Top 100 Music Albums of the 2010s by 
FlorianJones 
Anything with a write-up was in my top 50 at the end of the decade, in December of 2019.
As of today (June 14, 2022), 6 of those original top 50 have dropped into 51-100. None of them have dropped off the list entirely.
- Chart updated: 06/14/2022 23:15
- (Created: 11/26/2014 05:57).
- Chart size: 100 albums.
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Top Tracks: Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe, M.a.a.d. City, Sing About Me I’m Dying of Thirst
It has been said that you have your whole life to make your debut album, and only a few years to make your follow up. Typically, this is used to explain the dreaded “sophomore slump”, an epidemic that has plagued many an artist throughout music history – but it explains quality debuts in equal measure. Now, whether this is Kendrick’s debut or not is up for debate. He’s been quoted saying that he approaches all projects, even mixtapes, with the pacing of an album, and he’s been making those since 2003. 2011’s Section.80 is technically an album (not a mixtape) making it his proper debut, and yet that doesn’t seem to be the typical public perception. To be fair, Good Kid M.A.A.D City was Kendrick’s major label debut, and it peaked at second on the Billboard charts, which positively dwarfs Section.80’s sub top-hundred peak. Of course, public opinion and sales don’t change facts, but the best case to be made for Good Kid M.A.A.D. City’s possible debut status goes back to that old saying. This is the album Kendrick took his whole life to make.
Good Kid M.A.A.D City is a story album in the truest sense. Even at a nearly seventy-minute runtime, this album is wholly devoid of fat. It’s been trimmed to be as lean as they come, with each song filling an essential role in the narrative. How much of said narrative is fact versus fiction may not be officially confirmed, but given what is widely known of Kendrick’s upbringing, it is at the very least plausible, that Good Kid M.A.A.D. City is all fact. Although, even if it was entirely fabricated, that wouldn’t hamper the way it resonates. It’s a story of a Compton kid written for the Compton kids. At its time of release this album felt monumental – later in his career, Lamar would look outward, speaking to the inequalities present in the nation at large – now in retrospect, Good Kid M.A.A.D City feels uniquely small for a Kendrick album. He made this for the kids growing up like him. It’s a message of hope written for those often raised without any. [First added to this chart: 03/14/2015]
It has been said that you have your whole life to make your debut album, and only a few years to make your follow up. Typically, this is used to explain the dreaded “sophomore slump”, an epidemic that has plagued many an artist throughout music history – but it explains quality debuts in equal measure. Now, whether this is Kendrick’s debut or not is up for debate. He’s been quoted saying that he approaches all projects, even mixtapes, with the pacing of an album, and he’s been making those since 2003. 2011’s Section.80 is technically an album (not a mixtape) making it his proper debut, and yet that doesn’t seem to be the typical public perception. To be fair, Good Kid M.A.A.D City was Kendrick’s major label debut, and it peaked at second on the Billboard charts, which positively dwarfs Section.80’s sub top-hundred peak. Of course, public opinion and sales don’t change facts, but the best case to be made for Good Kid M.A.A.D. City’s possible debut status goes back to that old saying. This is the album Kendrick took his whole life to make.
Good Kid M.A.A.D City is a story album in the truest sense. Even at a nearly seventy-minute runtime, this album is wholly devoid of fat. It’s been trimmed to be as lean as they come, with each song filling an essential role in the narrative. How much of said narrative is fact versus fiction may not be officially confirmed, but given what is widely known of Kendrick’s upbringing, it is at the very least plausible, that Good Kid M.A.A.D. City is all fact. Although, even if it was entirely fabricated, that wouldn’t hamper the way it resonates. It’s a story of a Compton kid written for the Compton kids. At its time of release this album felt monumental – later in his career, Lamar would look outward, speaking to the inequalities present in the nation at large – now in retrospect, Good Kid M.A.A.D City feels uniquely small for a Kendrick album. He made this for the kids growing up like him. It’s a message of hope written for those often raised without any. [First added to this chart: 03/14/2015]
Year of Release:
2012
Appears in:
Rank Score:
25,748
Rank in 2012:
Rank in 2010s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
204
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Top Tracks: Black Origami, Nyakinyua Rise, Never Created Never Destroyed
Jlin isn’t the first musician to approach the sublime through repetition, particularly in electronic music, where repetition is embedded in the DNA of the genre. Repeated structures yield bizarre effects. They pull things out of the music we would have never otherwise heard. Like a musical take on semantic satiation, we might begin to wonder if we’re even hearing the same thing. As an inverse to that effect, many musicians work in permutations. They work over an extended period of time to slowly sift through variations on the core structure. A song can start and end in dramatically different places with the listener hardly realizing change occurred. On Black Origami, Jlin adopts the latter approach, but rather than gradual fluid progression, she’s racing through the permutations. Not a single possibility is left out on the table. Everything about Black Origami moves at breakneck pace. Structures repeat, but they fall in and out of the mix spontaneously. That spontaneity provides a crucial contrast to how meticulous it all sounds, but as both unrelentingly frantic and precision rendered as Black Origami is, it doesn’t lose the naturalistic human touch that marks the best of Chicago’s footwork scene. Naturally, as with anything footwork, you’re not going to be able to sit still while you listen. Jlin demands that you get movin’. [First added to this chart: 10/24/2017]
Jlin isn’t the first musician to approach the sublime through repetition, particularly in electronic music, where repetition is embedded in the DNA of the genre. Repeated structures yield bizarre effects. They pull things out of the music we would have never otherwise heard. Like a musical take on semantic satiation, we might begin to wonder if we’re even hearing the same thing. As an inverse to that effect, many musicians work in permutations. They work over an extended period of time to slowly sift through variations on the core structure. A song can start and end in dramatically different places with the listener hardly realizing change occurred. On Black Origami, Jlin adopts the latter approach, but rather than gradual fluid progression, she’s racing through the permutations. Not a single possibility is left out on the table. Everything about Black Origami moves at breakneck pace. Structures repeat, but they fall in and out of the mix spontaneously. That spontaneity provides a crucial contrast to how meticulous it all sounds, but as both unrelentingly frantic and precision rendered as Black Origami is, it doesn’t lose the naturalistic human touch that marks the best of Chicago’s footwork scene. Naturally, as with anything footwork, you’re not going to be able to sit still while you listen. Jlin demands that you get movin’. [First added to this chart: 10/24/2017]
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Top Tracks: Black Refraction, Stigmata II, Stab Variation
Sound is the most inherently abstract of all art forms. Typically, music makes efforts to reduce that abstraction. The human voice forms speech. Instruments create a distinctly identifiable range of sounds. Songs are mapped out through segments in the form of verses, choruses, bridges, breaks, interludes, intros, and outros. These traits ground music by creating comfort in the recognizable, but that isn’t the modus operandi of Tim Hecker, whose career is evidence of a man in constant pursuit of the abstract. In Hecker’s own words, his aesthetic choices on Virgins were done in pursuit of “…making music that is out of time, out of tune and out of phase.” These are choices that paint a soundscape of flittering ephemeral beauty. One of abstraction’s weightiest challenges, is the question of completion. I once sat for what must have been half an hour in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art observing a single canvas by painter Cy Twombly, admiring the deliberate nature of each stroke. I found myself questioning how someone could commit so resolutely to the completion of such a work. Which stroke was the first, and which stroke the last? How could something this inconcise feel so whole? Virgins leads me to pose those same questions. With little in the way of conventional framework, Hecker made a work so chaotic and sporadic, that it’s remarkable how refined it sounds. These fragments teeter between two opposing pitfalls – incomplete and overwrought – never succumbing to either. The result is an album of transcendent beauty, tethered to neither time nor space. [First added to this chart: 04/26/2020]
Sound is the most inherently abstract of all art forms. Typically, music makes efforts to reduce that abstraction. The human voice forms speech. Instruments create a distinctly identifiable range of sounds. Songs are mapped out through segments in the form of verses, choruses, bridges, breaks, interludes, intros, and outros. These traits ground music by creating comfort in the recognizable, but that isn’t the modus operandi of Tim Hecker, whose career is evidence of a man in constant pursuit of the abstract. In Hecker’s own words, his aesthetic choices on Virgins were done in pursuit of “…making music that is out of time, out of tune and out of phase.” These are choices that paint a soundscape of flittering ephemeral beauty. One of abstraction’s weightiest challenges, is the question of completion. I once sat for what must have been half an hour in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art observing a single canvas by painter Cy Twombly, admiring the deliberate nature of each stroke. I found myself questioning how someone could commit so resolutely to the completion of such a work. Which stroke was the first, and which stroke the last? How could something this inconcise feel so whole? Virgins leads me to pose those same questions. With little in the way of conventional framework, Hecker made a work so chaotic and sporadic, that it’s remarkable how refined it sounds. These fragments teeter between two opposing pitfalls – incomplete and overwrought – never succumbing to either. The result is an album of transcendent beauty, tethered to neither time nor space. [First added to this chart: 04/26/2020]
Year of Release:
2013
Appears in:
Rank Score:
1,205
Rank in 2013:
Rank in 2010s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
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Top Tracks: Step, Diane Young, Hannah Hunt
According to a study conducted in 2015, millennials are collectively less religious than all recorded preceding American generations. Born in ‘84 and ‘83, the four men comprising Vampire Weekend are seniors of this generation that (according to most sources) spans roughly from them to me, and upon the release of Modern Vampires of the City, all four were on the verge of entering their thirties. Here in lie the two central conceits of said album: losing touch with religion and losing touch with youth.
With each passing generation, church attendance decreases, but spirituality has held at remarkably similar levels. It isn’t God that has fallen out of favor; it is the organization. Rostam Batmanglij and Ezra Koenig, the band’s main songwriting duo, are respectively of Iranian and Jewish heritage, but grew up in the United States. Needless to say, their relationship with the Abrahamic religions is a complex one. These three branches stem from the same tree, yet they frequently engage in war with one another. On Modern Vampires of the City, Ezra confronts that disconnect – the disconnect of a God that is at once loving and merciful, yet vengeful and destructive. He has a desire for belief but struggles to reconcile that with the God portrayed in scriptural passages. “Through the fire and through the flames. You won’t even say your name. Only ‘I am that I am.’ But who could ever live that way?” Why doesn’t God announce more clearly who He is? Why doesn’t He provide definitive proof? God asks more of his believers than Ezra feels capable of giving. Throughout Modern Vampires of the City, Ezra namedrops denominational specifics like the Dies Irae or The Dome of the Rock. The blend of references is fine tuned to the band’s background, but his struggle with faith is a universal experience.
Faith seeks to explain the afterlife and is thus inextricably tied to the fear of death. Understandably then, mortality looms over Modern Vampires of the City. Don’t Lie and Hudson invoke the tick of a clock to signify death’s slow but steady approach. Energetic single Diane Young embraces a tongue in cheek ‘live fast die young’ ideology that gets flipped on its head for the album concluding Young Lion. That song is a single phrase repeated four times “You take your time, young lion.” There’s no need for these four men to rush through life. Take your time to find success in your pursuits. Give your experiences space. Death is inevitable. There’s no use in fretting over it. [First added to this chart: 01/20/2015]
According to a study conducted in 2015, millennials are collectively less religious than all recorded preceding American generations. Born in ‘84 and ‘83, the four men comprising Vampire Weekend are seniors of this generation that (according to most sources) spans roughly from them to me, and upon the release of Modern Vampires of the City, all four were on the verge of entering their thirties. Here in lie the two central conceits of said album: losing touch with religion and losing touch with youth.
With each passing generation, church attendance decreases, but spirituality has held at remarkably similar levels. It isn’t God that has fallen out of favor; it is the organization. Rostam Batmanglij and Ezra Koenig, the band’s main songwriting duo, are respectively of Iranian and Jewish heritage, but grew up in the United States. Needless to say, their relationship with the Abrahamic religions is a complex one. These three branches stem from the same tree, yet they frequently engage in war with one another. On Modern Vampires of the City, Ezra confronts that disconnect – the disconnect of a God that is at once loving and merciful, yet vengeful and destructive. He has a desire for belief but struggles to reconcile that with the God portrayed in scriptural passages. “Through the fire and through the flames. You won’t even say your name. Only ‘I am that I am.’ But who could ever live that way?” Why doesn’t God announce more clearly who He is? Why doesn’t He provide definitive proof? God asks more of his believers than Ezra feels capable of giving. Throughout Modern Vampires of the City, Ezra namedrops denominational specifics like the Dies Irae or The Dome of the Rock. The blend of references is fine tuned to the band’s background, but his struggle with faith is a universal experience.
Faith seeks to explain the afterlife and is thus inextricably tied to the fear of death. Understandably then, mortality looms over Modern Vampires of the City. Don’t Lie and Hudson invoke the tick of a clock to signify death’s slow but steady approach. Energetic single Diane Young embraces a tongue in cheek ‘live fast die young’ ideology that gets flipped on its head for the album concluding Young Lion. That song is a single phrase repeated four times “You take your time, young lion.” There’s no need for these four men to rush through life. Take your time to find success in your pursuits. Give your experiences space. Death is inevitable. There’s no use in fretting over it. [First added to this chart: 01/20/2015]
Year of Release:
2013
Appears in:
Rank Score:
12,083
Rank in 2013:
Rank in 2010s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
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Top Tracks: Kill v Maim, Artangels, Realiti
Several months before the release of Art Angels, Claire Boucher (AKA Grimes) released a statement denouncing her old music. That was the vantage point from which I discussed the album when I reflected upon it at the year’s end. I ran with the assumption that Claire always wanted to make pop but felt stifled by an indie label that wasn’t built around promoting such music. Critics often deride a populist approach, arguing about some loss of creative integrity, yet here stood Claire making both her poppiest and most honest work yet. I stand by the points I made. Art Angels is still refined, catchy as hell, and as inventive as anything she has done – but then in comes Claire, ready to mess with my established headcanon. Four years later, and now she supposedly hates Art Angels too. In the press cycle anticipating Miss_Anthropocene, Claire flippantly labeled Art Angels “a stain on [her] life.” Looking back, she sees it not much more than a genre exercise. I heartily disagree with her new take, but that’s not what’s important here. Artists can’t look at their own work without heavy bias, so having strange opinions is normal. It isn’t important for Claire to like what she has done; what’s important is that she likes what she’s doing. Claire should feel that she’s always at her peak. This is what imbues everything she does, good or bad, with confidence. It’s why Art Angels feels so impassioned. Claire will always be changing her sound, but hopefully, she’ll never lose that confidence. [First added to this chart: 11/14/2015]
Several months before the release of Art Angels, Claire Boucher (AKA Grimes) released a statement denouncing her old music. That was the vantage point from which I discussed the album when I reflected upon it at the year’s end. I ran with the assumption that Claire always wanted to make pop but felt stifled by an indie label that wasn’t built around promoting such music. Critics often deride a populist approach, arguing about some loss of creative integrity, yet here stood Claire making both her poppiest and most honest work yet. I stand by the points I made. Art Angels is still refined, catchy as hell, and as inventive as anything she has done – but then in comes Claire, ready to mess with my established headcanon. Four years later, and now she supposedly hates Art Angels too. In the press cycle anticipating Miss_Anthropocene, Claire flippantly labeled Art Angels “a stain on [her] life.” Looking back, she sees it not much more than a genre exercise. I heartily disagree with her new take, but that’s not what’s important here. Artists can’t look at their own work without heavy bias, so having strange opinions is normal. It isn’t important for Claire to like what she has done; what’s important is that she likes what she’s doing. Claire should feel that she’s always at her peak. This is what imbues everything she does, good or bad, with confidence. It’s why Art Angels feels so impassioned. Claire will always be changing her sound, but hopefully, she’ll never lose that confidence. [First added to this chart: 11/14/2015]
Year of Release:
2015
Appears in:
Rank Score:
4,179
Rank in 2015:
Rank in 2010s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
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Top Tracks: Fill In The Blank, Vincent, Just What I Needed / Not Just What I Needed
If there’s any justice in this world, Teens of Denial will go down in history as a generation defining album. Will Toledo writes about what he knows, and what he knows is life as a twenty-something undergraduate student with little hope for a career and an almost complete inability to properly traverse the obstacles of adult life. Environments are dying, economies are collapsing, he’s paying a bunch of extra taxes to government programs that probably won’t exist anymore when he’s old enough to benefit from them, but his biggest concern is that he can’t cook dinner for himself. Well it turns out no one else really knows how to manage adulthood at twenty-four either. None of us know how to make dinner for ourselves. None of us know how to hold a job. None of us know how to steer the ship. None of us know how to properly clear a Cars sample, preventing a multi-thousand-dollar loss for our record label. We’ll figure it out eventually – maybe. In the meantime, we can find some solace in Will’s riff-laden guitar rock, knowing we aren’t the only ones struggling. [First added to this chart: 07/03/2016]
If there’s any justice in this world, Teens of Denial will go down in history as a generation defining album. Will Toledo writes about what he knows, and what he knows is life as a twenty-something undergraduate student with little hope for a career and an almost complete inability to properly traverse the obstacles of adult life. Environments are dying, economies are collapsing, he’s paying a bunch of extra taxes to government programs that probably won’t exist anymore when he’s old enough to benefit from them, but his biggest concern is that he can’t cook dinner for himself. Well it turns out no one else really knows how to manage adulthood at twenty-four either. None of us know how to make dinner for ourselves. None of us know how to hold a job. None of us know how to steer the ship. None of us know how to properly clear a Cars sample, preventing a multi-thousand-dollar loss for our record label. We’ll figure it out eventually – maybe. In the meantime, we can find some solace in Will’s riff-laden guitar rock, knowing we aren’t the only ones struggling. [First added to this chart: 07/03/2016]
Year of Release:
2016
Appears in:
Rank Score:
7,798
Rank in 2016:
Rank in 2010s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
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[First added to this chart: 06/14/2022]
Year of Release:
2018
Appears in:
Rank Score:
624
Rank in 2018:
Rank in 2010s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
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Top Tracks: Nowhere2Go, Ontheway!, Riot!
Some Rap Songs is just about the least presumptuous album title imaginable; but if a title is meant to indicate what underlying nature ties an album together, then I suppose this one does so accurately. These songs are most definitely raps. Curiously, they are nearly exclusively raps. The beats, as fresh and distinctive as they are, are not here to stand on their own. The raps are the centerpiece. When Earl concludes his verse on any given track, the track ends. He doesn’t let the beat run, and he’s not making room for choruses, breaks, or bridges. This album is a tight listen. Earl delivers fifteen songs in a mere twenty-five minutes. You have to wonder if there’s a tie to his subject matter an all of this. It’s no secret that Some Rap Songs is about Earl’s late father. Growing up, his relationship with his father was tenuous at best. Raised by his mother in Los Angeles, Earl had almost nothing in common with his father, who lived thousands of miles away in South Africa. But his father wasn’t just any South African, Keorapetse Kgositsile was the country’s poet laureate. That could explain how purely rap focused this album is. Beyond DNA, poetry is the biggest connection these two men share. Focusing on wordplay is Earl’s way of reconciling this dissonance between him and his father.
Earl is looking back to the past and finding ways to move forward. He’s accepting that in the wake of his father’s death, reconciliation will never come the way he may have wanted it to, but he can still find ways to reconcile for himself. The darkness found on Earl’s previous work still lurks in the shadows of these tracks, but for the first time, it’s met with a contrasting brightness. On Veins, he revisits his 2015 lyric “You could see it in my face. I ain’t been eatin’. I’m just wastin’ away.” with a new reassurance “I’ve been eatin’ good. You can see it in my tummy.” He’s had a couple years out of the spotlight, and things are turning around for his mental and physical health. In an inspired change of pace, Earl closes out Some Rap Songs with Riot!, the album’s sole instrumental. Riot! doesn’t need to say anything to make its point clear. It’s a jubilant celebration, and by borrowing a sample from Earl’s uncle – South African musician Hugh Masekela, who passed just weeks after Earl’s father – it also functions as a resolute capstone for the album. After eight years in the spotlight with a reputation for adolescent rebellion, Earl has finally reconciled who he is with who he came from. He’s at peace with his heritage, and for once, things are looking up. [First added to this chart: 04/26/2020]
Some Rap Songs is just about the least presumptuous album title imaginable; but if a title is meant to indicate what underlying nature ties an album together, then I suppose this one does so accurately. These songs are most definitely raps. Curiously, they are nearly exclusively raps. The beats, as fresh and distinctive as they are, are not here to stand on their own. The raps are the centerpiece. When Earl concludes his verse on any given track, the track ends. He doesn’t let the beat run, and he’s not making room for choruses, breaks, or bridges. This album is a tight listen. Earl delivers fifteen songs in a mere twenty-five minutes. You have to wonder if there’s a tie to his subject matter an all of this. It’s no secret that Some Rap Songs is about Earl’s late father. Growing up, his relationship with his father was tenuous at best. Raised by his mother in Los Angeles, Earl had almost nothing in common with his father, who lived thousands of miles away in South Africa. But his father wasn’t just any South African, Keorapetse Kgositsile was the country’s poet laureate. That could explain how purely rap focused this album is. Beyond DNA, poetry is the biggest connection these two men share. Focusing on wordplay is Earl’s way of reconciling this dissonance between him and his father.
Earl is looking back to the past and finding ways to move forward. He’s accepting that in the wake of his father’s death, reconciliation will never come the way he may have wanted it to, but he can still find ways to reconcile for himself. The darkness found on Earl’s previous work still lurks in the shadows of these tracks, but for the first time, it’s met with a contrasting brightness. On Veins, he revisits his 2015 lyric “You could see it in my face. I ain’t been eatin’. I’m just wastin’ away.” with a new reassurance “I’ve been eatin’ good. You can see it in my tummy.” He’s had a couple years out of the spotlight, and things are turning around for his mental and physical health. In an inspired change of pace, Earl closes out Some Rap Songs with Riot!, the album’s sole instrumental. Riot! doesn’t need to say anything to make its point clear. It’s a jubilant celebration, and by borrowing a sample from Earl’s uncle – South African musician Hugh Masekela, who passed just weeks after Earl’s father – it also functions as a resolute capstone for the album. After eight years in the spotlight with a reputation for adolescent rebellion, Earl has finally reconciled who he is with who he came from. He’s at peace with his heritage, and for once, things are looking up. [First added to this chart: 04/26/2020]
Year of Release:
2018
Appears in:
Rank Score:
2,135
Rank in 2018:
Rank in 2010s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
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Top Tracks: Brick, Sportstar, Powerful Man
In an ocean of vaguely folksy white dude rock, what sets Rocket apart is noise. Alex G has a love for noise. That much is clear on Brick, one of the album’s centerpiece tracks, that is indisputably a piece of noise rock, but also, a bit of an outlier. Brick isn’t so much an outlier as it is the only track that drives headfirst into the noise. Most of the tracks on Rocket engage in a discourse with cacophony to some degree. The couple of tracks preceding Brick are sequenced perfectly, each track just a little more unhinged than the previous, transitioning smoothly from order to chaos. Then, at the center of Rocket, right after we’ve been eased into anarchy, we receive a jarring cut. Brick’s wall of crunchy feedback drops out and gives way to the sonically bright and shimmering Sportstar, an unabashed pop song, and the only one on the album. This dichotomy is the backbone of what makes Rocket’s eclecticism work. There’s a constant struggle at play between aggression and beauty that keeps the listener engaged from start to finish. And if you don’t have time for a full-length project, I direct you to late album cut Powerful Man. Starting as a bright little folk song, it gradually strips back to a violin solo that collapses in on itself with each repeating phrase. It’s a small, self-contained example of what Rocket can do when taken as a whole. [First added to this chart: 10/24/2017]
In an ocean of vaguely folksy white dude rock, what sets Rocket apart is noise. Alex G has a love for noise. That much is clear on Brick, one of the album’s centerpiece tracks, that is indisputably a piece of noise rock, but also, a bit of an outlier. Brick isn’t so much an outlier as it is the only track that drives headfirst into the noise. Most of the tracks on Rocket engage in a discourse with cacophony to some degree. The couple of tracks preceding Brick are sequenced perfectly, each track just a little more unhinged than the previous, transitioning smoothly from order to chaos. Then, at the center of Rocket, right after we’ve been eased into anarchy, we receive a jarring cut. Brick’s wall of crunchy feedback drops out and gives way to the sonically bright and shimmering Sportstar, an unabashed pop song, and the only one on the album. This dichotomy is the backbone of what makes Rocket’s eclecticism work. There’s a constant struggle at play between aggression and beauty that keeps the listener engaged from start to finish. And if you don’t have time for a full-length project, I direct you to late album cut Powerful Man. Starting as a bright little folk song, it gradually strips back to a violin solo that collapses in on itself with each repeating phrase. It’s a small, self-contained example of what Rocket can do when taken as a whole. [First added to this chart: 10/24/2017]
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Top Tracks: Slip Away, Die 4 You, Alan
In the few years since No Shape’s release, Perfume Genius has become the go to soundtracking choice for coming of age cinema. When I first started to notice the trend, it seemed to be a humorous coincidence, but honestly speaking, there’s nothing coincidental about it. It’s a very fitting placement for these songs. From an aesthetic perspective, the music of No Shape is sweepingly cinematic. Album opener Otherside begins as a quiet ode, delivered with an almost religious fervor, but the chorus cascades in like a landslide, pummeling the listener with waves of luscious orchestration. That dynamic punchiness is a quality perfectly suited for film. This does not however, explain the consistent genre Perfume Genius has been typecast into soundtracking.
Mike Hadreas (the genius behind the perfume) writes music about self-acceptance. Artists work with what they know, and as a queer man born in 1981, searching for acceptance has been an integral part of his life. With No Shape, Hadreas has done something remarkable; he has reduced his very specific struggles down to their universal core. We can see this exemplified by looking at some of the scenes his music has featured in. Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade and Olivia Wilde’s Booksmart each set their emotional climaxes against the backdrop of a pool party. These scenes (soundtracked by songs from No Shape of course) represent the moment where the protagonist becomes comfortable living in their own skin, perhaps for the first time in their lives. There isn’t an immediate line to be drawn between the plights of the teenage girls in these films and the plights of a thirty-five year old queer man, but Hadreas bridges that gap because no matter how you twist it, everyone’s life is part of the human experience. No Shape is music that brings out the empathy in all of us. [First added to this chart: 04/26/2020]
In the few years since No Shape’s release, Perfume Genius has become the go to soundtracking choice for coming of age cinema. When I first started to notice the trend, it seemed to be a humorous coincidence, but honestly speaking, there’s nothing coincidental about it. It’s a very fitting placement for these songs. From an aesthetic perspective, the music of No Shape is sweepingly cinematic. Album opener Otherside begins as a quiet ode, delivered with an almost religious fervor, but the chorus cascades in like a landslide, pummeling the listener with waves of luscious orchestration. That dynamic punchiness is a quality perfectly suited for film. This does not however, explain the consistent genre Perfume Genius has been typecast into soundtracking.
Mike Hadreas (the genius behind the perfume) writes music about self-acceptance. Artists work with what they know, and as a queer man born in 1981, searching for acceptance has been an integral part of his life. With No Shape, Hadreas has done something remarkable; he has reduced his very specific struggles down to their universal core. We can see this exemplified by looking at some of the scenes his music has featured in. Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade and Olivia Wilde’s Booksmart each set their emotional climaxes against the backdrop of a pool party. These scenes (soundtracked by songs from No Shape of course) represent the moment where the protagonist becomes comfortable living in their own skin, perhaps for the first time in their lives. There isn’t an immediate line to be drawn between the plights of the teenage girls in these films and the plights of a thirty-five year old queer man, but Hadreas bridges that gap because no matter how you twist it, everyone’s life is part of the human experience. No Shape is music that brings out the empathy in all of us. [First added to this chart: 04/26/2020]
Year of Release:
2017
Appears in:
Rank Score:
1,535
Rank in 2017:
Rank in 2010s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Total albums: 100. Page 3 of 10
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Top 100 Music Albums of the 2010s composition
| Year | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
 |
|
|
| 2010 | 11 | 11% | |
| 2011 | 6 | 6% | |
| 2012 | 7 | 7% | |
| 2013 | 5 | 5% | |
| 2014 | 9 | 9% | |
| 2015 | 15 | 15% | |
| 2016 | 13 | 13% | |
| 2017 | 12 | 12% | |
| 2018 | 7 | 7% | |
| 2019 | 15 | 15% |
| Artist | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
 |
|
|
| Kendrick Lamar | 4 | 4% | |
| Frank Ocean | 3 | 3% | |
| Tame Impala | 3 | 3% | |
| Tyler, The Creator | 2 | 2% | |
| Car Seat Headrest | 2 | 2% | |
| Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds | 2 | 2% | |
| Vince Staples | 2 | 2% | |
| Show all | |||
Top 100 Music Albums of the 2010s chart changes
| Biggest climbers |
|---|
| Up 41 from 52nd to 11th Black Up by Shabazz Palaces |
| Up 34 from 82nd to 48th Reflections by Hannah Diamond |
| Up 26 from 99th to 73rd Moth by Chairlift |
| Biggest fallers |
|---|
| Down 35 from 26th to 61st Pom Pom by Ariel Pink |
| Down 28 from 21st to 49th The Age Of Adz by Sufjan Stevens |
| Down 24 from 48th to 72nd Benji by Sun Kil Moon |
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FlorianJones (2020)Top 100 Music Albums of the 2010s ratings
87/100 (from 6 votes)
where:
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N.B. The average rating for this chart will not be reliable as it has been rated very few times.
Showing latest 5 ratings for this chart. | Show all 6 ratings for this chart.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Chart ratings | Avg. chart rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 95/100  | 02/17/2018 15:30 |  Davy | | 87/100 |
| 85/100 | 06/28/2017 17:14 | weston | | 87/100 |
| 100/100 | 02/20/2017 19:20 | Seab | | 93/100 |
| 70/100 | 06/01/2015 22:53 |  Applerill | | 75/100 |
| 95/100 | 04/15/2015 13:21 |  andy_hunter | | 88/100 |
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85/100
From weston 06/28/2017 17:15
Nice! I agree 2015 was the strongest year so are. And I like the stuff you've thrown at the end.
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SaulCortes1992 04/02/2015 20:04
SaulCortes1992 04/02/2015 20:04
Excellent Chart!
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| Best Artists of the 2000s | |
|---|---|
| 1. Radiohead | |
| 2. Arcade Fire | |
| 3. The Strokes | |
| 4. Coldplay | |
| 5. Sufjan Stevens | |
| 6. Arctic Monkeys | |
| 7. Wilco | |
| 8. Animal Collective | |
| 9. Muse | |
| 10. The White Stripes | |
| 11. Kanye West | |
| 12. Phil Elverum | |
| 13. Interpol | |
| 14. Modest Mouse | |
| 15. Queens Of The Stone Age | |
| 16. Madvillain | |
| 17. Godspeed You! Black Emperor | |
| 18. LCD Soundsystem | |
| 19. The National | |
| 20. The Flaming Lips |