I’ve been making yearly song lists on Spotify for a while now and each of them includes hundreds of songs, mostly without putting more than one song from a single album on there. I would have no idea where to even start.
Ok my top 10: 1. fun.: Some Nights (2012) 2. Motion City Soundtrack: My Dinosaur Life (2010) 3. Lana Del Rey: Norman Fucking Rockwell! (2019) 4. Paramore: After Laughter (2017) 5. Bleachers: Strange Desire (2014) 6. The Maine: Lovely Little Lonely (2017) 7. The Front Bottoms: Talon of the Hawk (2013) 8. Janelle Monae: Dirty Computer (2018) 9. Miley Cyrus: Bangerz (2013) 10. Modern Baseball: You're Gonna Miss It All (2014) The rest of my top 40 in chronological order: 11. Kanye West: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010) 12. My Chemical Romance: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (2010) 13. All Time Low: Dirty Work (2011) 14. Chiodos: Illuminaudio (2011) 15. The Maine: Pioneer (2011) 16. Motion City Soundtrack: Go (2012) 17. Alabama Shakes: Boys & Girls (2012) 18. Taylor Swift: Red (2012) 19. twenty one pilots: Vessel (2013) 20. Kacey Musgraves: Same Trailer, Different Park (2013) 21. Paramore: Paramore (2013) 22. Lady Gaga: Artpop (2013) 23. Against Me!: Transgender Dysphoria Blues (2014) 24. Lana Del Rey: Ultraviolence (2014) 25. Say Anything: Hebrews (2014) 26. Father John Misty: I Love You, Honeybear (2015) 27. Alabama Shakes: Sound & Color (2015) 28. Turnover: Peripheral Vision (2015) 29. Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz: Dead Petz (2015) 30. Lana Del Rey: Honeymoon (2015) 31. David Bowie: Blackstar (2016) 32. Kanye West: The Life of Pablo (2016) 33. Mitski: Puberty 2 (2016) 34. Frank Ocean: Blonde (2016) 35. Lorde: Melodrama (2017) 36. All Time Low: Last Young Renegade (2017) 37. Tierra Whack: Whack World (2018) 38. Kacey Musgraves: Golden Hour (2018) 39. Kali Uchis: Isolation (2018) 40. Miya Folick: Premonitions (2018)
I gushed endlessly about the albums I loved this decade. It's a blog post and a list, but also basically a book! Closer to the Truth and Further From the Sky: My Top 200 Favorite Albums of the 2010s
I don’t know if it’s more insane or less insane if I tell you how many sittings this was completed in. I don’t think I ever wrote more than 1-2 blurbs at once. Honestly, I loved doing it though. It was such a fun way to cycle back through all the music I’ve loved from the past 10 years and figure out what meant the most to me. I write basically all day for my job, and it’s not all writing I enjoy, so something like this that is completely a passion project just feels really rejuvenating to me.
i'm not trying to be a dick here, but you really think there is only one top 100-worthy album made by a person of color in the whole decade?
Awesome man, thanks for sharing. Some of your list surprised me. I didn't know you loved Hero so much or Phoebe Bridgers/David Ramirez album wouldn't crack your top 100, etc. I loved seeing The Damnwells, Logan Brill, The Tower and The Fool, Danielle Bradberry and some others I love get a mention though.
I was a huge fan of Maren before she blew up, so watching the meteoric rise of Hero was a really rewarding experience for me. Also saw her live just a few days after the Las Vegas/Route 91 shooting, which was a powerful thing and elevated some of those songs for me. The Phoebe record, I never loved quite as much as others, though I do think it's fantastic. As for David, I think his masterpiece is in front of him still. I'm eager to hear what he makes next.
I know it's not a good look and that my listening should be more diverse. I'm definitely trying. I'm not a huge hip-hop or R&B fan, as I'm sure you know, so even if I enjoy/respect some of those artists/albums a lot, they're not necessarily getting the constant rotation necessary to become favorites. And country is my top genre, which as you also know has a dearth of POC artists. It's definitely a blind spot I want to address in the coming decade, because obviously most of the top influential artists from this decade were POC. But I wanted to be honest here, in terms of what I listened to this decade and what really meant something to me, and these were ultimately the albums that I felt captured that.
yeah, that definitely makes sense. i would recommend spending time with a lot of the top, repeated choices on other lists
Two big ones that I think are also pretty easy to digest are IGOR and Kids See Ghosts. The Roots album from 2014 And Then You Shoot Your Cousin and A Tribe Called Quests 2016 album We Got It From Here Thank You 4 Your Service are also really great but they’re bigger endeavors. Ofc To Pimp A Butterfly is probably the big one. outside of hip hop there’s Death Grips, mewithoutYou, Deftones, and Frank Ocean although he’s kinda hip hop/R&B. The Weeknd also put out some great stuff. Ofc some of these artists have their problematic baggage that comes with them but that’s up to your discretion. Plus like @phaynes12 said worst comes to worst just check out other lists on here you’ll see a lot of the same ones but I’m sure there’s a ton I missed
I can recommend anyone looking to get into Hip Hop to join the Hip Hop thread. We “cover” a lot more than the mainstream music sites. Frankly, we talk about more kinds of rap than several rap sites do. Some of us primarily listen to rap. Same goes for the R&B thread.
even going in the more punk/gaslight anthem type vein of stuff you tend to like more, i have a hard time imagining you not loving the Gang of Youths (indigenous and asian band members) album, @Craig Manning
Aside from the usual suspects, Blood Orange released one of the more important albums of the decade, Freetown Sound. Black Messiah by D'Angelo and the Vanguard, as well.
Really feel you'd enjoy both records from Japanese Breakfast, as well as Sampha's debut @Craig Manning. Personally, I feel Earl Sweatshirt and Tyler (post-Cherry Bomb) are doing some really important things for hip-hop right now, but I know those likely align with your tastes a little less.