Preamble
In 2009, I thought my listening habits would just continue to stroll into the 2010’s in the same manner. I was neck deep in a world of Indie Rock, with a peppering of classic Blues, Jazz, and R&B albums – basically to maintain some appearance of balance. Real Estate had released their eponymous debut album, Grizzly Bear had dropped the powerful and immersive Veckatimest record, and Animal Collective was making Electronic Indie music mainstream with Merriweather Post Pavilion. There was still this blustery creative energy around Rock music that kept me from venturing too far outside the lanes of a typical college boy’s sonic exploration. I was bobbing my head to Peter Bjorn and John’s “Young Folks”, thrashing to Japandroids’ “The House that Heaven Built”, and somberly grooving to The XX’s “Crystalised”, just like the majority of other bloodthirsty students “going hipster” whilst seeking less mainstream, tacitly innovative sounds. I was delving even deeper into the fringe sounds of Indie Rock too; whether it was the folky musings of Fruit Bats’ flawless record The Ruminant Band, the atmospheric communal Folk of Le Loup and their 2009 album Family, the Noise Rock of Women (in particular a track like “Black Rice”), or even going into the more bizarre, such as the acoustic-based Electronic Psychedelia of Here We Go Magic, Department of Eagles, and Atlas Sound. One of the weirdest albums I listened to during this time was Au’s Verbs (2008) – an album serving as the culmination of a bold journey into the lesser caverns of Indie.
Atlas Sound’s 2009 album Logos is still one of my favorite records of all-time, and had it been made in 2010, would’ve certainly been up there on the top of this post’s list. An album like Logos or Veckatimest represent the pinnacle of a time when Indie Rock was at its most energized and prolific, interweaving the reverb-laden, atmospheric, and digitally-enhanced production style of the time with the greater landscape of music from other genres emerging on the scene.
Even the more mainstream Rock groups were running with that torch like nothing of a rut was on the future path. Phoenix was carrying the tradition of Post-Punk and its layering of guitar work The Strokes had popularized, and bands like Dead Weather and Arctic Monkeys were keeping the brazen attitude of Rock well intact as far as reputations go. Little did I know that things were about to change in so many ways when we hit 2010. Sure there had been rumblings of what was to come; Miguel and Janelle Monáe were creating some fantastically pioneering R&B music, with the latter coming to the fold with unheard of nomenclature applied to music like “Futuristic Afrocentric Concept Series” and “Sci-Fi-based Psychedelic Soul”. Around the same time, Erykah Badu was making her own concept album and was growing more and more convinced of the power of R&B music when she released New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) (2008), which was a political and dystopian exploration of the greater African-American community in the aught years of this new century.
The types of records being released in the first decade by groups of artists and producers like Questlove, Kanye West, and Timbaland was pushing the sounds of Hip Hop, Soul, Funk, Jazz, and Electronica to the fore. The work done by those artists would catalyze a greater movement in the decade of the 2010s where all roads went through new genres and even Rock music had to crash from its heights and mingle on the property of some form of R&B or Electronica. The shift in 2010 was swift, and made for a very impressive year. 2010 has the most “Best Albums” on this list probably because it was a jarringly torrential change in types of music being produced and embraced, and it all happened quickly (at least in the realm of popular music, because we all know change was coming under the radar in the 2000s). Then emerging artists like Drake, Frank Ocean, and The Weeknd appeared in 2011 and punctuated what would be the tone and tenor of the rest of the decade.
I was swept away, rather uneventfully, in the current of what was happening and didn’t really reflect on it until later in this decade when I started pulling together “Best Albums” lists for the year. My lists were becoming pretty R&B heavy, and included more and more female artists. Every year it felt like I was being guided into a new pool with less and less guitar-driven rocker dudes, which is remarkable considering I hardly listened to Hip-Hop or Rap music in college. As I grew into my late 20’s I was being channeled into more Soul, Electronica, and R&B, all of which had many stars that weren’t men and not white. Basically, I thought back and realized that during those years sequestered away in the bowels of my architecture studio, I was listening to so much Indie Rock and offshoots of it, and was constantly devouring new music in this genre-pool, that it never occurred to me I was missing anything or these habits would shift, mostly attributable to how vital and abundant Indie Rock had been at the time.
Without much introspection, I had changed significantly by 2011 and 2012; going from record labels like Secretly Canadian, Matador, and Jagjaguwar to labels like Brainfeeder, Warp, and Def Jam. Although my recollection may be incorrect, this shift was not a conscious decision, but rather a natural pull in the direction music was going. It was abrupt, yet smooth, like a gravitational pull I hadn’t noticed until I had the presence of mind to remark at how distant I was from a familiar landmark. Instead of getting lost in the music of Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible (2007) or the Baroque Folk of Fleet Foxes, I was listening to equally ambitious music like Shabazz Palaces Black Up or The Weeknd’s nocturnal acid trip House of Balloons, and that was totally fine. I also noticed that a lot of my favorite musicians from those years as an architecture student, were adapting their sound to engage with the popular forms of Electronica and R&B. Bon Iver and its brainchild, Justin Vernon, is the epitome of this shift. Bon Iver went from beardly Folk strummings on For Emma, Forever Ago (2008) to the esoteric Soul-Electronica of 22, A Million (2016) in the course of eight years – the only thing that remained consistent was the echo of his shivering falsetto.
And so hopefully the following list of the 25 Best Albums of the 2010s captures some of these thoughts and reflections. This is one man’s opinion, and I believe an honest recount of the albums I listened to most during the decade, as well as those that had incredible influence on the music trends of the time. One rule I did implement is to be decisive as well as respectful of all the amazing artists of the 2010s, and so I picked only one album for each artist (even though I could’ve picked multiple for folks like Kendrick Lamar, Tame Impala, Miguel, Alabama Shakes, etc.), After all, this isn’t Rolling Stone Magazine. I steadfastly believe putting an artist multiple times in a Top 20 or 25 list is not treating this endeavor with circumspection. That’s right Rolling Stone, I’ve got a lot of problems when you make lists with four Bob Dylan or Beatles albums in the Top 25.
Some of the selections will be more personal whereas others were considered for the historical aspects, or perhaps viewed with a more critical/objective eye. However, the truth surrounding all of these albums is that I listened to them countless times and feel they have a remarkable importance for this decade. Again, this is all the opinion of one man…… a man who listens to a ridiculous amount of music.
25. GRIMES – VISIONS (2012)
Grimes, aka Claire Boucher, described her album as a “pretty good representation of the beginning of the future”. Many would agree with that sentiment, as well as to the fact this 2012 album started a whole lot of other bedroom projects by creative and visionary young men and women (but especially women). Done completely on Apple’s GarageBand software, Visions is first and foremost a miraculous DIY concept album. Famous for having been created mostly over the period of nine drug-fueled and sleepless days in her home in Montreal, the sound certainly captures a singular focus (as if she didn’t leave her bedroom until it was all recorded in one sitting), and is unified in both style and mood. When I first listened to this album I immediately succumbed to the unique way she orchestrated her haunting vocals around complex layerings of synthetic sounds that were at once gritty and sterling. This is an exhilarating album remarkable for the way it feels cohesive in artistic statement, yet each and every track sounds different from the other in certain aspects. There are undeniable threads connecting all of it as a whole, the vocal stylings, dark synths, and stark percussive beats being most of it. This album isn’t just the tracks “Genesis” and “Oblivion”, it is a complete concept through and through. It also put Montreal on the map, as well as declared the future trend of DIY bedroom artists making it big from out of seemingly nowhere.
24. THE WAR ON DRUGS – LOST IN THE DREAM (2014)
Both Lost in the Dream and A Deeper Understanding (2017) can be treated as a compendium of absolute brilliance. Similar to other albums that made this list, Lost in the Dream comes off as a unified vision yet it is also uncanny in the seriously confident manner it was produced. . The overpowering nature of a band like The War on Drugs is embedded within the deliberate and workmanlike manner in which they play their music live as well as in the studio. They want the churning locomotive sound of the guitars to echo in the chamber, rattling in the skull till long after the music stops. I love how big the electrified sound is on both albums (and 2011’s Slave Ambient is also very impressive, and as the album title suggests, is indeed all about ambient electronic noise), being timeless and intrinsically modern for their entirety. Whereas A Deeper Understanding refines the sound, Lost in the Dream simply basks in the hugeness and never loses its momentum – it is sharp, focused, and deliberate in a way few albums are. I appreciate this Philadelphia band, which started as the vision of Kurt Vile and Adam Granduciel, the latter becoming the lead during the most successful years of the band, simply because they are continuing to tell us all what Rock n Roll can be, and to never underestimate what a few simple instruments can really sound like when that amp gets plugged-in.
23. parquet courts – light up gold (2012)
A couple moments early into Light Up Gold give you the impression this group is going to be different. The first moment is when singer/guitarist A. Savage gets in the brash line “Ya know Socrates died in the fucking gutter” towards the back half of “Master of My Craft”, which is one of the greatest opening tracks in Rock history. The second is the epically casual way the band transitions from the first track into “Borrowed Time”. I still get chills when I hear those three drumstick clacks, and without missing a beat they bounce into the second. A third and fourth moment might be the equally bold and impressive pauses throughout “Borrowed Time”. The music invariably continues afterwards with the same willful energy as before the pause, yet it’s a gleaming hallmark of a band with conviction in the attitude they convey and the no fuss bluster of their sound – momentarily delayed but never stopped. A song like “Stoned and Starving” is another nice showcase of a unique lyrical style and brand of Post-Punk/Garage Rock that was sorely needed when this album was released in 2012. The pace of the album is nearly perfect, teetering between frantic and successfully frenetic almost always, but this could well be attributed to the Punk heritage they undoubtedly embrace. And much like their Punk Rock forebears, the NYC-based crew go about their business with no frills, no fucking around, and continue to perfect the grinding and aggressive form of music with the other albums of this decade like Sunbathing Animals (2014) and Wide Awake! (2018).
22. tyler, the creator – igor (2019)
As I mentioned in a previous post, the transformation of Tyler the Creator has been something to behold. Everyone is taking note, and you see either “evolution” or “transformation” used frequently when describing Tyler Okonma simply because it’s impossible to ignore the way his sound has built from a hut to a castle. He has had one of the more rich and colorful decades of any artist, with a path as unexpected as it is welcome. Just chart it and you will be amazed all he has done in the 2010s, starting with his group work as part of the Odd Future collective. Many can vividly recall the first time they heard his track “Yonkers”, from the incendiary Alt Rap record Goblin in 2011. From Goblin he continued with the equally abrasive yet expansive Wolf (2013), but then out of left field came Flower Boy in 2017. Flower Boy was an incredible departure from most of his earlier work, and seemed to mark a tide shift transferring from Alt Rap of yesteryear to a Soul and R&B inflected sound his Odd Future cohorts were espousing. What he turned out was a phenomenal concept album shining a light on the maturation of his music and the lyrical quality of the work. That album would’ve been on this list if not for Igor. Both are terrific albums, however, what sets this one apart as an album is it really can’t be picked and taken apart or distilled into a couple standout tracks like Flower Boy. Tyler’s fifth studio album is a seamless record so perfectly tied together it really must be listened to from beginning to end without shuffling or skipping. The transition from track to track, the structure of the album and organization of it, was clearly orchestrated. The album title itself is curious, and may explain the way the music ebbs and flows, shifts in an elusive fashion difficult to peg. Igor feels deliberately mercurial in nature, making the accomplishment of a cohesive and fully-formed album all the more impressive. Even more astounding is the way the larger R&B community has embraced this brand of music, and the transformation of an artist who was quite possibly discounted as a mongrel early on, who has become a venerable, seasoned artist in a short time.
21. angel olsen – my woman (2016)
You listen to sprawling songs like “Sisters” and “Woman” and you understand this is a special record. To craft such emotional and expansive songs, one’s building to a fever pitch by the end, is remarkable. I haven’t heard so much complexity in the vocals of a singer since ever. Some of what I hear in her voice is hard to describe, but will attempt by saying I’m constantly sensing the strong contradiction between strength and vulnerability. This contradiction makes her words as well as the emotional rawness of the songs even more powerful. A song like “Heart Shaped Face” starts off bare, with an echoey and sparse guitar-drum combination well-suited to a drive down a lonely highway late at night. By the end she begins to howl instead of plead, and the music picks up so subtly over time that at some point a crescendo has snuck up on us and you realize she has so delicately constructed both the sound and emotion to give you a whirlwind experience in the tiny kit of five and a half minutes. The sound of so many tracks on this album remind me of the beautiful isolation a band like Mazzy Star was perfecting in the 90s. I have always been a sucker for the type of sound one feels they could get lost in late at night in a dark corner of room or road, and this album is the paragon of that feeling. There are a lot of talented and evocative female singer-songwriters in the game right now making great music -so many are tremendous songwriters giving us naked and honest words and music. However, what sets Angel Olsen apart from the likes of Sharon van Etten or Big Thief is all the different complexions of her voice, perfectly paired with a type of song crafting that is constantly growing and shifting in interesting ways. She is playing a high endurance game of emotional songwriting no one else can keep up with. Try listening to “Shut Up and Kiss Me”, then “Pops” directly afterwards and you’ll begin to understand her voice is an unpredictable instrument suited to so many different emotions, nevertheless she is an honest manipulator.
20. car seat headrest – teens of style (2015)
Also the subject of a previous post wherein I despair about the paucity of good Indie Rock in the decade, Car Seat Headrest gave something so dearly needed by 2015. Originally from Virginia, this young group now calls Seattle home, and are still brimming with promise of even greater things after the release of Teens of Denial in 2016. However, Teens of Style is still the album with the best ideas. The fuzzy guitars and strange truncated vocals build for about thirty seconds on the opening track “Sunburned Shirts”, then a crystal guitar strum and curt drum beat breaks in after the cacophony – the clearing after a storm. From this point onwards I was witness to a visionary Indie Rock band employing new forms, specifically layered vocals and erratic cut & paste – a signature of their early and most successful sound. The unbridled energy on Car Seat Headrest’s first album is undeniable. The other undeniable quality is their ability to make sophisticated noise. A track like “The Drum” is a bit herky jerky yet all completely necessary to capture those ripples of lo-fi brashness and explosions of guitar crunch. In a track like “Times to Die” (which I might add, is a Top 5 track of the decade for me), this constant layering of Will Toledo’s distorted caterwauling vocals proves an intent to use his singing as not just a vessel for a brand of sardonic rebellion, but also a production technique. The manner in which the group uses Toledo’s voice as a loop, or another instrument, or as some odd complementary sound in the background, is unique to them. It conveys a sense of each song having a degree of unhinged energy, something many of us were waiting for in the Indie Rock sound of the 2010s. “Times to Die” and “Maud Gone” are two of the most epic Indie songs ever created, on an album that makes a strange scratch gravy from the base of lo-fi instrumentation, only to ultimately create a sophisticated temple to garage noise.
19. lcd soundsystem – this is happening (2010)
Sometimes you start playing a record for the first time and it’s so good you recall exactly what you were doing and where you were when you started listening. The first time I heard This Is Happening, and the opening track “Dance Yrself Clean”, I was uneventfully folding clothes in a hotel room in Montpelier, France. I remember sort of listening to the song rather absent-mindedly as it putzed around for the first three minutes or so whilst I moved clothes out of my travel bag. There’s that moment in the song when the drums kick and the synth keyboard churns the big Disco House riff – it’s about as big of a catalyzing moment ever recorded – partly akin to the thundering drums in Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight”. Everything changes in that instant. I couldn’t have asked for a better kickstart to 2010 and the decade, and for that memory in the hotel room in France, I hold a tender and highly nostalgic place in my heart for this record. This Is Happening is the magnus opus of a band that always knew what it wanted to achieve. This is mostly a testament to the perfectionist that is James Murphy, the frontman and consummate tastemaster of the group. The live sound is evidence of this obsessiveness, as they are one of the sharpest and tightest bands around. There are a couple songs on the record, like “Pow Pow” and “Drunk Girls” that sometimes get a bit grating on me, yet I cannot deny there are some classic tracks I have listened to dozens and dozens of times. “All I Want” is one of those timeless and well-worn tracks screaming with a sort of gleaming melancholy you would find on a Rolling Stones track that you’ve grown up listening to. The long play tracks like “You Wanted A Hit” showcase LCD’s consistent and disciplined sound, as well as the great influence the driving House music of the 80s and 90s had on the penchant sound they made, always suffused with Murphy’s wit and charm and a Machiavellian rhythm section. As a bookend, “Home” is one of the most beautiful and underrated synth songs ever produced, and caps this special record. For having one of the best opening and closing tracks, a.k.a the perfect arc, this is a great, classic album.
18. sza – ctrl (2017)
The first I heard of SZA was the sumptuous Neo-Soul track “Sweet November” off her 2014 EP Z. The first impression was that she had a refined sound and some sultry vocals, but I wasn’t doing cart wheels over the new artist – just awestruck by that one track and what that could mean in future recordings. Then Ctrl dropped on the scene out of the blue and became a smash hit, within alternative and mainstream circles alike. What was most unexpected with the debut LP was the intimacy, candidness, and emotional heft of the lyrics – none of which was evinced on Z. In many ways I’m glad I first heard “Sweet November”, as it gave me further appreciation of the brave leap she made to create an Alternative R&B album deeply personal and unafraid to show the flaws of character. The interludes she dots the album with, in which she receives sage advice from her mother and grandmother, work incredibly well within the confines of the album. What she ends up giving us is a refreshing approach to songwriting avoiding all the tropes of Hip-Hop and R&B, while also offering us novel sounds within a well-composed album. The greatest aspect of the album may be the deep content and personal themes standing front and center, but I appreciate the warm guitars and unique beats just as much as the lyrics. Equally important as the cultural impact is the craft of the record, being composed as a concept album structured around interlude soundbites and sharp segues between tracks. With its release in 2017, it might be too early to see all of the powerful ways she influenced popular music and R&B, but there will certainly be new avenues for other artists to take because of SZA. She created a most surprising debut album, one that flows elegantly from beginning to end even when its creator might not think of herself as an elegant being.
17. deerhunter – halcyon digest (2010)
Bradford Cox, one of my favorite artists, was killing it in the late 00’s both with his band Deerhunter, and his solo act Atlas Sound. In 2008 Deerhunter would release one of the most important Indie Noise Rock albums of all the decades by the name of Microcastle. He followed with Atlas Sound’s Logos, which as I mentioned previously, is one of my favorite albums. Whereas Microcastle experimented with distortion, big washes of guitar, and the jarring effect of soft to loud, Logos was an album that ventured into digitized sound. The binding attribute to most of Bradford Cox’s work is his ability to employ the element of surprise to take a seemingly predictable Rock song in an unexpected direction. He is a master crafter of noises, of experimental Rock, and with all of his work in the 00’s you always expect him to compose music with both a soft and razor-sharp side. In 2010 he surprised again with the album Halcyon Digest, which stood out for being a more polished Indie Rock album. Dare I say some of the tracks on the record border on radio-friendly, an unheard of quality in the Deerhunter brand. “Coronado” is a timeless Rock song having the faintest tint of nostalgia-soaked guitars and vocals. In many ways it feels like it belongs on a Classic Rock radio station. “Desire Lines” and “Revival” are two more rocking tracks that stand out for a certain elusive feeling of nostalgia. Perhaps that is the reason the album is called Halcyon Digest in the first place, admittedly a mouthful of a title, it means the remembrance of a time idyllic and peaceful. The impressive power of this album comes in its ability to wrangle so many disparate songs, made of slow emotion or bristling pace, synthesized sound or the most earthy of tones, and give it a unified form. The album is one of the more ambitious made in the decade, especially for trying to explore so many avenues and being successful at most of them. The best example is the closing track “He Would Have Laughed”, which is an oddball track that I’ve never fully understood, yet understand to be melancholy as well as celebratory – a nice capper to a mercurial album that haunts to this day.
16. schoolboy q – blank face lp (2016)
The unappreciated aspect of Schoolboy Q’s music is………the music. He has set himself apart from other Rap artists by exploring the sounds behind the raps more than any other in the game, and yes I would say more than Kendrick Lamar. He started on about the same plane when he released Setbacks (2011) and Habits & Contradictions (2012), two quality albums with snappy hooks and beats, but it wasn’t until he aligned with Interscope Records for Oxymoron (2014) and Blank Face LP that it appears he became both more comfortable in the studio and ornery enough to experiment. In fact, he has often been tagged with the “Experimental Hip-Hop” label to describe the genre he might fall under, and Blank Face LP certainly lends credence to this idea. The first track that really called attention to this ability is “Hoover Street”, a feature track on Oxymoron, which was a solid album showing flashes of bold exploration into the atmosphere a Rap album could have. It’s a a six and a half minute exposition on his life growing up in South LA, a sinister and menacing musical backdrop follows the lyricism perfectly, and it’s still one of my favorite all-time Rap tracks. Blank Face LP upped the ante and continued to explore fusions of sound and lyricism in uncanny ways. In a 2017 post on From the Blinds, I delved deep into Schoolboy Q’s knack for dabbling in so many different genres of music, from Trap to EDM to East Coast Vibe and West Coast Hip-Hop. The common and brilliant thread is the dark undertones, gritty and menacing, following throughout the album. From the album cover art to the execution of the sound and mixing, it was all done with close attention to detail and a preternatural ability to make his vocal stylings and the music a chameleon quality on a track by track basis, yet still come up with a cohesive album with a singular tone. A perfect example of Q’s sound savvy is in a track like “Big Body”, a cheeky horn beat and insanely catchy bass drop go off at regular intervals to tremendous effect – this is an outlier track in terms of tone, yet a standout for sonic exploration. “John Muir”, “Groovy Tony”, and “Whateva U Want” are the select tracks I listen to again and again for conveying that menacing and abrasive style that has come to epitomize Schoolboy Q’s sound, at least on this exceptional album.
15. the weeknd – house of balloons (2011)
I vividly remember the first time I saw The Weeknd’s music, and notice the word “saw”. The first experience I had was seeing the album cover for the album/mixtape House of Balloons on Pitchfork’s website and thinking it was the absolute perfect visual for a dark and foreboding R&B album expressly intended for play late at night in some dank urban loft. The cover art screamed Film Noir, or at least, the musical version of it. A few short months later, The Weeknd released a follow-up album/mixtape called Thursday with the same style and format of album art as the first, except this time it had a splash of color in lieu of black and white. I thought this was the most brilliant understated album art I’d ever seen. Both albums were free to download online and I was just so intoxicated by the unassuming quality of the music presentation, and the whole mood of it. Not many of us had a clue The Weeknd would come to be a megastar by the end of the decade from these most underground and enigmatic beginnings, but the talent was always there. House of Balloons is one of the most important releases of the decade for a multitude of reasons. First, it put The Weeknd on the map as an emerging star and also made his style of cold menacing beats and hollowed-out synths a pervasive form of music-making. It would soon become apparent this sound was something not exclusive to The Weeknd, and was in fact a popular Canadian expression of R&B. We realized this with the inundation of equally nocturnal-oriented musicians like Drake, DVSN, and PARTYNEXTDOOR. XO and OVO record labels, and their distinctive sounds, swept over the popular music soundscape to the degree we now have Trap music, Travis Scott, and other disciples who embraced the dark sound of Toronto and made it a much larger movement. The Weeknd took a more accessible path through the rest of the decade, with mixed results. Beauty Behind the Madness (2015) is a good example of an album successfully crossing his underground sound sensibilities with Pop, others like Kiss Land and StarBoy fall pretty flat. Nevertheless, House of Balloons and Thursday still stand out as defining albums that changed the decade and launched a star, and between the two, House of Balloons is clearly the watershed moment.
14. miguel – kaleidoscope dream (2012)
I had to put an album on this list from the “baby making music” department of R&B, because the decade had some really tremendous late-night long plays imbued with slick and sultry production. DVSN’s sterling album Sept. 5th (2016) was another strong contender for the list, hot on the heels of this gem from Miguel. The reason Kaleidoscope Dream had to make it over Sept. 5th, or another late-night R&B album, is the unrivaled production. Working with producers like Salaam Remi and co-writers like the incomparable Alicia Keys, combined with Miguel’s own forceful vision, made for a giant burst of creative energy. It also helped that his previous record label, Jive, had tried to keep him reigned in and “pigeon-holed” while he was under contract, and similar to the way Marvin Gaye unleashed on What’s Going On (1971), Miguel doubled-down on his abilities when given the chance to have more say on the studio production. From those first thirty seconds of “Adorn” to the fading minute of “Candles in the Sun”, you understand Miguel stepped in the studio not to make a commercially-successful album, instead he wanted to display as much creativity as possible while holding onto the idea of interconnecting all of the songs of the album with this sense of a “dreamscape”. The fact he was able to achieve that sound, push the studio experience to those heights, and accidentally make a universally-lauded album, is a marvel. The entire album exudes this gorgeous swell of cleanly washed R&B and Funk, but also doesn’t hesitate to get a bit distorted, especially in the song interludes and segues between songs. Much like a kaleidoscope, the picture is often a bit tangled, but the vivid colors of the pattern are inevitably revealed. Alongside Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange, Kaleidoscope Dream pushes innovation in Soul and R&B in this decade while also making a smash hit commercially. Miguel further solidified his indie/alternative bona fides as well as his ability to create complete albums with his next LP endeavor, Wildheart (2015), which could’ve easily found its way onto the list if not for this album. The most impressive part of Miguel is even with that million-dollar voice, and the look and style to be a superstar in music, it is clear he is not one to sell his Soul to the powers of popular music. He is undoubtedly a student of music, a fan of higher concepts in production and album construction, and counts his peers as those with the same scruples about making innovative music.
13. WHITNEY – LIGHT UPON THE LAKE (2016)
Whitney capture the movement in Indie Rock during the 2010s better than any other band making music during the time. Namely, they capture that trend towards incorporating Lo-Fi Soul, Jazz, and other newfangled forms of music into the delivery of Indie Rock. However, Whitney is so much more than that, and a taught, perfectly executed album like Light Upon the Lake is the proof. It seemed pretty clear Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon had left his forlorn Indie Folk for different pastures by the time Whitney arrived on the scene to give us a new take on the genre. Whitney laced their music with a similar type of Soul Bon Iver had instilled in his music, yet instead of focusing on the wistful notion of lost love, they instilled their nostalgic sound with a joyous longing, or to put another way, a de facto optimism. Whitney is another one of the important Chicago-based bands that kept Indie Folk, and more broadly, Indie Rock, as close to vital as possible in the mid to late 2010s. Born out of the collapse of Chi-Town’s Smith Westerns, and taking crossover queues from associated acts like Unknown Mortal Orchestra, they formed quickly and made this their debut album, Light Upon the Lake, a tight thirty minute album of blissful perfection. The Soul inflection in the music is undeniable, flashes of Soft Rock kings like Bread from the 70s abound, but the most interesting quality of the music is the nostalgia soaking every bit of the vocals and guitars throughout. The first three tracks, “No Woman”, “The Falls”, and “Golden Days” distill the intent of the sound in the best of terms. Whitney wants to make a warm and soulful story out of remembering the old, especially when making something new. There is an ineffable feeling of lush reverie in the sound, like the glint in someone’s eye when a memory is conjured; a beautiful image that is short and sweet we want to hold onto and squeeze from fear of it fading out. In overt and concrete terms, the medley of horns, strings, keys, and choir-like vocals give the album this unique quality. The instrumentation, and competency of the band to execute the kind of evasive sound they were searching for is beyond commendable. Tracks like “Dave’s Song” and “Red Moon” lean on the music when Julien Ehrlich’s voice isn’t doing the work, and are equally successful at bringing the mood. Their follow-up album in 2019, Forever Turned Around, continued in the same spirit as this album while also bolstering Whitney as a band with a signature sound.
12. FATHER JOHN MISTY – FEAR FUN (2012)
I have a love-hate relationship with J. Tillman, the artist behind the project Father John Misty. This is documented, rather unnecessarily, in a post back in 2016. Despite my disappointment in much of his work since I Love You, Honeybear (2015), I will not evade the truth that I have listened to Fear Fun more than any other album of this decade, with the exception of maybe the Mac Demarco and Twin Peaks albums. Fear Fun was the debut of Tillman’s Father John Misty, a vehicle he intended as an overt display of dissident behavior. I didn’t realize this until Pure Comedy (2017) and God’s Favorite Customer (2018), which devolve into overly wordy and pedantic, hedonistic displays of his mastery of the English language. At the time of Fear Fun I thought it a great balancing of a singular lyrical style that took his acerbic wit and harnessed it with the natural greatness of his voice. It’s almost as if the lavish, sweeping musical stylings of his former band Fleet Foxes was still in his system at the time of Fear Fun, but was quickly eradicated by sheer force of his personality and self-awareness. As Tillman would eventually say, he was growing tired of “play(ing) my sad-wizard, Dungeons and Dragons music and watch(ing) people’s eyes glaze over….”. It seems from this quote that he thought the audience would embrace his incendiary personality more than the music itself. What I find to be most sad is he never thought to mediate between two sides of his music, and began to lean too heavily towards one side. Even if the sound of this album clashes with his identity, it is still an artifact of an artist at his best as a musician more than just an iconoclast. The raucous guitars of “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings” or the beautiful vocals of “Nancy from Now On”, or the indefatigable bravado in “Only Son of the Ladiesman” would never quite land the same in follow-up records. In Fear Fun the music sounded just as good as the lyrical meaning, and for that reason I still listen and marvel at the uncanny talent and genius of J. Tillman.
11. kaytranada – 99.9% (2016)
It is yet to be seen if 99.9% was Kaytranada capturing lightning in a bottle and dispersing it over the course of this album’s hour runtime. In many ways this feels like a once in a lifetime album, the way it all comes together flawless in song transition, collaboration of players, and long-playing composition. Surely, Kaytranada has made great singles and EPs, but when you compare his very good second LP, Bubba (2019), to this album, you still understand there was an ever-elusive magic presiding over the recording. “Track Uno” is the perfect build to what becomes the tour-de-force of Hip-Hop and Electronic production showcased between “Bus Ride” at the second slot and “Glowed Up” at nine. Nonstop brilliance is all that comes to mind when listening to Kaytranada so deftly take his penchant style of squeaky beats, warped keyboards, and bright-shining electronics to form around his rotating list of R&B and Hip-Hop stars including Vic Mensa, Syd, and GoldLink. Anderson .Paak, in particular, and the swagger of “Glowed Up” is case and point for the magic of this album. Then after a bit of instrumental exposition and a couple sleepier tracks, “Lite Spots” quitely emerges like a firefly’s first flickers, and explodes into one of the most novel dance tracks ever produced. As an individual statement of Kaytranada’s emergence as one of the biggest players in R&B and Electronic production, 99.9% couldn’t have come off any better. His work before and after this album loses some of that very particular richness in originality. This is a personal statement made up of so many contributors, who were able to stand out rather convincingly even when the sound behind them was so definitively Kaytranada. That is the wonder of this album; crafted so carefully from a producer coming into his own, and orchestrating electronically like a classic composer working with the most 21st Century of tools. 99.9% doesn’t have big hits or mainstream appeal, but it was recognized for its artistic merits, having won a 2016 Polaris Prize in Canada. It is also venerated in the underground circles and in the Alternative R&B community for being a perfect album. Kaytranada also managed to acquaint more people with the rich culture of music being made in Canada (and specifically Montreal), further cementing Canada’s eminence in the R&B scene with artists like River Tiber, BadBadNotGood, and Shay Lia.
10. alabama shakes – sound & color (2015)
It’s a very difficult decision choosing between Boys & Girls, Alabama Shakes’ amazing debut album from 2012, and Sound & Color – nearly impossible to be honest. What makes Sound & Color the pick is paradoxically because Boys & Girls is an unbeatable record – they came up with a sophomore album just as good. I’m not going to say better, but I am going to say just as good. Sound & Color come out of the gate in very impressive, as well as unexpected, fashion. The titular track is cleaned of the blues and sits quite elegantly on a throne of space-age Soul, belying all the sounds we heard on their debut. Brittany Howard and the team display a confidence in their studio production from this incipient song and onwards, dropping us back into familiar territory with the primal bombast of the second track “Don’t Wanna Fight”. They haven’t made a better song than that one. One complaint I have of Alabama Shakes, and this might be the only one, is that both albums suffer from a strange pacing, where they bounce between slow downtrodden songs and faster rockers, and I’m not convinced the mixing of the records is done successfully. Despite this, they make the best roots-based Rock of any in the decade. Songs like “Future People”, and later in the album, “Shoegaze”, cement this very real statement. Sound & Color ventures into some new territory the band wasn’t aware of in the debut, and really impress with their mastery of production as well as musical composition to create some of the tightest sounding Rock music of the Century. Brittany went on to release her debut album in 2019, Jaime, and after five years without releasing anything as the Alabama Shakes, I’m really jonesing for a new record to build upon the down home comfort and conviction evinced on Sound & Color.
09. beach house – teen dream (2010)
Two basic camps emerge in the Top 25 list: the albums ambitious for mixing disparate songs to make a cohesive whole, and the albums ambitious for being resolutely powerful in a single sound. Albums like Grimes’ Visions, Deerhunter’s Halcyon Digest, and SZA’s Ctrl represent the former, and Beach House’s Teen Dream falls into the later category. In fact, Teen Dream (not to be mistaken for Katy Perry’s album of similar name) is probably the most sterling example of when an album overpowers the listener by sheer force of one uncompromising sound. Devotion in 2008 was a great achievement for Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally, the Baltimore duo forming Beach House. However, Teen Dream put aside the reverb and roundabout stylings for a new style that leaves Legrand’s incomparable voice bare and the music behind it sparser, yet still epic. In fact, less accompaniment and more simplicity seems to let the drama in her voice take center stage. Take a song like “Real Love” and its scant use of piano to support Legrand – the power is almost too much and all the muscle pushing this song is in the giant quivering voice. Beach House would continue throughout the decade to make great albums that didn’t stray too far from the signature sound established on Teen Dream. There are nuances that make Bloom (2012), Depression Cherry (2015), and 7 (2018) great records by their own right, but none of them are quite as revelatory as Teen Dream and the raw power Legrand conjured in her singing, as well as the raw emotion elicited in listening to an album like this. The forceful nature of the music, the ubiquitous quality of the sound, is something that will probably never be replicated, even by Beach House themselves.
08. flying lotus – cosmogramma (2010)
Much like Kaytranada and 99.9%, this is Steven Ellison, a.k.a. Flying Lotus’ masterpiece. It’s not as accessible as Until the Quiet Comes (2012) as esoteric as You’re Dead (2014) or Flamagra (2019), yet is certainly a strange breed of Electronic Hip-Hop. Nothing has ever sounded or will ever sound quite like this album; the nuance of technique, the fidelity to one man’s personality, and that man’s command of the art is so exacting in that time and place that it will never be replicated. Cosmogramma is a flash in the pan type of album from a brilliant producer. Folks were already taking note when Ellison released 1983 (2006) and Los Angeles (2008) in the first decade of the Century, though there was still a clear level of growth the producer was capable of achieving. Nevertheless, the level of mastery displayed on this album was shocking. Ellison was famous for saying that this was his most honest and all-consuming experience in the studio, and that at the time he felt it should have won a Grammy. It’s a small tragedy this album was not awarded with a Grammy, because its vision and superior craft are rarely seen. The other amazing quality of this album is the breadth of genres it spans – from Nu-Jazz, EDM, Hip-Hop, all the way to Psychedelia. In fact, many have named this the greatest “Psychedelic Hip-Hop” album ever created. All the circumstance behind the production of Cosmogramma, made this a special recording for him – just like the other Electronic Hip-Hop album on this list, 99.9%. However, unlike Kaytranada’s album, Flying Lotus followed this album with one almost equal in mastery – Until the Quiet Comes, which would’ve been on the list if not for Cosmogramma. Above is just a taste of the surreal aesthetic Ellison created only on this one.
07. the internet – ego death (2015)
My favorite R&B band from this decade is far and away The Internet. It may sound like I’ve already said this, but I want to distinguish between the discussion of “best” or “favorite” R&B musicians or artists, or even producers, and the discussion of bands. A collective of musicians who come together to produce great works of art, and at the same time take on solo projects of great personal expression, don’t come along often. The Internet are a retroactive supergroup, as many of the founding members have gone on to make great music as producers and solo artists. Syd, Matt Martians, and Steve Lacy have all continued to push the bounds of Soul, Funk, and R&B in this decade and are so stupid young that it goes without saying they will be big players in the next. Steve Lacy in particular, who in a previous post I lavished with accolades for his work with peer Hip-Hop and Rap acts, and even Rock acts like Vampire Weekend, is only 21 years old and already so accomplished. Unlike the cruel snub inflicted on Flying Lotus for not being nominated for a Grammy until 2016’s track “Never Catch Me” (which Kendrick Lamar’s celebrity probably had something to do with the nomination), The Internet were recognized with a nomination for Ego Death. All of The Internet’s albums are superb, however, this one is notable for its expansive free-ranging nature. Clocking in at over 56-minutes in length, Ego Death flaunts the band’s talent in ways the previous ones had not. Purple Naked Ladies (2011) and Feel Good (2013) both seemed bound to a certain extent by the mores of Contemporary R&B. Ego Death takes greater liberty with extemporaneous song constructs, and ventures farther into new R&B production techniques. At the same time, they showcased the musicianship of their band. Tracks like “Just Sayin / I Tried” or “Something’s Missing” were composed like medley’s, and the deviations in sound were always thrilling, while always holding the groove. Of course, “Gabby”, “Get Away”, and “Under Control” in the first half of the album that were delivered by way of Syd’s sumptuous vocals. Every time I listen to this album, a new song on the back half draws my attention, as the band took more risks, as well as twist and turns, than in the more straightforward beginning. I’ll go on record saying the two most consequential R&B bands of this Century, so far, are The Roots and The Internet, for pushing the innovation in their genres while also staying true to the heritage.
06. mac demarco – 2 (2012)
In 2012 a weirdo named Mac DeMarco came out of the nowhere, or rather the Great White North, and released two seminal albums. Without any warning he simultaneously created a genre (or genres) and influenced a new generation of Indie Rock artists. Rock and Roll Nightclub was his debut release and still remains an outlier within his own work as well as in the broader Indie scene. In it he mixed aspects of Glam Rock, Lo-Fi Bedroom Pop, and Psychedelia to make a unique concept record. Only later did it become apparent DeMarco had produced the album as an alter ego of himself – a sort of transgender, amorphous personality with a different form of flair from his Indie peers. The most alluring aspect of the music, however, was the completely novel ways he was tuning the guitars and crafting his distorted sound to make the Glam and Jangle- it was uncanny and refreshing. Later in 2012 Mac released what would become his best album, 2. After his sophomore album he doubled-down on that new genre he created and marketed, cheekily called “Jizz Jazz”, and would make a handful of sleepy and intimate bedroom ballad albums, starting with Salad Days (2014) and continuing through his latest release as of today, Here Comes the Cowboy (2019). Although Salad Days had a similar spirit to 2, and had a couple more upbeat tracks, the tone of Mac’s latest albums is consistent and dare I say, becoming a bit too sleepy and monotonous. Although he will never lose the charm and quirky personality that has endeared him to his loyal fanbase, he has made some listless. For me, 2 is an immaculate album that furthered the innovative guitar work he had begun with his debut, and expanded his songwriting. “My Kind of Woman” is a love song for the ages, and “Still Together” was the sort of sentimental and sanguine track that he would make into a staple on future albums, yet never get quite as beautifully composed as he did on 2. The pace of many of the songs is also something I dearly miss of his later recordings; “Dreaming” and “Freaking Out the Neighborhood” reflect the fun and mischievous personality of DeMarco, which often came out so wonderfully in his live act. His on-stage performances are legendary, and though he often leans towards the upbeat and electrified in his live sets, the albums after 2 would tone it down and generate emotion in the most plangent of ways. Rock and Roll Night Club and 2 are the albums that sparked all of the future Jizz Jazz artists like Mild High Club, Drugdealer, and Homeshake and a long line of more romantic acts like Loving and Sales. Mac’s influence has also started to percolate into other modern forms of music including the oddly-tuned guitar production in Lo-Fi Soul (Steve Lacy, Omar Apollo, Choker) and even in the popular Hip-Hop acts releasing music right now. Mac’s early work catalyzed so many Indie efforts and spawned new genres altogether, and 2 is the best representation of this brilliant artist.
05. kendrick lamar – damn. (2017)
Kendrick Lamar has never released a bad track or album or done a bad feature spot for another artist- he is solid gold in this decade. Perhaps in some paradoxical way the troubled effort to pick between DAMN., To Pimp a Butterfly (2015), and Good Kid, M.A.A.D City (2012) made it easy for me to make other picks in front of his work. But don’t mistake this as saying he didn’t make the most important, or objectively best musical works of this decade – again this list is subjective. He is venerated in the Hip-Hop/Rap community, and the vast majority have anointed him the supreme MC of today; this might be another reason I placed other albums in front of his work, which some would consider sacrilegious. To explain, his music is shared by so many, respected by nearly all, and impacts so many others to a greater degree than me that I don’t have the same connection. From my side, he is untouchable in terms of skill and artistry – so good it’s like he’s from another planet. In truth, I hold the albums of others more personally dear, but will probably regard Kendrick Lamar as the most important artist of the decade. Resolving that conflict within myself is the easy part – the difficult part was picking between his albums. Its astounding he never slumped after the sheer genius of Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, although some were caught off-guard by his second album, which was not meant to be a crowd pleaser, but rather an audacious ode to the heritage of R&B music of yesteryear. Most have warmed up to his sophomore album, if they had initial disappointment. “These Walls” and “Alright” are two of my favorites, with the latter often being discussed by many as his best. Another quizzical conceit of mine is to say the perfection of those two albums forced me to pick his last studio album, DAMN. I remember thinking to myself when I first listened to this one, “Damn, he has done it again.” I couldn’t believe after the previous two there was no letting up on this his fourth album. It was difficult to fathom he was elevating his abilities even more, and creating an even tighter and cohesive LP. Maybe the only knock on his previous albums was the length of each of them – flirting with the 70-minute mark. Coming in at a relatively svelte 54:54, DAMN. felt like a tauter composition, and a more concise statement. I think the length of the album combined with the strong narrative arc from “Blood” to “Duckworth” and throughout, made this album stand apart. Kendrick also did a fantastic job incorporating new producers and a cadre of creators for each and every track. The differences in production style of the variety of producers brought in added a certain texture to the album. The combative tone of “DNA” is offset by a more delicate technique in a track like “Feel”. The crowd-pleasing swagger of “Humble” complemented by the luxuriating R&B of “Love”. Every track is perfectly executed, without any fluff, needless segue or gratuitous interlude. DAMN. is a standout for saying exactly what it intended to say, with confidence and a deft touch in production.
04. anderson .paak – malibu (2016)
I’ve mused about this album before, in a post made in 2018. When it comes to the craft of making an album from beginning to end, with interlude and segue, deliberate placement of tracks throughout, and consideration for ideal transitions between songs, this is the best album of the decade. I don’t know if it is a niche fascination of an individual to desire all albums be constructed like a tracking shot movie, flowing from one track to the next effortlessly and with purpose, but I am a subscriber to this method. California-native Anderson .Paak is not your conventional R&B icon, and he had to work from humble beginnings to reach the point he is at now. Hard to imagine, but at the start of the decade Paak was not a successful musician at all. Quite the opposite, actually; having for a time been homeless with wife and young son and making a couple bucks working on a marijuana farm in Santa Barbara. In 2011 and 2012 his skills as a session musician (especially as a virtuosic drummer) became apparent and he began working in the studio with Pop artists. I like to think that he picked up the art of studio production quickly, because even his debut album Venice (2014) showed a real knack for the details of creating an album. Venice was at times erratic, but I loved the way Paak employed the soundbites from surfer documentaries and West Coast films to move the listener through the album. Any adjustment necessary in that method of album construction was swiftly made by Malibu, his second album. His savvy for experimental production, and for understanding how an album could feel like a single medley of great songs, was fully-formed by this point. Five years removed from homelessness and Anderson .Paak was a superstar artist producing other mainstream artists in R&B, Hip-Hop, and Soul. The album also received a Grammy nomination for “Best Urban Contemporary Album”- an award it should’ve undoubtedly won. He was collaborating with Dr. Dre, DJ Premier, Schoolboy Q, and others by the time of Malibu’s release and there was a loud rustling in the R&B community that this was a breakout album from a breakthrough artist. Critics praised the way he was making albums as depictions of his West Coast origins, while also making warm and lush R&B tracks sounding as much classic as Hip-Hop trendy. Malibu expresses all of the pioneering individuality of Anderson .Paak while simultaneously announcing the state of music as definitively boundless, never constricted by the framework of Soul and R&B he used as a basis for something altogether new.
03. tame impala – innerspeaker (2010)
My mind exploded the first time I heard this album. I remember it so clearly, the experience of jumping into this sound – I was on the edge of my car seat. Yes, it was 2010 and I was driving with friends through the western plains of Kansas on the gently curving Interstate 25, en route to Denver, Colorado for an architecture field trip with my studio class. The event that was Innerspeaker’s first play in my car deserves it’s own post and more specifically a future Memory Crusades segment. As far as fully-immersive experiences in sound go, there isn’t much that compares to hitting play on “It Is Not Meant to Be” and just letting Innerspeaker plow along. The audacity of sound, the brazenness of Kevin Parker allowing his voice to reverb like that, around the cosmically-drenched guitars with the Psychedelic turned up to 11, just says everything about Tame Impala right out of the gate. The name is weird and I don’t think they care, the comparisons to John Lennon’s vocals are so flagrantly there and I don’t think they care, and the derivative origins and “sound alike” comparisons are there, but again I don’t think they care. The different parallels that would be drawn were self-evident, yet I respect that they seemed to shrug it off rather effortlessly. Or rather, I like to think Kevin Parker and his Australian compatriots just didn’t give a damn and had a vision of their sound in mind they were not going to question. And somehow I knew holding the album in my hand, the jacket cover with that trippy nature panoramic distorted by some oddly tremulous sonic wave – this was going to be something special for me. The visual on that cover was a near perfect translation of the sound aesthetic, like a self-fulfilling prophecy of what it would be like to hear those first brash guitar notes. Much like Boston’s self-titled debut album, Innerspeaker stood out for an unflinching conviction in the production of sound, and the early execution of that new uncompromising sound. And much like the brainchild behind Boston (Tom Scholz), Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker proved to be a studio prodigy. What would come after Innerspeaker was the excellent companion Lonerism (2012), then a foray into more Electronic production with Currents (2015). By the time of Currents Parker was a highly sought after collaborator by all walks of music and was excelling in building the Tame Impala sound through remixes, singles, and different small projects. Sure the lyrics are nothing earth-shattering and the live performance visuals, although bigger and brasher than the 70’s Psychadelic Rock that inspired, are pretty referential, nothing else is really necessary in the end. Tame Impala doesn’t need to make anything new in the other arenas when you are next to that wall of sound made by their studio albums. I have jogged countless times to “Lucidity” and “Solitude is Bliss”, dreamed during “I Don’t Really Mind”, and tranced-out more than I’d care to admit along with “Why Won’t You Make Up Your Mind”. The relationship to Tame Impala’s music is indefatigable, and Innerspeaker is the gateway drug I will never forget first taking, and am forever thankful for having experienced.
02. twin peaks – DOWN IN HEAVEN (2016)
The decision between the final two was an arduous one. It basically came down to the most important band for me, personally, of the decade, and the artist that was also very important to me in a certain time and place, but was a more objective choice for the influence and relevancy of the album on our culture at the time. Ultimately I came to a decision, although I am not definitively convinced in myself. I listened to more Twin Peaks, and in particular the albums Wild Onion (2014) and Down in Heaven, than anything else in the decade. The memories tied to this listening are inexorable, and truly defining of my place as a person and aficionado of music. In short, my mid to late 20s were full of angst, fringe youth dreaming, hopeful enthusiasm, and a vacillating emotional range moving from solemnity to frustration and back. Twin Peaks resonated with me more than any other musical artist because their sound holds all of these things. Whereas the nostalgia factor for Wild Onion is greater, having been my music companion through the streets of Chicago and on the Appalachian Trail, and is the album I have listened to, most assuredly, more than any other album ever, I still chose Down in Heaven for very specific reasons. Wild Onion is a well-composed album that has a beautiful renegade flow from beginning to end. The sound is Garage Punk mixed with fuzzy guitars and a retro Rock vibe. It’s basement Blues for indie rebels and skinny jean hipsters not afraid to get dirty and reckless, unlike the other side of the hipster token, which are the prim and proper, abashed flannel-goers of the Folk Rock (i.e. Mumford and Sons and Death Cab for Cutie). The unkempt grunginess of the sound on Wild Onion is a rare thing that feels like lightning in a bottle; a cosmic array of garage psychedelia and unbridled punk energy barely harnessed into a mesmerizing display, like a bull rider that never gets tossed. Down in Heaven is a more impactful album for its greater themes and more honed sound that felt as timeless and equally rebellious as a classic Velvet Underground album. The songwriting resonated with me those first few days listening to it in Chicago, walking under the “L” tracks in the same way the cast of characters in the video above were. The songs still hit me harder than most. In “Cold Lips” the organ, drum, and guitars seem to glide along to those opening lyrics, ” You’ve been wasting all my time acting cold, You oughtta get yourself a shiny gold medal for being the coldest bitch I know, You can live how you want, If you don’t mind living alone.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought that about a girl, or in some regard myself, and just let the rousing sentiment wash over me. The other anthem to my 20’s and early 30’s is certainly “Wanted You”, and of course the opening track “Walk to the One You Love” is one of the greatest Indie Rock tracks ever recorded. Down In Heaven, is often the embodiment of most of my adult life, and whether it remains so in the coming years is to be seen.
01. FRANK OCEAN – CHANNEL ORANGE (2012)
In the eight years since Channel Orange, Frank Ocean has made some beautiful music, albeit in seemingly piecemeal fashion. A single like “Chanel” or “Pink + White” off of his follow-up record Blonde (2016) display a Lo-Fi Soul that is carefully orchestrated and plaintively embellished – it’s Ocean’s bread and butter. As a work of art that changed everything in music, Channel Orange is in the lead for the decade. You look at the landscape of artists and music producers in the mix right now, from the outright successful like The Internet and H.E.R., to the more independent and under the radar artists (but equally fantastic) like Orion Sun and Omar Apollo, you come to see how wide and far the influence of this record has reached. Frank Ocean made a courageous self-expression under the banner of Neo-Soul, but its breadth and depth assuredly transcends categories. The album harnesses what could seem like an erratic mix of R&B, Psychedelic Soul, Urban Contemporary and makes it flow together flawlessly. He used little sound bites and brief Lo-Fi interludes to maximum effect, much like many of the other masters of album creation on this list have managed. Yet what sets Frank Ocean apart is that he can sound as intimate and understated as the smallest of Bedroom Soul recordings, and then launch abruptly into a sound as big and dramatic as the outro song to a Hollywood blockbuster. The fact that he showcased his songwriting chops in both forms invited all reaches of other artists to take his cue, step-up, and make visionary music. I can still remember it like it was yesterday, walking across the Wells St. bridge in Chicago, listening to those opening strings and the big swirling bass and choppy drums of “Thinkin Bout You” in a valley under skyscrapers – it was a exciting new chapter of my life with my fist job out of school in a big unfamiliar city, and this album was the accompaniment to many Saturday afternoons walking around exploring a novel city. This album has great intrinsic value to me for being that marker of one of the bright spots in my young adult life, and for me it has….to use another one of Frank Ocean’s albums as a reference: Nostalgia, Ultra. Whereas most people will cherish this album for its many declarations about sexuality, freedom of expression, and racial commentary, for me I was mostly just awestruck by the mastery of production. This album bounces from so many different tones and styles, starting as a reassuring earworm of solace, with headphone masterpieces like “Sierra Leone” and “Sweet Life”, to great R&B anthems like “Crack Rock” and “Super Rich Kids”. The extended track “Pyramids” is a little of everything, the testament to a unique artist’s incomparable ability to make R&B masterpieces with a range of epic and intimate in a single cut. Then like a perfect arc, Ocean brings us back to the bedroom mastery with the tracks “Pink Matter” and “Forrest Gump”, two gorgeously subdued tracks that would signal the path of the music he’d be making the rest of the decade.
Although it was an incredibly tough decision between the last two albums, they pair equal in many regards. In terms of production, songwriting, and quality, they both stand out as albums that are going to have just a bit more emotional heft than the other music I may have in the queue. Whenever I pop those headphones on and mentally prepare to listen to either of these albums, I make an effort to plan out my schedule so I can listen all the way through, uninterrupted. Because these are deeply personal albums for those that created them, with different ways of expressing the same range of emotions, and they were both done with the greatest of control and care towards delivering a message that would be felt just the same to the listener.
Honorable Mentions (The 25 to Round out the Top 50):
26. Current Joys – Wild Heart (2013)
27. Mount Kimbie – Crooks & Lovers (2010)
28. James Blake – The Colour in Anything (2016)
29. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues (2011)
30. Danny Brown – Atrocity Exhibition (2016)
31. Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires of the City (2013)
32. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs (2010)
33. Disclosure – Settle (2013)
34. FKA Twigs – LP1 (2014)
35. Ty Segall – Manipulator (2014)
36. Caribou – Our Love (2014)
37. Sturgill Simpson – Metamodern Sounds in Country Music (2014)
38. Jamie xx – In Colour (2015)
39. Thundercat – Apocalypse (2013)
40. Vince Staples – Big Fish Theory (2017)
41. Saba – Care for Me (2018)
42. Toro y Moi – Underneath the Pine (2011)
43. Real Estate – Days (2011)
44. Bryson Tiller – Trapsoul (2015)
45. Mac Miller – The Divine Feminine (2016)
46. Kanye West – Yeezus (2013)
47. Nick Hakim – Green Twins (2017)
48. Death Grips – The Money Store (2012)
49. Jay Som – Everybody Works (2017)
50. Jon Hopkins – Immunity (2013)
