TOP ALBUMS OF THE DECADE - THE 2010's

All year I have been listing my favorite albums by decade....all of those lists working up to this one...my favorite albums of the 2010's. These are the albums that I have come back to and listened to the most over the past ten years.

20. Susanne Sundfør, Music For People In Trouble 

Norwegian singer songwriter Susanne Sundfør has been making music since the mid 2000s, moving between electronic pop, folk, and more experimental music along the way. Her previous album, Ten Love Songs, was filled with synthesizers and big electronic arrangements. On her sixth album, Music for People in Trouble, she heads in a very different direction.

Piano and acoustic guitar are at the center of much of the album, giving Sundfør’s incredible voice plenty of room. She has talked about making the record during a time when she was thinking about the anxiety and uncertainty she saw in the world around her. “Everything is moving so rapidly, sometimes violently, sometimes dauntingly. I think a lot of people experience anxiety these days.”

Despite some of the heavier subjects, Music for People in Trouble is an absolutely beautiful album. It’s quiet and intimate at times, strange and unexpected at others, and another example of what a remarkable artist Sundfør is.

19. Max Jury, Max Jury

I didn’t know much about Max Jury when his self titled debut came out in 2016, but the album took me completely by surprise. The young Iowa singer songwriter makes music that immediately brings to mind some of the great songwriters of the ’60s and ’70s.

There are elements of Laurel Canyon throughout the album, along with artists like Carole King, Elton John, and Billy Joel. Piano plays a big role, along with strings, horns, and some wonderful vocal arrangements. There is definitely a vintage quality to Jury’s songwriting and sound, but somehow none of it feels dated. The songs feel fresh and completely his own.

Max Jury has been a family favorite since its release in 2016. It’s filled with great songs and melodies and is one of those albums we never seem to get tired of listening to.

18. Alt-J, An Awesome Wave

Alt-J seemed to come out of nowhere with their debut album, An Awesome Wave. The English band formed while its members were studying at Leeds University, and the music they created together is difficult to categorize. There is indie rock, electronic music, folk, and even a little art rock, all mixed together in some pretty unusual ways.

An Awesome Wave hit me like a tidal wave the first time I heard it. The rhythms are constantly changing, the vocals are layered in unusual ways, and there are all sorts of little sounds and musical ideas scattered throughout the album. Yet somehow it all works. It’s intelligent, innovative, frisky, and wildly engrossing. This is a fantastic debut album.

17. Noah & The Whale, Last Night On Earth 

Last Night On Earth, Noah & The Whale’s third studio album, is a loose concept album, although not quite in the traditional sense. Inspired in part by Charles Bukowski’s The Last Night of the Earth Poems, Charlie Fink writes about different characters over the course of a night, many of them looking to make a change in their lives or simply wondering what else might be out there. It’s a big change from the very personal songwriting of the band’s previous album, The First Days of Spring.

There is a great mid ’80s rock anthem feel to these songs, with influences like Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty coming through. But it never feels like the band is pressing too hard to make the songs bigger than they need to be. “L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.,” “Tonight’s the Kind of Night,” “Life Is Life,” and “Waiting for My Chance to Come” all have big choruses and melodies.

Honestly, one song is better than the next and singing along becomes an automatic reflex when the music starts. Last Night On Earth is a great album and easily my favorite Noah & The Whale album.

                                                            

16. Lo Moon, Lo Moon

Lo Moon’s self titled debut sounds like it could have come out of the 1980s. There are hints of Talk Talk, The Blue Nile, and Peter Gabriel throughout, with synthesizers, guitars, big bass lines, and plenty of space in the arrangements. The songs often take their time to develop, something that singer Matt Lowell has said was influenced by Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden.

“Loveless,” which stretches past seven minutes, is a great example, slowly building around Lowell’s vocals before opening up as the song progresses. “This Is It” is another favorite. There is a lot to like about this album, and Lo Moon have put together a really impressive debut.

   

15. Radiohead, A Moon Shaped Pool

Twenty-three years after releasing their debut album, Radiohead are still finding new directions to take their music. On their ninth album, A Moon Shaped Pool, strings and piano play a much larger role, with Jonny Greenwood bringing his experience as a film composer into the arrangements. The album also includes songs that have been around for years, including “True Love Waits,” which dates back to the 1990s. There is a sadness running through much of the record, with Thom Yorke writing about relationships, loss, and uncertainty. 

A Moon Shaped Pool is a beautiful album and has become one of my favorite Radiohead albums.

14. Hurray For The Riff Raff, The Navigator

Alynda Mariposa Segarra, who fronts the band Hurray For The Riff Raff, grew up in the Bronx. Over time, they had become increasingly aware of how gentrification had eroded the Puetro Rican culture which stood in stark contrast to how it continued to flourish in Puerto Rico despite the damage being done to so many communities by the many economic and social challenged that they faced. 

This awareness lead Segarra to conceive of The Navigator, which follow a protagonist named Navita, a 16 year old street kid, who is navigating an over-gentrified city sometime in the near future. With a perfectly formed '70's rock storytelling sensibility, in a similar vain to The Rise And Fall of Ziggy Stardust, Segarra and the band unfold Navita's story and journey in a wonderful fashion. One which brings understanding to the challenges Navita and community face and inspiration from how they ultimately take back their culture.

13. Little Cub, Still Life

What a debut album! South London’s Little Cub make synth driven pop that draws heavily from the electronic music of the ’80s, but with lyrics that are very much about life today. On Still Life, the band writes about politics, relationships, social media, technology, and the general uneasiness of modern life, often setting those subjects against music that is surprisingly upbeat and danceable.

There are synthesizers everywhere, along with guitars, electronic rhythms, and Dominic Gore’s understated vocals. I love the contrast between how good much of this music makes you feel and what Gore is actually singing about. Still Life is one of the best debut albums that I can remember being this excited about.

12. Tool, Fear Inoculum

Tool fans, such as myself, waited 13 long years for the band’s follow up to 10,000 Days. And now, in 2019, we have Fear Inoculum to consume and ponder. This is a monster of an album built on patience and precision, each track unfolding like a slow-turning wheel. Tool moves through extended passages where riffs spiral outward, dissolve, and re-form, carried by Danny Carey’s intricate drumming that feels equal parts ritual and calculation. Adam Jones’ guitar work cuts and swells in perfect balance with Justin Chancellor’s bass, while Maynard James Keenan’s voice arrives with patient, deliberate phrasing, threading its way through the dense and deliberate arrangements.

The record’s scale demands full attention. Across its hour-and-a-half runtime, Fear Inoculum creates an atmosphere where time feels suspended. Every note, rest, and shift in texture is placed with intention. This is Tool on their own timeline, crafting something vast enough to step into and stay for a while. It was an album worth the wait.

11. Jonathan Wilson, Gentle Spirit

Jonathan Wilson’s Gentle Spirit sounds like an album that could have been made in Laurel Canyon in the early ’70s. Wilson had become deeply immersed in its music and history and described his inspiration as “that golden late ‘60s, early ‘70s period when rural and urban sensibilities colluded in producing some of rock’s most imperishable recordings.”

As a longtime student of Los Angeles’ Laurel Canyon, its musical heritage, and its Canyon culture, Wilson wanted his musical ideas to “echo many of an earlier generation.” You can hear that influence throughout Gentle Spirit, with elements of folk and psychedelic rock alongside the laid back sound of early ’70s Laurel Canyon. The songs are spacious and unhurried, filled with acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards, harmonies, and long instrumental passages. But it never feels like Wilson is simply trying to recreate the past.

Gentle Spirit is slow burning, mellow, laid back, and beautifully played. It’s an album I can put on, settle into, and happily stay with for the next hour and twenty minutes.

10. David Bowie, Blackstar

Blackstar turned out to be David Bowie’s final album, released on his 69th birthday, just two days before his death from cancer. Bowie had been diagnosed in 2014 and knew that he was seriously ill while writing and recording the album, although he apparently didn’t learn that his cancer was terminal until after the recording had been completed. That knowledge makes it impossible to listen to the album without thinking about what Bowie was going through at the time. But Blackstar wasn’t simply an album about death. Bowie was still looking forward and, as he had throughout his career, searching for new sounds and musicians to work with.

For Blackstar, Bowie surrounded himself with a group of New York jazz musicians led by saxophonist Donny McCaslin. Bowie had first worked with McCaslin on “Sue (Or in a Season of Crime),” recorded with the Maria Schneider Orchestra, and subsequently brought McCaslin’s band into the studio for Blackstar. The musicians knew Bowie was undergoing cancer treatment, but they didn’t know how little time he had left. Bowie remained focused on making the record and encouraged the band to bring their own ideas to the sessions. Even at the age of 68 and seriously ill, after nearly fifty years of making albums, Bowie was still wanting to try something new. The result is an album that sounds unlike anything else Bowie had done, combining jazz with rock, electronic music, and some of his more experimental ideas. The title track is probably the best example. At nearly ten minutes, “Blackstar” moves through several different sections, at times strange and experimental.

Blackstar would be a remarkable album under any circumstances. But knowing that Bowie made it while battling cancer, released it on his 69th birthday, and died two days later changes the way I hear it. It’s just a phenomenal album and a fitting end to one of the most remarkable careers in music.

9. Arctic Monkeys, AM

My son says that AM is the best Arctic Monkeys album yet. It is hard for me to agree or disagree with him, because comparing it to the band’s first two albums feels like comparing apples to oranges. I loved the explosive energy, sharp edges, and youthful swagger of those early records, and I never really wanted their sound to change. But bands evolve, and Arctic Monkeys have done so without losing their identity. 

AM trades some of that raw speed for a slower, heavier groove, pulling in elements of R&B, hip-hop beats, and desert rock alongside their guitar-driven core. The result is a record that feels both sleek and assured, filled with memorable hooks and lyrics that stick. 

Over the years, the Arctic Monkeys has grown and matured, and so has their songwriting. Now I find myself not only accepting where they are today, but absolutely loving it, with AM standing as proof that change can bring out the best in a band.

8. King Creosote & Jon Hopkins, Diamond Mine

Scottish singer songwriter Kenny Anderson, who records under the name King Creosote, has a prolific body of work, releasing more than forty albums since 1998. Back in 2011, he teamed up with English electronic composer and producer Jon Hopkins to create Diamond Mine, a beautiful reflection on the people, town, and landscape of Fife, where Anderson lives.

The album brought together Anderson’s quiet, soulful songs with Hopkins’ electronic music and field recordings of everyday life in Fife. Conversations, footsteps, birds, and sounds from local shops and cafés become part of the music, giving the album a real sense of place. Anderson and Hopkins come from very different musical backgrounds, but everything fits together beautifully.

Diamond Mine is warm, intimate, and unlike much else I’ve heard. It’s an absolutely beautiful album and a great example of what can happen when two very different artists find the right way to work together. This is a very special album.

7. Sandro Perri, In Another Life 

Sandro Perri defies logic on In Another Life, which he describes as an experiment in “infinite songwriting.” The 24-minute title track drifts without urgency, unfolding like a dream that refuses to resolve. Built on slow-moving chords and gentle melodic shifts, it creates a sense of time suspended, where moments stretch and dissolve before ever settling. There’s no climax, no chorus, just the quiet confidence of a song content to exist.

The second half of the album consists of three versions of “Everybody’s Paris,” each one reimagined with new collaborators and shifting textures. What could feel repetitive instead becomes a study in perspective, as melodies reshape and emotional tones recalibrate. Perri leans into ambiguity and space, letting atmosphere do the heavy lifting. It’s an ambient pop suite that feels both meticulous and unbound, mesmerizing, hypnotic, and quietly unforgettable.

6. Michael Kiwanuka, Love & Hate

Michael Kiwanuka first caught my attention with his 2012 debut album, Home Again. His music was rooted in classic soul and R&B, and his voice naturally drew comparisons to artists like Bill Withers. Four years later, Kiwanuka returned with Love & Hate, an album that expands well beyond the sound of his debut.

Produced by Danger Mouse and Inflo, Love & Hate brings rock, psychedelia, gospel, and orchestral arrangements into Kiwanuka’s soul and R&B foundation. The album opens with the nearly ten minute “Cold Little Heart,” which builds slowly through an extended instrumental opening before Kiwanuka’s vocals finally enter. It’s a pretty good introduction to an album that takes its time and gives the songs plenty of room to develop.

Kiwanuka also gets more personal on Love & Hate, writing about self doubt, identity, race, and his own struggles with confidence. Songs like “Black Man in a White World” and “Love & Hate” address those subjects directly, while the arrangements throughout the album are filled with strings, guitars, keyboards, backing vocals, and percussion.

Love & Hate is a big step forward from Home Again. I loved Kiwanuka’s debut, but this album shows just how much more there is to his music. It’s one of those albums that seems to get better every time I listen to it. This is a fantastic record.

5. Metronomy, The English Riviera

Back in 2011, Metronomy’s The English Riviera was nominated for Britain’s Mercury Prize for album of the year. Joseph Mount, the driving force behind the band, described the album as a kind of love letter to his hometown of Totnes in Devon and to his romanticized idea of the English Riviera. As a teenager, he would drive around the seaside towns of the area blasting Ace of Base from his car.

There’s plenty of electronic pop, synthesizers, funky bass lines, and some wonderfully eccentric musical ideas throughout The English Riviera. It’s unmistakably British, a little quirky, and unlike much else I was listening to at the time. Eccentric, slightly avant garde leaning British pop has always been my thing, which is perhaps why I was immediately drawn to it. I just love this one.

4. LCD Soundsystem, American Dream

In 2011, James Murphy and LCD Soundsystem played what was supposed to be their farewell concert at Madison Square Garden. Six years later, Murphy had more to say, to share, and to question. And so he gave us American Dream.

Murphy writes about aging, love, regret, friendship, and trying to make sense of where he is in his life. Musically, American Dream is filled with synthesizers, drum machines, guitars, and rhythms that build and build, sometimes over the course of eight or nine minutes. There are echoes of David Bowie, Talking Heads, and some of the darker electronic music of the ’80s, but it still sounds unmistakably like LCD Soundsystem.

The album ends with “Black Screen,” Murphy’s tribute to Bowie, slowly drifting away over its final minutes. It’s a beautiful way to close an album. What a return.

3. Arcade Fire, Reflektor

Influenced by Haitian rara music, the 1959 film Black Orpheus, and Søren Kierkegaard’s essay Two Ages, Reflektor marks a bold shift in Arcade Fire’s sound. The band leans into dance rhythms, layered percussion, and expansive arrangements, moving away from the more straightforward rock structures of their earlier work. 

Across its 75-minute runtime, the album unfolds like a journey, full of stylistic shifts and sonic experiments that still feel tied together by its ambition and scope. Lyrically, it wrestles with themes of identity, isolation, and the ways technology shapes human connection, often blurring the line between intimacy and distance. 

From the propulsive opener “Reflektor” to the haunting 11-minute closer “Supersymmetry,” it is a record designed to be experienced as a whole...grand, immersive, and unapologetically committed to its vision.

2. Damien Rice, My Favorite Faded Fantasy

It had been eight long years between the release of My Favourite Faded Fantasy and Damien Rice’s previous album, 9. So where was he? In an interview with The Telegraph, Rice described his self imposed exile as a time of “transition,” one in which he shed old attitudes toward life and explored new ones. “I am really curious about life, about why we are all here. I notice my skin is aging, things are changing, I've seen people dying, so that's the train we are all on. And I would like to figure some shit out before I reach the destination.”

During those eight years, Rice largely stepped away from music and eventually settled in Iceland. He has talked about becoming incredibly self critical, repeatedly starting work on another album and then abandoning it. Eventually he reached out to producer Rick Rubin, who helped Rice stop judging his own work and find his way back to making music.

With My Favourite Faded Fantasy, Rice takes us into the mind of a man still searching and yearning for answers, but becoming more comfortable with simply living the journey. After eight years away, it was well worth the wait.

1. Destroyer, Kaputt

Daniel Bejar has never been an artist particularly interested in repeating himself. Recording as Destroyer, he has moved through indie rock, glam, folk, and electronic music, often changing direction considerably from one album to the next. But nothing he had done before really prepares you for Kaputt, his ninth album.

Released in 2011, Kaputt finds Bejar drawing from the softer and more polished sounds of the late ’70s and ’80s. There are elements of Brian Eno and Bryan Ferry, but also soft rock, sophisti-pop, and smooth jazz. Synthesizers and guitars are everywhere, but what I especially love is all of the trumpet, saxophone, and flute. There is so much happening in these arrangements, yet Bejar somehow brings all of these different sounds together.

I loved Kaputt when I first heard it back in 2011, but my appreciation for it has only grown since then. It has become one of my all-time favorite albums and one that I never seem to get tired of listening to. There really isn't another album that sounds quite like it.

And if you can get your hands on the European edition, the nearly 20 minute The Laziest River is a must. It’s a largely instrumental piece that moves through several sections. For me, it takes Kaputt to a whole other level.