Albums of the Years
I used to be pretty good at rounding up my favourite music of the year every December, even if I hadn’t tracked it consistently throughout the year. But after 2013 I fell behind, and the prospect of catching up on what I’d missed grew more and more daunting, to the point where this year I haven’t posted about music at all.
So, what better way to atone than with a giant 8 x 11 matrix of my favourite albums of the 2010s.
| Goldfrapp, Head First, 2010 | The Divine Comedy, Bang Goes the Knighthood, 2010 | Arcade Fire, The Suburbs, 2010 ★★ |
Röyksopp, Senior, 2010 ★ |
Manic Street Preachers, Postcards From a Young Man, 2010 | Robyn, Body Talk, 2010 | Midnight Juggernauts, The Crystal Axis, 2010 | Radiohead, The King of Limbs, 2011 |
| Elbow, Build a Rocket Boys!, 2011 ★ |
Bon Iver, Bon Iver, 2011 | Uniform Motion, One Frame Per Second, 2011 | The Black Keys, El Camino, 2011 | The Chap, We Are Nobody, 2012 | Spiritualized, Sweet Heart Sweet Light, 2012 | Flashman, To the Victor—the Spoils!, 2011 | The Proclaimers, Like Comedy, 2012 ★ |
| Isles of Wonder: Music For the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games | Muse, The 2nd Law, 2012 | David Bowie, The Next Day, 2013 | Suede, Bloodsports, 2013 | Frank Eddie, Let’s Be Frank, 2012 | Daft Punk, Random Access Memories, 2013 | The Duckworth Lewis Method, Sticky Wickets, 2013 | Rudimental, Home, 2013 |
| Arcade Fire, Reflektor, 2013 ★ |
The National, Trouble Will Find Me, 2013 | Neil Finn, Dizzy Heights, 2014 | Mike Oldfield, Man on the Rocks, 2014 ★ |
Elbow, The Take Off and Landing of Everything, 2014 ★ |
James, La Petite Mort, 2014 | Beck, Morning Phase, 2014 ★ |
Manic Street Preachers, Futurology, 2014 ★ |
| Bebel Gilberto, Tudo, 2014 | U2, Songs of Innocence, 2014 | Britney Spears, Britney Jean, 2013 | Spoon, They Want My Soul, 2014 | Röyksopp, The Inevitable End, 2014 | Interpol, El Pintor, 2014 | Taylor Swift, 1989, 2014 ★ |
Sia, 1000 Forms of Fear, 2014 |
| Shakira, Shakira, 2014 | Public Service Broadcasting, Inform—Educate—Entertain, 2013 | Public Service Broadcasting, The Race for Space, 2015 | Sufjan Stevens, Carrie & Lowell, 2015 ★★ |
Blur, The Magic Whip, 2015 ★ |
Ash, Kablammo!, 2015 ★ |
Muse, Drones, 2015 | Morten Harket, Brother, 2014 |
| Katy Perry, Prism, 2013 | a-ha, Cast in Steel, 2015 | Grimes, Art Angels, 2015 ★★ |
Susanne Sundfør, Ten Love Songs, 2015 ★★ |
Suede, Night Thoughts, 2016 | David Bowie, Blackstar, 2016 ★ |
Radiohead, A Moon Shaped Pool, 2016 ★ |
Hamilton: Original Broadway Cast Recording, 2015 ★ |
| The Divine Comedy, Foreverland, 2016 | Wolf Alice, My Love Is Cool, 2015 ★ |
Sunscreem, Sweet Life, 2016 ★ |
Mike Oldfield, Return to Ommadawn, 2017 ★ |
Spoon, Hot Thoughts, 2017 | The New Pornographers, Whiteout Conditions, 2017 ★ |
Goldfrapp, Silver Eye, 2017 | Roger Waters, Is This the Life We Really Want?, 2017 |
| Arcade Fire, Everything Now, 2017 | Susanne Sundfør, Music for People in Trouble, 2017 ★ |
Beck, Colors, 2017 ★ |
Taylor Swift, Reputation, 2017 ★ |
U2, Songs of Experience, 2017 | Paramore, After Laughter, 2017 | Wolf Alice, Visions of a Life, 2017 ★ |
Franz Ferdinand, Always Ascending, 2018 |
| George Ezra, Staying at Tamara’s, 2018 | Ash, Islands, 2018 | Suede, The Blue Hour, 2018 ★★ |
Jon Hopkins, Singularity, 2018 | Jon Hopkins, Immunity, 2013 | Muse, Simulation Theory, 2018 | Mitski, Be the Cowboy, 2018 | Andrew W.K., You’re Not Alone, 2018 ★ |
| LSD, Labrinth, Sia & Diplo Present... LSD, 2019 ★ |
The Divine Comedy, Office Politics, 2019 ★ |
Billie Eilish, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, 2019 ★ |
Pixies, Beneath the Eyrie, 2019 ★ |
Keane, Cause and Effect, 2019 ★ |
Elbow, Giants of All Sizes, 2019 ★ |
Underground Lovers, A Left Turn, 2019 | Fat White Family, Serfs Up!, 2019 |
Strictly speaking, this isn’t all of my favourite finds, as I discovered plenty of albums from the previous ten to fifty years that kept my attention during the decade; Before the Dawn Heals Us by M83 (2005), In the Zone by Britney Spears (2003), the 2006 remaster of Split Enz’s Frenzy (1979) and a bunch of old Bowie albums would all have featured here if I’d broadened the timeframe. But I have to draw the line somewhere, and that line is Stuff Released Since 1/1/10. This matrix also shows which albums I came to late, because it’s ordered by when I added them to my iTunes library. The different background colours for each year of release should help. (One I haven’t included is John Grant’s Queen of Denmark from 2010, which I only discovered a few days ago. It’s great, but I need another few listens before declaring it best-of-decade-worthy.)
I’ve starred the albums that I loved the most, the ones that dominated my listening for weeks on end; and I’ve double-starred my top five. The best year of the decade for music, for me, was 2015, with a string of amazing albums, especially once I belatedly discovered Wolf Alice and Hamilton the following year (the latter was the soundtrack of the US presidential race for me; I could hardly bear to listen to it after Trump won). 2014 and 2017 were also strong. Album of the decade? Probably Art Angels by Grimes. I wish she’d hurry up with the new one, we haven’t got all decade.