The Decade So Far: The Top 10 Albums of 2010-2014
"Soonish" is a funny word. These are my favourite albums of the decade.
Honourable mentions:
Chelsea Wolfe, Apokalypsis - 2011
Cloud Nothings, Attack on Memory - 2012
Death Grips, NO LOVE DEEP WEB - 2012
Destroyer, Kaputt - 2011
Håkan Hellström, 2 steg från Paradise - 2010
Josh T. Pearson, Last of the Country Gentlemen - 2011
Kent, Jag är inte rädd för mörkret - 2012
My Bloody Valentine, mbv - 2013
The National, Trouble Will Find Me - 2013
Sun Kil Moon, Benji - 2014
Vampire Weekend, Modern Vampires of the City - 2013
10. The Books, The Way Out - 2010
The Books used sampling in a slightly unhinged and surreal manner, here merging scrambled self-help recordings, children issuing death threats and rabbit bedtime stories with electronics, acoustic guitars and general insanity. Top this off with the occasional, beautiful original vocal from Nick Zammuto, and you've got a wonderfully mixed bag of hilarious and relaxing music.
BEST TRACKS: GROUP AUTOGENICS I, IDKT, I DIDN'T KNOW THAT, A COLD FREEZIN' NIGHT, ALL YOU NEED IS A WALL, FREE TRANSLATOR
9. Fiona Apple, The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do - 2012
This album has a wholly ridiculous title, but there's nothing ridiculous about the album itself. Accompanied by bare bones acoustic instruments, Fiona's voice is an absolute showstealer. She fluctuates between sombre, low-key confessions ("I made it to a dinner date/My teardrops seasoned every plate"), throat-shattering agression ("I ran out of white dove's feathers to soak up the hot piss that comes from your mouth every time you adress me") and adult playfulness ("I kept touching my neck, to guide your eye to where I wanted you to kiss me when we find some time alone"). These songs are small things made enormous by a masterful singer and lyricist.
BEST TRACKS: EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, DAREDEVIL, VALENTINE, LEFT ALONE, PERIPHERY, ANYTHING WE WANT, HOT KNIFE
8. Arcade Fire, The Suburbs - 2010
Arcade Fire are full of big statements, big feelings, words and phrases repeated and deconstructed (just count how many times kids/children are mentioned). The Suburbs is their overblown, glorious concept album about - what else - suburban kids. Arcade Fire don't do subtlety, but give them an hour and sixteen tracks of childish indulgence, and they'll win you over by enthusiasm alone, not to mention great songwriting.
BEST TRACKS: THE SUBURBS, READY TO START, MODERN MAN, ROCOCO, CITY WITH NO CHILDREN, MONTH OF MAY, WE USED TO WAIT, SPRAWL II (MOUNTAINS BEYOND MOUNTAINS)
7. Death Grips, The Money Store - 2012
Death Grips are a loud, angry and weird band. Frontman MC Ride rarely goes softer than a shout. The music is all blaring synths, revving engines and collapsing drums. And yet, The Money Store is the closest thing they have to an "accessible" album, owing to the fact that these weirdos have some legitimate songwriting chops. 'The Fever (Aye Aye)', 'Get Got' and 'The Cage' are anchored by catchy synth lines, and 'I've Seen Footage' and 'Hacker' are borderline danceable, in a mosh pit kind of way. The Money Store is an intense album, but if you can get past its attempts to violently scare you away, it's also intensely rewarding.
BEST TRACKS: GET GOT, THE FEVER (AYE AYE), LOST BOYS, BLACKJACK, I'VE SEEN FOOTAGE, SYSTEM BLOWER, THE CAGE, BITCH PLEASE, HACKER
6. Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues - 2011
An improvement on their already great debut in just about every way, Helplessness Blues is gorgeous, huge sounding folk rock, with poetic and existential lyrics, some songs broken up into multiple parts, and nearly all songs carried skyward by the best vocal harmonies since god only knows (yes, that was extremely cheap of me). Despite all these big words and ideas, Helplessness Blues is very easy to get into, and very hard to get out of your head.
BEST TRACKS: MONTEZUMA, BEDOUIN DRESS, SIM SALA BIM, BATTERY KINZIE, HELPLESSNESS BLUES, SOMEONE YOU'D ADMIRE, THE SHRINE/AN ARGUMENT, BLUE SPOTTED TAIL, GROWN OCEAN
5. The National, High Violet - 2010
High Violet was the album where The National finally started to capture the intensity of their live shows on record (and I can tell you from personal experience that The National is one of the finest live bands in the world).There are spine crushingingly good fistpumpers ('Bloodbuzz Ohio', 'England', 'Afraid of Everyone'), smaller, looser songs that flourish into gorgeous crescendos ('Sorrow', 'Runaway', 'Anyone's Ghost') and two string soaked, heartstring tugging bookends ('Terrible Love' and 'Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks'). At the center of all these songs stands Matt Berninger, his wonderful baritone stronger than ever, and his lyrics balancing perfectly between banality, poetry and decadence.
BEST TRACKS: SORROW, LITTLE FAITH, AFRAID OF EVERYONE, BLOODBUZZ OHIO, RUNAWAY, CONVERSATION 16, ENGLAND, VANDERLYLE CRYBABY GEEKS
4. LCD Soundsytem, This Is Happening - 2010
James Murphy's last album before retiring LCD Soundsystem is a blowout party, all blaring synths, slurred speech and regret. It's fun as hell: 'Dance Yrself Clean' has Murphy crashing his vocal cords while someone's "blowing Marxism to pieces", 'Drunk Girls' asserts that "love is an astronaut, it comes back but it's never the same", and 'Pow Pow' is a rambling monologue about... something, I'm not sure. Elsewhere, Murphy portrays crushingly adult heartbreak on 'I Can Change', and makes fun of the idea of being a commercial band on 'You Wanted a Hit'. It's hard to say if quitting while they're ahead was a good idea, but LCD Soundsystem undeniably went out on the strongest of notes.
BEST TRACKS: DANCE YRSELF CLEAN, DRUNK GIRLS, ALL I WANT, I CAN CHANGE, YOU WANTED A HIT, POW POW, HOME
3. Majical Cloudz, Impersonator - 2013
Majical Cloudz' songs are minimalist things that don't so much move from start to finish as circle back and forth around the same drain. Any given song might have as little as three or four looped elements to carry the instrumental, all to set the stage for Devon Welsh's voice. And it is quite a voice; fullthroated and full of heart, earnest to the point of discomfort as he belts out confrontational lines like "hey man, sooner or later you'll be dead" or "we'll be just like the roaches, my love". It's all a bit emotionally exhausting, really, but in a way that is somehow inviting, comforting and hypnotically beautiful.
BEST TRACKS: IMPERSONATOR, THIS IS MAGIC, CHILDHOOD'S END, I DO SING FOR YOU, TURNS TURNS TURNS, SILVER RINGS, BUGS DON'T BUZZ, NOTEBOOK
2. Swans, To Be Kind - 2014
At two hours in length, this is a relentless behemoth of an album. Swans are not particularly interested in things like verses and choruses, instead assaulting your ears with punishing, roaring buildups, before ultimately being crushed and disintegrated under their own weight. Despite this, Michael Gira (with a voice like old leather, rubbed raw and stretched tight) & Co. actually pull off some fairly varied songwriting on To Be Kind: 'Just a Little Boy' is a 12-minute, slow motion predatory blues number, 'A Little God in My Hands' starts out as swampy funk before a blaring, fuzzy explosion throws the song into overdrive, and 'Oxygen' begins with a heavy, filthy bass riff, then just builds and builds over its eight minutes to a deafening roar, with Michael Gira's vocals facing the intensity of the music blow for blow. I would say that To Be Kind is a trial to get through, but though it might very well be for some, or even most, its two hours are a trancelike, nigh on perfect experience that just sails by for me. Also, "there are millions and millions of stars in your eyes" is simply one of the greatest album-closing lines ever.
BEST TRACKS: SCREEN SHOT, JUST A LITTLE BOY (FOR CHESTER BURNETT), A LITTLE GOD IN MY HANDS, BRING THE SUN/TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE, SHE LOVES US, KIRSTEN SUPINE, OXYGEN, TO BE KIND
1. Kent, Tigerdrottningen - 2014
It almost saddens me how predictable I am, but really, from first listen, it was only ever going to be Tigerdrottningen at the top spot. By their eleventh album, Kent are just such effortlessly brilliant songwriters that they are basically immune to making anything less than a great album. Tigerdrottningen is Kent's most varied collection of songs yet, while still flowing remarkably well as an album. Several songs are backed, pushed along and elevated by some truly great female vocals, an addition that has been strangely underutilised by Kent in the past, and one which opens the songs up in new ways. Joakim Berg has written better lyrics, but never have they been more openhearted, earnest and to-the-point than on Tigerdrottningen. To my obviously very biased mind, everything about this album is just perfect, from crystalline opener 'Mirage' to classic Kent guitar explosion closer 'Den andra sidan', even down to the kind-of-ugly but kind-of-gorgeous album cover. If it's not their best album (and really, Röd is the only other contender), it's still the best album of the decade so far.
BEST TRACKS: MIRAGE, VAR ÄR VI NU?, SKOGARNA, LA BELLE EPOQUE, SVART SNÖ, ALLT HAR SIN TID, INNAN HIMLEN FALLER NER, DIN ENDA VÄN, GODHET, SIMMAREN, DEN ANDRA SIDAN
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