Albums of the decade...

stickyfiddle

So it's almost 2020, which means every website on the planet is doing some sort of roundup of "best of" lists for the last decade. So.. let's do one here? I'm thinking about your favourite 10 albums of the last 10 years, so anything released after 1 January 2010. 

My thoughts, in no particular order:

The National - Sleep Well Beast
The National - High Violet
Bon Iver - 22, A Million
Gaslight Anthem - American Slang
Jason Isbell - The Nashville Sound
Paramore - Paramore
Sigur Ros - Kveikur
Sturgill Simpson - A Sailor's Guide To Earth
Taylor Swift - 1989
Lorde - Melodrama
Boygenius - Boygenius EP (I'm adding this as #11 as it's not an album...)

bbill335

Blood Red Shoes - In Time to Voices 2012
Ty Segall - Emotional Mugger 2016
Sleep - The Sciences 2018
Wand - Golem 2015 (just edging out 1000 Days)
Justice - Access All Arenas 2013
Siriusmo - Enthusiast 2013 
Metric - Synthetica 2012
White Denim - Stiff 2016
Lena Raine - Celeste Original Soundtrack 2018

ICBM

Lloyd Cole - Broken Record
Bellowhead - Broadside
Garbage - Not Your Kind Of People
Neil Young - Psychedelic Pill
Mike Oldfield - Tubular Beats
King Creosote - From Scotland With Love
Marianne Faithfull - Give My Love To London
Heather Nova - The Way It Feels
The Waterboys - Modern Blues
Roger Waters - Is This The Life We Really Want?

dindude

As a decade, hasn’t had its own defined sound (as music becomes more dispersed), but I’d say it was slightly up on quality from the 2000’s overall.

Band of the decade - Everything Everything, they take so many risks that their albums can be patchy, but when they hit the mark, there’s nothing else like it.

Disappointment of the decade - Arcade Fire, love what they are capable of, but more miss than hit in this decade.

General Observation - I’m listening to less and less rock, and less and less virtuoso guitar, just doesn’t do it for me anymore.

Heres my 10 in no order.

Ben Howard - I Forgot Where We Were
Ben Howard - Noonday Dream
Alabama Shakes - Sound and Colour
Bombay Bicycle Club - So Long, See You Tomorrow
Chvches - The Bones of What You Believe
Everything Everything - Arc
John Mayer - Born and Raised
Ryan Adams - Prisoner
Taylor Swift - Lover
Wolf Alice - My Love is Cool

DiscoStu

I can see me hitting up most of these on Spotify. Good shout.

fandango

My top 5 (not 10) in no particular order:

Wave Pictures - Bamboo Diner in the Rain
Robert Cray - 4 Nights of 40 Years Live or In My Soul
Tinariwen - Tassili
Wooden Shjips - Back to Land
Rodrigo y Gabriela - Mettavolution

Moominpapa

Don't know about the other nine but Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly in one of the ten.

BloodEagle

Sorry mate, hip-hop/rap isnt allowed here unless its about 20 years out of date and sufficiently accessible that out of touch guitar nerds will have heard of it,

That said, my top cuts

Nails - You WIll Never Be One of Us

Lana Del Ray - Norman Fucking Rockwell

Surfbort - Friendship Music

Power Trip - Nightmare Logic

Run the Jewels II

Behemoth - The Satanist

Amyl and the Sniffers s/t

Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Sunbather - Deafheaven

Sza -Ctrl

Reverend

BloodEagle said:

Sorry mate, hip-hop/rap isnt allowed here unless its about 20 years out of date and sufficiently accessible that out of touch guitar nerds will have heard of it,

That said, my top cuts

Nails - You WIll Never Be One of Us

Lana Del Ray - Norman Fucking Rockwell

Surfbort - Friendship Music

Power Trip - Nightmare Logic

Run the Jewels II

Behemoth - The Satanist

Amyl and the Sniffers s/t

Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Sunbather - Deafheaven

Sza -Ctrl

Power Trip and RTJ are the only albums in the whole thread ive heard. 

Winny_Pooh

Electronic/soul/pop

Little Dragon - Ritual Union

Charlotte Day Wilson - Stone woman

Lana del Ray - Paradise

Leifur James - a louder silence

Niaa - live from KCRW

Rock/indie

QOTSA - Like Clockwork

Half moon run - Dark eyes

Iggy pop - post pop depression

Norah Jones - Little Broken hearts

Warpaint - Warpaint

Dutch Uncles - O Shudder

The National - High violet

Singer songwriters (not quite folk music)

Bill Callahan - Apocalypse 

Joanna Newsom - Have one on me

The Weather Station

Ane Brun - It all starts with one

Courtney Hartman - Ready Reckoner

Folk

Gillian Welch - Harrow and the Harvest

Ane Egge - Bright Shadow 

Lisa Hannigan - At Swim

Laura Marling - Semper Femina

Americana

Hiss Golden Messenger - Lateness of dancers

Sahara Smith - Myth of the heart

Erin Rae - Putting on Airs

Jazz

Brian Blade and the fellowship band - Landmarks

Kurt Rosenwinkel - our secret world

Instrumental chill

Khruangbin - the universe smiles upon you 

Teyeplayer

In no particular order, but an array of some of my favourites from the last decade:

Iron & Wine -Beast epic
Idlewild - Post Electric Blues
Father John Misty - God’s Favourite Customer
Hiss Golden Messenger - Heart like a Levee
The Temperance Movement - A Deeper Cut
Calexico -Algiers
Dawes - All your favourite bands
The Hold Steady - Teeth Dreams
The National - Trouble will find me
Frightened Rabbit - Painting of a panic attack 

Others that could and perhaps should have been on there:
Lisa Hannigan - Passenger 
HC Mcentire - Lionheart
Pearl Jam - Lightning Bolt
Edit: Sundara Karma - Ulfilas’ Alphabet
Edit 2: The Barr Brothers - sleeping operator 

Based upon the edits so far...this thread is problematic and it has been a better decade for music than I realised.

Matt_McG

Particular favourites from the last decade:

King Krule: The Ooz
Khruangbin: The Universe Smiles Upon You
Nels Cline: Lovers
Gemma Ray: Lights Out Zoltar
Julian Lage and Nels Cline: Room
Julian Lage: Arclight
Run the Jewels II
Sons of Kemet: Burn
Radiohead: (In Rainbows not really this decade, but Moon Shaped etc also good)

Kendrick Lamar has been one I’ve liked/admired but not really gelled with in the way some other albums have.

AlexC

This is a tough one - off the top of my head without going back and checking through ten years of purchases - 

Jeff Beck - Loud Hailer
Anna Calvi - Anna Calvi
Rush - Clockwork Angels
Lorde - Heroine
Bones - Bones
Blur - The Magic Whip
David Bowie - Blackstar
Savages - Silence Yourself
Wolf Alice - Visions Of A Life
St Vincent - Marry Me
And a big hooray for Kate Bush’s Before The Dawn. Best triple live album ever imo.
Edit - and I can’t leave out The Joy Formidable- Hitch

stickyfiddle

Well I've already thought of others that could/should(?) have been on my list (Springsteen's Wrecking Ball; Bon Iver, Bon Iver; and After Laughter by Paramore, Ryan Adams's self titled, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Nightsweats). 

@Dindude - I keep getting Ben Howard pop up in youtube recommendations. I assume those 2 would be a good place to start?

lasermonkey

My favourites:
Boards Of Canada- Tomorrow's Harvest
Besnard Lakes- A Coliseum Complex Museum
Snowbird- Moon
Swervedriver- I Wasn't Born To Lose You
Besnard Lakes- Until In Excess, Imperceptible UFO
DIIV- Deceiver
Low- Double Negative

edit: thought of a couple more!
Hammock- Departure Songs
Serena Maneesh- S-M 2:  Abyss in B Minor

ICBM

stickyfiddle said:

Well I've already thought of others that could/should(?) have been on my list

I could have picked loads more too - those were just the first ten that stood out as I scanned down my iTunes library.

It is worrying that all of them are... er... "older" artists though . I don't think any of them were under 40 even ten years ago, and Roger Waters is 76 now!

EricTheWeary

This isn’t going to be good for me as my head was probably more in the seventies but I’ll give it a go:

JD McPherson - Undivided Heart and Soul
Walter Trout - Blues for the Modern Daze 
The Specials - Encore
Protoje - Ancient Future
The Interrupters  - Fight the Good Fight
The Strypes - Snapshot
Richard Thompson - Acoustic Classics
Savages - Adore Life
Jim Campilongo - Dream Dictionary
Magic! - Rude

Although I realise that musically much of that could have come from the seventies and earlier. 

dindude

stickyfiddle said:

Well I've already thought of others that could/should(?) have been on my list (Springsteen's Wrecking Ball; Bon Iver, Bon Iver; and After Laughter by Paramore, Ryan Adams's self titled, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Nightsweats). 

@Dindude - I keep getting Ben Howard pop up in youtube recommendations. I assume those 2 would be a good place to start?

He’s only made three albums, the first is good quality singer/songwriter stuff but really found his thing with I forget where we were, so id start there. Noonday Dream is richer still but further away still from cosy singer/songwriter fare and takes some commitment.

Have a listen to this performance too.
https://youtu.be/T4yh2NZ0kJw

stickyfiddle

dindude said:

stickyfiddle said:

Well I've already thought of others that could/should(?) have been on my list (Springsteen's Wrecking Ball; Bon Iver, Bon Iver; and After Laughter by Paramore, Ryan Adams's self titled, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Nightsweats). 

@Dindude - I keep getting Ben Howard pop up in youtube recommendations. I assume those 2 would be a good place to start?

He’s only made three albums, the first is good quality singer/songwriter stuff but really found his thing with I forget where we were, so id start there. Noonday Dream is richer still but further away still from cosy singer/songwriter fare and takes some commitment.

Have a listen to this performance too.
https://youtu.be/T4yh2NZ0kJw

Ta. That one was actually the first video fed to me by The Algorithm, so looks like I'm on the right track  

Philly_Q

Well you said "favourites", not "best" or "greatest", and for that I thank you.  I don't expect anyone to like what I like.  But I couldn't reduce it to just 10.

Black Moth - Condemned to Hope

Blood Ceremony - The Eldritch Dark

Earthless - From the Ages

Elder - Dead Roots Stirring

Green Lung - Woodland Rites

Khemmis - Hunted

Luna Sol - Blood Moon

Magic Circle - Journey Blind

Mars Red Sky - Stranded in Arcadia

Mount Salem - Endless

My Sleeping Karma - Tri

Pallbearer - Heartless

Royal Thunder - CVI

Sleep - The Sciences

stickyfiddle

Philly_Q said:

Well you said "favourites", not "best" or "greatest", and for that I thank you.  I don't expect anyone to like what I like.  But I couldn't reduce it to just 10.

Entirely intentional. I don't quite understand the human race's obsession with deciding what the "best" thing is in every single category of everything ever. Clearly everyone has different opinions, especially when it comes to music, movies, books, games - they're art, not science.