{"id":8128,"date":"2019-12-18T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=8128"},"modified":"2019-12-17T13:24:09","modified_gmt":"2019-12-17T18:24:09","slug":"top-25-albums-of-the-2010s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2019\/12\/18\/top-25-albums-of-the-2010s\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 25 albums of the 2010s."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I’ve said numerous times here, in chats, and on social media\nthat I’m not an album guy \u2013 I tend to prefer individual songs, and to assemble\nmy own playlists of songs by various artists, even across genres, that work\ntogether for me. It’s uncommon for me to put on an entire album and listen to\nit straight through, less so now than when I was younger and would just wear\nout a tape or CD of Apple <\/em>or Nevermind<\/em> or Badmotorfinger<\/em>\nor It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back<\/em> or \u2026And Justice for All<\/em>\nor Passion and Warfare<\/em>. So while 25 isn’t a very long list for an entire\ndecade of music, it’s a good representation of my decade of listening to music,\nbecause these are albums I will listen to start to finish (or mostly so), and ones\nto which I go back again and again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those of you who enjoy some of the more challenging\nmetal I sometimes put at the end of my monthly playlists, the top metal album\nof the decade for me is still Carcass’s Surgical Steel<\/em>, beating out\nMastodon’s Emperor of Sand<\/em>, Alcest’s Kodama<\/em>, and Insomnium’s Shadows\nof the Dying Sun.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few honorable mentions for this main list: TVAM’s Psychic\nData<\/em>, Thrice’s To Be Everywhere Is To Be Nowhere<\/em>, whenyoung’s Reasons\nto Dream<\/em>, Turbowolf’s The Free Life<\/em>, and Black Honey’s Black\nHoney<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

25. The Horrors \u2013 Skying.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve done some kind of year-end music post for every year\nthis decade except for 2011, which was sort of deliberate at the time because I\ndidn’t hear as much music I liked that year as I did each year afterwards, but\nalso I think a function of how much easier streaming services made it to find\nnew music after that point. (I started using Spotify in the fall of 2012.) So\nI’ve had to go back and fill in the gap in my music memories, and it turns out\nthat 2011 wasn’t a great year for the kinds of music I enjoy. I only sort of\nremember Skying<\/em> from the time, but a few readers have recommended The\nHorrors to me over the years, and I feel like this is the zenith of their sound\n\u2013 still shoegazey and expansive like their earliest stuff, but a bit more\naccessible and melodic, while less commercial than everything that’s come\nafterwards. Standout tracks include “I Can See Through You,”\n“Still Life,” and especially “Endless Blue.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

24. School of Seven Bells \u2013 SVIIB<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

School of Seven Bells’ final album was a tribute to member\nBenjamin Curtis, who died of T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma in 2013 at age 35.\nThe remaining member Alejandra Deheza went back to their unfinished last record\nand completed the songs, releasing this album, their best work, in February of\n2016. The nine-song LP has seven tracks that sound like their first three\nrecords, electronic, atmospheric music with a melancholy tinge even when the\nmusic is more upbeat, and then closes with two mournful songs,\n“Confusion” and “This is Our Time,” that are absolutely\ndevastating in the context of Curtis’ death. My personal favorites from the\nalbum are still “Open Your Eyes” and “Ablaze,” but it works\nso well as a complete experience that I rarely just pull any single song out of\nit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

23. Superhumanoids \u2013 Do You Feel OK?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Superhumanoids appear to be done after two albums, but their\nsecond release, coming in 2015, deserved a much wider audience than it\nreceived. It’s pop music by another name, just done better and without autotuning\nor overly slick production \u2013 why would you autotune the vocals with a singer as\ntalented as Sarah Chernoff, or overproduce music that’s this smart and builds\nso well within tracks like “Anxious in Venice” or the wonderfully\ntitled “Norwegian Black Metal?” The electronic\/indie trio crafted\ngreat pop hooks that would fit on any mainstream radio station, and it’s a\nshame it never happened for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

22. Drenge \u2013 Drenge<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lots of duos have tried this same formula \u2013 one guitarist,\none drummer, a heavy sound made more ominous by the lack of bass \u2013 but Drenge\ndid it best on their debut album, which runs just 37 minutes for 12 songs, and\njust 25 songs for the first ten tracks, after which you could probably put\nsomething else on. The album opens with six songs that are all short bursts of\nenergy with great riffs, varying a little in tone and tempo, peaking with\n“Bloodsports,” “Backwaters,” and “Gun Crazy,”\nwhere the brothers make the most of their limited instrumentation to give the\nsongs a full sound, then getting out before the 3:30 mark every time. I also recommend\n“Nothing” and “I Don’t Want to Make Love to You.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

21. CHVRCHES \u2013 Every Open Eye<\/em>. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ll spoil this now by saying that CHVRCHES appear twice on\nthis list, the only artist to do so, with their debut record at #11 and their\nsophomore album here. The first one was more novel, while this album was more\nof the same but with higher production values. I liked this album in its\ninitial release, which included the standout tracks “Leave a Trace,”\n“Make Them Gold,” “Never Ending Circles,” and “Bury It,”\nand the deluxe edition also includes “Get Away,” released shortly\nafterwards on the reworked soundtrack to the movie Drive<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

20. HAERTS \u2013 HAERTS<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think two factors hurt HAERTS’ debut album commercially\/on\nradio, not including their orthographical issues. The best songs on this album,\n“Hemiplegia,” “Wings,” and “All the Days,” all\nappeared on a 2013 EP called Hemiplegia<\/em>, and by the time this album\nappeared those songs had sort of come and gone already, and while the album brought\nmore solid tracks like “Giving Up” and “Heart,” it wasn’t\nentirely ‘new.’ The second is that they sort of vanished afterwards, releasing\njust two singles\/EPs (one of which included a 7-minute song, “Eva,”\nthat was never going to get any airplay) in the next four years before their\nsecond album, New Compassion,<\/em> appeared. Nini Fabi’s voice is superb and\nthere are so many great hooks here that, around 2013, I thought they’d be the\nnext big thing on alternative radio. It just never panned out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

19. Of Monsters and Men \u2013 My Head is an Animal<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wore this album out, and I have a hypothesis that it would\nbe remembered more fondly if it hadn’t crossed over into the mainstream and\nthen been played so heavily on the radio and elsewhere for a good two years\nafter its release. It’s not innovative, but it is perfectly executed, with\nstrong harmonies, the tremendous voice of lead singer Nanna, and, on this album\nat least, more layered arrangements from the six band members who played instruments\n(not counting the occasional brass section). Standouts for me are the tracks\nyou know \u2013 “Little Talks,” of course, “Mountain Sound,”\n“Lakehouse,” and “King and Lionheart.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

18. Savages \u2013 Silence Yourself<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Silence Yourself<\/em> could be the soundtrack to the\n#MeToo movement, although it was released in 2013 and was lyrically ahead of\nits time, an angry, unapologetically feminist record of modern punk songs\npunctuated by Jehnny Beth’s vocals, which swing from exhausted to enraged.\nTheir second album, Adore Life<\/em>, didn’t have the same righteous anger,\nand while Jehnny Beth has continued to release music on her own (and with her partner\nJohnny Hostile), we haven’t heard from Savages since 2016. Standouts from this\nrecord include “Shut Up,” “I Am Here,” and “She\nWill.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

17. black midi \u2013 Schlagenheim<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most purely interesting new album I’ve heard since the\nrecord that’s #1 on this list, the 2019 debut from these British upstarts is\nexperimental, bizarre, counterintuitive, abrasive, and totally fascinating. I\nhave struggled to describe this record to friends who are into new music; it\nsounds like black midi has somehow taken rock music and turned it inside out.\nThis isn’t accessible, and sometimes it just doesn’t work, but it’s the kind of\nrecord that makes me eager to see what they’ll do next. I was a bit\ndisappointed that their single “Talking Heads,” released in the spring,\ndidn’t end up on the album, as I think it’s the most immediately compelling\nthing they’ve done so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

16. Courtney Barnett \u2013 Sometimes I Sit and Think, And\nSometimes I Just Sit<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barnett’s laconic delivery isn’t for everyone, but her\nlyrics are brilliant, and she showed on this full-length debut that she can craft\nstrong tracks whether uptempo or down, electric or acoustic. Barnett’s best songs\ntell complete stories replete with tangents and amusing details, along with\nsolid hooks. Standout tracks here include “Pedestrian at Best,”\n“Dead Fox,” “Depreston,” and “Elevator Operator,”\nalthough her two earlier singles “Avant Gardener” (a song about an\nasthma attack, of all things) and “History Eraser” didn’t reappear,\nas they were only on her A Sea of Split Peas<\/em> double EP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

15. The New Pornographers \u2013 Brill Bruisers<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems like critics and TNP fans will grade every album\nthe supergroup releases as lesser because it’s not Twin Cinema<\/em>, but\nthat’s hardly fair to the group, especially since they’ve put out some great\nsongs in the fourteen (!) years since that album first appeared. This is their best\ncomplete record since then, in my view, although it suffers from the heavy\ninfluence of the now-departed Dan Bejar (Destroyer) on some of the middle\ntracks. Standouts include the title track, “Fantasy Fools,”\n“Dancehall Domine,” and “War on the East Coast.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

14. Portugal. The Man \u2013 Woodstock<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just a great album from start to finish, Woodstock<\/em>\nfeels like the culmination of steady growth from P.tM after the uneven but often\nbrilliant In the Mountain in the Cloud<\/em> (maybe my #2 album of 2011, the\nyear I didn’t do any year-end posts) and Evil Friends<\/em>. You know\n“Feel It Still,” one of the top songs of the decade for me, but this\nalbum is way more complete than that, with “Easy Tiger,” “So\nYoung,” “Live in the Moment,” “Rich Friends,” and\n“Tidal Wave.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

13. Young Fathers \u2013 Cocoa Sugar<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mercury Prize-winning rap trio put it all together on\ntheir third album, which stands out in a crowded field of contemporary hip-hop\nrecords because it sounds so little like everything else. The production is\nsparse, and the three members aren’t afraid of quiet passages without vocals or\nwith half-sung lines, a clear case here of less is more. Standouts include the\nincredible “Toy,” “Fee Fi,” “Turn,” and “In\nMy View.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

12. The Wombats \u2013 Glitterbug<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For pure pleasure of listening, this was a top 3 album of\nthe decade for me; it’s peak Wombats and just generally peak indie-pop, with\nsmart and frequently hilarious lyrics and plenty of good hooks throughout the\nrecord, the kind of stuff I hoped they’d produced when I heard their first single,\n“Let’s Dance to Joy Division.” It’s a joyous, silly album that\noverflows with great singles, including “This is Not a Party,” “Greek\nTragedy,” “Emoticons,” “Curveballs,” and “Your\nBody is a Weapon.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

11. CHVRCHES \u2013 The Bones of What You Believe<\/em>. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

CHVRCHES’ debut album came after a year-plus of singles and\nEPs, and, to their credit, they put all of the key songs they’d released in\nthat buildup on the actual album, by which point they’d already cultivated\nenough of an audience for this record to peak at #12 on the Billboard<\/em>\n200, a remarkable feat for a debut by a Scottish alternative group. Lauren\nMayberry’s charisma and voice are the stars here, as they remain even as the\nmusic they’ve produced has tapered a bit towards their third album. Standouts\nhere include “The Mother We Share,” “Recover,” “We Sink,”\n“Gun,” and “Lungs.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10. Michael Kiwanuka \u2013 KIWANUKA<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the challenges I have in making any list like this is\ndealing with my own recency bias, and then worrying I’m overcompensating if I\ntry to, in effect, regress my feelings on a record (or game, or movie) back to\nthe mean a bit. I’ve been listening to KIWANUKA<\/em> more than any other record\nin the seven weeks since it came out, often going start to finish and losing\nmyself in the transitions between certain tracks because I’m so enraptured by\nhis voice and the old-school R&B vibe of his guitar work. Standouts here\nincluding “Rolling,” my #1 song of 2019; “You Ain’t the Problem,”\nand “Hero.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9. Hundred Waters \u2013 The Moon Rang Like a Bell<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It sounds like this group, a quartet at the time but now a\ntrio, might be done, which would be a shame given how tremendous this record\nwas. Featuring the ethereal vocals of Nicole Miglis above music that is trip-hoppy,\nambient, spacey, or simply a piano line, it was like nothing else out there \u2013\nadventurous without becoming so experimental that it would push listeners away,\nnever overtly hooky but still melodic because of Miglis’ voice. Standouts\ninclude “Xtalk,” “[Animal],” “Murmurs,”\n“Show Me Love,” and “Out Alee.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8. Grimes \u2013 Art Angels<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the heels of another album Grimes scrapped, salvaging\njust one track (“Realiti,” which appears here in a new form), Art\nAngels<\/em> was Grimes’ weird art distilled into their most accessible form,\nwith less of the baby-voiced vocals from her previous album and, unfortunately,\nthat seem to be back for her forthcoming Miss Anthropocene<\/em>. Grimes, also\nknown as Claire Boucher and now called c<\/em> because that’s what Elon Musk\nsuggested she go by, is capable of brilliance across a wide range of pop\/alternative\nstyles, showcased here on the guitar-driven “California,” the\nhard-edged “Kill v. Maim,” and her feminist collaboration with\nJanelle Monae, “Venus Fly.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7. Ceremony \u2013 In the Spirit World Now<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My thoughts from KIWANUKA<\/em> apply here as well \u2013 maybe I’m\noverrating this album because it’s new, and I’ve listened to it so much in the\nlast few months, but I also know I am a sucker for this kind of throwback to\nthe halcyon days of post-punk and nascent new wave. Ceremony have perfectly\ncaptured that moment when Gang of Four and Wire were the shiny new things and\nthe synth-based new wave movement was just starting but hadn’t quite gone full\nHuman League. Standouts include the title track, “Turn Away the Bad\nThing,” “Further I Was,” and “Say Goodbye to Them.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. Beck \u2013 Colors<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beck has two modes \u2013 his Prince-like pop mode where he seems\nto undergo this creative explosion and can barely contain his musical\naspirations, and then his folk\/acoustic mode that won him two major Grammys for\nMorning Phase<\/em> and appeared previously on Sea Change<\/em>. I prefer the\nfirst mode, as Beck is kind of a genius when it comes to creating multi-instrumental\npop tracks that still challenge the listener in small ways. This album appeared\ntwo full years after the first single, “Dreams,” which was my #1 song\nof 2015, and features a re-recorded version of that song, along with the\nexcellent title track, “Up All Night,” and “Dear Life.” Critics\nseem to prefer Beck’s other mode, and that’s fine, but it’s not for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Wild Beasts \u2013 Boy King<\/em>. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wild Beasts called it quits after this album and subsequent\ntour, but what a way to go out, with a perfect album of arty post-new wave\ntracks built around a common theme of exploring (and outright attacking) toxic\nmasculinity, featuring vocalist Hayden Thorpe’s soaring falsetto voice. (He’s\nsince released one solo album, Diviner<\/em>, which was interesting but is a\nbig tonal shift from Wild Beasts’ electronic vibe.) The first five tracks,\n“Big Cat,” “Tough Guy,” “Alpha Female,” “Tough\nGuy,” and “Celestial Creatures,” are all outstanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Arcade Fire \u2013 The Suburbs<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decade’s first great album, The Suburbs<\/em> is the\nlast time I agreed with the Grammys on anything, I think, as they were a bit of\na surprise winner of Album of the Year, since they were the first indie artist\nto do so. It might be a bit overambitious, although I think Winn Butler showed\nthis barely scratched the surface of his ambitions on their next two albums; I\nthink The Suburbs <\/em>hits the right balance between concept album (about\ngrowing up in the suburbs and the flattening influence of urban sprawl) and a mainstream,\naccessible rock record. Standouts include “City With No Children,” “Sprawl\nII (Mountains Beyond Mountains)”, “Ready to Start,” “Month\nof May,” and “We Used to Wait.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. A Tribe Called Quest \u2013 We Got It From Here \u2026 Thank You\n4 Your Service<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phife Dawg may have given his life to finish this greatest\nof all comeback albums, dying of complications from diabetes eight months\nbefore the album was released, but this is very much Q-Tip’s show, with plenty\nof guests along for the ride and a welcome return from Jarobi White. The\nseminal rap group’s first album in 18 years is harder, rougher, modern in the\nright ways but still unquestionably the Tribe, and seems prescient in its\nlyrical forecast of a national lurch towards white nationalism and hate\ndirected at blacks, Muslims, and gays, while covering plenty of other ground\nacross its 16 tracks. Standouts include “Dis Generation,” the\ngreatest old-school rap track of the decade; “We the People,”\n“The Space Program,” “Conrad Tokyo,” “Melatonin,”\nand “Ego.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. The Arctic Monkeys \u2013 AM.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alex Turner had at least this one more great pop record in\nhim, and while he turned the band around 180 degrees for the weird-ass\nfollow-up Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino<\/em>, on AM<\/em> he embraced\nwhat he does best: create huge guitar hooks and pair them with clever, engaging\nlyrics that tell stories while playing with words in novel ways. I prefer this\neven to their earth-shattering debut, and found that the best track on here,\nthe lead single “R U Mine,” kept growing on me for months after I\nfirst heard it. I’m a guitar guy first and foremost, and this record features plenty\nof that, but in service of great pop songs rather than merely as its own end.\nOther standouts include “Arabella,” “Do I Wanna Know?,”\n“Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?,” and “Snap Out of\nIt.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. alt-J \u2013 An Awesome Wave<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This album blew me away when I first heard it, even though I\nwould have told you there were plenty of songs or passages I didn\u2019t care for;\nthe more I listened, the more I fell under its spell and heard new things each\ntime I listened. It is a meticulous album, which the members said they worked\non for five years; it shows in the album’s precision and the lack thereof on\ntheir subsequent two albums. An Awesome Wave<\/em> won the Mercury Prize, a\ndecision the British press thoroughly expected, and set a bar alt-J may never reach\nagain, but for this moment they were kings. The entire album is just so good,\nbut if I have to pick standouts, I’ll go with “Tessellate,”\n“Breezeblocks,” “Taro,” and “Dissolve Me.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve said numerous times here, in chats, and on social media that I’m not an album guy \u2013 I tend to prefer individual songs, and to assemble my own playlists of songs by various artists, even across genres, that work together for me. It’s uncommon for me to put on an entire album and listen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[260],"class_list":["post-8128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-rankings","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8128"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8129,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8128\/revisions\/8129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}