My Ten Favorite Albums of the Decade: 2010-2019

This will probably be the last decade I'll be able to make this list. The music business, like most of the entertainment industry, has become fragmented and plays to our increasingly short attention spans. I listened to albums all the way through with far less frequency than I did in the aughts (here's that list, if you're curious), which was already a downturn from the highs of the Nineties.

Thus, I didn't spend a ton of time agonizing over this list. The usual caveats apply: These are my favorite albums, the ones I spent the most time with on repeat. I'm not claiming them to be the "best." Musical taste is incredibly subjective; I like rock n' roll and pop music (preferably with a female vocalist). There is exceptional music being made in other genres; it's just generally not my thing.

Without further ado, here are the Honorable Mentions I couldn't quite squeeze onto my Top 10: Courtney Barnett: Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit (2015), Belly: Dove (2018), Jimmy Eat World: Integrity Blues (2016), Manchester Orchestra: A Black Mile to the Surface, The Killers: Battle Born (2012), The Struts: Young & Dangerous (2018), Taylor Swift: Speak Now (2010) and 1989 (2014), Chvrches: Love is Dead (2018), Billie Eilish: When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (2019)

10. Sleigh Bells: Treats (2010)
This band felt like a revelation at the start of the decade, combining shredding guitar licks with electronica and Alexis Krauss' alternately breathy and snarling vocals. The front half of the album is chock full o' bangers ("Tell 'em," "Riot Rythym," and "Infinity Guitars") that culminates with one of those songs I still get excited by when I hear its opening chords, despite its ubiquitous presence: "Rill Rill." The back half doesn't hold up as well (nor did the band's trajectory), but the highs are dizzying.

9. Jenny Lewis: The Voyager (2014) and On the Line (2019)
Ok, I cheated here. I'll refund your subscription fee upon request. But these albums are perfect compliments; I couldn't imagine listing one without mentioning the other. Highlights from the first include "She's Not Me," "Just One of the Guys," and the sublime closing title track. Gun to head, I'd say the latter album is better, because "On the Line" is probably the best song on either album, and "Heads Gonna Roll" is pretty great, too. However, it's my blog, and I don't have to choose, so there.

8. Kesha: Rainbow (2017)
She dropped the silly dollar sign, stored up all the professional and personal pain she endured, and unleashed it on the world. This delightfully profane record is the most sonically varied on my list, as it vacillates from elements of hard rock ("Let 'em Talk") to Aretha Franklin-esque empowerment ("Woman") to the burn-it-all-down high note peak on the anthem "Praying." Oh, then she tosses in a country ballad duet with Dolly Freaking Parton and an adorable little acoustic guitar ballad about taking Godzilla to the mall. If you dismissed her as a boozy, disposable pop star at the start of the decade, well she'd probably invite you to "Suck. My. Dick" (actual line from "Let 'em Talk").

7. White Reaper: You Deserve Love (2019)
The first of a few albums on this list to remind me that although it may be on life support, rock is not dead. White Reaper has stated their intention to Make Guitar Great Again, and this qualifies as a helluva shot across the bow. At only half an hour long, You Deserve Love bangs in with the made-for-cruising opener "Headwind" and climaxes with "1F," an absolutely sublime way to spend three minutes and my pick for pop/rock song of the decade. Further on down the album is another gem receiving alt-rock radio attention, "You Might Be Right." The synth on many of the tracks borrows heavily from the 80s, but these guys feel like the future of rock.

6. Taylor Swift: Lover (2019)


It was Taylor's decade; the rest of us were just sorta there. Her 20s gave us four great albums (and one...uh...not-so-great one), and she closed it out with this delightful batch of tunes (which I've already written about more extensively). Twenty-something Taylor is now dead; long live thirty-something Taylor. May she remain forever in her feelings.

5. The Maine: You are O.K. (2019)


The Maine brought back what I missed most about rock music from the aughts: Emo angst! Although they're a much more hopeful outfit than, say, My Chemical Romance, this record would've fit right into 2006. It's also thematic, with the pop brilliance of the opener "Slip the Noose" and its lovely torment ("I was on the verge of breaking down/'til you came around/and not a second too late"). That line returns with the epic closer, "Flowers on the Grave" that defies you not to scream along with the refrain. In between there are angst-ridden anthems like "Numb Without You" and "Heaven, We're Already Here." This album scratched an itch I didn't know I had; I must've listened to it 15 times straight through.

4.  Katy Perry: Teenage Dream (2010)
It's not an overstatement to call this record the soundtrack of the early 2010s. It produced five number one singles; one featured Snoop Dogg, for Christ's sake! You couldn't go anywhere without hearing one of them, which probably annoyed lots of folks. Not I! There was a second there when Perry looked as if she'd make a play for the Queen of the Pop Stars, surpassing Taylor, Beyonce, et al. That...didn't happen. But she rode a giant gold lion at the Super Bowl, so she's doing fine! My favorite track isn't one of the #1s, by the way. It's "The One That Got Away," which only got to #3. You could say it was the one that...got away.

3. Weezer: Everything Will Be Alright in the End (2014)
Weezer is one of my favorite bands. Even if they hadn't made a record past 2005's Make Believe (where things first started to go noticeably downhill), that would still be true. I was content to keep buying their albums that had one or two good songs on them and filing their cds away on a shelf. I didn't even bother with 2010's Death to False Metal, as it was abundantly clear that they were playing out the string of some arduous record contract.

And then...this magnificent beast of a record appeared.

I'd argue it's either their third or fourth-best album (depending on how you feel about the Green Album, which I had on my 2000-2010 top-ten list). It's easily their most thematically ambitious. It felt like Rivers Cuomo had been waiting for years to write "Foolish Father," which brilliantly closes the album's main section (before the three-song epilogue). "Da Vinci" is a vintage Weezer tune that deserved a lot more radio love than it got (which was basically zero, as far as I can tell). "Ain't Got Nobody" fits right in with the catalogue of brilliant openers, and "The British are Coming" and "Cleopatra" encapsulate Rivers' loopy, quirky songwriting talents.

This album announced Weezer are here to stay, freeing them up to do things that made them rock celebrities to a whole new generation, like covering Toto's "Africa." They're back, and the world's a better place for it.

2. The Struts: Everybody Wants (2016)

Remember what was so fun about rock n' roll? The Struts and lead singer Luke Spiller sure as hell do. This unabashed throwback to swinging dick stardom would fit in any era. Spiller is what you get if you combined Bowie's glamorous androgyny, Jagger's self-assured libido, and Mercury's soaring vocal power. Think that's an exaggeration? That's exactly the point. The Struts come right at you with banger after banger and dare you not to get up and dance.

The album oozes attitude from the moment Spiller rolls his r's on "Roll Up" and then transitions into the decade's best anthem, "Could Have Been Me." That's followed by perhaps the record's biggest hit, "Kiss This," and then Spiller practically BEGS you to respond with "Oh yeeaaah" to the chorus of "Put Your Money on Me." Four songs, four home runs.

Spiller can do sensitive boyfriend type too, as he exhibits on "Mary Go Round" and the yearning "Only a Call Away." But just when you start thinking he's safe, the album's midpoint is an ode to partner swapping, aptly named "The Ol' Switcheroo." No subject matter is taboo to The Struts, as long as they can make it sound fun as hell. This was the record I recommended to the most people this year. Not enough took me up on it, but that's o.k.; The Struts won't rest until the world is ready to rock again.

1. Taylor Swift: Red (2012)

Even though 2014's 1989 was billed as her much-ballyhooed departure from country and transition to pop, it really happened on Red. The album's highlights, like "22" and "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" aren't country in the slightest. "I Knew You Were Trouble" has a dubstep drop. Red is the album where she figured out that she was talented enough to be whatever kind of artist she wanted to be, and she didn't have to stay in the country music industry's suffocating box.

This was the album I listened to the most times this decade, by the artist that most defined it. It also features the song of the decade...but that's a story for another blog.