My Top 10 Albums of the Decade
I was fourteen the last time we changed decades. Nearly everything that has "happened" in my life has happened in the intervening ten years. I went to high school, college, and graduate school. I had my first girlfriend and breakup. I left my home and traveled to far corners of the world. I ate some good food, too. Besides the foundational years of childhood, my life can largely be summarized by the things that happened in the 2010s.
Using that same logic, it could be said that the art and media I was influenced by during these ten years have been the most significant in shaping who I am. I'm a firm believer that what we choose to watch, read, and listen to has great bearing on us as humans, and what speaks to us has even greater impact on what we value. We are what we consume, after all.
So, with ten years of cultural influence in the books, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on what slid into my conscious and subconscious. I wanted to create top ten lists for music, movies, TV, and books, but I ran into two problems. First, I really have not read much written in the last decade. I'm unsure what that says about my tastes or the state of modern literature, but besides a handful of sci-fi and fantasy titles, most everything I read at least predates this decade. A list for books, then, is out.
Second, I had a hard time picking ten TV-shows that truly resonated with me. If you know me, you know I love to gripe about TV. The televised format is, by design, intended to put eye-balls on screens rather than produce works of singular artistic vision. There's good TV out there, of course. Shows like True Detective (season 1) and Atlanta are around and create meaningful, crafted entertainment. In general, however, TV just fails to connect with me as much as other mediums. I'll leave my full diatribe against television for another time and say, for now, TV is out of my lists.
Film and music are what we're left with, then. Movies are an obvious choice for me, so I won't waste any words on that decision. In choosing between selecting albums or songs, though, I've decided to side with albums. Albums are much better at encapsulating both an artist's intention and a listener's affection. Plus, I'm a sucker for the complete package of an album (the titles, pictures, and running concepts).
Four paragraphs later, and we can finally pick our two decade-defining lists: movies and albums. For both lists, I'll reserve the right to say they are wholly personal choices. These are neither the most culturally significant nor universally lauded pieces of art of the last decade. They are my top ten favorite albums and movies based on whatever merits I think make great cinema or music. I'll start with the albums today and hopefully get around to the movies soon, so stay tuned.
Top 10 albums of the 2010s
The Honorable Mentions:
Mick Jenkins: The Water (S) - Drink more water. And maybe some ginger ale, too. Mick's first full-length album was definitely a freshman effort, but it's jazzy, aquatic, and has some great bars.
Favorite songs: Jazz, MartyrsDeath Grips: The Money Store - Unless you already know and like Death Grips, you probably won't in the future. Impossibly noisy and nearly un-listenable at times, The Money Store is the band's best effort to date.
Favorite song: Get GotStella Donnelly: Beware of the Dogs - I had an argument with some friends about whether Stella is pop or singer-songwriter. She's both. The pop-y lilts of her voice juxtapose against the harsh content of her lyrics. Fun music that will make you think.
Favorite songs: U Owe Me, TricksWhitney: Light Upon the Lake - Whitney is maybe not for everyone. The band elicits some of the same tiredness as when listening to too much Bob Dylan in a row (don't get me wrong, love me some Bob). Still, this LP is something I keep returning to, and it has one of my favorite songs of the decade.
Favorite song: No Woman
10. Mac Demarco: 2 (2012)
Mac has grown a lot in the last ten years, and in many ways, I feel I've grown alongside his music. His two most recent albums, Here Comes the Cowboy and This Old Dog, are perhaps his most complete works to date and reflect a change in his sound away from the wavy vibes that made Mac famous.
That being said, 2 is easily my favorite compilation of his songs. My Kind of Woman and Dreaming instantly drag you into the dream-scape of Mac's mind, and Still Together is an odd, howling romantic ode that has always stuck to the back of the mind like chewing gum on a wall. The album is Mac at his best and also at his least polished. It will be remembered as the classic that made him into the artist he is now and the one he will become in the future.
Favorite songs: Ode to Viceroy, My Kind of Woman, Still Together
9. Tomppabeats: Harbor (2016)
Harbor is the mood album to end all mood albums. Its cover is of a woman smoking a cigarette on a rainy wooden dock, probably somewhere in Japan, and it's exactly that image, that feeling, that listening to Harbor evokes. It's 37 tracks, most under a minute, of lulling, remorseful, and sad beats overlaid with vocal samples from anime or sappy romance flicks.
Harbor doesn't pre-date the vapor-wave or lo-fi trends that have come to dominate the ambient music of the internet, but it did refine the mold. I've fallen asleep to this album so many times that Spotify named it my top album of the decade, and that should be a great compliment. If you need to take yourself down a level or two, Harbor is the album to do it with.
Favorite songs: Will you Stay Here with Me (for the Her sample), Loney but Not When You Hold Me
8. Tyler, The Creator: IGOR (2019)
Like most, I was initially disappointed by IGOR when it released. Tyler had just come off of his best project to date, Flower Boy, which had been a perfect fusion of the hard bars Tyler was known for and a new jazz-soul sound of unforgettable hooks. IGOR felt weak in comparison, not without its merits but slightly neutered. "Where are the rhymes?" I asked in chorus with the rest of the hip-hop world.
But, after simmering on the album and distancing myself from my perception of what a Tyler album should be, IGOR unfolded itself as a complex, emotionally-wrought, and relatable journey of heartbreak and healing. I don't know for whom I would or would not recommend this album, but I really would encourage everyone to give it at least a shot. There is a treasure-trove of feeling and intention behind this project.
Favorite songs: GONE, GONE/THANK YOU ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?
7. The Milk Carton Kids: Monterey (2015)
The Milk Carton Kids (getting their name from the disappeared children whose faces were printed on the back of milk cartons in the 80s and 90s in America) have spent the last decade making the best American folk music on offer. I could have picked (and nearly did) any one of their albums for this list and been happy with the choice. Monterey, however, does what great 3rd or 4th albums do: hold fast to the emotional resonance of early projects while improving the formula with better production and lyricism. From start to finish, the album transports you to the ache and sentiment and small-town joys of a Steinbeck novel without bearing you down with long descriptions of dust-bowl farms.
Favorite songs: Asheville Skies, Freedom
6.King Krule: 6 Feet Beneath the Moon (2013)
King Krule, otherwise known by his name Archy Marshall, has been able to walk the fine line of experiencing success while staying true to an off-kilter sound. I think many would write off his achievements to his haunting, baritone voice and slangy London accent, but I think that would be a disservice to his song-writing and groovy guitar riffs. 6 Feet Beneath the Moon is easily his most enjoyable project to date, with hits like Border Line and Easy Easy that keep you bobbing your head and mumbling along. However, it's at the end of 6 Feet, where Marshall mellows down to the spoken word of Bathed in Grey, where I find the album truly shines. Fans of Krule should certainly also listen to the 2015 album he did under his own name, A New Place 2 Drown, which is far darker in mood.
Favorite songs: Out Getting Ribs, Bathed in Grey
5. DAMN, Kendrick Lamar (2017)
In complete discretion, I will declare myself an unabashed Kendrick stan. He is the single most artistically-driven and socially-conscious rapper and, in my opinion, musician of his generation. His influence on the American zeitgeist is unparalleled. In a list of the most of culturally significant American albums of the last decade, each of Kendrick's last three studio albums (not including untilted unmastered) would undoubtedly belong in the top 10.
DAMN is not his "best" album - hell, it might not even be his second - but it is his most re-listenable. Unlike songs on To Pimp a Butterfly or good kid, m.A.A.d city, DAMN's track-list is not overly concerned with overarching storytelling. Instead, each song dissects a single idea as a way for Kendrick to introspect on the feelings and emotions that challenge him. Sonically, DAMN is much the same. No two songs sound cohesive, but together, they make a complete picture. So much has already been said about this album and will continue to be said (check out the Dissect podcast season on DAMN), so I'll leave it here: DAMN is a classic hip-hop album I know I will return to for years.
Favorite songs: YAH., HUMBLE., FEAR.
4. WU LYF: Go Tell Fire to the Mountain (2011)
WU LYF's debut and only album before the band's breakup, Go Tell Fire to the Mountain, is inexplicable. Lead vocalist Ellery James Roberts' lyrics are practically unintelligible, and on the off chance you are able to catch a word or two, you'll quickly realize them to be complete gibberish. The structure of the tracks, too, is remarkably simple, each stripped of all possible frill.
But what remains, and what WU LYF (short for World Unite Lucifer Youth Foundation) are singularly capable of, is a barren desert of pure emotion. Go Tell Fire to the Mountain is an escalation, each song pushing the powerful rock ballads to new heights, all of it culminating in the euphoric and pained Heavy Pop. This is not a album I want to listen to every day, but on the off day I need it, it carves through a heavy mind like a cathartic blade.
Favorite songs: Heavy Pop, We Bros
3. The Districts: Telephone (2013)
For many of my teenage years, Modest Mouse and Streetlight Manifesto blasted into my ears as I sat playing World of Warcraft for the ten-thousandth hour (much to my parents chagrin). That time of my life was full of angst. Angst about the future; angst about the present; angst about angst. Everything and everyone is against you when you're a teenager, and I often dwelt on that feeling through the music I listened to.
The Districts so clearly bring me back to that stage of my life, luckily with a nostalgic hindsight instead of overwhelming angst. They are this generation's The Toadies, criminally underappreciated and chock-full of heart. Listening to The Districts, you can tell they leave live performances dripping in sweat because they've left everything on the stage, and Telephone has the band at its most raucous.
Telephone is an album that reminds you what it was like to be a teenager fighting against the world without dousing you in any of the cringe of a Blink-182 or My Chemical Romance re-listen. It's an effort of genuine, youthful reprise, buoyed by the raspy vocals of Rob Grote whose shout, "Good morning Lyla!" to start the album is the perfect introduction to the band and sets the stage for what Telephone has to offer. It's garage rock at its best and purest: just a bunch of musically talented hometown dudes making relatable noise.
Favorite songs: Funeral Beds, Wrung out and Hanging (On West Coast Time)
2. The Tallest Man on Earth: The Wild Hunt (2010)
What could I possibly write to sum up my affection for this album and this artist? The moment I heard The King of Spain over my sister's car stereo in 9th grade, I was in love. For the uninitiated, The Tallest Man on Earth ( Kristian Matsson) is a Swedish born folk artist from the Bob Dylan school of music. His voice and style certainly follow Dylan, and although his songwriting cannot surpass his musical mentor, Matsson's songs are lighter, better performed, and evoke a spirit unique unto only him. His music is meant to be adventured to, to be played on the radio as you road-trip across the American Mid-West or as you find someone you love in a place you did not expect. It's music for the contentment of the human spirit, wherever, whenever.
The Wild Hunt is Matsson's most complete and iconic project to date. I might personally prefer 2008's Shallow Grave (primarily because it has my favorite song of all time on it), but The Wild Hunt is clearly where he discovered exactly the musician he wanted to be. The aforementioned King of Spain leaves you yearning for greatness, and A Lion's Heart has one of his greatest lines: "Well there's no real goodbye if you mean it." No song is amiss on this album; it is a perfect folk music from start to finish.
Favorite songs: You're Going Back, King of Spain, Love is All
1. LOVING: LOVING (2016)
Seven songs over eighteen minutes is all LOVING gives you on their only full-length album. Other than the first four tracks of Nina Simone's Nina at the Village Gate, these are my favorite eighteen minutes of music.
LOVING is not for everyone, but it's certainly for me. Their sound is tailored-made for my taste: low-key, contemplative, prosaic, and a bit sad, and I eat it up like catnip.
" Maybe you could talk freely
Speak to me for once so truly
For once so truly
I could know
Just where you're going
Just where I'm standing
That would really be something "
Those are the opening lines of Bowlly Goes Dancing Drunk into the Future, a song so instantly beautiful and memorable in the way it drills to the very core of why life and human interaction can be so difficult. With those words, the band demonstrates the mood and intelligence of this album. We all just want to know where we stand and where we're going, and somehow LOVING is able to pack the entirety of that listlessness into seven lines. Their talent for conveying emotion is, in my mind and heart, unparalleled, and that's why LOVING is my favorite album of the last ten years.
Favorite song: The Not Real Lake, Bowlly Goes Dancing Drunk into the Future, Where Everybody Goes
Hope some of y'all can find something in this list you enjoy. I'll be back soon with my top 10 films of the decade. As most of you know, movies are about the only thing I'm good at talking about at length, so expect that to be a novel.
