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.

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Top Tracks: Biscuit Town, Dum Surfer, The Ooz

It’s become something of a theme in my musings on music that if an album defies my preconceived notions of genre, I’m likely to love it. It has been long thought that no one ever does anything new. We build on what exists. We twist things in new ways. But something entirely new: It doesn’t happen. It seems the best artists of the decade took that as a challenge. You may say the same of past decades, and it’s true, the story of roughly the last century of popular music has been one of forward momentum. We tear down the past as we push into the future, but this decade was different. In July of 2011 Spotify launched in the United States.

To be clear, Spotify is a blight on the music industry in a lot of ways. Endless skippability has led to reduced attention spans, musicians are drastically underpaid, and in an attempt to game billboard’s streaming calculations, several of the decade’s biggest stars joined in an arms race to see who could make the most bloated unsightly Frankenstein of an album all in the name of popularity. Yet, Spotify and its competitors also created a new economy where everything rests on an equal playing field of accessibility. In previous decades, artists lived and died by how hard their label pushed their music because to be known, your music had to be in as many places as possible. Now everyone’s music is in everyone else’s pocket. I can play the new Taylor Swift song just as easily as I can play a half century old Miles Davis album. With this one innovation, everyone has the immediate capacity for musical omnivourity. Looking back, this is the decade where genre designations collapsed. Enter Archie Marshall.

Generally speaking, The Ooz might be described as a rock album. But more specifically it exists in all the spaces between. Recycling the past and looking to the future, it’s an album with neither time nor genre. Standout single Dum Surfer finds Marshall dueting with himself. Simultaneously showcasing the voice of a nineties britpop frontman, and the growling snarl of the town drunk on karaoke night. Subsequent tracks showcase similar versatility, from the listless balladry of Slush Puppy, to the bossa nova beat of Logos. Whatever musical coin you flip, you’ll find The Ooz on both sides of it. Look to tracks Bermondsey Bosom (right) and Bermondsey Bosom (Left), each one resting in the center of their respective sides of the album. They exist as two sides of one coin – identical songs, altered only by the gender of the vocalist, and the language in which they speak. The lyrics to the song mirror the idea that even minor shifts can create a world of difference with the repeated “parasite, paradise, parasito, paraiso.” It’s equal parts progressive and regressive. It’s a decidedly odd album for a decidedly odd decade.
[First added to this chart: 09/24/2018]
Year of Release:
2017
Appears in:
Rank Score:
1,234
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Top Tracks: In Your Head, Tears, Monsters Under The Bed

Much of what I’ve written for this list is retrospective. That’s the point of it after all. I’m looking back on the decade, and in some cases that means looking back nearly the whole ten years. In the case of Miss Universe, it means looking back less than ten months. This album is still too fresh to contextualize retrospectively, and I can’t frame it in the context of a discography either, because this is the discography. Miss Universe is Nilüfer Yanya’s debut album, and it’s just about as fully realized as debuts come. The cover is unassuming (not much more than two small photographs amidst a broad swathe of beige) but the music paints Nilüfer as larger than life. These songs are big. If you didn’t know what the singles were, I reckon you’d be hard pressed to guess them. That isn’t because the choices are surprising, but because each is legitimately worthy in its own right. There’s also the question of which iteration of Nilüfer would her label see as most marketable. In pseudo-opener In My Head she’s guitar rock’s next big riff slinging virtuoso. On Tears, the album’s most jittery pop tune, guitar takes the backseat to infectiously danceable percussion. That song is immediately succeeded in the tracklisting by Monsters Underneath My Bed. Stripped of the frills found on most other tracks, Monsters Underneath My Bed serves as an elegant display of Nilüfer’s diverse vocal capacity. She flits between rich textural lows and elegant highs with incredible dexterity. Paradise and Melt take that vocal depth and place it atop a jazzy saxophone backdrop for songs that glide and swerve around the listener. As eclectic of a listen as Miss Universe is, every track still distinctly belongs to Nilüfer. These songs are undeniably hers, and that is perhaps the biggest surprise of all – she’s so fresh on the scene that she’s just now releasing a debut, and her artistic voice is already just as finely tuned as her physical one.
[First added to this chart: 04/26/2020]
Year of Release:
2019
Appears in:
Rank Score:
209
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Top Tracks: Desert Island Disk, Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor Rich Man Poor Man Beggar Man Thief, True Love Waits

Just over two decades into the most acclaimed career in modern rock, Radiohead created what is undoubtedly the most beautiful album of their career with A Moon Shaped Pool. From the strings of the opening Burn The Witch and the melodic piano of Daydreaming to the choral arrangements of Decks Dark and the flamenco tinged guitar of Desert Island Disk, it’s clear that they are drawing on some of the symphonic influences band member Johnny Greenwood has picked up in his previous decade of scoring films for the likes of Paul Thomas Anderson and Lynne Ramsey. Beyond instrumental beauty, there is also lyrical vulnerability, most directly evident on closing track True Love Waits. The loving ballad, first performed over twenty years earlier, finds a new life here. Sung in the wake of Thom Yorke’s separation from his longtime partner (for whom the song was likely originally written) it carries a melancholy air with it. Never before has Radiohead – a band typically preoccupied with technological alienation – sounded so human. Only a few years removed from its release, revisitation already has the inviting warmth of a hug from a forgotten friend.
[First added to this chart: 07/03/2016]
Year of Release:
2016
Appears in:
Rank Score:
17,145
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Top Tracks: Tis A Pity She Was A Whore, Sue (Or in a Season of Crime), I Can’t Give Everything Away

There is a perfect narrative surrounding Blackstar. Here is a man, adored by millions, who knew he was dying, but hid it from the world. The writing was on the wall. His last pair of music videos weren’t exactly subtle about the inevitability of his death, but I suppose none of us wanted to see it. Knowing of his own imminent demise, he crafted for his fans a love letter of the highest order: one final album. The album released on his birthday, and he passed two days later. It’s a story worth writing about, and many people did, but to write about Blackstar based solely upon release circumstances is to do the music a great disservice.

Blackstar wouldn’t stand up if it weren’t for the quality of the music. It’s not uncommon for musicians to have a bit of a late career renaissance, but not like this. Blackstar isn’t just the best music Bowie had made in over thirty-five years, It’s the best in that time period by a wide margin, to the point that it rivals many of his seventies albums. What’s more, is that unlike nearly all of his contemporaries, at the age of sixty-eight Bowie was still willing to reinvent himself. Perhaps more than any other musician, David Bowie was known for his chameleonic career, but that doesn’t make it any less thrilling to see someone go to the grave still rife with the spirit of experimentation. Blackstar is a beautiful jazz laden sprawl. Tracks ‘Tis a Pity She Was a Whore and Sue are vibrant bursts of spastic energy with equally emphatic singing from Bowie himself. Girl Loves Me is a great showcase of range featuring one of the most eccentric vocal performances of Bowie’s career coupled with a more subdued and typical late career chorus. Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the closing track I Can’t Give Everything Away. It’s not merely Blackstar’s closer, but a swan song for Bowie’s career. Bowie gave everything he could to the world. He couldn’t give everything away, but working right up to the week he died, he sure tried.
[First added to this chart: 07/03/2016]
Year of Release:
2016
Appears in:
Rank Score:
12,649
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Year of Release:
2018
Appears in:
Rank Score:
1,501
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[First added to this chart: 06/14/2022]
Year of Release:
2019
Appears in:
Rank Score:
159
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Top Tracks: Near DT MI, bmbmbm, Years Ago

Not many classics have been made by people born after me: not yet anyway. Age brings experience – which is beneficial in more ways than one – but if there’s one perk often taking up residence in youth’s corner, it’s energy, and the band of fresh out of music school kids known as Black Midi have energy in spades. In 2018, The band managed to garner significant buzz (before they had any readily available studio recordings) based solely on the caustic energy displayed in the live shows they were playing all about London. I’ve yet to experience the pleasure of seeing them live in concert, but based on the footage available (of which there is a sizeable amount) these boys can really play. Geordie Greep imbues his vocal performances with a manic impromptu vigor while his guitar lines skitter and weave through those of fellow guitarist Matt Kelvin. On the odd song where bassist Cameron Picton takes the vocal lead, he poises himself as a foil to Geordie’s otherworldly absurdities with a more grounded temperament, while still maintaining the ability to erupt into a howl at any moment. Drummer Morgan Simpson is an absolute machine, flailing about with virtuosic intensity. Translating that kinetic stage presence in the studio isn’t the simplest task, but on Schlagenheim, Black Midi do more than enough to get the spirit across. They’ve expressed an intent to never repeat themselves as a band, discontented with the idea of artistic stagnation, and I must say that when their first attempt is this refined, I can hardly blame them for wanting to move forward.
[First added to this chart: 04/26/2020]
Year of Release:
2019
Appears in:
Rank Score:
2,507
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[First added to this chart: 06/14/2022]
Year of Release:
2019
Appears in:
Rank Score:
191
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51. (42) Down9
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Top Tracks: minipops 67 [120.2] [source field mix], Papat4 [155] [Pineal Mix], aisatsana [102]

Richard D James, most commonly known as the man behind the moniker Aphex Twin, has created work all across the electronic spectrum. He’s an endless tinkerer with a longstanding reputation for being one of music’s most idiosyncratic innovators, constantly pushing the capacity of the tools he works with. James’ array of releases in and around the nineties (his last Aphex Twin album before Syro was released back in 2001) is functionally a showcase for his unending creativity. Syro doesn’t serve that same purpose; Syro is a different sort of showcase. This isn’t a new offshoot; it’s a point of convergence. Some might view Syro as a retread, but it’s really more of a refinement. He could have released this album anonymously (as he infamously did with several hundred previously unheard Aphex tracks throughout 2015) and it still would have unmistakably been James’ work. All of his classic hallmarks are here, but this time there’s an extra coat of high gloss paint. Syro is immediate and approachable to a degree that Aphex has never been before. It’s precision tuned and razor sharp. If Richard James continues on his current trend of EPs only, and Syro ends up as the last Aphex Twin LP, it sure is one hell of a capstone.
[First added to this chart: 05/23/2016]
Year of Release:
2014
Appears in:
Rank Score:
2,064
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Top Tracks: Straight Outta Mumbai, Genevieve, BTSTU

Jai Paul never completed “Bait Ones”. If you know anything about the album or Jai Paul, that’s probably the first thing you heard. It’s made up of sixteen tracks – eleven marked unfinished, two marked demo, and three without disclaimer. According to Jai himself, “The leak consisted of a fairly random collection of tracks [he] had made over quite a long period of time (from roughly 2007 to 2013), in various stages of completion.” This music wasn’t made to be assembled in this order. These songs weren’t ready to be heard. Someone (still unnamed and unidentified) stole Jai Paul’s work from him and released it in his stead. Fans celebrated, but Jai mourned. His debut album, the grand would-be statement piece by which he would introduce himself to the world, was destroyed. In turn, he didn’t reenter public eye for the greater part of a decade.

But what effect (if any) do the release circumstances have on the music itself? Until Jai releases a full album on his own terms, we can’t know for certain what he’s capable of assembling, but we do know that the man is an undeniable perfectionist. Based on the earlier quote, some of his demos had been under construction for as long as six years when they were leaked in 2013. That attention to detail is evident throughout “Bait Ones” despite their unfinished nature. Each beat is a dense amalgam of disparate samples and textures in a constant state of metamorphosis. They twist and turn, never lingering on a single moment for too long. This is most prominent on album opener Str8 Outta Mumbai, the only presumably finished full length song on the album (as it lacks any disclaiming tag standing aside the title). To this extent one can only assume that this manic energy was one of Jai’s goals for the album. As much as Jai was clearly pained by the leak, I have to say, that the end result here was highly successful. The somewhat haphazard sequencing takes us all across the board one track to the next. In the space of five tracks we run from the bouncily ecstatic Genevieve to a surreal half minute interlude to a cover of a 90s pop mega hit to another half minute track that cuts off as soon as it gets going to the gentle and sultry Jasmine. It’s unclear how many of the numerous sub minute long tracks would have made a final cut without seeing some sort of expansion, but their presence feels almost critically urgent. Dozens of listens on, and those little diversions continue to make the album fresh. This isn’t the masterpiece Jai Paul wanted per se, but it is a masterpiece regardless.
[First added to this chart: 04/26/2020]
Year of Release:
2019
Appears in:
Rank Score:
487
Rank in 2019:
Rank in 2010s:
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Average Rating:
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Total albums: 12. Page 1 of 2

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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%
Country Albums %


United States 66 66%
Canada 13 13%
United Kingdom 12 12%
Australia 6 6%
Mixed Nationality 2 2%
Norway 1 1%
Compilation? Albums %
No 98 98%
Yes 2 2%
Soundtrack? Albums %
No 99 99%
Yes 1 1%

Top 100 Music Albums of the 2010s chart changes

Biggest climbers
Climber Up 41 from 52nd to 11th
Black Up
by Shabazz Palaces
Climber Up 34 from 82nd to 48th
Reflections
by Hannah Diamond
Climber Up 26 from 99th to 73rd
Moth
by Chairlift
Biggest fallers
Faller Down 35 from 26th to 61st
Pom Pom
by Ariel Pink
Faller Down 28 from 21st to 49th
The Age Of Adz
by Sufjan Stevens
Faller Down 24 from 48th to 72nd
Benji
by Sun Kil Moon

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Top 50 Music Albums of the 2020s by FlorianJones (2022)
Top 80 Music Albums of the 2000s by FlorianJones (2017)
Top 26 Music Albums of the 1990s by FlorianJones (2020)
Top 30 Music Albums of the 1980s by FlorianJones (2020)
Top 30 Music Albums of the 1970s by FlorianJones (2020)

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87/100 (from 6 votes)
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From 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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From 04/02/2015 20:04
Excellent Chart!
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Best Albums of the 2010s
1. To Pimp A Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar
2. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West
3. Good Kid, M.A.A.D City by Kendrick Lamar
4. The Suburbs by Arcade Fire
5. Carrie & Lowell by Sufjan Stevens
6. A Moon Shaped Pool by Radiohead
7. Lonerism by Tame Impala
8. Blond by Frank Ocean
9. ★ (Blackstar) by David Bowie
10. Modern Vampires Of The City by Vampire Weekend
11. High Violet by The National
12. Teen Dream by Beach House
13. Currents by Tame Impala
14. Channel Orange by Frank Ocean
15. Lost In The Dream by The War On Drugs
16. Helplessness Blues by Fleet Foxes
17. Bon Iver, Bon Iver by Bon Iver
18. AM by Arctic Monkeys
19. This Is Happening by LCD Soundsystem
20. Random Access Memories by Daft Punk
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