Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly is critics' top album of 2015

Kendrick Lamar's album has already been nominated for 11 Grammy Awards

Kendrick Lamar's sprawling hip-hop opus To Pimp A Butterfly has emerged as the critics' favourite album of 2015.

The album, which tackles race relations in post-Ferguson America, topped a "poll of polls" compiled by the BBC.

Second was Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit by Australian singer Courtney Barnett, whose everyday vignettes have won praise for their incisive, humorous lyrics.

Folk-rock artist Father John Misty's I Love You, Honeybear came third.

Jamie xx's In Colour and psychedelic rock band Tame Impala with Currents made up the top five with Adele's 25 - the year's best-selling record - in 12th place.

The results were compiled from 20 "album of the year" polls, published by the most influential magazines, newspapers and blogs in music - including Billboard, Rolling Stone, Q and the NME.

Records were assigned points based on their position in each list - with the number one album getting 20 points, the number two album receiving 19 points, and so on.

The Top 20 is as follows:

• Read more on the Top 10, with videos and sessions from BBC Music.

There was a huge diversity in the critics' picks, with 140 albums cited across the 20 polls surveyed by the BBC.

But Kendrick Lamar's 11-time Grammy nominated album was the only one to feature in every list - taking the number one position 10 times.

"Lamar, the scene's latest true superstar, has emerged as the one to beat," wrote The Sun.

"His sense of timing is impeccable," added Billboard. "In the midst of rampant cases of police brutality and racial tension across America... the politically charged project sonically commands your full attention."

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