Favorite Albums of 2010s
"Wow, I'm so excited for another 'Best of' list!"
So no one has ever said.
What has fascinated me is in constructing this list, I have re-evaluated its entries over and over again. Some choices were obvious and have always stayed. Some choices competed with other excellent albums; yet there could only be one. The most interesting choices were the ones I felt ambivalent on, slept on for years, only for me to say: "Wow, that held up a lot better than anyone thought." This list is really for those latter albums. I'm sure anyway I will continue rearranging the list, which, as a writer, amuses me more than horrifies me, as it ideally should.
What also fascinates me is the narrative arc of each list, which I'll explicate into later.
On the topic of the playlist: the whole adventure came from trying to piece together songs for each decade into one playlist. I did not choose the "best" songs - the most popular, the most catchy, the most profound - I chose the "above the middle" songs. If an album is a truly great album, then its good songs are great songs.
2010
It's amazing Deerhunter's "Halcyon Digest" has anything to remember at all.
But in a significant way, it has everything to remember. One of the key insights into the album is what Bradford Cox, the singer, has said: "The album's title is a reference to a collection of fond memories and even invented ones, like my friendship with Ricky Wilson or the fact that I live in an abandoned victorian autoharp factory. The way that we write and rewrite and edit our memories to be a digest version of what we want to remember, and how that's kind of sad." link
The Cars sigh when they think about their "Best Friend's Girl". Willie Dixon is still thinking about that "Little Red Rooster". Patsy Kline can't get over the fact that "She's Got You". But in Deerhunter's memories there is nothing really spectacular to reflect on: memories of a basement scene, of "sailing", of school, of fountain stairs, of Jay Reatard.
The songs work because Deerhunter, as Bradford Cox once said, is a rock band. Revelation lies upon the shake of the hips. The murmuring guitar in "Sailing", the stomp of "Memory Boy", the quivering of "Helicopter", all convey love and death even when those words are not explicitly said (or any other words adjacent for that matter).
Regret, redoing the past, editing events are also themes in LCD Soundsystem's "This is Happening". It's a shame "Halcyon Digest" wins, but I think Murphy's irony, as much as it appeals to my cynicism, cannot overcome Cox's romanticism, which is at the heart of my cynicism.
2011
You can't believe
The way the wind was talking to the sea
I heard that someone said it before, I don't care
I can't walk away, I can't walk away
In Chinatown.
Destroyer's "Kaputt" is the obvious choice.
2012
Every single night
I undo the flight
Of little wings of white-flamed
butterflies in my brain
These ideas of mine
Percolate the mind
Trickle down the spine, swarm the belly, swelling to a blaze.
Fiona Apple's "The Idler Wheel..." is the obvious choice.
2013
It's "Yeezus".
But the conflict between the artist's public persona and their inner life is shared in Beyonce's self-titled album. Their approaches are fascinatingly distinct: Kanye, with his arthouse pretensions, detaches himself from his persona, while Beyonce elaborates, reveals, intimates her true self throughout this album. I admire Beyonce's approach, so I feel bad for placing her honesty as secondary, for I also share Kanye's pretensions and prefer his fiction.
2014
To be kind, to be kind
To be sung, by a song, that's untrue,
...
To be lost, to be lost
To be found, in the sound, of this room.
Revelatory rock that rings and rages in your ear long after you've heard it; Swans shouting and screaming their heads off pleading the sky to fall, and achieving it; Gira's mesmerized, possessed even drawl in "Screenshot"; his exultant yelling in "Oxygen", asking for or angrily seizing the titular substance; the highway of hellish motorcycles with Gira bound and quartered in "She Loves Us"; then the fearful whining of "Just A Little Boy (For Chester Burnett)"; finally hynoptic acceptance in "To Be Kind", the last dregs of anger to be spilled before cooled down by the night sky.
Grouper took the opposite route in "Ruins". She too wants to express unspeakable emotions, of sadness but also of anger and frustration. As Harris mentioned in an interview, she conceived the album walking around ruins during her residency in Portugal, breaking down her thoughts on a variety of subjects, some political, some personal. Hers is a quiet revelation that succeeds from a storm. "Holding" impresses us as immensely quiet, yet when you hear the lyrics, and note her performance, it seems like a cessation of a long, long storm. I still get shivers from the first lines: "I hear you calling and I want to go; / Run straight into the valley of your arms and disappear there... / But I know my love will fail you."
2015
I was introduced to Dave Douglas when I was reading pushback on Wynton Marsalis - Wynton Marsalis, the dude who dissed Miles Davis, whose sense of excellence in jazz has an expiration point. I thought, "Anyone who criticizes this guy is probably worth listening to." (This heuristic turned out to be true.)
"High Risk" is attributed to the band High Risk. It does seem too chameleon for Dave Douglas alone to take sole credit, though he is sometimes the sole attribute. I find it difficult to speak on jazz as - surprise surprise - I have no technical training in music at all. But compared to the other albums in 2015, I sink into "High Risk" - its alien sounds, leisurely pace, occasional surges like Christmas presents and sheer variety of color remind me of Eno's "Another Green World". That is not a bad comparison at all; certainly one most artists would saliver for. Here it is deserved.
A younger man would have said Jamie XX's "In Colour". Not a bad album at all. I enjoy the color and danceability of "In Colour", but "High Risk" has greater maturity.
A very good answer is Sufjan Stevens' "Carrie and Lowell", but some tracks are nonpareil, others are a little pretentious, somewhat full of themselves. When Stevens is committed, he is a storyteller of no comparison. His sentimentality gets in his way. One can argue the subject matter is very intimate to him, but we must remember Kanye made "Yeezus".
"To Pimp A Buttefly" is very overrated. It toppled lists in 2015. Too many transitions, too many asides. Album itself is too big; some tracks are weaker than others in this ambitious album that concludes only when Kendrick says it concludes. More like "Complexion" would have been welcomed. Kanye and the following black artists outdo "Butterfly".
2016
"Blonde", "Blackstar", "Life of Pablo", "Moon Shaped Pool", "We Got It From Here...", "My Woman", "Coloring Book", "You Want It Darker", "Skeleton Tree", "Malibu", "HOPELESSNESS", "WORRY", "Wildflower"...
A million swords in 2016. The one to topple them all is Beyonce's "Lemonade".
I was hesitant on "Lemonade". I thought it was too specific. Mirroring my comments for 2013, I thought it was too Beyonce-specific.
The crucial conflict I couldn't overcome is that I always see the singer of "Lemonade" as Beyonce, not a character. Perhaps this may be a nitpick to other people, but to me the detachment is what makes fiction. Without detachment, without fantasy, without exploration and without analysis, it is not fiction, it is journalism, and boy howdy is journalism small-minded and boxed.
When I re-did this list for the twentieth time, I just added "Lemonade". Part of my reluctance probably came from the sheer density of 2016 albums.
In hindsight it was a silly argument. I listen to "Lemonade" over and over. I sing the songs a lot. I engage in the singer's emotions and I love the story, though it may be directly modeled from a real person's story. When I hear "Hold Up", Beyonce stops being Beyonce, and then I start singing it. I get, to be frank, fucking angry. That couplet, "What's worse? Looking jealous or crazy, jealous or crazy / More like, being walked all over lately, walked all over lately, I'd rather be crazy." At that point, Beyonce shut down 2016. What else is going to top that?
Beyonce refines a palette of emotions. She is angry, but not just: personally, morally, vengefully, physically, depressingly, mournfully, spiritually, she has given a lot of beauty to that one emotion. Take "Sandcastles": "Bitch, I scratched out your face, and your name / What is it about you, that I can't erase?" In those two lines, just those two lines, is an arc, where her anger varies intensities, travels from a high to a low.
Then there's "Love Drought", whose chorus goes: "Cause you... you... you, you and me can move a mountain / You... you... you, you and me can calm a war down." From love she makes conflicts as big as from "War and Peace". For her, love is as big as things come in the world. In her soul there is indeed a drought.
Actually not too long ago I would have said "Nothing". There was a shocking amount of good music in 2016, but none felt really complete or really listenable.
Well, to tell the truth, I listened to PUP's "The Dream is Over" a lot. Some songs are better than others, but that band can sure write songs. One can call the songs anthemic; I say they're the theme songs to the effortless ranting of "Trainspotting" or a Jim Gaffigan set. Everyone is angry, only PUP admits it. And loves it.
It was very odd that there were a lot of things to like, but nothing to really love. For example, the music and themes of "Blonde" had the right to win, but there were too many pointless transitions; "Blackstar" is Bowie at charisma's best but some songs drone on. The lack of brevity would continue to plague music to the end of the decade.
2017
It's Jay-Z's "4:44".
"DAMN" is damn good. A worthy Pulitzer Prize in Music given (though granted the award is a bit of a joke). All tracks are good. As music attempting to reflect on the post-2016 world, "DAMN" accomplished social detachment and indifference through "YAH.", "ELEMENT.", "LUST.", "FEAR.", "GOD." "XXX." is revelatory. Skin color is a non-factor; when the light of your life dies at the hands of a drug dealer, only Christly intervention will stop you from pulling out your gun. "DAMN" won not a long time ago. That speaks a lot for "4:44". Perhaps it speaks to how ambitious and therefore diffuse "DAMN" is.
2018
Makaya McCraven's "Universal Beings" introduced me to jazz and classical music. So it wins, duh.
Boring; stuffy; long-winded; aimless; at its worst, through rose-tinted glasses; such was my characterization of brass band music. "Universal Beings" was a key because it was modern. On a basic level I empathized with the texture and tone of his music. I saw the cities, the brief moments of metropolitan wonder, the surprising connections he made in urban environments, that he himself saw and felt. I stayed around and begun to crave the music's complexity, wanting more that underwent journeys down alleys by the second. Perhaps the spiritual component of "Universal Beings" also attracted me. McCraven's sense of play certainly did. He arrives to his conclusion unlike Kendrick - by joy and play, by digression, by sheer music, he arrives at the theme of humans as universal beings. No heavyhandedness required. Through bass, brass and drum he demonstrates we're quite a lot of things.
From here Miles opens up. From here Mingus opens up. From here Mozart opens up. It's a damn fine album.
Another thought: as I'm poring through jazz records in the 2000s, I can't help but weep from being so miserably, lamentably, brain-numbingly BORED. Bands led by Roy Hargrove, Dave Holland, David Newman, Satoko Fujii, Pat Metheny, all sound fine, sound smooth, are catchy, are slick, but these traits lead me to fall asleep. On the opposite end of the spectrum is a chaos of clicks and squalls that also lead me to sleep. Nothing really matches the creativity of "Atlantic Black". Here is emotion given form, as if the two were always meant to marry.
Robyn's "Honey" also seeks transcedence, from the beat rather than the rhythm. I loved Robyn since I had been in high school - where people dance to socialize and to impress, Robyn dances for her own self-edification. From the hips ego is built, and therefore intellect. In "Honey" Robyn does not pine merely; she makes arguments out of emotions, she evinces existence from music.
Mitski's "Be the Cowboy" is another notable. Who is going to contest her lyrics, her performance, her vision? But I felt the album across 14 tracks is somewhat same-y.
JPEG'S "Veteran" tackled on the incoherency of social media, giving it coherence through sheer rage and animal egotism. I don't think anyone has ever delved psychologically into that realm as he has since.
2019
I hesitated to grant 2019 to the most depressing album, Purple Mountains' self-titled.
The reason why it won by sheer force was that I simply listened to the tracks. A lot. I listen to the first half more - "All My Happiness is Gone", "Darkness and Cold", where Berman "sleep[s] three feet above the street / In a band-aid pink Chevette". I listen to "Maybe I'm the Only One For Me" a lot.
Berman's vision is total perhaps because he lived it very uncomfortably. I can imagine maybe a handful of albums like "Purple Mountains", about loneliness so desolate, so depleting, that I have not heard. In any case, Berman courageously stared down at the abyss and came back with gifts. He wrote about himself, in the process breaking himself, then trying to redeem himself. There is a constant process of breaking and rebuilding. The low moments in this album are very low, true, but the high moments are also high.
In real life, the cycle ended with breaking. I hesitated to grant "Purple Mountains" the year because it felt odd making something monumental out of someone's public mourning. But just like with Beyonce's "Lemonade" in 2016, perhaps I realize now the line between reality and art is thicker than I thought, and there is a place for the artist to manuever around that line. At the end of the day, the ideas are what matter - so long as the artist conveys the ideas with purity, perhaps it does not matter if they are in them all too much.
In "Nights That Won't Happen", Berman resurrects the dead, saying "they know what they're doing when they leave this world behind / when the here and the hereafter momentarily align, / see the need to speed into the lead suddenly declined". In "Storyline Fever" he quips "Got a combover cut circa Abscam sting / Make a better Larry than Lizard King."
On holidays, in lonely haunts,
At closing time, in restaurants,
I can't keep on pretending not to see;
Yeah, I'm starting to suspect -
Though I hope I'm incorrect -
That, maybe, I'm the only one for me.
Christ, I have sung these lyrics so many times, it must be a result of sheer joy that I do.
Where James Murphy mentioned above was too clever in "This is Happening", Berman's cleverness mixes with story and earnestness. The former is a trick of Costello's; the latter is a distinctly 2010s trait he shares with Fiona Apple and Kanye. Cleverness is earnest when the speaker knows the irony does not replace meaning.
The sad thing is that Berman understood meaning. The album is a testament to that.
Christoph de Babalon's "Hectic Shakes" too dives into dark material, and never swims back upwards to the surface. For the longest time, I simply liked listening to it, and therefore it was my 2019 favorite for as long a time. But the EP is short - 4 tracks. "Purple Mountains" is ambitious, majestic indeed.
For FEELS, though society has gone to shit "Post Earth", they feel more like teasing and mocking than despairing. They laugh at those heading down to Candy Land in "Car"; those with an "Awful Need" of self; they yell for a cigarette as they are "Deconstructed"; after bringing in the apocalypse, "Post Earth" they numbingly check in through the "Tollbooth" and rest in their graves "Flowers" in hand, at the last finally relaxing the grimace they're worn throughout the album. It's disappointing "Post Earth" has been so neglected. The only punk record worth remembering from the 2010s.
2010s
I'm constructing a playlist for the 2000s as we speak. It likely won't be done until I do more research. In spite of that, it's taking shape rather quickly. The theme is that the 2000s contained the last truly great rock albums - by that I mean, as I said "Halcyon Digest" is a rock album through and through, is that the 2000s have the last "rockstar-as-god" albums. Much of the decade is extremely danceable; the hedonism of the 90s shamed everyone, and so the audience resorted to anonymity in the party.
The 2010s is the end of anonymity, in more ways than one. With the rise of social media, there really is no sense of privacy. In fact, pressured by their peers, people prefer to create fake public personas. Activism, as necessary as it is, seeks to define people in sharply penciled boxes. The ever-presence of the news brings conflict to a person's fingertips thousands of miles and borders away. Personal trauma is a thing to be discussed, even publicized.
Deerhunter highlighted meaningless moments. Apple sung of valentines. Kanye spoke of unmitigated lust. Beyonce and Jay battled in back-to-back years. Berman literally eviscerates himself in song. There was a lot of self-hatred in the 2010s.
Songs got longer, happy with swimming in the meaninglessness. Life and death are luminous in "He Would Have Laughed". "Bay of Pigs" washes out with the sea. Swans wanted revelation to be 30 minutes long. McCraven jams and jokes in his 22-track double album.
A good deal of the decade's introspection was self-serving. A good deal of the shoegazing was self-satisfied. A lot of people justified their songwriting on some musical precedent or some current social need. In this sense, the hedonism of prior decades returned in this introspective decade as smug naivete which, in hindsight, defines well just about everything else in the decade. Honesty is sometimes an opening up to barbs.
This list here represents the best of this honesty. Deerhunter and Destroyer's romanticism lends sensual magic to these thoroughly cynical times. Apple at once glamors and flays reality because she wants our world to be a decent world, herself a decent person. Kanye has no hope left; every song he sings is car wreckage burning. Swans want to fuck into transcendence, though they themselves doubt they could. High Risk transformed skyscrapers into scenic paradise. Beyonce inspects love not as between lover/loved but as it really is: a two-way relationship. Jay examines cost, not just financial cost; the cost of fleeting, momentary things upon the real, upon love, upon legacy. McCraven asserts in spite of crumbling architecture and ever-present technology we are universal beings. Berman brings the decade home by staring down the most introspective topic ever: existence itself, making 44 minutes pass by on the prose of his literary pen.
A difficult decade. But a good one.