Great Albums of the 2010s: a decade in retrospect
Mdou Moctar (left), Lana Del Rey (top right) and Nils Frahm (bottom right)
What distinguishes the sound of the 2010s? Perhaps a certain softness round the edges, a wistfulness, a yearning for dreamy spaces. As the world stumbles from crisis to crisis, things are getting more broken before they get fixed. Do “softness” and “dreaminess” console or transcend the troubles?
This was the decade of Occupy Wall Street, smartphones, austerity politics, Black Mirror, Extinction Rebellion, nativist nationalism, the housing crisis, wage stagnation, George Floyd, Donald Trump, and Covid-19. There was plenty to confront and plenty to disdain. Confidence in global systems seems to have become little more than the echo of political loudspeakers.
How has the music handled the times?
There’s fatalism tinged with elation (Lana del Rey). Depressions sculpted with the colours of sunrise (Sufjan Stevens). Hopes of emergence into a happier space built from joy (Fleet Foxes). Transcendental journeys into consciousness (Portico Quartet).
The predominance of sadcore, ambience, and psychedelia is a telling sign of where the party’s been. Those sounds have seeped into far-flung places. The Gloaming, ostensibly a traditional folk group from Ireland, soars through toned-down ethereal spaces. Lubomyr Melnyk’s Rivers and Streams evokes a Debussian serenity and melancholy. Midlife blends jazz with psych rock.
Music can channel the collective (un)consciousness, expressing both the intensely personal and the impersonal zeitgeist.
Perhaps the 2010s has achieved consolation musically where politically there was none or mostly none. It’s a tentative, self-conscious consolation, whose softening never quite diminishes hard realities. Apocalyptic narratives surge in The Comet Is Coming and Tame Impala’s Apocalypse Dreams.
Upbeat sounds and harsher tones often intersect the fuzziness. Reality has been drugged but not forgotten.
The decade might have been depressing at the socio-political level but the music was extraordinary.
This list attempts to build a cohesive sense of music in the 2010s and showcase some of the best artists of our age. The tastes are unforgivably personal. The omissions glaring and ungainly. May conviction compensate our lack of objectivity.
Greatest Albums of the 2010s (with some omissions)
Lana del Rey – Born to Die
Lana Del Rey, sadcore queen, emblem of the times, can feel both mainstream and bizarrely alternative. Her name hangs above the last ten years as a giant, pale star. It seems fitting to begin this quest into the soul of the 2010s with the album that secured her fame: Born to Die. The title reflects a former philosophy student’s obsession with mortality.
Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell
Another classic expression of millennial wistfulness. Within the velvety folds of Sufjan Stevens’s grief, expect to find rare moments of illumination. The touching lyrics were triggered by the death of his mother.
Fleet Foxes – Shore
Following a near-death experience off the Californian coast (from which the album gets its name), Robin Pecknold decided his next album under the Fleet Foxes moniker must be defined by gratefulness. On Sunblind he namedrops many young musicians who died in recent years, and thanks them, before going all the way back to Otis Redding and Jimi Hendrix. For Andrew, the outstanding track is Jara. Despite its heavy subject matter – the Chilean artist and activist Víctor Jara was tortured and killed under Pinochet’s regime – Pecknold finds something to be grateful for: “Now you’re off to Víctor on his ladder to the sky”.
The Gloaming - I
The Gloaming’s eponymous debut is a modern, sophisticated, and unique interpretation of traditional Irish music, and showcases the talents of each member of the supergroup. Highlights are The Sailor's Bonnet and Samhradh Samhradh, their version of the ancient song Thugamar Féin an Samhradh Linn (We Brought the Summer With Us).
Weyes Blood - Front Row Seat to Earth or Titanic Rising
Take your pick. Both albums are fantastic. She has a spectacular voice, and her poetic lyrics are inspired. The title of the first album suggests that she may be an alien from some superior society, which is believable given her level of talent. Andromeda and These Seven Words are two outstanding tracks.
Nick Cave & the bad seeds - Ghosteen
Joe loves the imagery in this album, particularly in Bright horses and Sun Forest. The evocations of pain and hope following the tragic death of Nick Cave's son are powerful. The influence of ambient music can be felt throughout the album, creating an ethereal backdrop (and more than just a backdrop) for the heartfelt lyrics.
Nils Frahm – Spaces
A bizarrely discordant introduction (“an aborted beginning”) gives way to the Lands of Bliss. This compilation of Nils Frahm’s live takes celebrates liveness and shows off his unique skills as an ambient wizard.
Michael Kiwanuka – Love & Hate
Like Lana del Rey, London-born Michael Kiwanuka has achieved both commercial and critical success, without succumbing overmuch to the poisoned chalice of pop.
Darkside – Psychic
Darkside is a confluence of two major rivers: Nicholas Jarr and Dave Harrington. Before you listen to this album, make sure you leave your rules and genres at the door. Prog-rock, space-rock, electronica, alien fuzz, disco soul… when the vocals finally appear seven minutes into the first track, you would be forgiven if you thought an inter-dimensional being was trying to communicate a vital emotion with you.
Kikagaku Moyo – House in the Tall Grass
A gently pulsating spaceship of an album that will send you to the far reaches of the universe (and possibly not bring you back). Tracks such as “Melted Crystal” reveal Kikagaku Moyo’s mastery of the psychedelic sound tempered by the ambient sensibilities of the 2010s. Other tracks luxuriate in upbeat fuzziness. Kikagaku Moyo originally emerged from the clubs of Tokyo.
Mdou Moctar – Ilana
Often called the Jimi Hendrix of the Sahara, Mdou Moctar, inherits the rich legacy of African rock and a distinct style of guitar playing known as assouf. He built his first guitar from brake wires of an old bicycle and a piece of wood.
A Winged Victory for the Sullen – Atomos
It would be hard to mention the 2010s without exploring the highly influential “ambient” music. Dustin O'Halloran and Adam Wiltzie mix classical and ambient sounds to create a beautiful and highly accessible example of the genre.
Bing & Ruth - No Home of the Mind
Bing & Ruth is another majestic example of ambient music. There are plenty others. Consider these last two albums as “dropping off points” for exploring the wider world of ambience.
Lubomyr Melnyk - Rivers and Streams
The Ukranian master pianist drifts between serenity and serene turmoil in a sublime album that showcases his “continuous music”. Rivers and Streams is truly consciousness expanding. Mercurius Editor, Thomas Helm, began work on his poetry collection, A Pilgrimage of Donkeys, while lying on a beach listening to this album.
Khruangbin – Con Todo El Mundo
Calling on 70s Thai psychedelic rock, this Texan trio channel other worldly influences on their ethereal second stellar album. Once you begin the Kruanghbin journey, you simply don't ever want to get off…
The War on Drugs – Lost in the Dream
Lost in the Dream is a psychedelia-seeped country rock album with echoes of the eighties. Another genre bender.
Tame Impala - Lonerism
Tame Impala is already something of a legend and a reference point for the 2010s psychedelia renaissance. Lonerism is often cited as his magnum opus.
Melody's Echo chamber – Melody’s Echo Chamber
Produced by Tame Impala's Kevin Parker, Melody's Echo Chamber is the charming destruction of what Melody Prochet, French pop aficionado and multi-instrumentalist, used to create. "I tend to write songs with pretty chords and arpeggios, and I was kind of boring myself," she told Noisevox. "So I asked Kevin to destroy everything."
The Holydrug Couple – Moonlust
The Holydrug Couple takes the drugs for you and puts them in their music. Listening makes you high, and it’s always a pleasant, hazy kind of high, with sun-soaked clouds and kaleidoscopes and visions of the cosmos. When the solo guitar kicks in on track two, you’re know you’ve reached a happy place.
Allah Las – Allah Las
Allah Las is one the best of the 60s revivalists. This gorgeous surf-beat-psychedelic inspired outfit has stepped straight out of another age. Critics might sneer and say ‘derivative’. But when the derivation is this good, who really cares? Their eponymous album sucks the shadows out of you. It might not be one of the most innovative albums of the 2010s, but it’s certainly easy to enjoy.
Morgan Delt - Morgan Delt
Another trippy, experimental number that draws on 60s psychedelia, Morgan Delt’s eponymous album is a bubbling cauldron of sound. The end-result is messy but not without a touch of magic.
The Comet Is Coming – Trust In The Lifeforce Of The Deep Mystery
Here the sensibilities of the 2010s roll into one majestic homage to the apocalypse. Fatalism, steeped in mystic electronica and jazz, points towards the end (or perhaps the beginning) of time.
Portico Quartet – Memory Streams
Sublime, transcendental, Memory Streams is one of Thomas’s favourite albums of the last ten years. One feels as though one is travelling into the depths of consciousness itself. Here jazz, minimalism, electronica and ambience converge to create a completely distinctive sound. Essential listening.
Matthew Halsall – On The Go
“On The Go” is more quietly innovative than some of the other Jazz records on this list. Manchester-born Mathew Halsall (quoting his website) “draws on the heritage of British jazz, the spiritual jazz of Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, as well as world music and electronica influences, and even modern art and architecture, to create something uniquely his own.” “The End of Dukkha” is a slow-moving masterpiece that probably achieves its goal (Duhkha is commonly translated as "suffering" or “unhappiness”). “When the World was One” is another excellent album.
Kamasi Washington - Harmony of Difference
A concept album with a memorable recurring theme. It is only an EP in terms of length, and his subsequent albums are also great, but this one of Andrew’s favourite jazz record of recent years.
Mildlife – Phase
Is this the sound extra-terrestrials hum to each other when they’ve lost their spaceship keys? These were Thomas’s thoughts when he listened to the opening track. Australian Midlife blurs the boundaries between psychedelia, synth-pop and jazz, with detailed instrumentation, jagged guitar riffs, and delicate vocals. On the more intense side of the hybrid spectrum. Don’t expect an easy listen.
DakhaBrakha - Alambari
DakhaBrakha (give and take) is a Ukrainian folk band that incorporates diverse ethnic influences. The band emerged from Ukranian avant-grade theatre as the brainchild of director Vladyslav Troitskyi. The costume design matches the music as much as the music matches the costumes so well worth a watch as well as a listen. If each track were a play, this album would be a stunning mix of tragedy and comedy. One of Michael’s favourite bands of recent years.
James Francies – Flight
1m40s of “Leaps” is the point where your life changes. A catchy, deceptively simple refrain leaps out of the ether and grabs you by the soul. You spend the rest of the track pleading with it to come back. James Francies was 23 years old when Flight, his debut LP, was released.