the top 100 best albums of the 2010s

And we’re finally here: the project I’ve been working on for months and one that I long thought I would either never do nor finish on time, especially given how many more albums I’m reviewing this year. And while I could go on about the hundreds of hours of work, comfortably over a thousand albums heard - probably closer to two - and the additional relistens required for contemplation and context and ordering - you probably don’t care that much about all that, especially given how late this is.

But there are points of context that need to be established in comparison with the best and worst hits of the last decade, namely that an album is a much different beast in comparison with a single song, both for good and ill. For one, I normally settle on opinions on projects much more strongly - as a composite work there’s more factors to lay down roots, and examining the larger work means that my opinions don’t tend to fluctuate in the same way. Which in theory would make a list like this easier - you know what you love, just figure out the order… except for the fact that I didn’t start publishing album reviews on YouTube until 2013, and even then, I only started writing about albums on my blog back in 2012. That leaves a few whole years where I had to go back and ensure I wasn’t missing anything - sidenote, my god 2010 was a bad year for music - and then I realized that while I was listening to more throughout 2013-2015, I hadn’t always tapped outside of a specific wheelhouse in terms of genre - I only really gotten into black metal in 2015 , for example, so I had to factor some of that into my exploration. And then came the horrifying thought that every year you miss out on something because there’s not enough hours in the day to hear every scrap of music that’s released and before I lost my mind trying to cover my tracks, I put everything back into perspective and stepped back; inevitably, over ten years and such a varied list, you’ll miss something; every critic does.

But that raises another point that will be contentious: what is commonly perceived by the critical establishment as ‘great’ doesn’t always align with my own taste. And while taste is a social construct and art criticism is subjective and it shouldn’t be invalidating for me to come here and say ‘Kanye West is not on this list, but Kesha is’, I know some people will object to certain projects missing or the fact I’m praising stuff that wouldn’t normally get the same establishment attention. And while it shouldn’t matter - ultimately I’m sticking with the material that resonated with me the most and given we’re examining a decade which was a full third of my life, some of that has evolved and changed and that’s true for pretty much everyone if they’re being honest with themselves - I do know that because I have a platform, it’s making a statement that I’m including these albums in this order. Thus, I’m fully aware this won’t match anyone else’s and is all of my opinion - which is true about all my reviews, no matter how impassioned I get - and while I can defend all of it, I do stress that you don’t need to take it all that seriously; there are bigger things than a long-overdue list, especially when the placement of some albums is tied to emotional experience I’ve had, and I’m not going to invalidate those experiences under some feigned attempt at compensating for bias that we and society at larger all have. That said, to cover my basis I did excavate as many old lists of ‘best albums’ of various respective years, from mainstream critics, indie outlets, genre-specific sites, and even down to certain contributors to RateYourMusic and YouTube, and while I observed way more common ground than I think some want to admit, I did my due diligence.

Right, so with all of that, a few more pieces of housekeeping. One: I don’t think there are any official mixtapes on this list, but there is an EP or two, which was a conscious choice to include because the album structure is largely artificial - there are albums about the same length as some songs on or near this list, and if an EP is strong enough to stand against all that, it counts. Two: while I tend to be more set-in-stone surrounding my scores, do not be surprised if a few projects I rated 8/10 sneak onto the Honourable Mentions list instead of some 9/10s; again, I use scores more as a baseline and bookkeeping measure to keep organized around fluid opinions rather than hard objective measure - because there’s no such thing as a truly objective opinion on art. Which leads me to my next point: by necessity I had to take into context how certain projects aged and changed, so I ran into a similar issue to when I made my best songs of the 2010s: yes, older albums have more time to age on me, but they also have more time to deeper their appeal. Yes, newer projects might be fresher, but that’s no guarantee of placement. And hell, some of the albums from 2010 to even parts of 2013 I checked out for the first time in researching this list, so I’m approaching all of these with the ears of someone in 2020 - and if that emotional resonance has persisted for however long, it’s valid in how I structured this list. Finally, there’s a balancing act in creating any of these lists in how much you want to highlight variety for praise, or stick with multiple projects from the same act that might have just held up that much more. In my opinion, I prefer honesty so one act might have 2-4 albums in the top 100, but for kicks i created a side list only picking one album per act, and with that narrowed scope, here’s a pretty hefty selection of Honourable Mentions in alphabetical order by artist!

From Ab-Soul, Control System (2012)

From Aesop Rock, The Impossible Kid (2016)

From Anderson .Paak, Malibu. (2016)

From Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Before Today. (2010)

From Bleachers, Strange Desire (2014).

From Brandy Clark, 12 Stories (2013).

From Caitlyn Smith, Starfire (2018).

From clipping., CLPPNG (2014).

From Cloud Nothings, Attack On Memory (2012)

From Daft Punk, Random Access Memories (2013)

From Daughters, You Won’t Get What You Want (2018)

From Dr. Dre, Compton (2015).

From Fen, Winter (2017).

From Ghost, Meliora (2015).

From Laura Marling, I Speak Because I Can (2010)

From Lorde, Melodrama (2017).

From Marina & The Diamonds, The Family Jewels (2010)

From Panopticon, Kentucky (2012).

From the Pistol Annies, Hell On Heels (2011).

From PUP, Morbid Stuff (2019).

From St. Vincent, Strange Mercy (2011)

From Swans, To Be Kind (2014)

And from Within Temptation, The Unforgiving (2011).

Got all that? Good, because we’re going to be blowing through the top 50 really fast, with maybe a sentence a piece, so let’s start with…

100. Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972 (2011)- I once described this ambient project as the long-unearthed funeral of music itself eating itself alive, an ouroboros of dispirited spectres glitching as damnation looms, a texture of grief you can never grasp because you forget its incidence. And I’m probably not going to top that - one of the most subtly eerie projects you’ll ever experience

99. Deep Purple - Now What?! (2013) - a legacy hard rock act has nothing left to prove by the 2010s, so they make their most progressive and diverse album of their careers, with all the wild, groovy intensity that made them stars in the 70s. Way too kooky and fun to not love.

98. Lydia Loveless - Indestructible Machine (2011) - she is the machine and this album chronicles everything she and the world around her is doing to prove its title wrong. A shot of unstable, heartbreaking momentum into country punk that is sold with blistering, ragged insight and a few too many bottles of wine.

97. Franz Ferdinand - Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action (2013) - this indie rock band has better taste, writing, grooves, and hooks than they ever got credit, so when the critics starting ignoring them, they deliver their most maniacally diverse slice of nerdy post-punk revival album to date. Criminally underrated in its brilliance.

96. Jamey Johnson - The Guitar Song (2010) - it seems like if Jamey Johnson wanted to give us enough original work to call it a career, he’d do it with a heavyset double album, where every song feels like a country standard waiting to be canonized. Another album of contemplative hard living belied by impressively warm production - hi Dave Cobb, we’ll be seeing more of you - and detail that makes his absence ache all the harder.

95. The Roots - undun (2011) - The Roots take us on a dreamlike, jazzy trip backwards in time, where the musing but resigned black everyman feels hazy but familiar - which is the point. The wordplay is impeccable as always but what has always pulled me back was the populism and the soundscape, with even more delicate splashes of indie rock but never to the point of obscuring The Roots’ dogged unwinding… where you might not even hear the breathless gutpunch coming.

94. Destroyer - Poison Season (2015) - of the Destroyer albums of the 2010s, this is the most lush, most layered, but arguably Dan Bejar’s most and least accessible. Kaputt laid the foundations for Bejar to deconstruct his muses, but ‘foundation’ is a word that implies stability and the noir he plays with shows a level of existential confusion that is supremely captivating and beautiful all the same. So much deeper than his drama, indeed…

93. American Aquarium - burn.flicker.die. (2012) - This is the sort of desperate swing for the fences by an indie country band expecting it was all over - and yet filtered through Jason Isbell’s production, BJ Barham captured a desperate road warrior mentality that hammered them back on the map. They might have thought they were destined to burn out, but instead they blazed all the brighter to deliver a second classic.

92. Bill Callahan - Dream River (2013) - A story of seasons and their sarcastic subversions, and a more sedate listen than his previous project, but Callahan traces and untangles a “love” story amidst a broader array of instrumentation and the sort of stark detail that you almost don’t realize this album has some of his best hooks to date. The road might wind a lonely circle, but it can captivate a dream all the same.

91. Panopticon - Autumn Eternal (2015) - Really, I’m kind of cheating here given the Honourable Mention choice - this one could have gone to either Kentucky or Roads To The North, but the conclusion of this country/black metal fusion is the one that holds my heart the strongest: the arrangements are more lush, the melodies and production more refined, and the wild tranquility finally realized amidst the howling riffs and screams. This was the album that won me over on black metal, and for that, it’s here.

90. Freddie Gibbs & Madlib - Piñata (2014) - Freddie Gibbs has asserted himself with tremendous potency in the 2010s, but this is his mastercraft. The lush organic blend of samples and lo-fi beats from Madlib that push Gibbs slightly out of his trap comfort zone but prove he’s more than capable of becoming the mature and introspective but also wildly charismatic and entertaining gangsta at the core. This is everything one can hope for out of gangsta rap, and Gibbs knocked it out of the damn park.

89. Idles - Joy As An Act Of Resistance (2018) - Does this album make it here because of the memes, how overstuffed it is with manic, howling colour, how Joe Talbot blows gaping holes in toxic masculinity by delivering snowflake oi! for the ages, or because it is a desperate mission statement for the ages that only proves more frighteningly relevant with every passing year? Regardless of your reason, this snowflake became the best avalanche you’ll ever let hit you in the face.

88. Jhene Aiko - Souled Out (2014) - This went underappreciated by everyone upon release, but now six years later everyone is copying the notes Jhene laid down and they still haven’t caught up. Brilliantly textured and liquid R&B that balances the sensual with the intensely cerebral, with a level of emotional intelligence balanced with deceptively simple vulnerability, interweaved around a movie reference the vast majority of people don’t notice. Her legacy is secured - and whatever soul she sold, her returns keep washing in.

87. Jamie xx - In Colour (2015) - The quiet mastermind producer behind The xx delivers a tribute to house that is so well textured and expansive that I can smell the festival within the first song. It’s a sunset splashing over waves of dust and light, the crowd enraptured, and yet in a second it can feel like you are with that someone and no one else. Intimacy and space in perfect balance, he set out to make a tribute, and wound up as part of the canon.

86. Jean Grae & Quelle Chris - Everything’s Fine (2018) - This is an album of smoked out, hyper-awareness and paranoia, where you can weave through the system but feel the weight of every step, see the flaws of that system but know that exposing their fragility would have untold consequences, so the album’s title becomes a deflection from every angle and a mantra to stay sane. Unbelievably clever to the point where I find more insane detail with every relisten to this day, but having way more heart and empathy in the misdirection than given credit - a tangled brilliance, but from these two, could it be anything else?

85. Robyn - Body Talk (2010) - a decade after stateside success, Robyn unleashes her glittery electro-pop opus that might have its dated moments but is otherwise too insanely catchy, beautifully produced, and sold with impeccable charm to care. Robyn is so far ahead of the curve on this album that indie pop is only starting to catch up now, and you can argue ‘Dancing On My Own’ is one of the best pop songs ever written. I mean, in 2010, what pop could be better…

84. Ke$ha - Cannibal (2010) - Yes. Don’t look at me like that, this EP is the moment that Kesha’s feral intensity truly ignited. The slapdash party girl is here, but she’s tempering it with punk abrasion and a ragged queer energy that despite also having its questionable moments ten years later still contains some of her most anthemic songs. Songs from this EP went viral on TikTok this year - and well deserved too, this was Ke$ha’s electro-pop at its sharpest, ready to blow it all away.

83. Frank Turner - England Keep My Bones (2011) - In a decade where the concept of Britishness arguably deserved more intelligent and informed discourse than it got, Frank Turner targeted that national identity and history for folk punk deconstruction, and then dig through the rubble to find whatever’s worth salvaging. And what we got is Turner’s second classic album after Love Ire & Song, where disillusionment wars against desperate optimism to find something worth building… and there’s just enough to deliver some of his best produced and most heartfelt cuts to date. Rarely has an exhuming felt this triumphant.

82. Poets of the Fall - Jealous Gods (2014) - The band survives the pop pivot by making their sound titanic, where the little fights have the scale and sweep of storms on high, where there’s such an atmospheric swell to back the crystal clear production and Marko Saaresto’s huge delivery that calling it ‘pop rock’ sells it short. This is arena music built for a modern colosseum, a departure from alternative metal but a comfortable niche found all the same - but the seeds for those gods were planted earlier, and we’ll get to that.

81. Anna Meredith - FIBS (2019) - Anna Meredith is such an obscenely talented melodic composer with an eye for sypocation and warping time signatures and crescendo that you almost don’t notice when she takes a step into indie pop, she finds the heartfelt hesitation of genius in her writing and delivery, and the courage to ride her dizzying waves of brass and synth to the future will sing to the heartstrings. Plus she confirmed to me personally that yes, she was inspired by Vanessa Carlton on a certain song here - her brilliance and pop sensibilities are only just being tapped, folks, we’re in for a ride!

80. Run The Jewels - Run The Jewels (2013) - It says something when your proper prototype - we’ll get to the proof of concept in a moment - is so damn strong that it becomes one of the best rap albums of the decade. At this point, El-P and Killer Mike were only proving their exaggerated and wildly funny banditry could work opposite El-P’s alien synths - but it was one that screamed for all comers in its naked disrespect for the thrones, and yet they saw none dare approach. Telling, I reckon.

79. The War On Drugs - A Deeper Understanding (2017) - Adam Granduciel pulls out of the haze of the road and surges down the highway with an even brighter sheen, where the writing remains just as oblique in peeling through memory but the waves of synth and glistening guitar make it sing to the heartstrings regardless. It’s telling that the understanding is ultimately of yourself, where the clarity is more subtext you know than can speak aloud.

78. Lori McKenna - The Tree (2018) - The first of more than a few Lori McKenna entries on this list, this is probably her most maternal and family-oriented project in the 2010s, with the admittedly drier acoustics providing some of that homespun texture but also accentuating the punches she refuses to pull. Nostalgia in these stories is tempered with the tough details you want to forget but can’t, and the subtext of those scenes overflows through every line. Again, one of the best songwriters working today in any genre - and she has more coming on this list.

77. Algiers - Algiers (2015) - It shouldn’t work. Fusing industrial textures, post-punk and noise rock with blues, soul and gospel could have been just a gimmick, but Algiers’ self-titled debut takes the fiercely literate but now less intense howls of Franklin James Fisher through the cavernous nightmare of a mix for an album that might as well hold as a southern gothic testament, especially in its deceptively brilliant framing device. Couple it with ragged cries for long-deserved justice for black men, and Algiers have a debut for the ages.

76. Homeboy Sandman - Dusty (2019) - I’m surprised I still love this the way I do - a quiet, offbeat, frequently kooky underground hip-hop album from the observer looking to deconstruction communication and his outsider status - a frequent theme in Homeboy Sandman’s work but now across a warm, textured mix that’ll burrow into weird corners that still have a remarkable amount of quiet heart to them. It also features some of the most hilarious bars I’ve heard in hip-hop and goes down with the tactile witticisms that remain fiercely entertaining. This is an album often misunderstood for winding in its own cleverness, whereas bridging the gap to it is all the more fiercely rewarding.

75. Perfume Genius - No Shape (2017) - Mike Hadreas is one of the most stunning vocal talents of the 2010s in terms of raw, irresistible charisma and presence. Even in his most brittle moments he commands a room, but No Shape hits the opulent genius of bridging high delicacy with the unsteady, coursing grooves that have been his hallmark - baroque pop but with texture and edge. And for an album that’s all about dissociative escapism, before having to regretfully return to the dreary world below but still find a spark of hope, it still manages to soar.

74. Algiers - The Underside Of Power (2017) - Oh, what do you know, they followed it through! Algiers’ sophomore album is the self-titled debut with a steroid and endorphin injection to the base of the spine - the beats crack louder, the mixes are more chaotic, the politics are more incendiary, and Franklin delivers a tour-de-force performance to command your attention. This is one of those revolutionary projects that only grows more relevant with every passing year, music to call strikes, wage protests, and set the roots of systemic racism ablaze. It is titanic and as of today remains their best work - a siren call against the sirens.

73. case/lang/veirs - case/lang/veirs (2016)- Hey, I’m still irked we’re likely only going to get the one of these, as between the harmonies, how each individual voice and songwriting presence pulls the album down tangled paths of textured indie folk, while still bringing forth a synthesis, this is a strikingly varied and colourful album, one that lets every artist shine while amplifying how well they work together. It might just be more of a compilation of great songs than anything, but even then it holds together beautifully.

72. Miguel - Kaleidoscope Dream (2012) - It took me a while to come around on Miguel’s brand of R&B, but while many will celebrate Wildheart as his magnum opus this decade, this was always the tighter, more liquid and punchy project that proved so infectious and spell-binding - and yet it’s still smoky, loose, and unquestionably fun without oversold pretensions, the perfect crux point of Miguel at his best. No, I’m not sure it’s got a song as good as ‘Coffee’, but as a whole? Man, it goes down easy.

71. Foxing - Nearer My God (2018) - There are more than a few albums on this list where white guys rend themselves asunder in trying to find focus and relevancy when they want to reject a system that privileges them - but Foxing took that egocentric pomposity and dared to follow through on it, forcing the hard introspection and reckoning with one’s role going forward that many wouldn’t dare, all with the world-shattering scale to make the sonic impact stick. Also, ‘Gameshark’ might be the best song written about the multifaceted hidden nightmare of privilege written this decade.

70. Doomtree -No Kings (2011) - So Doomtree collective projects are on this list multiple times, and I’m saying that while fully emphasizing that P.O.S. probably spent many of these years living up to his stagename - he’s always been the worst member of Doomtree, now in more ways than one. And there’s a part of me that wishes Doomtree albums would feel less relevant nowadays… but this was the project where the fractured elegance of the production met the explosive hooks that made this group so anthemic and captivating. The bangers are stacked deep on this one.

69. Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music (2012) - There’s a part of me that going back to this after the fact just felt like it was the trial for Run The Jewels, especially with El-P’s production, but the truth is that Killer Mike was going further than that in embracing a lot of Dungeon Family swagger and more explicit political tones that would take until Run The Jewels 2 to really pop. But yeah, this is a bruiser - toes around certain questionable statements that by this point are almost routine from Killer Mike, but keeps the heartfelt core intact with great snapshots of fun juxtaposed with street level insight that crystallizes with ‘Reagan’, which might be one of the biggest wallops he’s ever thrown. When Kendrick implied more folks should be listening to Killer Mike, this was the album he was talking about, no holds barred.

68. Sims - More Than Ever (2016)- This is an album that captures an existential nightmare that comes with taking yourself to the very brink of wild-eyed recklessness in your art, only to realize the cold world was nudging you along and you need to pull yourself back from the brink. It took me a while to realize it, but this is Sims at his best - the wordplay is tighter, his delivery more intense, his content more visceral, and no jokes, this might be some of his most forward thinking production ever - when you consider how much a certain very aggro brand of trap would follow in his wake in the past four years and still hasn’t quite caught up, you’ve got a slept-on, deeply unsettling album that y’all need to hear… well, check the title.

67. Savages - Silence Yourself (2013)- Yes, there’s a part of me that’s annoyed Savages didn’t spend the rest of the decade delivering blunt, tempestuous post-punk full of thorny feminism and some of the best bass and guitar interplay of this era. But what threw me is that even after so many years of people doing the post-punk revival thing, Jehnny Beth and the group not only feel relevant, but tapping into a primal, unsettling edge that persists to this day - and given that I’ve apparently picked up more of a taste for hardcore punk, even the wildest edges that put me off seven years ago now work! This is an album that has only gotten better, and while its promise was brief, its statement was implacable.

66. Bill Callahan - Apocalypse (2011) - I was struck between this and Dream River in terms of the stronger Bill Callahan album… until I realized the instability and sense of atmosphere cultivated by the more focused songwriting on this project didn’t need ornamentation to truly deliver its understated but no less potent emotions. For a project this low key to feel as portentous as it does is a sign of a master at his craft, and it’s a high water mark that somehow is still paying its dividends to this day. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing, given some of the subject matter, but I’ll take it either way.

65. Saor - Forgotten Paths (2019)- This is a band that short-circuits something in my brain when it comes to its Celtic flavour in black metal - a little more lush than the project that came before it and outside of an underwhelming outro it might have even surpassed it, from its remarkable tunefulness to the poignancy in its wildman, environmentalist musings, wondering just how much we can preserve before it’s all too late. The next steps are a-coming, folks - just a matter of time before they get there.

64. SUNDAYS - WIACA (2019) - I’m still floored to this day that I found this act on Bandcamp by accident, a little known indie folk act that still had such supple organic swell, solid falsetto, and a gentle but complicated lyrical arc in terms of examining how someone can love and gauge their partner’s receptiveness to it. And ever since I found it, checking through Spotify it appears the majority of traffic they’ve received has been from my fans - thanks for that, because this album is a blissful gem that opens up so much for the future!

63.Janelle Monae - The ArchAndroid (2010) - And speaking of the future… this is what many folks consider Janelle Monae’s best project to date, and I get why. The sort of theatrical debut that leaps across genre with aplomb and embraces a layered, Afrofuturist sci-fi landscape that’s as enticing as it is fiercely allegorical to both loving in times of crisis and questions of living up to impossibly high expectations. And while it does feel perhaps that it'd fit better on the stage than on record, when a genius like Monae can build such a layered, neon-coloured world in her blend of soul, funk, R&B, psychedelic rock, and more, that’s a play I could live in.

62. Saor - Guardians (2016) - Yeah, both the Saor albums are making this list, if only because while Forgotten Paths showed the potential forward, Guardians was an apex point of surging climaxes and fantastical dynamics that pulled you into its own wild world just as deeply. Again, the blend of pipes and tremelo riffing and strings has such a stirring texture that even thought it feels a little colder, it’s like the blast of crisp wind stinging across your face as you soar through the air and let forth a barbaric yawp. Panopticon might have been the act that got me into black metal, but Saor was the one that locked me in for more - the word here? Stunning.

61. Queens Of The Stone Age - …Like Clockwork (2013) - This is an album as much about musing through a wary and weary comeback as it was proving everyone wrong as one of the most groove-heavy, experimental, and thought-provoking acts working in mainstream alternative rock. But the better descriptors come in desert rock and psychedelic rock - there’s so much bleak snarl and swagger that even when it gets twisted and offkilter you want to keep trudging towards its ineffable and surprisingly downbeat core. But what always strikes me is how Queens of the Stone Age don’t wallow in darkness - they’ll bring the sinuous, crushingly organic grooves to bear and show a band with way more of a flair for experimentation than they were given credit in their time. Let’s just hope it’s not all downhill from here…

60. Sturgill SImpson - A Sailor’s Guide To Earth (2016) - And speaking of experimentation… this was Sturgill Simpson seeing a major label budget at Atlantic and the opportunity to do it all himself and going for broke with blaring Muscle Shoals horns, a defiant country rock groove, and the most unexpected but powerful Nirvana cover I’ve heard in years. It’s not worth arguing whether this is country so much as it is a tour-de-force in expanding his sound while preserving a surprisingly grounded emotional core in a family Simpson cherishes more than pretty much everything else… and he’ll make his antipathy known. As tender as it is witty and occasionally riotous, this forced the world outside of indie country to take notice, if only for a little while.

59. Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me (2010) - look, it’s a triple album, it’s so filled to the gills with eclectic instrumentation and fascinating chord progressions and Joanna Newsom taking us on a rambunctious, wonderful journey, with a lot more confessional moments across its midsection than are often acknowledged because of the album’s pure heft, but it’s the sort of project a few sentences of detail will never do justice. It’s so organic and colourful that whatever tangled rabbit hole it pulls you in is a spell for the better, but it’s not just ornamentation either - it’s colour to her world, and it’s one that’s profoundly rewarding even despite its length. Also makes for a killer album around the holidays, especially on vinyl - don’t ask how I know that.

58. Casualties Of Cool - Casualties of Cool (2014)- When I coined ‘dream country’ as a subgenre label last year, the album that I always knew would be close to the progenitor of it was this - made by Devin Townsend and Che Aimee Dorvall, it’s a slice of amazingly textured and hypnotic atmospheric country, full of smoked out, moody swells and some of the most strikingly blissful production this decade. On sound alone this album would be making my list - the fact that it includes a striking abstract story about being stranded on the moon, full of breaking clocks and existential horror is just a welcome bonus. One of the most unique albums I think I’ve ever heard - a country side project that touches both future and past, and winds a misty trail between them… and then dares you to follow.

57. Jason Eady - Jason Eady (2017)- This album is an exhale from one of the most quietly brilliant country singer-songwriters working today, where after a hard, morally questionable road he slows a step and takes stock of his life, both reconciling past guilt but also the real, adult questions that come looking forward. Eady is one of those writers that have a knack for the subtleties, the details that don’t leap off the page but you feel in your gut regardless, and while I will not call this his best, it’s some of the purest country you’ll find in 2020; refinement by a master.

56. Sage Francis - Copper Gone (2014) - It feels more like a comeback than it actually is - after a flirtation with indie rock, Sage Francis came back with a beast that will both take and deliver body blows, and that only picks up more clever intricacy with every listen. Folks, this is my gold standard of ‘emo’ and ‘rap’ when it comes to their combination - vulnerable and painfully honest in exploring depression, poverty, and uncomfortable relationship angst, but also bruising in remarkably clever ways, coupled with a rich breadth of dark but textured percussion that reflect a eclectic veteran’s presence. This is an album where you’ll get the obvious raw punchlines only for the quiet ones to knock you upside the head - and it’s easily one of the most slept-on rap albums of the decade.

55. Beyonce - LEMONADE (2016)- This, on the other hand, is not at all slept-on - mostly because of its dangerous audacity that from an artist of her stature and machine should not feel as audacious as it does! I stand by this as Beyonce’s best album: it tears through genre with aplomb, Beyonce sells the rawness of her pain and fury better than she has ever sold any emotion on record, and not only do stakes materialize in her fractured marriage, but she must grapple with what reconciliation as a Black woman looks like, which is a much harder and more adult conversation than many want to admit, especially when your husband is Jay-Z. It’s one of the rare albums that can take real life drama and spin the artifice into something that can capture the whirlwind while giving enough view of the eye of the storm. And again, it’s her best album - easily.

54. Epic Beard Men - This Was Supposed To Be Fun (2019) - I was initially surprised that this album beat out Copper Gone when it came to Sage Francis-associated albums, but then I realized I go back to this way more often, mostly because it’s got so much textured and deliriously fun energy that careens across stories both absurd but also frighteningly prescient. There is a slight screwball edge to some of B. Dolan and Sage Francis’ storytelling… until you peel between the lines and find the complex self-awareness and commentary on those situations. The stroke of genius comes in how once you add that complexity, what was supposed to be fun remains entertaining - a meatier experience, but one I wouldn’t disparage for a second. A team-up that makes all the sense in the world and I bet will only produce more gold - from a duo this forward-thinking, I’d expect nothing less.

53. Frank Ocean - channel ORANGE (2012)- I can imagine that some will be surprised this is as low as it is - and probably more surprised when I say this is Frank Ocean’s only entry on this list: no Nostalgia, Ultra, no Endless, no Blonde. Now part of that is because, for as much as his albums sprawl and tangle through the mist, this is the album that captures the expanse the best while pulling the fewest punches in its self-awareness. It is a luscious album that tangles you in humid opulence and dares you to find the human core in the intoxication - and more often than not it does. This is a project that has the emotional complexity and heft to swallow hours, and as such, it’s not an album I’ll revisit as frequently, outside of ‘Pyramids’, ‘Super Rich Kids’, ‘Pink Matter’ and ‘Bad Religion’… but you know what did wind up on heavy rotation?

52. twenty one pilots - Blurryface (2015) - …I could just walk away after laying forth this blasphemy and I think some folks would be satisfied… but the truth for me is that twenty one pilots built an album that went mainstream and tore itself into paroxysms as a result, a ‘meta’ album that wound up not only as profoundly influential across multiple genres of pop and rock and rap to this day, but also was stacked to the goddamn gills with so many great hooks that you can be tempted to take it all at face value. It’s an album that features the pop refinement still not quite there from Vessel, but also the populism that was thrown aside on Trench - and to me, it’s twenty one pilots at their best. Heh, guess if Tyler Joseph needed help in polarization, I guess he could have just called me here!

51. Emotional Oranges - The Juice Vol. 1 (2019) - There’s a part of me surprised this held up as much as it did, but what Emotional Oranges nailed in this pristinely tight and intricate project is that length will not hold you back if you can pack this many organic, killer grooves and the sort of storytelling and arc that remains compelling. I would still argue the interplay of their singers not just in vocal arrangements but storytelling is their greatest hidden strength, especially when you tack on a fracturing relationship narrative that has way more complexity than many have given them credit. Tasteful technicians of groove to a fault, but with enough hints of messy reality to keep it grounded, this is exactly what I love my favourite R&B to be - also, it slaps.

Well, that’s half our list. I’m sure I annoyed, angered, and infuriated at least some of you with these picks… but now we’re onto the meaty stuff, where I’ll wind up saying a little more. If you need a break, you can pause the video at your convenience, grab a beverage, a snack, a companion of your choice, I’m not going to judge.

Settled in? Good, let’s start with…

50. To this day, I’m kicking myself I didn’t put this on my year-end list in 2013… but there’s a part of me that’s a bit glad I waited, because while I’d like to consider myself mature when I was at the tender age of 23, I also know some parts of this album I wouldn’t have gotten until I approached it with a bit more weariness and life experience. So, not for the first time ahead, let’s talk about Jason Isbell.

50. Southeastern by Jason Isbell (2013)

Many folks hold this as Jason Isbell’s best work, and not just of the 2010s, but his entire catalog, solo, with the 400 Unit, or with the Drive-By Truckers. To me… not quite, if only because it feels transitional and while its absolute best cuts soar to the best in his catalog - and you can argue ‘Elephant’ might be the best song he’s ever written - it’s also a confrontation with newfound sobriety where he’s still figuring out the details. The detail rich storytelling is there, but it’s not quite as expansive as he sifts through hard details and paints hard pictures of lingering trauma of which it’s hard to articulate. It’s also the first time he’s working with soon to be acclaimed producer and future frequent feature of this list Dave Cobb, and with the more bare sound you can tell they were still working out some kinks. But at the end of the day, it’s still Isbell, and he’s got a knack for the quiet kind of devastating, where it doesn’t get much better… except for more, later on this list.

49. I got more backlash than I preferred for this winding up on my 2017 list, when to most people it dropped in very late 2016 and probably should have been slotted there… but it doesn’t feel like a 2016 album to me. It doesn’t fit the mood, it doesn’t fit the intensity or creeping melancholic dread of most of that year, but when we all wanted to bellow righteous murder at the heavens…

49. RTJ3 by Run The Jewels (2016)

The first was an experiment, the second was a polemic, and the third might as well have been a victory lap. Run The Jewels at this point could play arenas and stadiums and they built an album with a scope and impact that could fill every crevasse of them. It feels so triumphant in its bangers and braggadocious swagger that it takes a second for the revolutionary side to reemerge… but it does, in spades. Killer Mike had always had that intensity, but I’d argue it’s El-P who took the biggest steps here, not just in amplifying his tangled punchlines to new heights, but also tapping into a populism he’s rarely nurtured in his entire career going back to Company Flow! And yet for as much as it’s got a sprawling, stentorian presence, it still takes the time to make heartfelt and raw moments, and I hold ‘Thursday In The Danger Room’ with Kamasi Washington as one of the most powerful rap songs of the entire decade. And yet… still not quite my favourite of their catalog… we’ll get to that.

48. I can make an argument this is an album that changed the entire trajectory of independent country music, not just in breaking away from cliches that were ossifying certain scenes, but showing the balance that could be kept between the traditional and forward-thinking, a pendulum swinging between the modern and the postmodern in artistic approach… I wonder if there’s a word for that?

48. Metamodern Sounds In Country Music by Sturgill SImpson (2014)

This is my favourite Sturgill Simpson album to date because while A Sailor’s Guide was audacious in its artistic expanse on a major label, this was Sturgill hitting the precise centerpoint between the sharp traditional country compositions of High Top Mountain and the tangled, psychedelic weirdness to come, all produced by Dave Cobb giving it the texture and impeccable balance it needed. What’s often missed is that this album’s themes are burrowing into that double-sided question of metamodernism, building on a foundation of tradition but seeing where the systems can be prodded or shaped or warped to say something more, where of course it makes sense for him to cover ‘The Promise’ from synthpop group When In Rome, or make multiple, acid-tinged freakout records, or slam the most obvious cocaine anthem in the genre and send it creeping by too many folks who didn’t notice! And yeah, you can argue this album basically spent its runtime justifying its own existence, but Sturgill kicked open a door surrounding not only what indie country could be, but also how it could become so much more - I have to salute to it.

47. If there’s an entry on this list where I can say, ‘oh, this is the easy one’, it’s here. Not to disparage the album, far from it - I can argue its influences have only become more entrenched in the past five or so years - but everyone who knows their indie rock knows this is great, so let’s get it out of the way.

47. Lost In The Dream by The War On Drugs (2014)

Granted, this may be one of those projects where folks don’t quite contextualize just how robust this album is, or how well its sweeping, reverbed expanses have held up. Where A Deeper Understanding blasted everything to a blinding sheen, this is still coming of the mist, still shaking off some of Kurt Vile’s lethargic pace for something to ramp up in its heartfelt yearning for more, staring into the cool winds of time with the hope the pealing guitars and gleaming keys will preserve something real… but that constant sense of the intangible is what makes this album hit and gives it so much resonance to this day. Also, you can argue ‘Red Eyes’ is a well-deserved indie rock staple with so much melody and swell that even if you can’t quite make out what Adam Granduciel is hollering, you know what it means. You just know.

46. There’s a part of me that wants to say some luster has faded with this project, given how he didn’t quite follow it up as strongly nor as timely as he could have, that he was just a one-album wonder who could never top what he laid down. Personally, I think it’s way too early to make that assessment, but even if he was… man, what an album to deliver.

46. Hozier by Hozier (2014)

If you only know the bluesy, gothic immensity of ‘Take Me To Church’, I’d argue you’re doing yourself a disservice, because Hozier is a much more layered beast here. I could go on about how he has one of the most striking and potent voices in modern rock, or how his pile-up of genres spanning blues, soul, gospel, folk, goth rock and garage rock should not be as organic and rich as it is, but what I’ve always loved about Hozier is his writing. A guy this melodramatic and horny should not be able to stick the landing with as much drug-saturated, swaggering romanticism as he does, the raging chad of the renaissance faire or hipster speakeasy, where I’d argue ‘Take Me To Church’ might get his gravitas but not his wit or levity that fills the rest of the album - and what’s better is that the framing gives the moral ambiguity its tempered focus, a self-awareness that’s very welcome. Again, if you only know the one hit, you owe it to yourself to check out more Hozier - it’s a wild ride, let me tell you.

45. You know, going through this list, there’s not quite as much white, middle class sadboi indie rock as I thought there would be… you can give me at least one, right?

45. Trouble Will Find Me by The National (2013)

Yeah, controversial opinion time, this is The National’s best album of the 2010s - not High Violet, not I Am Easy To Find, certainly not Sleep Well Beast. And if we’re looking for the project that kind of nailed the reverb-saturated, ponderous indie rock of the era, that sinks into its thick, sinuous grooves and Matt Berninger’s baritone that is trying and failing to keep it all together, it’s this. What I like so much about this album is that while it broods and can get tangled in its own demons, it’s an album that is both adult and self-aware enough to paint much harsher pictures to ground that angst - there’s something middle-aged about a lot of The National’s music, and this album damn near centers that midlife crisis with the sort of dramatic missteps that are too believable. But the album isn’t paced like a wallow or dirge - the crescendos, the raw swell, the swings for the fences are here, it gives the drama both some weight and populism, and while it’s not the best project Berninger would ever make, there’s a heft to the maturity that is tasteful, but also emotionally rich. So naturally, what we should follow it with is…

44. Yeah, this is her best album, I’ve been saying it for years now, and if you want the gleaming example of everything she can deliver in spades, it’s this.

44. Warrior by Ke$ha (2012)

By all accounts, this album should be nowhere as great as it is - the recording process was reportedly absolute hell courtesy of the dickpiston executive producer, it sprays across a half-dozen genres with out of nowhere guest features, and the rollout was crippled by bad luck even before the bungling kicked in! But even despite that, Ke$ha pulls Warrior past the finish line on charisma and firepower alone - the splashy punk rock edges are all over this album even before she brings in Julian Casablancas and Iggy Pop, and the album serves a giant middle finger to everyone who wanted to pigeonhole her as the vapid, trashy queen of party girls. I should note here in a rare exception to my rules I’m including the deluxe edition on this list, because it contains three of her best genre-bending cuts with ‘Last Goodbye’, ‘Gold Trans Am’, and ‘Past Lives’, the last a glimpse of the psychedelic Flaming Lips collaboration of which we were all robbed… but that’s the thing: without horrible management, Warrior proves that she could have done all of it! Electro-pop, punk rock, psychedelic rock, country rock, arena rock, she’s such a dynamic presence and force of will that not only does it feel natural, it shows how she could have commanded those genres for years to come, with deceptively great writing to boot! Yeah, the majority of folks got on board with Rainbow, but with Warrior… overloaded with bangers, glitter, and heartfelt power, this should have ruled in the 2010s, and if you knew, it did.

43. I got on board with this artist with this album - spoilers, he’s going to show up a few more times on this list, but even when I was putting things together I kept finding myself surprised how much this held up. It’s one of those projects where you might overlook it and find yourself wondering ‘I must have been on something when I was listening to it, it can’t be that good, right’, and then you put it on and…

43. Dark Comedy by Open Mike Eagle (2014)

Open Mike Eagle might have a show now on Comedy Central, but you only had to go back a few years to this project for him laying down the seeds for it - and if anything it’s only aged masterfully. The glitchier, warped production may have felt discomforting for me back in 2014, but nowadays it’s a uncanny compliment that can’t help but draw attention to his phenomenal and underappreciated gift for melody and hooks. And yeah, the absurdity of some scenes are genuinely funny… until they become more than a little too uncomfortably real, and the sharp, human critique of the commodification of black art and black pain specifically gives this album a deceptive amount of teeth, especially as Open Mike Eagle’s humility makes sure the framing never casts him as more than the modern everyman struggling to find a medium to build connects and translate his truth. It’s a wonderfully subtle and layered project that even when you don’t revisit it often, it’s hard to forget, even if that means it slips below the radar too often… dark comedy indeed…

42. We go from a project that’s deceptively low-key to one that’s deceptively simple and in your face - and hell, one could argue it was just repeating the same damn formula as its predecessor, just with a flashier palette. Of course, there’s more going on here - and it’s one of the best goddamn synthpop albums of the decade.

42. Every Open Eye by CHVRCHES (2015)

The fact that this album didn’t make CHVRCHES mainstream stars drives me nuts to this day - this was an album chock full of huge, groove-driven waves of synth that could easily slide into the 80s analogues of the day, the hooks were damn near impossible to deny, Lauren Mayberry was a razor-sharp and command pop presence, and Martin Doherty remained the album’s secret weapon in adding just enough balanced context to a pretty cutting breakup album - seriously, ‘High Enough To Carry You Over’ is already underappreciated, and it’s brilliant in the context of the album. But Every Open Eye only improved on the foundation of their debut The Bones Of What You Believe by, in my opinion, adding a more feminine touch - letting softness and emotional vulnerability colour the messy arc of attempted reconciliation and then when she has to let it all go again for real, it provides an emotional richness that the sharper angles of previous projects wouldn’t have gathered. But hell, that’s the fine detail that often goes overlooked in how blazingly assertive the writing is - again, on a simpler level, when the hooks are just this good, you can’t deny what you’re getting! And yeah, it kind of drives me nuts that CHVRCHES seem to be playing the mainstream chase now instead of further perfecting this approach, but at least here, this was the gleaming rainbow sledgehammer we needed.

41. There are some albums that only seem to get better the older I get - maybe it’s because the layered emotional resonance feels more relatable, maybe it’s because the fine details and scenes become more familiar, or maybe it’s just me catching more of those wry, craggy, but real emotions smuggled between the lines. And thus to add to the canon of projects many times ignored…

41. Complicated Game by James McMurtry (2015)

This is the only album James McMurtry put out in the 2010s - you could make the argument it was the only one he needed to release, but I would have been happy for more - the warm, country/folk backdrop that picks up enough smolder to vary the sound, McMurtry’s imperfect but cutting and surprisingly expressive delivery, and the writing… yeah, many folks in the know might remember the protest song ‘We Can’t Make It Here’ from 2005 as his signature, but this album was tempering all of those old scenes and messy relationships with both the detail and insight that comes with getting older, while still exposing just enough nerves that time will scrub raw. Also, he wrote my favourite song of 2015 in ‘Long Island Sound’, which might be one of the most complicated and resonant cuts ever written about growing older and understanding where you’ve had to go - but again, it lives up to the title in finding both the humour, pain, and heart in all of it. I keep hearing rumours he’s got another album coming at some point… man, that’d be nice right about now.

40. This is an album I think went overlooked by too many people - maybe under the belief it was a side project or a collaboration that didn’t deserve more attention, or maybe just because it was esoteric and off-kilter and there was more immediate hip-hop in 2016… Yeah, let’s correct some assumptions.

40. Hella Personal Film Festival by Open Mike Eagle & Paul White (2016)

Open Mike Eagle creates a day in a world of his own, distressingly similar to ours in many ways and he’ll be more than happy to point out all the spots where we’ve ignored the uncomfortable details, all coaxed through an organic, sample rich backdrop from Paul White that is as melodic as it is eclectic. No jokes, of all of Open Mike Eagle’s projects this is by far his most accessible, easiest to revisit and probably his most insanely catchy and quotable, an album that wants to prise open the root of every microaggression to find the nuggets of small humanity within, which gives this project a layered and flawed humanity that is intensely likable and relatable for everyone. Funny, heartfelt, deeply insightful, it might not be his best, but it’s the best point to jump on-board if you’re curious.

39. Of course, if we’re going to talk about high concept, ‘a-day-in-the-life’ rap music that is both funny, heartbreaking, and intensely relatable…

39. good kid, m.A.A.d city by Kendrick Lamar (2012)

No jokes here: it took me a surprisingly long time to come around on good kid, m.A.A.d city. It’s not my favourite Kendrick album by a significant margin - more on that in a bit - it’s front-loaded, the narrative kind of fragments in the final third, the tonal whiplash can get distracting, and I’ve never really loved the singles the same way so many people did when they first got introduced to Kendrick. But I did come around, and this album’s expansive, textured, deeply human exploration of human expectations and transgression in the face of an uncaring, brutal world is a tableau to behold. This is an album that fully blew open the doors of what sort of storyteller and MC Kendrick could be in how he would bend and twist his delivery to fit dark, swampy west coast grooves that felt like a masterclass in creating atmosphere… well, at least until the kid stepped into a much wider story, but we’ll get to that.

38. Full disclosure, this album would likely be in my top twenty or higher if it had stuck the landing. It ends on an utterly baffling sour note that doesn’t match with anything sonically or thematically. But even with that, it’s damn near the best thing Poets of the Fall ever made.

38. Temple Of Thought by Poets of the Fall (2012)

To me this is the apotheosis of what Poets of the Fall could deliver coming out of alternative metal. The guitar work was huge and pristine, the grooves provided a coursing undercurrent, the drums hit with texture and impact, Marko Saaresto’s vocals were at their most expressive, the arranged elements only intensified the swell, and even the delicate acoustic ballads were beautifully produced. Outside of the ending, there’s not a miss here in terms of that epic power while still remaining a fascinatingly emotive group, the crystallization of the past decade of projects. Honestly, it almost feels like a greatest hits album where the hook of damn near every song is soaring and stirring… and again, if it wasn’t for Revolution Roulette-esque cut at the end, this would be held in even higher esteem - and for damn good reason.

37. One of the fascinating trends I observed in the 2010s was the rise of poptimist criticism, that gave a genre previously shunned the sort of deserving scrutiny and acclaim a chance for a different spotlight. I’ve got mixed opinions on the overall execution and result of that movement - it involves a larger conversation about stan culture and the music industry and social media and capitalism, it’s complicated - but another trend worth noting is the shift of certain acts in rock and metal towards the realization… ‘wait, we can do this too, so why not give it a chance’. And while I knew he was capable, I didn’t expect he’d strike this much gold.

37. To The Bone by Steven Wilson (2017)

Yes, the genius multi-instrumentalist and producer behind Porcupine Tree and a slew of fanatically received progressive rock albums in the 2010s, he decides to go pop and makes his best album this decade. What I love about this album - beyond the insanely good production and challenging writing and themes that show Wilson willing to confront his own neuroses and demons with the most pushback on record he’s ever seen - is its compositional approach. Because yes, there are going to be progressive, amazingly intricate breakdowns, but a pop focus drives Wilson to write hooks and not only are they distinctive, they’re strikingly catchy, showing a populism that’s evaded him for decades! It’s an album so damn thrilling for the gateways it opens for him as an artist that you almost forget how intense and incisive it can be! For Steven Wilson, pop became a revelation that allowed him to go deeper - and the ride was something else entirely.

36. To this day, I think this record got a bad rap from people who should know better misinterpreting it, to the point where I had to spend more time than I wanted correcting the record when I reviewed the album. Let’s finally put that to bed, shall we?

36. Full Circle Nightmare by Kyle Craft (2018)

Kyle Craft is one of the best new talents of the 2010s, certainly in his brand of rock, and it’s not particularly close. Not only does he step onto the scene with a glam rock holler that feels pulled from a different time, his sophomore album added more riotous and wild arranged instrumentation that reflected the relationships in which he was more yanked along for the ride than having any real impetus or power to change. The album feels like a garish, hyper-stylized whirlwind and while there’s absolutely a hard-loving toxic side that can colour some moments, Craft also knows how to knuckle it back when it becomes clear he’s not really the lead character in these stories, even if he desperately wants to be. It’s a project that’s both smarter and more progressive in its mingling of influences and exploration of masculinity than many gave it credit, simply latching onto the writing and glam style and assuming he was a lecherous creep, where even if that was true there was way more going on, often placed directly in the exquisitely paced and impeccably balanced writing. Full spoilers, you’ll be seeing him again on this list because this wasn’t quite his best effort in the 2010s, but it’s still a tour de force regardless.

35. I remember first covering this album before I even had a YouTube channel, when I was just blogging and I found this album from a little known country act and she completely blew my mind - and now seven years later she’s won a lot of Grammys and has sketched out quite the arc for projects that trend towards softer, mistier material. Not where I would have expected, given how her foundation here eclipses them all, but what can you do?

35. Same Trailer, Different Park by Kacey Musgraves (2013)

What Musgraves has always been excellent with is balance: the sweetness of her delivery and some of her folksy metaphors rooted in classic country… until they reveal a much more stark and challenging reality underneath, and this was the project that hammered it home. A little less pretty for the effort, but she made up for it with writing that went darker and pulled fewer punches, where the sadness and anger was tempered by a quick wit, a stunning eye for revealing detail, and a willingness to shove mainstream country kicking and screaming towards modernity. Keep in mind this dropped just before the apex of bro-country, where she would yank back the curtain on the small towns but also keep a fragment of hope. Couple it with the world-weary complexity of her kiss off songs in trying to find some vestige of peace, I’m not at all surprised this caught fire - she deserves to be a superstar beyond those in the know, and I’ve been following that arrow ever since this took flight.

34. And you know, while we’re on the topic of thoughtful, low-key, brilliantly written, wonderfully performed projects debuted by women who have all the potential in the world to speak against power structures…

34. Room 25 by Noname (2018)

There’s a part of me that knows with her activism in the past few years that there is a real possibility we won’t get another Noname album - which saddens me, because her writing is emotive and brilliant and her blend of groovy, jazz-inflected instrumentals is so warm and tasteful, and she effortlessly walks the line between subtle and sensual charisma and a firebrand lurking beneath so many lines, tempered with real human complexity. Telefone might have set the scene, but Room 25 feels like the first of many awakenings - self-possessed but populist and still searching for ways to keep you guessing. And even then, she’s not going to share it all - to paraphrase my old review, even the Black everywoman she plays has to keep a little something to herself. True, warm, yearning brilliance, and while her cause will likely take her elsewhere, I’d love to hear more along the way.

33. I think we’re going to stick in debuts a bit longer - although if we’re talking about an inversion of what Noname delivered in supple, brilliant hope, this is just as incisive and gripping, but considerably darker and rougher, where the intensity commands the room like a troubadour from another time daring you to hear his bloody tale…

33. Between The Country by Ian Noe (2019)

So this album is bleak as all hell in pulling together a grimy, frequently blood-stained picture of the American experience that also pulls precisely zero punches, to the point where you’d think there wouldn’t be anything fanciful to be found. And yet amidst the frequent disasters and down spiral of many scenes off this album, Ian Noe somehow finds the shaky ray of hope - two of his love songs are coaxed through a train flying off a bridge and an outlaw finally getting caught and gunned down, and they still manage to soar! It adds to the smoky, grisly texture of the album across the board, all enhanced by how Dave Cobb’s production thickens that detail and highlights how the savagery of the past is not that far removed from today - but that spirit persists regardless. Such a potent debut… we can only wonder what snarled trails await him next.

32. I can argue this is the most underrated album of the 2010s. It got some attention but a lot more raised eyebrows, dismissive scoffs, and general disinterest. And that’s not surprising: it’s a side project pairing a potent but not overpowering frontman with a lesser-known indie veteran, and the sound was going to be very different, and the points of thematic reference just seemed weird, and yet…

32. Return To The Moon by EL VY (2015)

There’s a part of me that is convinced this is the best thing Matt Berninger has ever done - yes, I’m including all The National albums in that, including Boxer. Because if you spend your career making tasteful, well-respected indie rock, EL VY was the giant middle finger in the face of that in deconstructing and tearing down both that act and the predominantly middle class white male fanbase that preened all over it. This is an album where the well-regarded frontman is revealed to be a total, unbearable hipster asshole… and not only is that the point, but it’ll lead to some of the most groove-driven, infectious takedowns, full of cutting in-jokes, off-the-wall references - including an extended parallel drawn to the classic Minutemen album Double Nickels On The Dime - and a woman who is thoroughly sick of your shit and isn’t giving you the happy ending. I didn’t know how Berninger could go back to making National albums after such a brutal deconstruction of his own archetype and audience… and yet even though he did, this collaboration with Brent Knopf is inspired in every way. The definition of an album that seems like critic bait until it undresses said critic in front of everyone… which meant that it’s the definition of a cult album. And y’all need to hear it - it’s fucking incredible.

31. This is the sort of album that some viewed as a backslide - that he was revisiting this subject matter with such naked clarity felt like a relapse, he had put all of this behind him, he was supposed to go forth and tell beautiful new stories to carry us on our merry ways… but yeah, Jason Isbell had another thing coming.

31. The Nashville Sound by Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit (2017)

When I first covered this album, I assumed it had the power to spark change with country, certainly the indie scene - probably too optimistic, as it instead split Isbell’s fanbase along very political lines, because what he realized is that while it’s always good to be looking forward and moving on, sometimes you can quiet a demon but you can’t kill it. And thus The Nashville Sound, produced by Dave Cobb but this time with his full backing band, has Isbell roaring back at the abyss, not just examining his own culpability in bad systems left unchecked, but also the deeper roots of his anxiety and fears that he might have papered over but hasn’t truly escaped. And thus the album is rougher and more jagged, setting his jaw against battles both big and small, and while it’s not all victories - ‘Chaos And Clothes’ means a certain name will cast a shadow over the moral complexities of this album - it also features ‘If We Were Vampires’, which might be one of the best slow-burn gothic love songs of the decade. The high road may not have brought us all home just yet… but goddamn it, the sound will ride with us until it does.

30. I can’t imagine how difficult this album might have been to make - not just in the climate of the times but also in the striking pictures it tried to paint… but if we’re talking about where Open Mike Eagle delivered a third masterstroke, it was here.

30. Brick Body Kids Still Daydream by Open Mike Eagle (2017)

When it comes to certain political albums, I honestly wish they could age a little worse, that the unceasing dread and exhausting trauma of gentrification, having the willpower to create your own hero story in your home because society won’t care to write one for you, only to see it bulldozed away in your horrified wake, that the unease and fear would become a little less familiar. But that’s the quiet, subtle power of this album - only by the end does it all come crashing down in one fell swoop, for the majority of the album it lurks in the background and he just has to struggle with the overstimulated nightmare that is… well, now. But again, it’s not all just trauma - Open Mike Eagle is at his height as a creative storyteller not just for capturing the constant quiet ache but the deflective notes of hope that provide at least a little relief. Coupled with stunningly detailed experimental grooves with great texture and an emotive performance with a lot of subtle power, it’s Open Mike Eagle’s best work to date, and a signpost that more genius aplenty is yet to come from this giant.

29. I remember being so angry watching the Grammys nearly ten years ago when this got the top prize - I mean, come on, beating out Eminem’s glorious comeback that year, for a white boy in his early twenties who was barely starting to expand his horizons, this indie act couldn’t be that special, right?

29. The Suburbs by Arcade Fire (2010)

Yeah, that was a true story. A little embarrassing, given how badly Recovery has aged in Em’s catalog, but let’s talk about the tour de force Arcade Fire delivered, the sort of glorious, pulse-pounding indie rock that dared to aim high without damnation or praise of the titular neighbourhoods so much as trying to find that vaguely formed aspirational locus. It’s an album searching for purpose and high romance and yet can’t figure out what the hell that would even look like, but is going to try for… something, anyway. And what I love is that a band that tries so very hard to be high minded and abstract in their ideas like Arcade Fire are - and often for the worse - that when they could focus their compositions they found a lean, nervy energy that mirrors both youth and those chasing it, where the lack of direction is the point all along - and let’s just be real, ‘Sprawl II’ is the best song the band has ever written and another titan of epic indie rock. In finding populism, Arcade Fire found their soul - they can go back to it any time, just saying…

28. But while we’re in the vicinity of ridiculous bombast from acts that nobody saw coming…

28. A Boat On The Sea by Moron Police

It’s short, it’s wildly colourful, to some it’s probably difficult to take all that seriously… and yet Moron Police blew past all of them with a progressive rock album that eons better than it has any right to be. Where their comedy was forced before, it now becomes the spice to fantastic melodies, excellently balanced arrangements, and hooks that will just soar even before you get to the razor sharp anti-war satire. The funny thing is that this album is so damn anthemic that if they wanted to make pro-war power metal they’d probably be among the best of that genre, but Moron Police seem to have better instincts, and good thing too! You can also tell they’re both a little thrilled and astounded the new album has gone down so well… and that only makes me encouraged for whatever might be waiting. This is the grand, great promise of the best progressive music - utterly in its own lane, smart and willing to take you along for the ride, and overflowing with fun - can’t wait for wherever they wash ashore next.

27. The music critic Ian Cohen mused on Twitter a few weeks back what it would be like if certain acts in a pop punk or emo space got the same lyrical attention as your average singer-songwriter album, like from Bill Callahan. And then I looked at this band that he referenced and where they are placed on my list, and I looked back at that tweet, and I wondered, ‘I mean, you weren’t doing that already? Why not?’

27. Suburbia I’ve Given You All And Now Am Nothing by The Wonder Years (2011)

I mean, I get where he’s coming from - pop punk acts are often pigeonholed for writing about the same stuff over and over again, and that can be true for a lot of bands in the genre. But then you have the upper tier, with acts like The Wonder Years, and contrary to the majority of critical opinions, I’d argue this is their best album, not The Greatest Generation. For one, it feels more grounded in what it is, parsing through a landscape both intimately familiar and in decay in both mind, heart, and location. Like The Suburbs it doesn’t come to damn or praise, but that’s less out of complicated nostalgia so much as I’m not sure The Wonder Years could hit either raw nerve to do so - it’s too formative, and too many folks are still there. It also feels way more grounded in the reality of modern suburbs - the NIMBY attitudes, the messy architecture of religion, the omnipresent overcast boredom, but also the cycle of inspiration and recurrence they can somehow inspire. Also along with great themes we get The Wonder Years’ best hooks and production pretty much of their entire careers - The Greatest Generation always felt a little monochromatic for its ambitions - and setting the highest echelon of what pop punk can be as a genre, while still kicking a lot of ass. They gave us a lot, folks, and they sure as hell aren’t nothing in return.

26. I remember about two and a half years ago when I did a video with Anthony Fantano about how to get into modern country, and I think even he was shocked I included this album on the list. And as much as his fans don’t tend to be fond of me, this is certainly a choice to put on any list… so time to make the case.

26. Uncaged by the Zac Brown Band (2012)

I’ve said this a couple of times now, but with the Zac Brown Band it’s truer than ever, especially given their steep drop-off in quality: this album has no business being this incredible. Yeah, the band could always play with a ton of organic presence and they’d have their island side and the harmonies would be rich and tremendously inviting, but Uncaged is where Zac Brown and crew took that working formula and decided to prod in more directions. The hooks got better, the writing got sharper, the experiments got a little rougher and sharper - but before the band could ever spiral out of control they’d reel things back hard with a ass-kicking jam that was everything one could hope for. Hell, they did a smoky soul jam with Trombone Shorty and it wound up better than I think any other attempt at that sound or topic in mainstream country since! But the Zac Brown Band wouldn’t have gotten this high on my list if it wasn’t for the fact that the content took a step up - the writing was more nuanced and intelligent, and while the band has always been heartfelt in their sentiments, we get the final third that feels about as emotionally poignant as the band has ever been. And at the end of the day, I can go on about ‘important’ releases or I can highlight a rich, feel-good experience that can persist outside pretensions of import. Shame they couldn’t follow it up, but at least here, this was special.

Okay, we’ve gotten through three quarters of this list… take a breather, this has been a long ride, but we’re down to the very best, and you’ll want to be locked in for it. If you need a break, there’s no shame in stepping away for a second and then come back to finish it all off.

Ready? Okay then…

25. Okay, there are two albums on or adjacent to this list that the more I heard them, for as much as I loved them it was more because they were so evocative in their soundscape that I thought they might be better off as stage musicals than a record. And that’s not a dig, by the way - I like musicals, I appreciate projects that have that sort of swell and ambition. The first was just an Honourable Mention with Dr. Dre’s Compton project - which I still hold is widely misunderstood and underappreciated - but this is the second.

25. The Theory Of Everything by Ayreon (2013)

It’s like Arjen Lucassen built the album just for me: a progressive metal epic based upon interpolations of A Beautiful Mind, dealing with high concept physics, experimental drugs, the rivalry of geniuses, a frustration with parental figures, the vast unknowable cosmos of knowledge, all backed by members of Nightwish, Kamelot, Dream Theater, Yes, Lacuna Coil, and more. That’s grandiose and high concept, and with a eye for the personal detail that recalls Arjen’s uncanny knack for human framing that made The Human Equation a prog metal classic. Even outside of the Ayreon narrative, this might stack up among his best for such a command of atmosphere and compositional diversity - even if I’d describe the best way to hear it is as four distinctive 20+ minute songs, the performances and drama are gripping enough to hold their own. As of this year, there’s a new album in the Ayreon project that at time of recording I have not heard - I can only dream it’ll kick this much ass, because in setting the bar for progressive metal, this project did it again.

24. There are three albums from this artist on this list… and I’m kind of stunned at the end of the day, despite what I can imagine is the broad disagreement from everyone, this wound up as my favourite.

24. Something More Than Free by Jason Isbell

In a way I kind of wish I talked about this before discussing The Nashville Sound, because an underlying reason that so many people questioned the recurrence of old demons is because Something More Than Free literally slammed the door on them in its penultimate track! Southeastern may have been sifting through the debris to start putting things back together, this was the album where he started trying to move on - and while those old ghosts certainly popped up to haunt him, there was a sense of reassured safety that came in his observational songwriting that felt like a new beginning - and for a Dave Cobb arrangement, the subtle progressive rock touches creeping into the most expansive moments gave this album such a sense of lived-in continuity. And while my favourite songs are well-established - ‘24 Frames’, ‘Children Of Children’, ‘The Life You Chose’ - I also want to mention that ‘Speed Trap Town’ features the most powerful observation made about sports in music since ‘All Kinds Of Time’ by Fountains Of Wayne, and that might have been what put this over the top for this former athlete. As of this point, it’s Jason Isbell’s best album - but I know him, it’s only a matter of time before he surpasses it.

23. Full disclosure: in the albums nearing the top of the list, there will be more personal notes and anecdotes - it’s my list, it’s important to provide context to why a project works, especially when it’s left-field, and as much as I think the greatness might be immediately apparent, I can’t assume that, especially for some entries ahead. With that being said, I don’t think there’s an album that ruled my 2017 more, and I literally cannot think of anything else like it.

23. Goths by the Mountain Goats (2017)

If this album had just been pure goth rock or darkwave in the vein of ‘Rain In Soho’, I probably still would have loved it, but that’s not John Darnielle’s aim with this: instead… he made a soft rock / smooth jazz exploration not just of goth and industrial music, but of the people who lived the scene, both coming in and going out. And again, this shouldn’t work - you’d think there’d have to be more trappings and texture but Darnielle knows that capturing the normalcy outside the club is what builds the sense of the outcast, amplifies the frustrated alienation in a subculture that was all about it, and framed with humanity that can both critique and sympathize with the loners seeking whatever fragile, nerdy connection they can find. And I’ll admit at many points it felt almost uncanny how well it framed my experience - not quite fully engulfed in the scene, but enough of it translated that the emotionality and experiences felt all too real and familiar. It’s also a music nerd’s dream of an album, stuffed to the gills with obscure references, and ‘Rain In Soho’ might be one of the best singles of the decade in any genre. This is a haunted genius that I can ascribe to - now hit the saxophone and play it out!

22. There’s a part of me that loves the provocation of this album even before I loved the project. A country supergroup of unlikely voices, not just making a layered and complicated feminist statement but also one that claimed its place regardless of any gatekeepers? Yeah, you’ve got my attention here.

22. The HIghwomen by The Highwomen

Look, at some point for me it feels like you’re stacking the deck: Maren Morris finally living up to her potential, teaming up with veterans like Brandi Carlile and Amanda Shires who of course is going to play fiddle, and underground darlings like Natalie Hemby, produced by Dave Cobb and with writing credits from Miranda Lambert and Lori McKenna and a guest appearance from Sheryl Crow and you already have my money! But the fact that this album aimed to do so much more is what makes it special: it’s not a project that rests on the pedigree of upending history but telling women’s stories from messy and complicated angles, young and old, domestic and wild, believer or pagan, straight or lesbian. The power of this project is showing the imperfect union of all their voices, and recognizing how they all have a place to claim and transcend, which to me implies if they wanted to keep this as a brand and bring on more names to flesh out those stories, I’d be thrilled to hear it. Emily Scott Robinson, Michaela Anne, Caitlyn Smith, you owe a big one toi Mickey Guyton, bring back Yola, there’s so much unbounded potential in what this creates - and in the meantime, the album is fantastic - a challenging experience that’s worth giving multiple chances.

21. So I just mentioned this artist a minute ago - also mentioned her a while back, someone who was already involved behind the scenes but has a storied career that we’re going to be talking about a few more times on this list - mostly because I’ve seen her overlooked entirely too many times by folks who should know better. And thus, for one of the best songwriters of the decade…

21. The Bird & The Rifle by Lori McKenna (2016)

Yep, it’s another Dave Cobb production credit, but he’s not as important as the voice at the core of this album. This is Lori McKenna’s midlife crisis album, where the emotionality is subtle but unmistakably charged and you just know everything is on the cusp of falling apart, coaxed by memories of better times and a desperate plea that it might get better, but with framing too honest to pull punches on the matter. It’s not an album that feels as maternal as her last two releases, but it’s one that’s had to consider the stakes of that maternity, and the painful choices that have had to be made as a result. And age and time are factors - it helps that she’s older sketching out these stories, not just for the nuance and wisdom that colour every choice but also because there’s no good or bad people in these scenes, even the hapless guys who might be right for a moment but wrong every other time. And when Cobb gives her the precise delicate touch and quiet beauty of these instrumentals… well, not quite her best, but man it gets close.

20. I know a lot of people for which this is at least in their top ten, if not their favourite album of the 2010s. For me… look, it wasn’t even my top project that year, so understand if it’s not at that echelon for me - but when I hear a project that could well be a magnum opus for any other artist and yet may well only be the highlight of the first act of his career… we’ve got something magnificent indeed.

20. To Pimp A Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar (2015)

There’s a certain inadequacy to addressing this album in this way - there have been books written about To Pimp A Butterfly that I’m sure will capture more intricacy and layers than I can in a short snippet - even if I think my review holds up five years later, every listen reveals more. The charged afrocentrism of jazz rap blended with soul, funk, R&B, spoken word, touches of dancehall, all of it feels nothing short of Biblical where Kendrick has ascended to a height, but now must grapple with every temptation that comes forth for a Black man in America to succumb, all the while wracked with guilt for not being a better person with the power he’s amassed. It deals with the complicated mess of legacy, self-image, every crack in America’s foundation and every vile capitalistic demon it’s cultivated, and Kendrick has to transverse that hell… only for an icon he’s worshipped to leave him behind with more questions. And while many have gotten behind ‘Alright’ or ‘King Kunta’ as the single that should have ruled so much more of 2015, but I still will argue ‘The Blacker The Berry’ is the militant rage that isn’t just one of the best songs of the decade, but also Kendrick at his best. Yes, DAMN. is a step back, and I don’t know how much more will be coming after this rap rock experiment he’s currently cooking up, but this album was an event damn near unparalleled - and again, all the more frighteningly relevant every passing year.

19. There’s no way I can talk about this album without acknowledging where I was when I first heard it. I had started a new job, I was coming off of a broken elbow, I was sick and utterly exhausted from an overextended year, I had nearly hit rock bottom and I was pretty close to just shutting everything down. 2018 had a few moments like that for me - not as much the next year but that’s because the trauma there carried in different ways - but if there was an album that may not have nudged me back but provided a sympathetic echo, it was this.

19. Dying Star by Ruston Kelly (2018)

I don’t know if ‘emo country’ is a thing, but if it’s not, Ruston Kelly is trailblazing it - not just in his side projects where he covers emo songs but on a debut that hit me like a ton of bricks, not just for its sonic experimentation where he stacked the album with hard-won anthemic cuts, but writing that knows precisely where to cut weary lines to the bone. There’s splashes of electronic elements but they compliment a disordered mind trying to put something back together… and the startling thing is that across the arc of the album, he does find new love and happiness, but has to convince himself he’s worthy of it. That’s why Dying Star has such lasting impact - it’s a project that hits the low points and shows every opportunity to keep blacking out and faceplanting, and every second guess you’ll make in the throes of depression and substance abuse… but enough ragged breaths taken to ask forgiveness and try to be better. And with Shape & Destroy this year, Ruston Kelly proves he’s got the goods to be a powerhouse for years to come - but at one specific moment for me, this was special beyond words; can’t take that away.

18. The funny thing here is that for the longest time, I didn’t think this was her best. Maybe it was a part of me that didn’t want to be - her debut was such a towering fusion of genres and styles and had so much narrative focus that it had to be her best this decade, not the more lightweight effort targeting pop crossover, right?

18. Dirty Computer by Janelle Monae (2018)

Janelle Monae creates worlds I want to live in, and this was her best world created to date. Her early theatricality has been tempered into something more organic and personal, and even if her genius pedigree allows her to pull on so many folks to craft her sonic landscapes, this is an album sculpted by a vision that feels impeccably hers. It’s the next update to her Afrofuturism - feminist, queer, coaxed through sandy, luscious textures to cultivate its opulence, but not forgetting a scrappier core that lends the touches of rock all the more bite. It’s a view of what America could be shaped to encompass, by a singular architect who is a better singer and rapper and multi-instrumentalist than many of her peers - and it’s also her most loose, genuinely fun, and ridiculously catchy album to date. She’s always been ahead of her time, folks - Prince would have been proud.

17. So I’ve said a number of times that there are albums I wish felt less relevant this year. This is one that somehow only ramped up in intensity, and thank god the bangers still connected with all of the nervous rage along the way, because throughout this summer, I needed this.

17. Great Hits by SHREDDERS (2019)

This is about the purest distillation of what bruising, antifascist music can be in the past few years: all killer, no filler, seven cutthroat bangers where the apocalypse or authoritarianism is inevitable, but the plan is to survive and keep fighting. The chemistry that Sims and P.O.S. have is the sort of rap rock ricochet that might have been implied on their 2017 album but is razor focused here, with production stripped back to jagged percussion, driving bass, and a fractured clatter of melody. And the content doesn’t shy away from goading provocation, not just in the breathing moments to live like this, but also resist with a gloved fist - it has to stay on the offense, because the cost of letting down one’s guard is far worse. I am grateful that it seems like Sims is the larger architect of this - for reasons I’ve already mentioned about P.O.S., who does get outshone here again - but along the way, they made what might be one of the most dangerous and ‘punk’ albums of the 2010s, and almost the best team-up of a duo of veteran heavy hitters. We’ll get to the other one in a bit.

16. I’ve mentioned a few times that I’ve found projects that have made this list by accident - and yet this might be the goddamn poster child, found on Pitchfork by accident in a review that didn’t even get ‘Best New Music’, and yet revealed one of the best new songwriters of this decade. Let’s talk about him one more time.

16. Dolls Of Highland by Kyle Craft (2016)

Ultimately Dolls Of Highland rises above Full Circle Nightmare on production and individual songs - it’s a grimier, rougher listen the belies the eclectic instrumental choices, and how most of it Kyle Craft recorded in his laundry room, but that texture adds so much to his guttural howls in painting his tattered gothic scenes, just as soaked in a genre mishmash of retro glam but with a devilish eye for progressive southern charm. Again, such an utterly unique listen, and when you factor in such well-paced and structured poetry with a eye for incisive detail, and hooks stacked up for days - seriously, the run from ‘Balmorrhea’ to ‘Gloom Girl’ is something to behold - Kyle Craft proved the world could be his stage with this debut, and at his age with as much talent as he has, the future is bright indeed.

15. So there are albums on this list that have felt more relevant with every passing year, and some of that is just a matter of circumstance - times change or get better or worse and certain projects might pick up additional resonance. I can’t help but feel that this one was so far ahead of the curve that folks are only now starting to catch up, but its echo will persist regardless.

15. All Hands by Doomtree (2015)

The collective hunkered down in a remote cabin in the middle of nowhere and made their most frigid, inhospitable album to date - and in my opinion, their best. The production, for one, isn’t just huge and alien and menacing but also can capture that careening, wild desperation the permeates every bar, apocalyptic art that persists in any underground willing to take it, twisted in its braggadocious edge that lets them stack up hooks for days but also conscious of when overstressed or corrupt systems collapse - either by their own hands or the breakdown of society - a group has to band together to sift through what’s left of the rubble. It’s a harrowing listen - the group need each other to survive and that connection will be tested viciously, and their idiosyncrasies splash to the forefront, where voices might seem to run together until you pick up the distinctive bite and flip that sets them apart… well, except for Dessa, but we’ll get to her soon. In the meantime, even if Doomtree’s future is suspect going forward, this is where the sum can overcome the sins of one.

14. Funnily enough, this next project does focus on sin - not in real life, as far I’ve known, but the omnipresence of it, where the focus is on how hard it is to be a good person, and how wearisome that long, lonely path can be, especially in the aftermath of a breakup that probably was long in coming. Thankfully, we have one of the best writers in country to sketch that balance.

14. Daylight & Dark by Jason Eady (2014)

Okay, quick mention that like with Temple Of Thought, this is another album that i don’t think ends particularly well - kind of a sour note that doesn’t quite match the tone, a problem but not a deal breaker. But I only bring that up because damn near front to back, Jason Eady wrote a post-breakup album that might just be his best - spare, with just enough acoustic texture to accentuate the loneliness, not an album that needs to suffocate in brooding but one that picks up the weary maturity of adults making bad decisions because they haven’t quite processed pain they should have, with framing that only judges as much as he judges himself. I still hold the title track as the best ‘walk of shame’ song likely ever written, by far the best version of Chris Stapleton’s ‘Whiskey & You’, and the fact that damn near three quarters of the album could be country staples in any other circumstance! But that’s the gravitas of this album: there’s a purity in the country format and songwriting that isn’t backwards looking - coming from tradition but not anchored to it, you could have found this album in any era and it would be just as devastating regardless. I was hesitant to say it six years ago, but I’ll say it now: this is Jason Eady’s best album… until he tops it, and he’s one who could pull that off. We’ll have to see.

13. Let’s inject a bit more levity into this - there’s been some heavy projects here - let’s talk about the absurd, the ridiculous, the love-struck, the high romanticism, and can’t you tell I’m just listing synonyms here?!

13. I Love You Honeybear by Father John Misty (2015)

I’m still a bit annoyed he didn’t play more of this album when I saw him live in 2016, but that’s a very different conversation. So, remember when I referenced EL VY a while back in taking the piss out of white indie rock dudes? Most of Josh Tillman’s schtick is doing something very similar, where you can’t quite tell whether he’s entirely being ironic or sincere, especially as he leans into the warmer tones of 70s AM singer-songwriters with that fantastic voice of his. But that’s the genius of this album: yeah, the love story of this album is absurd, mostly toxic, showing a partner who is just as much of a bullshitting phony as Tillman is, and there’s a wild performativity in their romance that’s clearly taking the piss. It’s like a great episode of You’re The Worst, where both partners seem to be revel in being shameless dicks to everyone and a society they keep trying to castigate… but I’ll repeat something I’ve said many times, what folks often say ironically is something they might truly believe unironically, and as the album proceeds the intimacy cultivated in this love story begins to coalesce into something more, and the rituals of romance and family down the pipeline begin to hold a value to them they didn’t believe was possible - hell, maybe love is just an economy based on mutual scarcity, but what’s that got to do with you and me. And when you factor in that flicker of reality that grounds it all even despite the absurdly florid writing… yeah, it’s a hipster love story, but it’s a goddamn great one. Pure Comedy might have been the project where Tillman was trying to make the grand statement of purpose - or at least deconstruct one in glorious fashion - but this is the masterpiece he stumbled into by accident, and it’s all the better for it.

12. I remember the first time I heard this album - it was frigid and cold and I think was running errands trying to go through her back catalog to cover the newest release in 2013… and I realized I could not focus on anything I was doing, because the talent and writing had literally stolen all of my attention away.

12. A Badly Broken Code by Dessa (2010)

Dessa’s debut album is so self-assured, so literate in its reference points, so undeniably focused in its precocious blend of braggadocious swagger and the messy reality of being a woman in an underground scene that doesn’t know what to do with them, let alone value them! Honestly, it kind of blows my mind to consider it as a solo debut, because Dessa is operating on a level of wordplay and delivery that blows past so many just starting, especially with the confidence to step into jazzier slices of R&B to coax out her hooks amidst a production palette that reflects that tension between her crew’s bruising intensity and a more elegant, very feminine touch. It’s another point of tension that Dessa’s self-awareness means it does surface, but she’s looking to untangle the very human psychology wrapped around all of it, gender roles included and be damned. And yet if you think it’s all just coffee house wordplay, she also has hooks, and legit smolder in her delivery, and enough heartfelt moments to both entice and challenge listeners - there’s that much charisma on display! This was the album that convinced me I had to hear more from Doomtree… and as an entry point, it’s so damn rewarding.

11. Of course, the power of A Badly Broken Code is that it contains multitudes, a mature but tempestuous album where a lot of the storm was buried to survive… so what would happen if the songwriter stopped burying that storm, chose to unleash hell instead?

11. Hell-On by Neko Case (2018)

I struggle to say whether this is Neko Case’s best album. It’s up there, don’t get me wrong… but she also has Blacklisted and Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, which are 2000s classics in my books. Many would argue her 2013 album The Worse Things Get etc. is the more accessible listen, but it’s always felt a little tepid and hemmed in for me, where Hell-On… is not. I made comparisons to Fiona Apple’s Fetch The Bolt Cutters when I reviewed it, but Hell-On hasn’t so much escaped the room as it just destroys a country side in its wake - the writing is just as literate and emotionally charged, but the hooks are on a different level of gripping, even as the music around her gets more jagged and unstable and off-kilter. But it’s not a project that loses track of its humanity, a lot of old, tenuous connection that have shaped and tarnished her, but it’s the reconciliation with those moments and a progression forward that gives the framing such balance - not so much a power fantasy but power realized and released - hey, we love you better when you’re wild, suits you better if we say so. This is an album that stirs the spirit with the same divine feminine you’d get from a Kate Bush album in her peak - and if that’s not the highest praise, I don’t know what is.

10. Well, it’s about time we get to this guy - given how much I’m a fan, I’m think some folks might be surprised it took this long, but he’s a figure in his own way that’s just as primal as Neko Case, just where her focus contains the storm, his contains the negative space around it all.

10. Push The Sky Away by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (2013)

This album is breathtaking - not just in the fact that Nick Cave stripped away and deconstructed so much of the wild rock of the previous decade for uneasy grooves, nervous touches of strings, and ominous guitar work, but how his presence takes shape. Never has his brand of ‘apocalypse prophet’ held so much weight, but the uncanny power of Push The Sky Away isn’t just the abstract weight of his words, but how they’re delivered, a question of their impact, and everything left unsaid. There is a surrealist but very human tension in the scenes Cave builds that comes in an unknowable emptiness - when you finish an idea or let a person fall out of your life, where does all that of missed potential go, especially as the album’s centerpiece ‘Higgs Boson Blues’ shows the trauma that can be unleashed with the loss of faith in the face of information that could well be true. But it’s also why I don’t think the ‘apocalypse prophet’ branding is true for Cave here, because he doesn’t shy away from getting meta and showing how these very human fears and anxieties impact him too - his baritone might be a stabilizing force until it’s revealed how unstable it really is. But there’s something in all of us that strives to keep pushing, not succumb to the unknown emptiness, and paradoxically that struggle brings a note of peace. Now with an artist like Nick Cave… I cannot in good faith say this is his best album nor the easiest jump on point, especially this decade… but we’ll get to that in good time.

9. You ever stumble across an album, almost by accident, and just know from the first few listens that not only is there a wealth of shining potential, but the artist has the poise and eye for detail to deliver upon it all, and yet so very few people know what she can deliver? Yeah, let’s fix some of that, shall we?

9. Travelling Mercies by Emily Scott Robinson (2019)

Look, it was just last year where I spoke a lot of high praise for Emily Scott Robinson, and I meant every word. Her eye for detail in production, her desire to take real risks in her compositions to tread into fascinating territory that push country’s sound while knowing the value of its foundation, a voice that can knows her strengths and has such authentic sweetness and vibrancy to it, and content that can paint with such detail for both darkness and light. I haven’t put any projects on here because of pure potential going forward, but what I adore about Traveling Mercies is that the breadth of storytelling is fantastic even before the factor of potential comes to play! I would say this is the best indie country I’ve heard in recent years… but we do have a few more spots on this list so I can only hope that the richness of her journeys bear forth another bountiful harvest… because this album is special in too many ways.

8. This will be the most controversial entry on my list - and that would say a lot, given that Kesha is on here twice, but this is different. This is a project that outside of its genre niche I doubt many mainstream critics would give this time of day, as this was a band that would get laughed out of the room in the early 2000s, let alone now. But in 2011, symphonic metal hit another apex, with two triumphs from the big two in the genre. I’ve already mentioned the first with The Unforgiving by Within Temptation - this is the other one.

8. Imaginaerum by Nightwish (2011)

I’m going to take the controversial point of view that when Tarja Turunen left Nightwish for Anette Olzon, something shifted within the band. They got bigger, looser, wilder, and their hooks somehow reached another apex. They were no longer just another symphonic metal band nudged out of frame, they were free to fly into whatever twisted weirdness Tuomas Holopainen would craft, and while 2007’s Dark Passion Play was the transition, Imaginaerum was the band at their greatest height. And unlike a few of the entries where many would say this could just be a musical in its own right, to me this is more concept album than anything else - Tuomas actually wanted to ensure the project could stand alone outside of the film produced using music of the project, and wow, that was a great decision! Now granted, given how much fluttery dream logic is coaxed through the wild shifts in genre and tone across this project, you could argue it would fit regardless - seriously, there are songs inspired by smooth jazz, folk metal, doom metal, a nightmarish carnival spookhouse, and the closest to what might be acoustic pop they’ve ever been! But what’s stunning is how well it works - the transitions and crescendos are among Nightwish’s best, one of their heaviest albums but one that uses the darkest elements to intensify the melodic swell, and even if it all circles back to Tuomas making another album about the vast realms of imagination contained within the childlike dreams of the tortured artist, this is the closest he’s come to capturing that immensity. Every kink from Dark Passion Play is ironed out and refined, and Nightwish set a bar for the decade that no band has come consistently close to passing. This is an album that earns ‘epic’ as a descriptor, and too many have not given themselves the chance to be awed by it.

7. On the flip side of all of that, as much as I might praise a symphonic metal act for sensory overload, sometimes stripping everything back, even the genre from whence you came, is where you’ll find emotional clarity. And again, this is a personal choice - a particularly bad breakup in the late summer of 2016 before I took a trip overseas, and this album hit a very specific point of poignancy that I think will stick with me for the rest of my life. In other words, she made it seem real.

7. Real by Lydia Loveless (2016)

This is the first moment where it felt like all the rails were off for Lydia Loveless and her growth as an artist, as she tells the story of falling out of love hard and then falling back in, where her rock bottom had her dancing to the face of God only for God to turn away - and she was on the rollicking, proto-disco side of country before so many dared to try it! But while the best descriptor of this album is alternative country, it’s a singularly unique record - it’s got some of that scuzzy punk edge of her early work but more earnest, lovestruck cleaner refinement, which of course only adds to the acid of the sharpest scenes here. And again, the framing is what gives this album its power: it’s so distinctly, intimately human with its wealth of detail that you have no choice but for the framing to give everyone quarter - even the midwestern guys Loveless chides. But again, for as dark as this album gets in its most venial moments, it ends on hope, where there’s enough effort put forward to keep trying. As of yet, she just dropped a new album I have not heard at time of recording this, so I won’t say for certain this was her best… but I will say this struck such a point of resonance for me that I’ll never forget it.

6. I mean, on some level, we knew this was coming - it was just a matter of getting there.

6. Run The Jewels 2 by Run The Jewels (2014)

I can make the argument this is the best thing Killer Mike and El-P have ever done, both on their own and together. The writing and trade-off of bars is masterful, the producer is leaner and rougher and borderline punk rock in many edges, but that’s what tempered the braggadocious edge of their debut together into something more furious and cutting. It moved the politics that was just hinted at on the first record to the forefront and again, one of those albums that feels way more resonant and relevant than I’d like it to feel! But there’s something intangible about this album that puts it in a different tier for me: a distinctive hunger that’s galvanized not from just kickstarting something new or a comfort from knowing your lane and what works, but burning your way into uncharted territory with flamethrowers and machetes. But for as much unquenched rage runs through this project, there’s more diversity here than its given credit - a great smoldering sex jam with Gangsta Boo, plenty of riotous bangers that are easy staples to their catalog, a horrifying confrontation with police on ‘Early’ that feels painfully real and unmistakably grounding in an era of rampant and systemic police brutality… but then we get ‘Crown’, the song where Killer Mike doesn’t just confront his drug dealer past, but where El-P tries to get inside the groupthink, militant attitude of cops as a message to break their own internal chains. Again, an album with this much daring and firepower from legit veterans… the vast majority of folks seem to agree this album was the true breakthrough. In my opinion, it remains their best.

5. …yeah, I think you all knew it was coming, you’ve waited long enough for this.

5. Astoria by Marianas Trench (2015)

This is the best rock album of the 2010s and I’m a little amazed how few people outside of Canada seem to realize that. And while I’ve been an evangelist for this band for coming up on decades, Astoria is a concept album calling back to the classic rock roots of The Who and Queen, with instrumentals and production that have the impact of a different time but all the polish and rollicking charm of modern pop rock! And so much of it I have to lay at the feet of Josh Ramsay, who is not only a singer who can run the vast majority of his competition out of the goddamn building with one of the most powerful voices working, but also as a producer and songwriter who can craft and arrange such a powerhouse! And for such a concept album it would be so easy to get swallowed up in its own immensity… but Marianas Trench makes it a pretty by-the-numbers breakup album on the surface to keep that humanity grounded, especially when it’s not just about the messy fractures but also what happens when a lot of the art you’ve written for the past decade circles around this longtime partner… and then when she comes back wanting to try again, how in the Nine Hells can you contextualize that weight in desperately hoping against hope it’ll work! I’m not going to say you have to be a Marianas Trench fan to get the full impact so much as that weight transcends the project when fully contextualized, even as it still works wonderfully self-contained. But again, with impeccable framing that holds his melodramatic ass to the fire as much as anyone’s, but still lets you tap into all the wild, barely controlled energy, with every single interlude reinforcing melodic motifs and somehow feeling essential to the lengthy experience and how the hooks are stacked so high that I’d argue there’s only a single good but not great song on the album, this was very nearly my first perfect score that I gave an album… so let’s talk about the four records that actually hit that height.

4. So one thing I hope you all realize about this list is that as much as there’s an order, I still dearly love everything I’m talking about and I really hope you don’t get that bent out of shape by how I ordered them, as that has been fluctuating the past six months I’ve been struggling to assemble this list, and it’ll probably fluctuate after I finish recording this! But getting to these releases, these are albums in which I can’t find even minor flaws, or if I do they’re overcome by the sheer wealth of greatness and on any other album the lesser songs would still be great. I don’t bring up the word ‘perfection’ when it comes to giving a 10/10 for albums because there is no objective standard of perfection in art… but I’ve already talked about three of these albums at length in reviews, and we do need to talk about one in which I haven’t. And as such, if I were to pick a crowning jewel in an artist’s discography…

4. Lorraine by Lori McKenna (2011)

This is one of those country folks albums that is so consistently amazing in its writing and framing that it’s tough to know where to start describing it, because on the surface, it’s not an album that asserts its presence. It’s country folk that can cultivate atmosphere by letting guitars smolder in a pretty bare mix, but it’s not showy about it, which is why I disagree with anyone calling this album sentimental - it’s too grounded and normal-sounding to try and coax that emotionality. Indeed, that’s where I think Lorraine has so much weight - Dave Cobb understood McKenna’s uniquely rough delivery and stunning writing would be enough so he made a show of adding ornamentation or a very sparse backdrop to accentuate it, whereas this album doesn’t feel the need for that theatricality. And that’s why when you read into the content it almost catches you off-guard for how raw it feels, especially in comparison with McKenna’s major label albums in the 2000s Bittertown and Unglamourous, the former of which I can argue is a classic, but this is on a different level. Those are albums that had some form of deflection - Lorraine is an album that can’t deflect and doesn’t try to - a comparison that springs to mind is A Crow Looked At Me by Mount Eerie, and it’s why I understand that album’s weight without quite connecting to it, because this is the album for which it does. And a lot of the scenes McKenna are small and family-oriented and populist to a fault but not trying to be - she captures the little emotions of love unrequited from a partner, of a loss in the family, of memories big and small she’s assigned more weight than they need or is healthy, of dreams that you have to put aside and leave behind, of reaching a moment of clarity when endings have to come. And there’s a fair amount of faith and folksy wisdom, but where Kacey Musgraves would treat it with subversion at her best, Lori McKenna knows that to many and to herself despite herself, it’s a lifeline, especially as the album does not end with relief - a quiet mini-arc across the album is the loss of her mother and the heavy weight of expectations she’s struggling to parse as a woman in her mid-40s, and by the end she imagines her mom going to heaven and finding that relief for which she hasn’t quite attained, still down on the ground below. This is an album that went overlooked by pretty much everyone except a very limited number who know Lori McKenna, but it’s a project so directly universal and plain-spoken in its expression that it’ll stick… and it’s also why I think she’s one of the best writers of this decade, plain and simple. You know, as she’d want it to be.

3. Next is another heavy one - one I reviewed, and one that got some controversy because it was also surrounding a death and there was some backlash to critics in saying ‘oh, you’re only scoring this as high as you are because his son died in a tragic accident’. Now four years later… no, I’m comfortable with this one where it is.

3. Skeleton Tree by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

The power of this album was never just rooted in its events - that does a massive disservice to how Nick Cave had to assemble this, with some of his most forward thinking and fractured electronics and grooves he’s ever touched. All the sweeping space of Push The Sky Away collapsed into a fractured, broken hall where the decay is real and as much as his voice might call, it goes unbidden. And while there is a performance here, it’s not trying for spare restraint or to speak purely as human, but as someone who has always felt larger than life in his music but is cast down to a brutal reality. And it’s not just that loss but something deeper - for a storyteller especially one who has danced with death too many times, this is where narrative itself fails Nick Cave, so abstraction collides with the very real and raw emotions of reality, and not only does he have to keep living, he has to try and salve the pain of his wife and family. And as such, the grief is uncomfortable and raw and altogether too close but bound into a frail thematic construct with just enough deflection that it can be taken but also still touch you - between the beautiful female vocals and Nick Cave’s cracking delivery and my god those strings, I’m not sure I can listen to ‘Distant Sky’ in public, it is that powerful. But again, it’s a project that ends with hope… well, maybe not hope so much as him fiddling with an attempt at normality and trying to see through the static to whatever might come next. Or to put it another way… in my opinion, Nick Cave has made two 10/10 classic albums in his catalog: one is 1990’s The Good Son, the other is this. I don’t think he cared that the experiment ‘worked’ in his path towards healing, but there’s a wonder that it did.

2. I think if you follow my channel, you knew this was coming. You might disagree fervently - she’s an acquired taste, after all - but to me, when an artist assembles a work of such intricacy and interweaving layers that only find more sparks of transcendence with every listen… in the music of the spheres, that’s where you’ll hear a chime.

2. Chime by Dessa (2018)

I don’t think a lot of folks knew how to gauge Dessa’s magnum opus in the 2010s, and that makes a lot of sense because it’s not a conventional album that adheres to any set genre. Most of the time I would call it rap, but about half of it is R&B and indie pop and flying into weird, fluttery directions that are stunningly produced and make the best use possible of her unconventionally expressive style. She’s not a great singer but she doesn’t need to be, her lilting delivery can capture that low-key magic in so many moments while still conveying real emotion. And while I’ll rave about all of her rap songs are packed to the gills with with a primal intensity that challenges all comers, the larger truth is that this album is a challenge beyond that, to feminine expression itself. This is an album that sees power structures in tatters and even more fire on the horizon, and begins asking the hard questions of femininity, both within and without sexuality, partially because she aspires to more… but also because she needs answers for herself if she’s going to keep living with these structures. That’s what gives this album so much uncomfortable complexity - it challenges feminist expectations and then dares them and herself to see the consequences of living within them - and hell, I’d argue it goes further on songs like ‘Say When’, where she’ll challenge all power structures and ascend to the top… but be alone; she wins again, but sounds heartbroken. And that heartbreak is a quintessential touch on the project - behind the scenes much of this album was written while she was taking a study trying to purge old feelings of love she had towards an abusive asshole already mentioned a few too many times on this list with experimental neurofeedback therapy, and that feeds into a messy conversation of how love’s entanglements feed into those power structures themselves. This is an album that quite literally contains multitudes - and it’s also deeply romantic, often pretty damn funny, heartbreaking in choice moments, and has bangers to boot. Only one project this decade felt as varied and powerful as this is…

1. It feels a little strange that this is my top album of the 2010s, because on some level it’s a compilation assembled by one producer who at this point must be the best connected man working in indie country. And it feels weird to have a compilation be that project - it drove me crazy whenever I saw compilations show up on Rolling Stone’s new 500 best albums of all time list because you’d think an album would be required to say more and be more than just a collection of songs.

But Dave Cobb made more than just a collection of songs. He made a masterpiece.

1. Southern Family by Dave Cobb & Various Artists (2016)

To this day, there’s a part of me that thinks this can’t exist, if only because the supporting cast behind it all showed up and delivered their A-game in spades. John Paul White, Jason Isbell, Brent Cobb, Miranda Lambert, Chris and Morgane Stapleton, Zac Brown, Jamey Johnson, Anderson East, Holly Williams, Brandy Clark, Shooter Jennings, this list is stacked! But again, if it was just a compilation of great, well-produced country songs that doesn’t have a miss among them, that’d be one thing - Southern Family is way more ambitious than that, because it demands not just the artists confront the hard realities of such a family in the south - fractures and pain and everything in between - but also an inevitability of death that will break everything apart; the album opens with the line ‘You’re gonna die, you’re gonna die’! And the project has to grapple with that force and the very flawed society that tries to keep everyone together at its core… which is a losing battle in life and one that shows its marks on everyone. You get the tempered machismo of Anderson East against blasts of muscle shoals horns or the subtle rickety rustle from Brent Cobb, the honest homespun grief of Zac Brown to the more raw moments from Brandy Clark, from Jason Isbell wry conversation between preachers and thieves to the Miranda Lambert trying to buy into a fragment of that wisdom… and Jamey Johnson showing those who can’t. But the album’s most powerful moment is when it ends, taking to the road against the peals of Rich Robinson’s guitar, and a Black southern gospel choir adds the raw power to tie it all together, and the rejoinder to John Paul White’s opening lines - you’ve got a seat in that kingdom at the end, and it’ll be okay, wherever that might lead. I could go on about how distinctive and varied and beautifully produced this album is, how there’s so much emotional complexity and power interweaved from every voice, how the writing often brings so many little details and nuggets that you can imagine they’re all one huge family with so many perspectives on the same table, or just the spread of them all.. but to me, it’s my top album of the 2010s.. Bring on the next decade, people - hopefully I’ll be more ahead the game and on top of things next time!