Earlier this week, Spin posted their 101 Best Albums Of The 2010s, officially marking the close of end-of-decade season. Respect to SPIN for waiting it out. They won the "firstness" battle by coming in dead last.
The biggest surprise: Spin's #1 album matched our own, gratifyingly. Before last week, the legacy of ANTI felt destined for 8-10 more years of "stans only" devotion. In either case, the record will become eligible for nostalgia reassessment around 2028; meanwhile, a large anticlimactic brushstroke of anticonsensus from the bigger publications appropriately and frustratingly reflected the growing entitlement of the 2010s.
The Spin list also helped us reaffirm glaring constants among the past decade of music blogging.
- The landscape of music journalism has grown far too wide.
- By 2010, MTV and local radio no longer widely influenced new music consumption. With nowhere else for music fans to turn, the potential value of music journalism shot up exponentially.
- There are more music news reporters and music opinion writers today than at any other point in human history, and most of them born after 1985 possess questionably average levels of music knowledge. The armchair writing on RateYourMusic might not flow as nicely as on Conde Nast, but their community's lack of disinterest or apathy prove that unpaid opinions can possess equal value to paid opinions.
- As skilled press agents grow more adept at emphasizing the "importance" of their clients' expensive album campaigns, more mid-20s music writers and blog editors repeatedly fall for the ruse.
Add it all together, and we end up with millions of eyeballs reading through a failed attempt at a canon favoring capitalism-indie and all of the blue checkmark rich kids' favorite artists.
That said, it wasn't all bad. The editors occasionally granted positions to some truly great records that usually showed up on only one list in the #76-100 section. The ratio of good to boring was probably around 1 to 3, or 25%. It's not an impressive percentage, especially compared to the more widely consumed decade lists at the close of the '80s or '90s. But 25% definitely adds up to more than 100 albums.
And so, we wondered... What would it look like if we removed all the crap and compiled one list focusing on the best records and most accurate placements?
For this exercise, we cherry-picked placements from "The Big Four" of music blogs: Rolling Stone for the boomers, Spin for the Gen Xers, Pitchfork and Stereogum for the millennials.
We also included Vice's shockingly great zoomer-friendly decade round-up. Incidentally, Vice/Noisey was the only other popular blog to place ANTI in their Top 10. An anomaly for this decade, the Vice list felt like its curators actually paid attention to what young music fans actively enjoyed throughout the past 10 years, instead of cheerleading for Clairo and 19 other rich kids that sound like Clairo. Instead, Vice's Top 10 featured less precious outliers like Young Thug at #2, OPN at #10, and (best of all) Power Trip at #4.
After this Vice post, we spent summer and fall of last year temporarily convinced that Vice/Noisey might be our new spot. The list was THAT good. But sadly, their bland best-of-2019 selections squashed that hope.
It's worth noting that Pitchfork's "200 Best Albums of the 2010s" had the opposite effect. It's probably the single worst "listicle event" from any major publication in the history of music journalism. Our respect for Pitchfork's recommendations had all but disappeared since their 2015 acquisition from Conde Nast; these end-of-decade lists officially sealed the coffin. They had a very good run, but they're now equally as relevant as Rolling Stone with their best days behind them and their most devoted readers chasing a nostalgia dragon. We won't take them seriously ever again. RIP to "The Age of Pitchfork" and all their "important" music coverage.
So let's get into it. We made an effort to include records at their highest level of placement whenever possible, but never higher than that position. In an extra credit attempt to spice up the variance, we also included five selections that did not appear on these five listicles - from five entirely different blogs. We also extended this from 100 to 120 records, partially due to the ten genuinely great records throughout the 101-200 portion of Pitchfork's bloated canon.
The mega-list is here, all cleaned up. We fixed everything, and it looks much nicer now. It was our pleasure.
1. Rihanna ANTI (Spin, #1)
2. Kendrick Lamar To Pimp a Butterfly (Spin, #2)
3. Kanye West Yeezus (Stereogum, #2)
4. Power Trip Nightmare Logic (Vice/Noisey, #4)
5. David Bowie Blackstar (Rolling Stone, #5)
6. Rich Gang Tha Tour Part 1 (Vice/Noisey, #2)
7. The Knife Shaking The Habitual (Spin, #3)
8. Robyn Body Talk (Pitchfork, #8)
9. D'Angelo and the Vanguard Black Messiah (Pitchfork, #9)
10. Oneohtrix Point Never Replica (Vice/Noisey, #10)
11. Carly Rae Jepsen E•MO•TION (Stereogum, #9)
12. Miguel Kaleidoscope Dream (Vice/Noisey, #12)
13. Kendrick Lamar good kid, m.A.A.d city (Stereogum, #6)
14. Tame Impala Lonerism (Vice/Noisey, #13)
15. Frank Ocean nostalgia, ULTRA (Spin, #15)
16. Sufjan Stevens Carrie & Lowell (Stereogum, #16)
17. Skrillex Bangarang (Spin, #5)
18. My Bloody Valentine mbv (Stereogum, #18)
19. A Tribe Called Quest We Got It From Here... Thank You For Your Service (Spin, #19)
20. DJ Rashad Double Cup (Vice/Noisey, #6)
21. Courtney Barnett Sometimes I Sit and Think and Sometimes I Just Sit (Rolling Stone, #21)
22. Solange A Seat At The Table (Vice/Noisey, #1)
23. Parquet Courts Sunbathing Animal (Spin, #14)
24. Nicki Minaj Pink Friday (Spin, #24)
25. Kanye West My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (Rolling Stone, #1)
26. Frank Ocean Channel Orange (Pitchfork, #10)
27. Chromatics Kill For Love (Gorilla vs Bear, #8)
28. Danny Brown XXX (Spin, #12)
29. Deerhunter Halcyon Digest (Pitchfork, #29)
30. Paramore Paramore (Spin, #30)
31. Beyonce 4 (Pitchfork, #31)
32. Future DS2 (Vice/Noisey, #9)
33. Mitski Be The Cowboy (Rolling Stone, #33)
34. Thundercat Drunk (Vice/Noisey, #34)
35. Waka Flocka Flame Flockaveli (Vice/Noisey, #35)
36. Converge All We Love We Leave Behind (AV Club, #36)
37. Charli XCX Pop 2 (Vice/Noisey, #37)
38. Death Grips The Money Store (Spin, #38)
39. Mount Eerie A Crow Looked At Me (Vice/Noisey, #17)
40. The Weeknd House Of Balloons (Vice/Noisey, #40)
41. Kacey Musgraves Golden Hour (Rolling Stone, #11)
42. Erykah Badu New Amerikah Pt 2 Return of The Ankh (Pitchfork, #42)
43. Pusha T Daytona (Spin, #43)
44. No Age Everything In Between (Spin, #44)
45. Slowdive Slowdive (Stereogum, #44)
46. Bruce Springsteen Wrecking Ball (Rolling Stone, #46)
47. Aphex Twin Syro (Vice/Noisey, #47)
48. Purple Mountains Purple Mountains (Spin, #47)
49. Jay-Z and Kanye West Watch The Throne (Rolling Stone, #49)
50. Run The Jewels Run The Jewels 2 (Stereogum, #50)
51. Young Thug Barter 6 (Vice/Noisey, #19)
52. Carcass Surgical Steel (Vice/Noisey, #52)
53. Tyler The Creator Flower Boy (Vice/Noisey, #53)
54. Daft Punk Random Access Memories (Rolling Stone, #54)
55. Japandroids Celebration Rock (Spin, #17)
56. Kamasi Washington The Epic (Vice/Noisey, #56)
57. Earl Sweatshirt Doris (Stereogum, #57)
58. Bjork Vulnicura (Pitchfork, #56)
59. Freddie Gibbs & Madlib Pinata (Vice/Noisey, #59)
60. Nicki Minaj The Pinkprint (Rolling Stone, #60)
61. The-Dream Love King (Vice/Noisey, #61)
62. Omar Souleyman Haflat Gharbia: The Western Concerts (Spin, #52)
63. Fucked Up David Comes To Life (Stereogum, #63)
64. Lil Peep Come Over When You're Sobert Pt 1 (Vice/Noisey, #64)
65. Cloud Nothings Attack on Memory (Consequence Of Sound, #65)
66. Maren Morris Hero (Billboard, #64)
67. John Maus We Must Become The Pitiless Censors of Ourselves (Vice/Noisey, #67)
68. Flying Lotus Cosmogramma (Pitchfork, #68)
69. 100 Gecs 100 Gecs (Spin, #60)
70. Playboi Carti Playboi Carti (Spin, #70)
71. Miguel Wildheart (Slant, #68)
72. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Ghosteen (Stereogum, #72)
73. Colleen Green I Want To Grow Up (Spin, #73)
74. Low Double Negative (Stereogum, #71)
75. Beyonce Beyonce (Pitchfork, #3)
76. (Sandy) Alex G DSU (Stereogum, #76)
77. Turnstile Nonstop Feeling (Vice/Noisey, #77)
78. Zeal & Ardor Devil Is Fine (Spin, #78)
79. Kurt Vile Smoke Ring for My Halo (Pitchfork, #78)
80. Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks Mirror Traffic (Rolling Stone, #80)
81. Sheer Mag Compilation (I, II, & III) (Spin, #81)
82. Total Control Henge Beat (Vice/Noisey, #80)
83. Priests Nothing Feels Natural (Stereogum, #83)
84. Big Thief UFOF (Pitchfork, #33)
85. Arcade Fire The Suburbs (Stereogum, #14)
86. Fiona Apple The Idler Wheel (Pitchfork, #6)
87. Jeremih Late Nights: The Album (Vice/Noisey, #87)
88. Pile Dripping (Vice/Noisey, #88)
89. Big Boi Sir Lucious Left Foot... Son Of Chico Dusty (Consequence Of Sound, #89)
90. Neil Young + Crazy Horse Psychedelic Pill (Rolling Stone, #90)
91. YG My Krazy Life (Uproxx, #91)
92. DaBaby Blank Blank (Spin, #92)
93. Skrillex Scary Monster and Nice Sprites (Vice/Noisey, #93)
94. Sheer Mag Need You To Feel My Love (Vice/Noisey, #83)
95. Jai Paul Leak 04-13 (Bait Ones) (Pitchfork, #95)
96. Homeboy Sandman Kindness for Weakness (Spin, #88)
97. Rae Sremmurd SremmLife (Pitchfork, #87)
98. Charly Bliss Guppy (Stereogum, #90)
99. Earl Sweatshirt I Don't Like Shit I Don't Go Outside (Spin, #99)
100. Salem King Night (Vice/Noisey, #100)
101. Mitski Puberty 2 (Stereogum, #27)
102. Pup The Dream Is Over (Spin, #53)
103. Syd Fin (Spin, #42)
104. Beach House Teen Dream (Vice/Noisey, #11)
105. PJ Harvey Let England Shake (Vice/Noisey, #71)
106. Kendrick Lamar DAMN. (Stereogum, #11)
107. Against Me! White Crosses (Spin, #55)
108. Real Estate Days (Pitchfork, #123)
109. Janelle Monae The ArchAndroid (Pitchfork, #116)
111. Drake Take Care (Rolling Stone, #6)
112. ASAP ROCKY LIVE.LOVE.ASAP (Pitchfork, #137)
113. Tierra Whack Whack World (Spin, #10)
114. Chief Keef Finally Rich (Pitchfork, #145)
115. Joanna Newson Have One On Me (Pitchfork, #16)
116. Vince Staples Summertime '06 (Stereogum, #23)
117. Mac Demarco 2 (Pitchfork, #149)
118. Lady Gaga The Fame Monster (Pitchfork, #151)
119. G.L.O.S.S. Trans Day of Revenge (Pitchfork, #182)
120. Hailu Mergia Lala Belu (Pitchfork, #185)
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