This has been a horrible year, even if you can somehow put politics out of your mind. David Bowie died a little over a week after New Year's Day and the deaths kept coming with horrible regularity. Prince, Glenn Frey, Leonard Cohen, Leon Russell and Sharon Jones are just a handful of the icons and talented musicians we lost over the past 12 months. After a while it just became numbing.
This article originally appeared on www.rollingstone.com: Readers’ Poll: 10 Best Albums of 2016