| #61 - #41 || #40 - #21 || #20 - #1 || Reissues |
Tracks 2008-2018:
| #129 - #99 || #98 - #65 || #64 - 37 || #36 - #1 |
We purposely chose to bookend this canon with "Teen Creeps" and "Excalibur," but not only because they encapsulate their respective eras. (So there's no confusion, "era" refers to an historical period -- when, where, and what -- usually coexisting alongside other concurrent eras.)
It's true that "Teen Creeps" sonically captured a lofi-pop aesthetic that was felt across multiple genres through the early 2010s, but perhaps more importantly, its album Nouns definitely felt like it launched an era of DIY momentum. Within 3 or 4 years, a tangible community had established itself across the United States and Canada, eventually spreading outside of North America.
It's possible that something very similar has been building since "Excalibur." Yes, it's a perfect song, but its confidence hints at what lies ahead. We're expecting some aspects of hardcore and its adjacent non-hardcore offshoots to explode in the next few years. While it might not receive wide coverage on the same blogs that cover Clairo, a subdivision that's neither rockist nor poptimist has made itself known.
True quality will always outlive a PR narrative. The era of journalism majors controlling the canon, judging music solely by its wokeness quotient, is simply unsustainable. The past 12 years did NOT make it easy to find the best music. And as far as we can tell, there's not any places on the internet that covered all of the artists in this post.
Whether these are anyone else's favorites or not, or whether they're in an order that anyone else agrees with, is beside the point. All of these tracks represent the tip of an iceberg. Find something you like and go exploring.
BONUS: On this page only, keep your eyes open for some bonus "See Also" tracks from 2019-2020.
36. Chris Weisman “Open Tuning” (2010)
| Hot Mix '10 (2015): #18 |
See Also: Home Blitz "Final Decay" (2020)
35. Guided By Voices “Overloaded” (2017)
"Pollard gave one listen and said "it's done."" | Youtube |
| Hot Mix 2017: #22 |
See Also: Hum "Step Into You" (2020)
34. Beak> “Brean Down” (2018)
33. Beak> “Wulfstan” (2010)
"Brean Down"
"The sound of time speeding up out of nowhere. Gets worse the longer you wait."
| Hot Mix 2018: #6 |
"Wulfstan"
"Explosive, groove-oriented, balls-tripping."
| Hot Mix 2010: #17 |
See Also: Beak> "We Can Go" (2019)
32. Pusha T “Numbers On The Boards” (2013)
"Kanye examines beats that Pusha responds to most efficiently and extracts the elements that will respark and fuel his ferocity while adding a personalized flair of dopeness."
| Hot Mix 2013: #10 |
See Also: Danny Brown "Combat" (2019)
31. Ovlov “The Well” (2013)
30. Ringo Deathstarr “Slack” (2012)
29. My Bloody Valentine “Only Tomorrow” (2013)
Dreamy, melodic, and excruciatingly loud."The Well"
"Inserting earplugs at their live shows may help, but guts are typically no match for Ovlov. You will feel Ovlov in your gut."
| 500 Jams (2016): #343 | Hot Mix 2013: #7 |
"Slack"
"RDS's newfound aggression came at a price. We've been missing their spacey ballads, although this sudden brutality hasn’t removed their knack for strong vocal hooks, especially in “Slack” with “do you feel how I feel inside?” as the adolescent singalong."
| Hot Mix 2012: #19 |
"Only Tomorrow"
"The MBV LP is no square peg among their catalog, maintaining all their orbit-shifting enormity, with “Only Tomorrow” acting as the rocket ship itself, bridging the 22 year gap in six minutes."
| Hot Mix 2013: #5 | One Third Decade Wrap Up (2013): #5 |
See Also: Ringo Deathstarr "Once Upon A Freak" (2020)
28. Lil B “No Black Person Is Ugly” (2014)
"It might be among the most impassioned and soulful freestyles in the genre's history."
| 500 Jams (2016): #187 | Hot Mix 2014: #1 | Two-Thirds Decade Warp Up (2016): #5 |
See Also: Lil B "Get That Money Based Freestyle" (2019)
27. Windhand “Grey Garden” (2018)
26. Sleep "Marijuanaut's Theme" (2018)
Sweet leaf. Melodic doom. We can't tell the difference."Grey Garden"
"Their wizardry is no joke, perfectly blending spacey sci-fi with renaissance through precise alchemy: Three-parts sludge and doom, two-parts soaring melodic overtones, crushingly huge hooks. But the key ingredient might be pure, meditative, hypnotic simplicity. Decaying, musty, germy, decades-old dust."
| Hot Mix 2018: #1 |
"Marijuanaut's Theme"
"The Iommi-thirds accompanying its riff ascend straight into one of Matt Pike's wildest shredder solos."
| Hot Mix 2018: #21 |
See Also: Holy Serpent "For No One" (2019)
25. D’Angelo “The Charade” (2014)
24. D’Angelo “1000 Deaths” (2014)
"The Charade" : | Youtube |
| 500 Jams (2016): #53 | Hot Mix 2014: #13 | Two-Thirds Decade Warp Up (2016): #3 |
"1000 Deaths" : | Youtube |
"There's a moment towards the end of "1000 Deaths" when D'Angelo lets out an impassioned howl. Framed only within the warmth of the analog and peaking UV meters, it's an incredibly vulnerable moment, capturing a burning intensity so severe that it communicates just as many words as those within the entire lyric sheet of Black Messiah itself. It's a reflection of "1000 Death's" forcefully bold, raw emotion that does all the talking for us, giving purpose to the under-emphasized lyrics and obscured vocal hooks."
| Hot Mix 2014: #8 |
23. A$AP Rocky f/ Drake & Kendrick Lamar “Fuckin’ Problems” (2012)
22. Waka Flocka Flame “Hard In Da Paint” (2010)
21. Pill “Trap Goin’ Ham” (2009)
Party trap.
"Fuckin' Problems"Kendrick's iconic closing verse might have been this decade's equivalent to Biggie on "Mo Money Mo Problems."
| Hot Mix 2012: #41 |
"Hard In Da Paint"
| Once Again For 2010 (2011): #13 |
"Trap Goin' Ham"
| 500 Jams (2016): #426 | Hot Mix 2009: #22 | One More Time For 2009 (2010): #23 | Hot Mix '09 (2015): #2 |
See Also: Denzel Curry "Ricky" (2019)
20. The-Dream “Yamaha” (2010)
19. Robyn “Hang With Me” (2010)
A pair of singles from 2010 that we kept consistantly underrating.
"Yamaha"
"One of those epic future-classics with multiple choruses and refrains with each new section better than the one before it."
| Hot Mix 2010: #14 | Hot Mix '10 (2015): #9 | One Third Decade Wrap Up (2013): #7 |
"Hang With Me"
The prequel to "Be Mine" and "Dancing On My Own.""
| 500 Jams (2016): #414 | Hot Mix 2010: #16 | Hot Mix '10 (2015): #10 | One Third Decade Wrap Up (2013): #15 |
18. Carly Rae Jepsen “Boy Problems” (2015)
17. Maren Morris “’80s Mercedes” (2016)
Singer-songwriters are back.
"Boy Problems"
About half of E•MO•TION ended up in Hot Mix 2015, but not "Boy Problems." We fucked up.
"'80s Mercedes"
"Structurally, this could be the spunky younger cousin of "Bad Romance" with both flexing a similar "downpour of hooks" technique more common to radio hits in the early '10s. There's no real excuse for a pop song as hooky as this one to not generate any true chart crossover."
| Hot Mix 2017: #8 |
See Also: Sedona "More Love" (2019)
16. (Sandy) Alex G “Proud” (2017)
""If I fuck up..." That's just how it ends - the year's most gigantic self-doubting open-ended lyric. The true heart-sinker. What if we all fuck up? What if everyone tweets all of their tweet drafts right now?"
| Hot Mix 2017: #2 |
See Also: Kevin Krauter "Pretty Boy" (2019)
15. Yuck “Get Away” (2011)
14. Ovlov “Where’s My Dini” (2013)
Bombin' the half pipe.
"Get Away"
"Headphones on in study hall, pissed at the world, breaking pencils as you use your desk for a drum." We didn't write that.
| Hot Mix 2011: #3 |
"Where's My Dini"
"Gazing into the sky miles apart. As a muse, “Dini” represents something larger than a single instance, as the song's crushingly overwhelming sense of longing strikes a universal chord."
| 500 Jams (2016): #225 | Hot Mix 2013: #26 | Two-Thirds Decade Warp Up (2016): #9 |
See Also: Curse Word "Big Fingers" (2019)
13. Lil Wayne f/ Babyface “Comfortable” (2008)
12. Gucci Mane “Lemonade” (2009)
11. Rihanna f/ Drake “Work” (2016)
Huge party jams. Huger than the previous party block. Sorry, we couldn't think of anything good."Comfortable"
The Hood Internet mash-up was our introduction. Ur crazy for this one.
| 500 Jams (2016): #285 | Hot Mix '08 (2015): #2 |
"Lemonade"
"There's a new king of mushimouthness. Treat your mixtapes like albums. Treat your albums like mixtapes."
| Hot Mix 2010: #31 | Hot Mix '09 (2015): #8 |
"Work"
"It's an imperfect song, but working through the imperfections is what makes shit WORK. IT FUCKING FITS."
| 500 Jams (2016): #441 | Hot Mix 2016: #12 | Two-Thirds Decade Warp Up (2016): #7 |
See Also: DaBaby featuring Offset "Baby Sitter" (2019)
10. Warpaint “Love Is To Die” (2013)
"Face the portal. An entry into the unknown. Step inside. If the walls start moving, stare at them longer. Shit gets darker and darker until it's pitch black, and then the chorus hits. Suddenly, the surrounding tunnel turns neon dark-green with pink and yellow flying everywhere. Don't go in too deep though. It's possible that this whole time you were driving in the summer rain at 3AM. Or maybe that's the only part of this that ISN'T real. Whatever you do, don't wake up."
| Hot Mix 2014: #14 | Two-Thirds Decade Warp Up (2016): #2 |
See Also: Big Thief "UFOF" (2019)
9. Kanye West f/ Kendrick Lamar “No More Parties In LA” (2016)
8. Nicki Minaj “Come On A Cone” (2012)
Too real.
"No More Parties In LA"
"Art vs. Status. Kendrick is as sharp as he's ever been, enough that Kanye calls it "scary" and suddenly finds himself in a position to hone his best rap verse in nearly a decade - 3 months worth of therapy sessions crammed into 3 minutes."
| Hot Mix 2016: #2 | Two-Thirds Decade Warp Up (2016): #4 |
"Come On A Cone"
"Coked-up and blistering."
| 500 Jams (2016): #109 | Hot Mix 2012: #24 |
See Also: RMR "Rascal" (2020)
7. Deerhunter “Nothing Ever Happened” (2008)
6. No Age “Teen Creeps” (2008)
We stretched this back to '08 for a reason.
"Nothing Ever Happened"
| 500 Jams (2016): # 407 |
"Teen Creeps"
| 500 Jams (2016): #70 | Hot Mix 2008: #1 | Hot Mix '08 (2015): #1 |
See Also: Rolling Blackouts CF "Cars In Space" (2020)
5. Mindforce “Excalibur” (2018)
4. Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats “Ritual Knife” (2011)
Feel the fire. "Excalibur"
The 2010s showed no shortage of colossal riffage, but "Excalibur" may have set a new bar.
| Hot Mix 2018: #12 |
"Ritual Knife" : | Youtube |
"In 1971, Z-Man throws yet another happening and invites back the same band from 1 year prior. Unfortunately, lead guitarist Jimi Hendrix is no longer with us, leaving the 3 remaining members - Burt Ward, Geezer Butler and Wings-era Paul McCartney - wearing black cloaks, surrounded by a shrine of candles, and ready to jam on some sludgy darkness."
| 500 Jams (2016): #494 | Hot Mix 2011: #2 | One Third Decade Wrap Up (2013): #3 |
See Also: Fury "Angels Over Berlin" (2019)
3. Fetty Wap “Trap Queen” (2014)
2. Miguel “Adorn” (2012)
1. Rihanna “Needed Me” (2016)
We're not sure if this is the actual "Top 3" of the entire decade, but all three are perfect enough to land somewhere in the actual top 10, and they collectively fulfill a solid representation of their era."Trap Queen" : | Youtube |
"It's a 3-and-a-half minute song with an earwormy twice-sung chorus that exceeds 60 seconds without repeating any lines. It's quite possible that this is the longest chorus of any Top 5 hit in Billboard history. Between them rests one brief but necessary 16-bar rap verse dead in its center, plus one celebratory outro. Fetty Wap uses the trap metaphor as an innocent-sounding expression of endearment outlining a backdrop for what might have been the most touching and romantic love song of 2015."
| Hot Mix 2015: #1 |
"Adorn"
"When Barry and Levon's reunion tour happens, "Adorn" is the only other jam that could possibly fit in their repertoire."
| 500 Jams (2016): # 85 | Hot Mix 2012: #11 |
"Needed Me" : | Youtube |
"Effectively propelling her DGAF-brand, she sneaks a lyrical undercurrent metaphorically staring down the media and her haters. They need her WAY more than she needs them. Neither wubby dubstep beats nor Migos' triplet-rap swag have ever felt more compelling than in "Needed Me.""
| Hot Mix 2016: #1 |
| #61 - #41 || #40 - #21 || #20 - #1 || Reissues |
Tracks 2008-2018:
| #129 - #99 || #98 - #65 || #64 - 37 || #36 - #1 |
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