NME, Rolling Stone name their best albums of 2015

Grimes' Art Angels has been named the best album of 2015 by music magazine NME.

Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly has topped Rolling Stone magazine's albums of the year list, but NME has chosen Grimes' Art Angels for its No. 1 spot.

Lamar's intense, lyrically dense second album topped Rolling Stone's list of the 50 best album of 2015, released today.

It praised the album as a "one-of-a-kind masterpiece - a sprawling epic that's both the year's most bumptious party music and its most gripping therapy session".

Kendrick Lamar's third album To Pimp A Butterfly has been named album of the year by Rolling Stone magazine. Photo/AP

Lamar beat Adele, Jason Isbell, The Weeknd, D'Angelo, The Arcs and Blur to the top spot.

Kiwi fans will get to while Grimes in February when she headlines Laneway in Auckland, while Lamar is headlining Auckland City Limits in March.

Meanwhile, UK magazine NME put Grimes' alt-pop masterpiece Art Angels at the top of its 50-strong list, calling it "the best album of the year, from the most exciting artist of a generation".

It put Lamar at No. 2.

NME's top 10 albums of 2015:

1. Art Angels - Grimes
2. To Pimp A Butterfly - Kendrick Lamar
3. In Colour - Jamie xx
4. My Love is Cool - Wolf Alice
5. Currents - Tame Impala
6. Every Eye Open - Chvrches
7. Honeymoon - Lana Del Rey
8. What Went Down - Foals
9. Marks to Prove It - The Maccabees
10. Multi-Love - Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Rolling Stone's top 10 albums of 2015:

1. To Pimp A Butterfly - Kendrick Lamar
2. 25 - Adele
3. If You're Reading This It's Too Late - Drake
4. Black Messiah - D'Angelo and the Vanguard
5. Beauty Behind the Madness - The Weeknd
6. Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit - Courtney Barnett
7. Something More Than Free - Jason Isbell
8. Hamilton: Original Broadway Soundtrack
9. Yours, Dreamily - The Arcs
10. The Magic Whip - Blur

- nzherald.co.nz