Ten Favorite Albums of the Decade (2010-2019)

I'm going to begin by lobbing out the casual bomb that I think this is the weakest decade of the past six (and this is coming from somebody not much into the 80s). I really like a lot of albums from this decade, but not really sure there's much I love like Revolver, Stone Roses, Physical Graffiti, Grace, Time (The Revelator) etc. Choosing a no 1 was actually the hardest part. Glad there's plenty of folk that disagree with me though ;-)

1. Kamasi Washington - The Epic
2. Sons of Kemet - Your Queen Is A Reptile
3. Beyonce - Lemonade
4. Gillian Welch - The Harrow & The Harvest
5. Radiohead - Moon Shaped Pool
6. Ondatropica - Ondatropica
7. Muriel Grossmann - Golden Rule
8. Goat - World Music
9. Theon Cross - Fyah
10. Dave - Psychodrama
 
DownIsTheNewUp said:
Being that I'm the dude that posted a (working) list of 200 albums, I'm of course going to request you post your full 100.

Adds a lot more flavor to these lists when people dig deeper and ups the chance of albums being mentioned that people overlooked.

Plus, your top 10 is an interesting one.
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Here's where it's currently at!
 

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This is where I'm at right now:

1) Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
2) Run the Jewels - RTJ2
3)Against All Logic - 2012 - 2017
4) Frank Ocean - Blonde
5) Jamie XX - In Colour
6) Vektor - Terminal Redux
7) Danny Brown - Atrocity Exhibition
8) Car Seat Headrest - Teens of Denial
9) Destroyer - Kaputt
10) Tribe Called Quest - We got it from here...

I did something similar to @chrb98 and dumped a lot of albums into a playlist. Put it on random and started weeding things out before trying to nail down a more definitive list. 2016 was definitely my favorite year for music this decade - 5 of my top 10 as of now and this doesn't even include My Woman, Life of Pablo, Lemonade, or Blackstar. It'll be interesting to see if more recent music seeps in over the year.
 
First Team:
1. John Grant - Queen of Denmark (2010)
2. Drive-By Truckers - American Band (2016)
3. Tim Wheeler - Lost Domain (2014)
4. Soccer Team - Real Lessons in Cynicism (2015)
5. Girl Band - Holding Hands with Jamie (2015)
6. Sparks - Hippopotamus (2017)
7. Gang of Youths - Go Farther in Lightness (2017)
8. Caroline Rose - Loner (2018)
9. Ball Park Music - Puddinghead (2014)
10. Steven Adams & the French Drops - Virtue Signals (2018)

Honorable mention:
The Posies - Blood/Candy (2010)
Frank Turner - England Keep My Bones (2011)
Fucked Up - David Comes to Life (2011)
Little Green Cars - Absolute Zero (2013)
Neko Case - The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You (2013)
The New Pornographers - Brill Bruisers (2014)
TV on the Radio - Seeds (2014)
Car Seat Headrest - Teens of Denial (2016)
Thee Oh Sees - A Weird Exits (2016)
Starflyer 59 - Young in My Mind (2019)
 
willcoll said:
First Team:
1. John Grant - Queen of Denmark (2010)
2. Drive-By Truckers - American Band (2016)
3. Tim Wheeler - Lost Domain (2014)
4. Soccer Team - Real Lessons in Cynicism (2015)
5. Girl Band - Holding Hands with Jamie (2015)
6. Sparks - Hippopotamus (2017)
7. Gang of Youths - Go Farther in Lightness (2017)
8. Caroline Rose - Loner (2018)
9. Ball Park Music - Puddinghead (2014)
10. Steven Adams & the French Drops - Virtue Signals (2018)

Honorable mention:
The Posies - Blood/Candy (2010)
Frank Turner - England Keep My Bones (2011)
Fucked Up - David Comes to Life (2011)
Little Green Cars - Absolute Zero (2013)
Neko Case - The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You (2013)
The New Pornographers - Brill Bruisers (2014)
TV on the Radio - Seeds (2014)
Car Seat Headrest - Teens of Denial (2016)
Thee Oh Sees - A Weird Exits (2016)
Starflyer 59 - Young in My Mind (2019)
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David Comes to Life, holy shit, what a great record.
 
Already did my all time top 100, so heres the top from just this decade.

1. Death Grips - The Money Store
2. Julia Jacklin - Crushing
3. Julia Jacklin - Don't Let The Kids Win
4. Leah Senior - Pretty Faces
5. Tame Impala - Innerspeaker
6. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Polygondwanaland
7. The Avalanches - Wildflower
8. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Nonagon Infinity
9. Kanye West - Yeezus
10. Childish Gambino - Awaken, My Love!

Hmm, now that its listed out like that, it doesn't seem right, but they never do I guess.

Edit: Yeah, looking at it like that prompted a bit of rearrangement of the main list. That number 10 spot is very contentious.
 
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Poly-Rythmo said:
I'm going to begin by lobbing out the casual bomb that I think this is the weakest decade of the past six (and this is coming from somebody not much into the 80s).
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I would agree and likely rank them:

1. 1960s
2. 1970s
3. 1990s
4. 2000s
5. 1980s
6. 2010s

I think this decade has been strong for rap/hip-hop and releases inspired by such, but fairly weak (compared to the top of prior decades) with releases more in the rock mode. It’s deep with lots of really good releases, but masterpieces are fewer and farther between.
 
wmeugene said:
I would agree and likely rank them:

1. 1960s
2. 1970s
3. 1990s
4. 2000s
5. 1980s
6. 2010s

I think this decade has been strong for rap/hip-hop and releases inspired by such, but fairly weak (compared to the top of prior decades) with releases more in the rock mode. It’s deep with lots of really good releases, but masterpieces are fewer and farther between.
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I haven't thought too much about the order of decades but that looks pretty decent - I might have swapped 70s for 60s as no 1, especially in Africa where 80s is my no 2 but 70s rules supreme (for me).
 
1. Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly
2. Kendrick Lamar - Good Kid Maad City
3. Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
4. Frank Ocean - Blonde
5. Tyler The Creator - Wolf
6. Brockhampton - Saturation Trilogy (can we pretend its all one album)
7. Travis Scott - Rodeo
8. Drake - Take Care
9. Father John Misty - Fear Fun
10. Adele - 21
 
In no particular order

Lorde- Melodrama
Anderson .Paak- Malibu
Soccer Mommy- Clean
Muse- 2nd Law (I don’t care, I love it)
Kendrick Lamar- Damn
Vance Joy- Dream Your Life Away
Orville Peck- Pony
Weezer- White Album
Noname - Telefone
Gang of Youths- Go Farther in Lightness
 
wmeugene said:
I would agree and likely rank them:

6. 2010s
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I think the only way I understand this take is if your are somebody who listens to rock and pretty much nothing else.

The sheer volume of high quality releases was absolutely mind blowing this decade. Thus me finding it truly challenging to narrow a list down to 200 albums for the decade--and having end of the year lists that go 50 deep from 2014-2018 even when there are dozens of highly acclaimed albums each year that do nothing for me (ala War on Drugs, Beyonce, Beach House, Drake, ext).

This was the decade where the labels completely lost control of the creative process, where indie artists and experimentalism thrived and a truckload of dynamite got put into the concept of genres. You can argue that there are less releases that are automatic "classics", but I think that has more to do with the death of radio and mono-culture than the quality of the releases.

It was the best decade for electronica hands down, arguably on par with the 90s for the best era of mainstream rap (with plenty of solid underground releases too), a decade that saw the return of jazz within the zeitgeist, a phenomenal decade for interesting pop and/or R&B music and a very, very solid era for indie rock, folk and punk.

I remember having this discussion a couple years back on the VMP forums about this, but I'd honestly go--

Tier 1: 2010's/1990's

Tier 2: 1970's (best decade for rock, lots of great jazz and R&B but no electronica or rap)

Tier 3: 1980's/2000's

Tier 4: 1960's

Tier 4: Anything prior to the 1960s.

But of course, that's completely subjective. Like what really constitutes a Cosby sweater anyways?
 
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DownIsTheNewUp said:
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I think the only way this take is justifiable is if your are somebody who listens to rock and pretty much nothing else.

The sheer volume of high quality releases was absolutely mind blowing this decade. Thus me finding it truly challenging to narrow a list down to 200 albums for the decade--and having end of the year lists that go 50 deep from 2014-2018 even when there are dozens of highly acclaimed albums each year that do nothing for me (ala War on Drugs, Beyonce, Beach House, Drake, ext).

This was the decade where the labels completely lost control of the creative process, where indie artists and experimentalism thrived and a truckload of dynamite got put into the concept of genres. You can argue that there are less releases that are automatic "classics", but I think that has more to do with the death of radio and mono-culture than the quality of the releases.

It was the best decade for electronica hands down, arguably on par with the 90s for the best era of mainstream rap (with plenty of solid underground releases too), a decade that saw the return of jazz within the zeitgeist, a phenomenal decade for interesting pop and/or R&B music and a very, very solid era for indie rock, folk and punk.

I remember having this discussion a couple years back on the VMP forums about this, but I'd honestly go--

Tier 1: 2010's/1990's

Tier 2: 1970's (best decade for rock, lots of great jazz and R&B but no electronica or rap)

Tier 3: 1980's

Tier 4: 1960's/2000's

Tier 4: Anything prior to the 1960s.

But of course, that's completely subjective. Like what really constitutes a Cosby sweater anyways?
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brilliantly argued but historically wrong seeing as the 1970s is when electronica was born!

if i look at my top 100 albums of 1960s to now (last compiled in 2014, due for a re-do at the end of this year), i had:
1960s: 31
1970s: 33
1980s: 11
1990s: 12
2000s: 10
2010s: 3

and that doesn't include the early rock n roll albums (elvis' debut, buddy holly, etc.) or the jazz giants from the pre-rock n roll era (miles, mingus, coltrane, billie holiday, et al) that i basically very rarely include in these lists, but at least several of which would probably make my list if i was to do so

a cosby sweater >> a drink that cosby hands you....
 
whatwhatsaywhat said:
brilliantly argued but historically wrong seeing as the 1970s is when electronica was born!

a cosby sweater >> a drink that cosby hands you....
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Technically fair. But the work of bands like Kraftwerk sounds exceptionally dated and as brilliant as the works of people like Eno or bands like Can are... I struggle to call them electronic music in the modern sense.

I lost my list of my 500 "perfect" albums when What.CD got taken down at the end of 2016. I'd venture to guess that the 70's/90's/10's would be pretty evenly split. With the 80's and 00's having a comparable # within the 500 . From a sense of pioneerism, the 60's are vital but I honestly just don't listen to much from the first half of that decade. And a lot of the artists I love from that era put out some of their best work in the 1970's.

I grew up an indie/classic/alt rock kid who also listened to some rap (Beastie Boys, Outkast, Dre, Eminem, Tupac, ext). I became a full fledged hip-hop head while in college during the first half of the 2000's. Despite the mainstream rap of the 00's being mostly trash (imo), the underground scene was vibrant. Meanwhile, the older I get, the more into pop, R&B and electronica I become. And I think it's largely due to the works of artists like Grimes, LCD Soundsystem, Nicholas Jaar, Blood Orange, Yeasayer, Anderson Paak, and Let's Eat Grandma who are intent on pushing boundaries because there is no label head telling them what to do. Ditto for hip-hop artists like Vince Staples, Chance, Kendrick and Brockhampton who never would have been allowed to exist in their current form during previous decades.

I truly adore the music of the 1970's. Bowie, the Talking Heads, Can, Van Morrison, Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd laid the foundation for my taste in music much in the same way that bands like Modest Mouse, Pavement, Radiohead, Sonic Youth, Nine Inch Nails, the White Stripes and the Pixies did in high school/college. I just can't imagine living in an era without the option of putting a wide array of hip hop or electronic music onto the my turntable. Thus, my stance.

And definitely. A Cosby served drink leaves you traumatized. A Cosby sweater is merely tasteless.
 
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you want me to go all the way back to 2010, I can barely remember if an album came out last year or the year before

I will work on this

King Gizzard (probably a couple)
The War on Drugs - Lost in a Dream
Bon Iver (all of them)
Father John Misty (all of them)
Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
David Bowie - Blackstar
St Vincent - S/T and Masseduction
Courtney Barnett
Gang of Youths
Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell
Fleet Foxes
Alabama Shakes
Beck - Morning Phase
The National - Trouble and I Am
Durand Jones
Kelly Finnagin

I cheated of others lists for sure
 
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