Listed below are the best albums of the 2010s as calculated from their overall rankings in over 58,000 greatest album charts. (Chart last updated: 3 hours ago).
"Definitely the best effort Plant has put out since Zeppelin. I love how seamlessly he blends many different genres together to create a relatively consistent and distinctive sound, even if a few moments come across as gimmicky. The lyricism is surprisingly good coming from Plant, and while this i...""Definitely the best effort Plant has put out since Zeppelin. I love how seamlessly he blends many different genres together to create a relatively consistent and distinctive sound, even if a few moments come across as gimmicky. The lyricism is surprisingly good coming from Plant, and while this is certainly a reflective album, it doesn't come across as "aging rock star writing about his past." The production is irritating at times, the drums often sound like someone hitting pillows with licorice sticks, and some variance from this general "muddy" sound would have been nice. Overall, though, a very good experience and my Number 1 of 2014."[+]Reply
"DBT return to the fray, this time writing about political/ human rights events that America faces in the 21st century. There are a lot of political pleas here. I don't think they want us to change any minds here, they just want us to listen and think about what is going on in current events. The ...""DBT return to the fray, this time writing about political/ human rights events that America faces in the 21st century. There are a lot of political pleas here. I don't think they want us to change any minds here, they just want us to listen and think about what is going on in current events. The two primary songwriters are in good focused form here, and though this record can't compare to their classics in the early 2000s, it's still worth while for any casual fan, no matter what political opinions you hold dear.
Track Pick: "What it Means""[+]Reply
"Although it saddens me that Opeth abandoned their metal roots, I have to admit that they've emerged as a truly formidable progressive rock band. This one probably won't have any lasting interest to me, but for prog-rock, it is quite good. The tracks are tight, even as they meander. If it just had...""Although it saddens me that Opeth abandoned their metal roots, I have to admit that they've emerged as a truly formidable progressive rock band. This one probably won't have any lasting interest to me, but for prog-rock, it is quite good. The tracks are tight, even as they meander. If it just had a little less organ... "[+]Reply
"Only just discovered Frank - saw him at Beautiful Days 2012. Why have I never heard of him before? Ace songwriter in a vein which crosses punk and folk. Have bought all his albums but this (his latest) really pushes all the buttons!"Reply
"Frankly, this album is far better than anybody could have reasonably expected it to be. If you think back to the singles he's put out in the interim since The Chronic 2001, both 'Kush' and 'I Need a Doctor' were overhammed and half-speed, precisely the sorts of out-of-touch songs you would expect...""Frankly, this album is far better than anybody could have reasonably expected it to be. If you think back to the singles he's put out in the interim since The Chronic 2001, both 'Kush' and 'I Need a Doctor' were overhammed and half-speed, precisely the sorts of out-of-touch songs you would expect from a hip-hop artist nearing his fifties. 'I Need a Doctor' in particular reeked of all the focus group balladry trappings that have marred Eminem's work over the past six or seven years, and it was difficult to imagine Dr. Dre ever sounding relevant again. Thankfully, those songs can now be consigned to history, along with everything else locked away in those infamous Detox vaults; Dre finally binned that album in favour of something far more focused, and I'm delighted to say that it's an unqualified success. Now, for an album named after the city of Compton, you'd be forgiven for thinking that this album is going to be a trip down memory lane, a retrofetishist jaunt through Dre's past, from the g-funk sounds of the early '90s to the brash and cocky clean lines of his second album - and that would, in all honesty, probably be welcome (to some extent) among a lot of listeners. But, instead, Dre has opted for something else, a labyrinth of different styles, heavily layered and maximalist in the extreme, snaking in multiple unpredictable directions, refusing to settle on one particular style. It makes the album feel refreshingly out of time, neither beholden to the ghosts of West Coast past or to the sounds of hip-hop's present. I mean, yes, we do get a couple of nods to trap, and the occasional moment that harks back to Dre's early Parliament-aping days, but on the whole this album defies any sort of categorisation. It's beefy, in the same way that The Chronic 2001 was, but it's also undeniably more frazzled than that record. It's lush, but it isn't always clean. Production-wise, it sounds to me like peak-era Timbaland being reimagined by MBDTF's ambitious perfectionist, but captured through an undeniably West Coast lens. It might be comparable to 2015's West Coast masterpiece, To Pimp a Butterfly, in that it doesn't ever settle into a particular groove, but where that album was tied together by its jazzy leanings, this record is harder to pin down - we get a lot of twinkling synths and triumphant horns, but its cohesion comes from how luxurious it all sounds. If Kendrick has had a major influence on this album, it's in proving to Dre that he can make a massive, mazy album in 2015 without it having to bend to current trends, whilst still sounding utterly contemporary. It's an exciting direction for Dre, and proves that even throughout these late-career, headphone-hawking wilderness years, he can still stay ahead of the game. In terms of rapping, the album feels more mature than previous Dre albums. Whilst he has always been able to offer a more sobering view of life in the ghetto than he's often given credit for (think The Chronic's 'Lil Ghetto Boy'), this record feel undeniably more mature than previous records, something that feels to me as though it's been brought on not only by middle-age but also by his current connection to Kendrick, who has proven that you can stay true and authentic and resolutely Compton whilst still offering some perspective on that gangster lifestyle. And so, yes, this album goes over a lot of West Coast gangsta tropes, but does so in a way that feels more grown up (and, perhaps, detached) than the Dre of albums past, for better or worse. Newcomers Justus and King Mez (and, to a lesser extent, Anderson Paak) excel whenever they show up throughout the record, and there are some brilliant throwback verses from Snoop, Ice Cube, Xzibit, and in particular Cold 187um. Kendrick predictably offers standout moments, but it's Dre evolution as a rapper that is most interesting on this album. Whilst his verses are obviously ghostwritten, I don't think Dre has ever sounded this comfortable on the mic - his flow has become much more nimble with age, and gone are the clunky missteps that occasionally marred albums past. That said, he appears to have lost something vocally, and he isn't quite as immediately recognisable as he has been in the past. Being as he's never been a writer, it's questionable whether nimble flows for booming voice is a good trade off, but I generally think it works on this album, which plays out like a real team effort, with Dre acting as a deep-lying playmaker, allowing others to steal the show as and when certain people are better suited to certain moments. So lyrically, this album is a cohesive love letter to Compton, comfortably and naturally speaking on both the positives and the negatives of the city over the past three decades. Sonically, it's unique within the Dre canon, but maintains a West Coast vibe without necessarily falling back on a stereotypical West Coast sound. I've only listened to the record three times, but it already stands out as easily one of the best hip-hop records of 2015 and, as I said in my opening sentence, a far better album than could reasonably have been expected from Dre in 2015. Brilliant stuff. "[+]Reply
"I never got some of the lower ratings for this album, sur eit's nothing out of the ordinary, but it isn't as bad as people claim it is. Not sure why this album was decided to be choosen for the over - hate."Reply
"This is not really anywhere near Burial's best work, but I respect an artist's attempts to change and progress their sound and challenge their listeners. I'm not all too crazy about some of the percussion on here, in particular the very tacky off-kilter drums on Hiders. I hope if he/she ever drop...""This is not really anywhere near Burial's best work, but I respect an artist's attempts to change and progress their sound and challenge their listeners. I'm not all too crazy about some of the percussion on here, in particular the very tacky off-kilter drums on Hiders. I hope if he/she ever drops a 3rd LP it sounds like Kindred, I fucking love that shit.
Favorite tracks: Rival Dealer, Come Down To Us, and Hiders"[+]Reply