2010s Music Diary - Music Diaries - Forums : Best Ever Albums

NJ

Gender: Male
Age: 23
Location: WA

Edit 2: Back to the 2010s.

Edit: This is now just my music diary, not one specific to the 2010s.

I originally posted this as a response to me listening to three Kendrick Lamar albums, and reviewing them. I realize, though, that I've barely listened to any 2010s albums, and since I'm working on doing that, I thought it'd be best to just post them all here as I listen to them rather than make a new thread every time, or randomly post them in the comments. This feels more organized to me. So this is officially a thread where I review every 2010s album I listen to.

This is what I initially wrote:

Quote:

Over the past day-and-a-half, I've spent all my free time listening to Good Kid, m.A.A.d. City, To Pimp a Butterfly and DAMN. I've listened to barely any albums from the 2010s, and what I have listened to is entirely alternative albums. So I thought I'd check out some rap albums, since that's a genre I'm not too familiar with and even really fond of. I don't inherently dislike the genre, and some are amongst my favorite songs, but it's just not something I typically listen to. However, the Kendrick songs I've heard I liked enough, and I read this comment someone made ciriticising this site for having The Suburbs as the best album of the decade as opposed to TPAB like RYM, which I thought was silly, since I love The Suburbs, it's one of my favorite albums. But it convinced me to actually listen to these three albums, since all of them have gotten so much acclaim. Here's my mini-review for each of them:

Alright, here's a review of every 2010s album I've listened to in order of when I listened to them (it's not many):

Blackstar by David Bowie: A solid 8/10. The first album from this decade I listened to, it's one of my favorite Bowie albums (I actually like it more than Hunky Dory). All the tracks were pretty good, and two in particular (the title track and Lazarus) are some of my favorite of his songs, and songs of this decade. I like the overall sound of the album. I will admit sometimes his voice just doesn't work for me on this album, but it's a very solid final effort from such a great artist.

Teen Dream by Beach House: (Sorry) This one gets a 5/10 from me. Look, I know this is beloved. It's definitely good, but that's about it. Musically, I found it rather bland, and I honestly cannot name any song from it, which is a problem. It was a decent listening experience, and like three songs were pretty good (though I can't remember their names), so I guess it wasn't below average. Maybe I'll listen to it again sometime. I listened to it since it was a reccomended dream pop album, but I don't really view it as a highlight of the genre.

The Suburbs by Arcade Fire: A strong 9/10. My favorite AF album (though Funeral is great), there's just something to be said about the experience of listening to this album. Very few albums acheive what this one idoes namely, telling a complete story. The "concept" of this album (though I wouldn't call it a concept album) is fantastic, and I love the continuation and improvement on the suburban themes of Funeral. The instrumentation isn't quite as unique, but, despite being a much longer album, I'd say the Suburbs is more consistent (Funeral's middle third is noticeably weaker than the rest). I get why it's the top album of the decade on this site, though I do disagree. A few things hold it back from being a perfect 10. But I'm definitely glad it beat its competition at the Grammys at the very least.

Carrie and Lowell by Sufjan Stevens: 7/10. Illinois is one of my all-time favorite albums, perhaps my favorite of the 2000s. This one is merely good. All the tracks seemed a bit too similar, and it kind of meandered along. The lyrics were fantastic, and I've always loved Steven's voice, but compared to the epic, sprawling, experimental masterpiece that was Illinois, this was just a bit lacking. To be fair, I think it's cool he didn't just replicate that album forever. I like the idea of stripping back everything and making a more minimalistic album. It just wasn't as interesting, to me. I'll probably have to listen to it again, though.

This Is Happening by LCD Soundsystem - A 9/10. LCD Soundsystem is easily my favorite band of this century, and this album is their masterpiece. I just find myself revisiting it often, though I do tend to skip Pow Pow (which I do like, it's just long) and Somebody's Calling Me (eh). The rest of the album is close to a 10/10, those two songs just drag down the overall experience a bit. Sound of Silver is also great (All My Friends is my favorite song ever), but This Is Happening is their opus, at least so far. I don't know, it's just a very strong record.

The American Dream by LCD Soundsystem: A 7/10. The middle run from How Do You Sleep through the title track was amazing, but the rest was pretty bland, which is a shame since their previous albums usually only have one or two boring songs, whereas this one seems like it's half-ful of them. Call the Police was definitely my favorite of the bunch, and easily joins the ranks amongst the band's best songs.

To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar: Easily a perfect 10/10 album. Everything about it was amazing. All the songs were amazing. That commenter was right - this is better than The Suburbs, much as I love that album. It truly amazed me just how into it I was. I never once checked my phone - my eyes were completely glued on the lyrics in front of my, and I was completely absorbed. It's the best listening experience I've had in a while. Compared to the other two, this did pretty much everything better, in my opinion. I was completely blown away by it.

Good Kid, m.A.A.d. City by Kendrick Lamar: I'd give this one an 8+/10, almost a 9/10 (I'd have to relisten to it). I sometimes had to force myself to pay attention to the lyrics, but I did. That was easily the best part of the album - for the most part, sonically it sounded relatively standard for a 2010's rap album. Listening to the story unfold as it went along was amazing, though. I'll probably not listen to it again, at least for a long while, but my experience with it was a very pleasant one. I could see this being very popular amongst rap audiences since, from my inexperienced position, it seemed to be one of the better standard rap works.

DAMN. by Kendrick Lamar: This one gets an 8/10, but a low one. There were a few things that GKMC offered that TPAB didn't do, or at least not quite as well. That's not the case with this album. Interestingly, the most popular songs on it (DNA and Humble) were my least favorite, besides the Rihanna colaboration. At its best, this album was sonically interesting and experimental like TPAB (though never as well), and at its worst, it was just a slightly better modern rap-pop album. Its weakest part were the lyrics - they were good, but this is Kendrick Lamar we're talking about. GKMC and TPAB have absolutley amazing lyrics, whereas these got a bit too political, preachy, and less personal, at least to me.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West: This one's a 9/10. At it's best, it's just as good as TPAB (actually, I'd say Runaway is probably better than any single song on the latter), but, while it is a consistent album, it's not as consistent, and the overall listening experience isn't quite as masterful. It's certainly a great album, though. I like every song, though themiddle was the highlight. The album is bout the same level of quality as The Suburbs, I'd have a hard time picking which one is the best of 2010. They're both so consistent and the story they tell is fantastic. It's hard to deny the influence of MBDTF, though. Not that that matters all too much to me, personnally.

The Money Store by Death Grips: A solid 8/10. It was very unique and very consistent. I wasn't expecting to enjoy it from what I've heard from the group, but it really grew on me. I know I said I'd check out Frank Ocean first, but I lied. He's next, though! (liar) Then the two albums reccomended to me in the comments. As I'm writing this, I'm relistening to The Money Store.

I've decided to start posting my mini-reiews in separate comments to save space. I might go back and give each of the above reviews their own as well, though I'll do that later, if I do.

Last edited by NJ on 11/04/2022 01:58; edited 17 times in total

Komorebi-D

Gender: Male
Age: 26

Top post, NJ. Excellent stuff. I think what draws to you these albums though, like most listeners, is that Kendrick is a storyteller. A damn fine one at that. I mean the man won a Pulitzer for a reason, even if it was for DAMN. And if you’re in the market for more narrative centric hip hop records from this decade, here’s one I’d recommend giving a go:

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

Atrocity Exhibition by Danny Brown

At first Danny’s scattershot delivery might be a bit disorientating but once you get over that hurdle, what you get is one of the decade’s best. And one of the beautifully tortured portraits of existentialism, depression and isolationism the genre has to offer.
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NJ

Gender: Male
Age: 23
Location: WA

Komorebi-D wrote:

Top post, NJ. Excellent stuff. I think what draws to you these albums though, like most listeners, is that Kendrick is a storyteller. A damn fine one at that. I mean the man won a Pulitzer for a reason, even if it was for DAMN. And if you’re in the market for more narrative centric hip hop records from this decade, here’s one I’d recommend giving a go:

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

Atrocity Exhibition by Danny Brown

At first Danny’s scattershot delivery might be a bit disorientating but once you get over that hurdle, what you get is one of the decade’s best. And one of the beautifully tortured portraits of existentialism, depression and isolationism the genre has to offer.

Thanks! I'll have to check that album out, thanks for the reccomendation! I'll probably listen to Channel Orange and Blonde first, but I'll make sure to listen to it soon.

Lachapelle

Gender: Male

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

How I Got Over by The Roots

Please. Listen to this.

NJ

Gender: Male
Age: 23
Location: WA

I'll get to the other albums soon, I promise. My headphones broke, and I only just got new ones, but I haven't been listening to albums in a while. I decided to listen to this next album because I was short on time and it was only 23 minutes.

Kids See Ghosts by Kids See Ghosts - A 7/10 album, close to an 8/10 one. The last three songs were great, but the first four were merely okay. The leap in quality from Freeee (Ghost Town, Pt. 2) to Reborn was amazing. The first three songs did have very interesting instrumentation, however, that kept them interesting. Overall, a solid album that got better as it went along.

Next up: Channel Orange by Frank Ocean

Last edited by NJ on 01/12/2020 23:54; edited 1 time in total

NJ

Gender: Male
Age: 23
Location: WA

Channel Orange by Frank Ocean - An 8/10, probably, but not much above a 7 (8-). I finally got around to listening to it! I lied, though - I'm not going to listen to Blonde next. I just want to listen to a different style of music, perhaps some alt-rock. I'll probably check out one or two of the albums reccommended to me in this thread or my all-time chart. I actually listened to this a few days ago, but I let it sit for a little bit before writing this. I think it was a solid, consistent album with only one track of true amazement, which was Pyramids (a song with which I was already familiar). The rest of it was good, but that was about it. Lyrically solid, but I don't have too much to say about it. I thought it was slightly better than Kids See Ghosts, just to compare it to the last album in this thread. I'm gonna go add it to my chart now, since it deserves a place in the top 100.

Last edited by NJ on 04/16/2020 21:47; edited 4 times in total

NJ

Gender: Male
Age: 23
Location: WA

I'm back. Took a break from music-listening to focus on school, and wasn't in the mood to go over whole albums over winter break. I have to listen to quite a bit before I can make a "best of the decade" list like I want to, though. So onward I go! I'll try to listen to another tonight after Lonerism. First, though, some changes in scores (my opinions tend to change, so here's my updated scores for albums I've slightly changed my mind on). When I feel an album is close to a score above/below it, I'll mark it with a + or a -. Every other album still has the same score.

The Suburbs: 9+ --> 9-
This Is Happening: 9 --> 8+
Kids See Ghosts: 7+ --> 7
DAMN.: 8- --> 7
Carrie & Lowell: 7 --> 7-
The American Dream: 7 --> 7-

NOTE: To me, a 5 is average, not a 7. If I give an album a 7, I still really liked it, but I think it has a few major weaknesses that prevent it from greatness. Anything 6 and up is GOOD. 7 is very good. Noticeably MORE than above average.

Lonerism by Tame Impala - A 7/10. It kind of dragged a bit, and it was rather same-y. Of course all the songs were good, but it didn't always have my attention. And it did get on my nerves how Beatles-esque it was at times (a problem I have with Oasis as well - it's hard to appreciate the Beatles' music outside of the contexts of their era), and it was rather unexpected since I was somewhat familiar with a bit of their work on Currents (Let It Happen is one of my favorite songs of the decade), and it did not come across as Beatles-ey there. Nonetheless, the synth stuff was still amazing, and there wasn't a bad song.

Last edited by NJ on 01/13/2020 23:28; edited 4 times in total

NJ

Gender: Male
Age: 23
Location: WA

Modern Vampires of the City by Vampire Weekend - a weaker 8/10 (8-). I loved a lot of it, but there were certainly filler moments, especially at the beginning and end. Really solid outside of that, and I loved the overall tone. Ya Hey was probably my favorite song on it.

I think I'm gonna listen to one more album tonight.

Last edited by NJ on 01/12/2020 23:55; edited 2 times in total

NJ

Gender: Male
Age: 23
Location: WA

Lemonade by Beyonce - A 10. Please don't hate me for liking this more than MBDTF. I really was not expecting to like this album so much. I'd heard Formation before, which I like a lot, but since it was the only song I'd heard much of from the album, I assumed it overshadowed the rest. I was wrong. I was thoroughly engaged from beginning to end. It was just great. And here I was ready to say "don't expect another 10 necessarily."

Last edited by NJ on 03/15/2020 05:51; edited 3 times in total

NJ

Gender: Male
Age: 23
Location: WA

Blonde by Frank Ocean - A high 8 (8+). Definitely stronger than Channel Orange, though it probably did have more filler moments, especially towards the middle. Still, its sound was way better, and the short interludes worked much more here. And the lyrics were fantastic, easily the best part of the album.

Last edited by NJ on 01/12/2020 23:56; edited 1 time in total