Brutal. That album and Jason Isbell are for sure on mine which hopefully I’ll be finishing my write up for soon
Great, diverse list. I'm so so so sorry to be an a-hole, but as we're all striving for journalistic integrity I can't not say... Pamore's self-titled record is called Paramore not Self-Titled. I'm sorry I'm awful.
In their defense, the fact that there's a band called Pamore and they have a record called Paramore is really confusing.
Reading through this list, all I could think was, "Man, this site has been really formative for me, hasn't it?" I love so many of these picks. Many of the picks I was surprised to see missing (like Golden Hour, Keep You, and Integrity Blues) have all been touched upon here. I think Golden Hour is the biggest shock for me.
As much as I love Pageant Material, it's my least favorite of the three albums she put out this decade.
It's got a lot of great songs, but I think it's the one that holds together the least well as a cohesive whole. Still on my list, and relatively high. But Golden Hour is in my top 10.
Pageant Material has some of my favorite songs (High Time, Late To the Party, title track, Die Fun, and more) but for some reason I listen to it as a whole the least the least of the 3.
I'm not kidding when I say I forgot that album was even called Science Fiction. I'll never be able to forget the previous albums (although I haven't listened to them since), but for me, SF is so associated with the news of the abuse, I'd legitimately forgotten its name and how I felt about it prior to learning.
I agree. I don't really ever understand a band's impulse to self-title a record. I can't think of many self-titled records that are that particular band's career defining record. Seems either lazy or too grandiose.
I think you missed the joke. I thought it was funny that you were correcting the mistake in the article but misspelled Paramore as “Pamore”. Hahaha. But teasing aside, I actually agree with this. I think it makes sense for a debut album, but I don’t understand completely in other cases. In Paramore’s case though, they were bouncing back after a lot of turmoil so I think it was making a statement about the place they were in.
Few songs have devastated me the way "House in the Trees". Song hit me hard and still does every single time.
Assembling a top for a single year alone is a grind, but for a whole decade? I don’t know if I have the fortitude. Props for that. I loved seeing the mix of albums you’d associate with AP/Chrous mixed in with some of the more mainstream artists. I proud to be a fan of music in general even if I skew strongly to “the scene” and it’s offshoots. Good music is good music. Well done.
I know you said "not many" rather than "any", but a few examples that come to mind for me are Bayside, Bon Iver, Fidlar, Minus the Bear (kind of), and Run the Jewels. I don't do that to try and correct you, but instead turned it into a brainstorming exercise.
Drunk In Love and Partition were both huge from her self-titled album. That album also revolutionized the music industry by completely changing the way that artists market and rollout their albums, since it was the first really massive surprise release. For like 2 years after that whenever someone surprise released an album, they were "pulling a Beyonce". Formation was pretty huge from Lemonade, but more importantly, it's the album that cemented her as a post-charts artist, and came alongside her appearance at the Superbowl and a career-defining performance at Coachella. Kind of the whole point of the album is that it's an artistic statement, not a play for the radio. I don't mean any shade by this or anything, you're totally free not to like her. I don't even listen to her all that much, but there's definitely a reason she is included on all these lists. (And when I do listen to her, it's usually her recent music).
If anyone is curious what my list looked like: Closer to the Truth and Further From the Sky: My Top 200 Favorite Albums of the 2010s