Hello, folks! We are pleased to present our favorite releases of the decade. The last ten years in music have brought about seismic shifts. Hip-hop has overtaken rock and pop as the heart of youth culture; we’ve seen the rise (and decline) of EDM, “indie rock” as we know it has shapeshifted and become weirder, deeper, and darker, and thanks to the proliferation of streaming services, we now have access to an infinite music library anytime, anywhere (just don’t think too hard about the inner workings of the algorithm or the unjust lack of artist compensation). We have lived through this wild decade, and now we can reflect on it: FAV LPs of the 2010’s:
10 Lana Del Rey : Norman Fucking Rockwell! (2019)
RIYL : summer goth, elegant doom, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Leonard Cohen
Select Gems : “The Next Best American Record” / “Cinnamon Girl” / “The greatest”
“Fear fun, fear love/ Fresh out of fucks forever/ Tryin’ to be stronger for you/ Ice cream, ice queen/ I dream in jeans and leather/ Live stream, I’m sweet for you” – “Venice Bitch”
Listen to the FULL ALBUM
09 Radiohead : A Moon Shaped Pool (2016)
RIYL : music, chamber rock, art rock, Paul Thomas Anderson, Beck, Nick Drake
Select Gems : “Decks Dark” / “Identikit” / “Present Tense”
“Then into your life, there comes a darkness / There’s a spacecraft blocking out the sky / And there’s nowhere to hide / You run to the back and you cover your ears / But it’s the loudest sound you’ve ever heard” – “Decks Dark”
Listen to the FULL ALBUM
08 Shabazz Palaces : Black Up (2011)
RIYL: experimental hip-hop, afro-futurist astronomy, Erykah Badu, Flying Lotus, THEESatisfaction, dub-hop
Select Gems : “Are you…Can you…Were you? (Felt)” / “Swerve… the reeping of all that is worthwhile (Noir not withstanding)” (Ft. THEESatisfaction) / “Endeavors For Never (The Last Time We Spoke You Said You Were Not Here. I Saw You Though.)”
“I ain’t showed off, I just showed up, greet my peoples, fill they cup/ Transmit heat on pillows plush I mean it though, I lean and flow I gleam and glow, I’m clean and oh, you bet ya that I get it bro Inside the glow just not for show three beams, purples, indigo Catchy yes but trendy no, never fiend or scheming though” – “Free Press and Curl”
Listen to the FULL ALBUM
07 My Bloody Valentine : m b v (2013)
RIYL: My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, gorgeousness, guitar swoon, “shoegaze”
Select Gems: ”New You“ / ”In Another Way“ / “Only Tomorrow”
“Too close, when it’s really with me / Something comes and pins me to the sky to come / What can I say, how can I feel too? All kinds of new you” – New You
Listen to the FULL ALBUM
06 FKA twigs : LP1 (2014)
RIYL: future pop, Arca, James Blake, Beyoncé, Grimes, Portishead, Massive Attack
Select Gems : “Two Weeks” / “Sad Day” / “Cellophane”
“I’d put you first, just close your eyes and dream about it / Higher than a motherfucker dreaming of you as my lover”/ I can fuck you better than her” – “Two Weeks”
Listen to the FULL ALBUM
05 Deerhunter : HalyconDigest (2010)
RIYL : classic indie rawk, dream pop, kraut-futuristic, R.E.M., The Strokes, Jay Reatard
Select Gems : “He Would Have Laughed” / “Helicopter” / “Desire Lines”
“When you were young and your excitement showed But as time goes by is it outgrown? Is that the way things go? Forever reaching for the gold Forever fading black and comes up cold” – “Desire Lines”
Listen to the FULL ALBUM
04 Burial : Rival Dealer (2013)
RIYL : dubstep, second-gen trip-hop, drum ‘n’ bass, jungle, ambient, dubstep, synth-pop, Four Tet, Zomby, DJ Krush, {…Endtroducing}, Kode 9, nostalgia-filtered-hauntologico-psychogeographic-rave-core-ism-etc
“It’s about sexuality, it’s about showing a person who you are, and to me, this is who I’m about” – “Rival Dealer”
Listen to the FULL ALBUM
03 SOPHIE : Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides (2018)
RIYL : PC Music, Mozart’s Sister, Hannah Diamond, Prurient, Charli XCX, Lady Gaga meets Aphex Twin, future-pop
Select Gems: “Immaterial” / “Is It Cold in the Water?” / “Infatuation”
“I’m freezing I’m burning I’ve left my home Soft ache, me Earth-shaking I feel alone/ …I’m falling Depths
Listen to the FULL ALBUM
02 Frank Ocean : Blonde (2016)
RIYL : -less summer end-, Arca, Beyoncé, David Bowie, D∆WN, Elliott Smith, FKA Twigs, James Blake, Kanye West, Outkast, Prince, Stevie Wonder
Select Gems : “Ivy” / “Nights” / “Commes Des Garcons”
“First time I done saw you / You text nothing like you look / Here’s to the gay bar you took me to / Here’s when I realized you talk so much, more than I do” – “Good Guy”
Listen to the FULL ALBUM
01 Grimes : Art Angels (2015) / Visions (2012) (TIE)
In January 2012, Grimes released Visions, an alluring 48 minutes of beguiling, deeply weird, electro-pop brilliance she recorded by herself during a writing binge in her Montreal apartment. The record astounded me. This was a young woman who I saw in 2010 perform a casually intriguing 2pm Halifax Pop Explosion set at a dive bar in purple pajamas, and all of a sudden she was blowing minds around the world and signing with 4AD.
November 2015 saw the release of fourth album Art Angels; both her most commercial and her most inventive album, and it still sounds like pop from another planet – an otherworldly subversion of power dynamics and pop conventions. Since then we’ve seen her change her name to simply “c,” date a billionaire, and distract many fans with a lot of priveleged techno-babble. Still, to me these albums will forever be masterpieces that not only defined, but embraced an uncertain, often terrifying decade.
RIYL: art pop, K-pop, effortlessly gorgeous synth pop, PC Music, Charlift, Dolly Parton, M.I.A., Madonna – Ray of Light, Bran Van 3000 – Glee, Bjork – Post, all that is good and exciting about pop music
Select Gems: “Butterfly” / “Eight” / “Pin”
“Soft skin you touch me within/ So I know I can be human once again
I know you’re faced with something/ That could consume you completely” – “Skin”
“When we were young, we used to get so close to it and you were scared and you were beautiful / I wanna peer over the edge and see in death if we are always the same” – “REALiTi”
Listen to Art Angels / Visions
