibilities, here are 10 acts you might not find on everyone else's must-have list for the new year. Some of these musicians are several albums into their careers, with devoted followings. Others are fledglings. The buzz machine has attached itself to one or two; a few remain obscure. All plan to be promoting fresh recordings in the next twelve months, but several, adhering to the spontaneity of the sudden-release age, don't have firm date for their projects."

Boston Globe: Kanye West, Paul McCartney, and the ever-present past -- "That McCartney and West collaborated shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to anyone looking deeper than either artist’s most superficial public image; McCartney has shown his affinity for the present through his collaborations with the Welsh psych-pop outfit Super Furry Animals and the electro outfit Bloody Beetroots, while West has paid homage to classic rock’s past by working with Elton John and sampling King Crimson. What is surprising, though, is how much time has elapsed between McCartney’s burst onto the pop music scene and now — and how, thanks to the way nostalgia is becoming more crucial to shared entertainments, that half a century seems like the blink of an eye."

Toronto Star: Five trends that defined 2014 in music — "What can you say about a year in which not only did one of music’s biggest brands, U2, endure vilification for giving away their music, but that they probably deserved it?That far fewer people bought music but far more found new ways to consume it? That a format left for dead at the dawn of the CD era somehow became the music industry’s fastest (albeit still niche) growth area?"