Listed below are the best albums of the 2010s as calculated from their overall rankings in over 59,000 greatest album charts. (Chart last updated: 2 hours ago).
"Janelle killed it on this one. I think she showed definite improvement in her songwriting and furthered her pop aesthetic while still maintaining her R&B/funk roots of The ArchAndroid. The songs don't flow as seamlessly as they do on the first album, but there are so many stand-out songs here tha...""Janelle killed it on this one. I think she showed definite improvement in her songwriting and furthered her pop aesthetic while still maintaining her R&B/funk roots of The ArchAndroid. The songs don't flow as seamlessly as they do on the first album, but there are so many stand-out songs here that it makes this work in its own right. While I certainly enjoyed The ArchAndroid, the flow of that album made some of the songs comparatively a little less memorable due to their similarity. Not here. Practically every song on here is terrific, which is hard to pull off on albums with this type of length and ambition. I think Janelle Monae showed her true talent on this and successfully utilized a multitude of genres. Love the instrumentation here, especially the guitar solos. Extremely catchy, very creative, and high replay value. Can't wait to see what she does next. Favorite tracks: "Givin' Em What They Love," "Prime Time," "Dance Apocalyptic," "Victory," "What An Experience.""[+]Reply
"At the end of last year I’d been dreaming up a piece on Lingua Ignota (real name Kristin Hayter) and female subjectivity in metal and its subgenres. And who knows, maybe at some point it will see the light of day. But for now, here is as good as any place to let some of those half-formed ideas un...""At the end of last year I’d been dreaming up a piece on Lingua Ignota (real name Kristin Hayter) and female subjectivity in metal and its subgenres. And who knows, maybe at some point it will see the light of day. But for now, here is as good as any place to let some of those half-formed ideas unfurl themselves.
Laying claim to an authentically ‘female’ voice in the context of Hayter’s music is more than just a rhetorical gimmick, since it was a voice that was for a long time forced into silence. A survivor of domestic violence, Hayter was embedded within the Rhode Island noise scene but for several years was prevented from ever performing her music at the threat of an abusive ex-partner. Escaping the relationship, Hayter found herself frustrated at the coping strategies suggested by books for abuse survivors, strategies she felt “enforced patriarchal models of civilised femininity”. Hayter didn’t want to serenely accept her suffering, she wanted to rage at its injustice. Lingua Ignota was born.
Heavy metal’s relationship with explicit content has always been something that intrigues me. Much of the genre feels pulled in two directions at once, in that its ethos wants to identify with horror, yet more often that not, the musicians’ own morbid fascination stems from the luxury of having little to no brushes with genuine human suffering (Metallica wrote this zinger about living in a sanatorium - “They keep me locked up in this cage/Can't they see it's why my brain says ‘rage’?” - after watching One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest).
It’s in contrast to these vapid estimations at true horror that Hayter’s power as a songwriter lies. Metal has a rich history of male provocateurs describing sadistic violence upon women under the guise of shock value; Hayter repurposes this language to convey the much more frightening prospect of being the one undergoing that violence.
Though I have tried to voice Lingua Ignota, the best I can do is gesture towards the real thing. I’ll instead leave you with these words from Hayter herself:
"I don't find most of the graphic depictions of (forgive my language here) 'sending this dumb slut back to hell hearing her final screams as my throbbing erection pounds her maggot-filled cunt' upsetting to my feminine sensibilities, most of it isn't even well-executed enough to be taken seriously. I just find that it occupies this weird space of being simultaneously very loaded and totally obsolete, especially when we consider that none of these guys are actually sodomising female corpses in their free time. So my thoughts were to flip this whole paradigm and to try to make it meaningful, to reframe extreme imagery for survivors of violence, upon whom very dark shit has actually been visited.""[+]Reply
"The title is no jest; this is country music. But it's Waylon and Willie country, straight out of the early 70s. As people's patience wears thin with checklist songs and beer anthems, this album is being raised as a beacon. If you've ever been known to say, "I don't like country music," please giv...""The title is no jest; this is country music. But it's Waylon and Willie country, straight out of the early 70s. As people's patience wears thin with checklist songs and beer anthems, this album is being raised as a beacon. If you've ever been known to say, "I don't like country music," please give this a listen. If you still don't like country, at least it will be after hearing how good it can sound. "[+]Reply
"This is a very good album, with two very different sides. Side 1 (the first 5 songs) is Spoon at their best, 5 incredible tracks, well-produced and catchy as ever. Side 2 (the 5 last songs) covers new grounds for Spoon and is more experimental. First, there's "Can I Sit Next To You" that could ha...""This is a very good album, with two very different sides. Side 1 (the first 5 songs) is Spoon at their best, 5 incredible tracks, well-produced and catchy as ever. Side 2 (the 5 last songs) covers new grounds for Spoon and is more experimental. First, there's "Can I Sit Next To You" that could have been a Maroon 5 song, but Spoon manages to make it great with their clever producing. Then, there's "I Ain't The One" that sounds like a post-grunge song, but the use of the electric piano instead of the guitar is pure genius and make this song really enjoyable. The more I listen to it, the more I like it. "Shotgun" sounds a little bit like "I Was Made For Loving You" by Kiss, but once again, Spoon can make any song sound great and they do it here. The last one, "Us", is a great example of how Spoon are in experimental mode here.
All in all, I still like Side 1 better, with the straight-up Spoon doin' it like as well as ever, but I really appreciate Side 2 too and the effort by the band to go elsewhere. A really solid album by a band that makes nothing but great albums.
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"Amazing album with the Horse, how is Young able to still make great records 50 yrs on.........only one of a very few artists that were great and are still great"Reply
"The prolific Shabaka Hutchings (Melt Yourself Down, The Shabaka And The Ancestors, The Comet Is Coming...) returns in 2018 with one of his many projects, Sons Of Kemet. "Your queen is a reptile" is a concept album denouncing the imperialism and injustice of the British monarchy. They celebrate he...""The prolific Shabaka Hutchings (Melt Yourself Down, The Shabaka And The Ancestors, The Comet Is Coming...) returns in 2018 with one of his many projects, Sons Of Kemet. "Your queen is a reptile" is a concept album denouncing the imperialism and injustice of the British monarchy. They celebrate here other queens, each track paying homage to a woman, who have all led resistance movements. The music of Son of Kemet, has its source in the heart of Africa from the rhythms of Nigeria to the intersections of Addis Ababa. From project to project, Shabaka Hutchings demonstrates that he has become an essential musician of our time, and "Your queen is a reptile" of Sons Of Kemet is by far his most successful album, his masterpiece.
9/10
Best track: "My Queen Is Ada Eastman""[+]Reply
"This album is just impressive. First of all, it’s sixteen tracks long, which is certainly ambitious for a folk album, and, perhaps even more ambitious for a folk album, it’s somewhat of a concept album. It’s not a concept album in that there’s some kind of running theme throughout the album, or s...""This album is just impressive. First of all, it’s sixteen tracks long, which is certainly ambitious for a folk album, and, perhaps even more ambitious for a folk album, it’s somewhat of a concept album. It’s not a concept album in that there’s some kind of running theme throughout the album, or some kind of story that’s being told, but it’s divided up into two pretty distinct parts. The first seven tracks on the album are slow, somewhat introspective songs that all kind of blend in together, having virtually no break between songs, one song flowing right into another. The apex of this part is certainly “Master Hunter" where things start to get really loud and then a powerful ending with “Devil’s Resting Place" before you get a breath with “Interlude". Then, after that, things get happier, much happier, and the album starts to sound more like a modern-day Joni Mitchell album than anything else.
It’s really solid, a well-written, well-played album. Very sparse, instrumentally, but the instruments placed in by producer Ethan Johns are specifically put in at the exact right places, whether it be strings, organ or drums, they’re all meticulously placed to create the right sound."[+]Reply