10 for 10's! 10 Albums That Defined The Sound of the 2010's For Me...

         Hear we go, it feels very good to be back! The sound of the click and the clack of the keys under my suddenly useful finger tips. (It's been a quiet holiday when it comes to work) The simple manipulation of these 40 some odd keys, completely connecting my physical body with the inner-workings of my brain; the essence of me, the story teller. In short, this is therapeutic. Thanks for tuning in and validating the purpose I put into this effort. As far as the blog from the past, I'd gotten busy with work, life and other less noble distractions, but I'm resolved to create and share in 2020. That said, please reach out if you have any ideas that you, myself or others would be interested in reading about, I'm very much open to topics or challenges!

        Enough preamble, the decade has just drawn to a close and as such we are conditioned to look back, reflect and attempt to make sense of what was. I'm going to focus this blog on the music of the 2010's, what moved me, stayed with me, and served to time stamp a soundtrack to the experience and memories of the 10's. This is one of my favourite things about music, the trail of bread crumbs it allows us to recollect as we meander through memory lane.
         
        This is by no means an objective retelling of the music industry, who collected Grammy's, and/or soared to the top of the charts. While some of those things may validate my selections, they served no importance in my selections. However, what did hold weight was a personal attempt at the following critical reflective thoughts:
1.What was my first impression of what I was listening too? Did I immediately know this album
would stick in my head? (we'll call this the sticky score)
2.How many repeated listens did I give the album? (we'll call this an album's replay score)
3.How much has the album struck a lasting impression on my soul over time? (soul score)
4.Do I find myself returning to the album time after time - what is the timeless nature of the album? (timeless score)

What can I say, I'm a teacher, I like rubrics, marks/scores and quantifying things!

10. Vince Staples - Summertime '06 (2015) - I'm a child of the 80's but I grew up in the 90's and one of the music genres that has had the largest impact on me was hip hop. Growing up playing basketball, hip hop was an integral part of that culture and the two fed into one another. You will see how that influence has had a lasting impact throughout this list. That said, most of the hip hop I still listen to comes from what I would call that 90's "golden era" of hip hop. Tribe, Wu, early Jay Z, Nas, Snoop, etc. I've increasingly distanced myself from the generation in recent years, perhaps a commentary on the quality of the music, but more likely, a commentary on how I've changed as well. There have been some notable exceptions to this however. When I first listened to Vince Staples brash lyricism on Summertime '06 I was immediately blown away.  Vince wasn't a new age rapper, you know the type - cultivated in a studio where the success was as much determined by the production and media portrayal as it was about anything the rapper was saying. Staples took me back to the era of hip hop I fell in love with. The themes of making something from nothing, of overcoming tremendous adversity and short comings with a confidence that wasn't a front, but was a necessity. It had the raw portrayals of the streets that used to transport me as a teenager, while my perspective has expanded since that time. I appreciate the raw, gritty visuals that Staples has taken the time to cultivate on this record. It might not find it's way onto many critics top tens, but it's on mine!
Highlights: Lift Me Up, Norf Norf, Summertime, Surf
Sticky Score 9   Replay Score 8.5   Soul Score 8.5   Timeless Score 8.5   Total Score: 34.5

9. Frank Ocean - Blonde (2016) - Frank Ocean was one of the decades most mysterious and intriguing artists, with the success of his mixtape, Nostalgia Ultra, Ocean served notice that we would be one of the voices of the decade with his identity exploring and cryptic soul searching lyrics. He followed it up with another terrific offering, Channel Orange, another album I considered for this short list. A tremendous songwriter, Ocean is at his best on Blonde, exploring sexuality, independence and other abstract concepts over a number of layered soundscapes. Released in 2016, this albums scores high in replay value as I am still enjoying new plays on words and the multitude of different layers both the lyrics, themes and sonics have to offer.
Highlights: Nikes, Solo, Nights, White Ferrari, Pink + White
Sticky Score 8.5   Replay Score 9    Soul Score 9   Timeless Score 8.5   Total Score: 35

8. Mumford and Sons - Sigh No More (2010) - I can remember the first time I heard about Mumford and Sons. I was supply teaching at Riverview High School and a band of students played, The Cave in front of the school at an assembly. I was moved by the song and I could tell from the audience I wasn't the only one. I inquired about who they were covering, and soon I was listening to the album on repeat. When I made the switch to vinyl records in about 2015, Sigh No More was one of the first records that I bought. Despite loving hip hop through my childhood, I always had a varied taste in music and have always looked to take my love for music in many different directions, this represented a new direction for me, and I think a new direction for the music industry as a whole. The mainstream 'rock music' has faded away, it's now a myriad of different sub genres, where the focus is on authenticity and connecting the listener and the artist within this sense of "emotional realness". Mumford and Sons was one of the first modern folk rock bands to do this for me. I'm often inspired by the lyrics and the emotions the songs invoke in me. They've produced a number of records since this, but the others don't have that same emotional appeal to me as this one!
Highlights: Awake My Soul, Little Lion Man, The Cave, Sigh No More 
Sticky Score 9   Replay Score 8.5    Soul Score 9    Timeless Score 8.5    Total Score: 35

7. Lana Del Rey - Born To Die (2012) - This is one of those unexpected albums that crept up on me, in an era with Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, etc I wanted to dismiss Lana Del Rey as another pop puff piece of music artistry. I quickly realized she was quite different than many of her contemporaries, not just in her lyrical content but also in the mood and tone of her work. The work was too genuine to carry the air of pop polish I was expecting to be put off by. I just kept listening to song after song in which she seemed to be searching for love, belonging, and affirmation. This album encapsulated what it felt like to be in your late 20's and not feeling like you had it figured out. It was a collection of ideas about how the world worked that still seemed to be a work in progress. Yet at the same time there is a young passion and romantic longing to have it all or a willingness to risk it all. It vacillates between the highs of ambition in Off to the Races, and National Anthem, to the self doubt and longing in Video Games and Summertime Sadness. While the themes and lyrical content is unpolished the sweeping soundscapes are anything but, the production on this record is really well done and allows Lana to explore a wide range of emotion. The album and LDR herself are definitely cool, but you get the sense that she's not so sure just yet. 
Highlights: Born To Die, Radio, Video Games, Blue Jeans
Sticky Score 9.5   Replay Score 9    Soul Score 8.5    Timeless Score 8.5   Total Score: 35.5

6. Leonard Cohen -You Want It Darker (2016) - Another example of an album that I wasn't expecting to be blown away by. Growing up I had a friend Sean Buchanan who perhaps mentioned some Leonard Cohen poetry, I knew of Hallelujah, but when I unwrapped this present at Christmas of 2016 I probably wore a weak look of "thanks?". My sister sensing my undeserved suggestion of disappointment, quickly began to justify her purchase with the critical reviews and accolades the album had received, as well as how it's tone fit with the melancholy sounds she had grown accustom to hearing me enjoy (Ryan Adams, Elliot Smith) I lightened up and said  thanks I'll give it a listen. It wasn't long before I was calling her up and saying, "you know what, that Cohen album is amazing!" The album is essentially about heartbreak and the stories we tell ourselves while we grieve. It plays like a thoughtful soul unraveling, showing that while we may have more strategies for dealing with the heartache as we get older, it doesn't really ever get any easier. And while all of this sounds pretty depressing their is a triumphant quality to the sense of self awareness and accountability in the lyrics. Rest in peace to this truly talented artist. Thanks again to my sister for having the courage to get me an album that would challenge my prevailing sense of what I knew to be "good".
Highlights: Treaty, You Want It Darker, It Seemed The Better Way, Traveling Light
Sticky Score 9   Replay Score 8.5    Soul Score 9.5   Timeless Score 8.5    Total Score: 35.5

5. The Lumineers - Cleopatra (2016) - Building on my increasing enjoyment of folk rock music that started at the turn of the decade with Mumford and Sons, I eventually found my way to The Lumineers and Cleopatra has been a staple vinyl for me ever since. The music has a sing song quality that makes it enjoyable with friends and family, but there's also a quiet sincerity in the lyrics that make them great for a quiet evening of contemplation, or welcomed company on a lengthy drive. The lyrics are soul evoking, which is critical to making my playlists, "does it speak to ME?", you bet. The Lumineers have been one of the most versatile listens and while some of the upcoming records I've selected have their appropriate audiences, I've yet to encounter more than a handful of folks who don't enjoy this record on some level. The initial highlights of the record may diminish with repeated listens but I find as the singles may hold true to the law of diminishing returns, the album itself defies it as other songs, once overlooked, press their way into your conscious. 
Highlights: Ophelia, Cleopatra, Sleep On The Floor, In The Light, Long Way From Home, Sick In the Head
Sticky Score 9   Replay Score 9   Soul Score 9.5    Timeless Score 8.5    Total Score: 36

4. Kendrick Lamar (2017) - Damn - As I've mentioned earlier, I am admittedly a long time hip hop head. I'm quick to reject the new jacks with an arrogance that I know better. I know the good hip hop and it isn't being made today. The biggest challenge to this fixed mindset of mine has been Kendrick Lamar. I get as excited for new Kendrick Lamar releases as I did for a trip to Future Shop to pick up an Outkast record (Stankonia) as a youngster. Kendrick has long been the best rapper alive, in my opinion, holding the title for the duration of the decade. One of my favourite things about Lamar, aside from his uncanny wit, razor sharp lyrics and visual depictions are his attempts to create coherent themes throughout his record releases. In the download era where most artists (rappers especially) are concerned with making a collection of top 10 singles and compiling them together with some filler for  a record, the singles have often come first and the notion of the album is secondary. This has never been the case with Kendrick, while he has the singles and standout tracks, the secondary tracks are just as important to completing the concept of what the album is attempting to say. I really respect that. Damn really hits the sweet spot, between accessible tracks with commercial success and multi layered complex nuanced songs that challenge your intellect and prevailing perspectives of the world. The beat for Humble is still one of the best of the decade!
Highlights: DNA, Humble, Element, Loyalty
Sticky Score 9.5   Replay Score 9    Soul Score 9   Timeless Score 9     Total Score: 36.5

3. Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010) - While Kanye West has certainly become a controversial figure both in and out of music scene over the course of the decade, one thing that is far less controversial is the merit of his first offering of the decade. While his music has moved towards more raw emotion, without the attention to how it will be received or whether he will stand behind those emotions in the near future. On MBDTF, everything is polished, calculated, intentional and the result is likely the best music offering of West's career. I can remember hanging out with my roommate Struan when this album first came out, we played this on repeat and debated whether Nicki Minaj had the best verse on Monster (she did!) The songs were so self assured and the beats backed up everything that West was saying in his lyrics. Songs like Gorgeous and Power give the album a confidence and grab the attention of the listener, All of the Lights, and Monster quickly pay off the listener's attention and allow the listener to settle for a couple of the slower burns like Runaway and Blame Game. As we see there is a lot more emotion between the grandiose bravado that sets the stage at the beginning of the album. Perhaps a glimpse into the emotional instability behind West's personal posturing at the time himself. Whatever the case, this album catapulted West into superstar status beyond anything we could have expected when listening to an offering like College Drop Out or even Late Registration. 
Highlights: Power, Monster, Blame Game, All of the Lights, Runaway
Sticky Score 9.5   Replay Score 9    Soul Score 9    Timeless Score 9.5     Total Score: 37

2. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs (2010) - I've long enjoyed Arcade Fire, I enjoyed both Neon Bible and Funeral immensely in the early aughts. When the Suburbs came out I purchased the album and it became my commuter soundtrack for nearly half a year of travel to my internship at Riverview High in 2010. I love how the album starts out, the early songs are very easy to sing along to, culminating in the full throat renditions of Rococo at stop lights alone in my vehicle. Finished my schooling, I entered into a phase of "professionalism" and the songs like Ready To Start and Modern Man were ones I quickly identified with. With such a short commute, early on, I often just listened to the first 5 or 6 songs on the album, over and over. However, over time I soon became familiar with the songs throughout the rest of the album. We Used to Wait, Wasted Hours also carried themes of restlessness and unfulfilled ambitions that I had just started to grapple with, many years later I'm still grappling with some of the larger themes I've unpacked from this album. This album gives me a sense of growing up and our longing to meet expectations, whilst remaining true to the essence of ourselves. The soundscapes are often deceptive in relation to the heavier existential questions that the lyrics convey, I enjoy this juxtaposition and the philosophical nature of the work itself.
Highlights: Rococo, Modern Man, Deep Blue, We Used To Wait
Sticky Score 9.5   Replay Score 9    Soul Score 9    Timeless Score 10     Total Score: 37.5


1. Kendrick Lamar - Good Kid, Madd City (2012) - This album blew me away, I had heard Lamar's mixtape Section.80 and had high hopes for this young and up and coming rapper. I was down on rap at the time and didn't see much worth getting excited about. It was a world of Wiz Khalifa and Big Sean type rappers who sounded the same on nearly every song. Even worse was the "trap music" I was being forced to mine through in the hopes of finding something worth putting on a playlist it seemed.Then "Bam!" Good Kid, Madd City came out and it was like hip hop was saved! As I said above, I had hopes for Kendrick but he smashed and surpassed all of my expectations with his studio debut. I couldn't get enough of songs like Backseat Freestyle,The Art of Peer Pressure,Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe. Those songs were immediately accessible and shone a light into a world that I knew little of and wanted to know more. Is was like his lyrics painted a picture of his childhood and he took us hand in hand through the nature versus nurture dilemma. How could anyone withstand the pressures on Compton, California? But it wasn't enough to just spell it out for us, Kendrick resists that simplicity, he always gives us songs that spark our intellect and make us think. I found this to be the case throughout what on the surface seems like a simple gangster narrative, songs like Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst, and Money Trees took me repeated listens to unpack. Kendrick Lamar's skill is that he can affect the listener on so many levels, if you're just looking for a listen, he'll give you that but if you're looking for a little deeper experience, it's all there too!
Highlights: The Art of Peer Pressure, Backseat Freestyle, Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst, Money Trees
Sticky Score 10  Replay Score 9.5   Soul Score 9.5   Timeless Score 9.5    Total Score: 38.5

Honourable Mentions: How To Pimp a Butterfly - Kendrick Lamar, Acid Rap - Chance the Rapper, Take Care - Drake, Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels

You can see the rest of the albums I evaluated and scored them below.

Thanks again for reading!

I've got an NBA blog coming up soon, and I'm excited to share what I'll be watching for in the new year!

Scoring System

Album	Sticky Score	Replay Score	Soul Score	Timeless Score	Total (40)
17. 1989 – Ryan Adams (Taylor Swift)	8	8.5	8.5	8	33
5. Cleopatra – The Lumineers	9	9	9.5	8.5	36
1. Good Kid Madd City – Kendrick Lamar	10	9.5	9.5	9.5	38.5
4. Damn – Kendrick Lamar	9.5	9	9	9	36.5
11. How To Pimp A Butterfly – Kendrick Lamar	8.5	8.5	9	8.5	34.5
9. Frank Ocean - Blond	8.5	9	9	8.5	35
21. Frank Ocean – Channel Orange	8.5	7.5	8	8	32
8. Sigh No More - Mumford and Sons	9	8.5	9	8.5	35
15. Nothing Was the Same – Drake	9	8.5	8	8	33.5
13. Take Care - Drake	8.5	9	8.5	8.5	34
18. Daytona – Pusha T	9	8	8	8	33
12. Acid Rap – Chance the Rapper	9	8.5	8.5	8.5	34.5
7. Born To Die – Lana Del Rey	9.5	9	8	8.5	35
3. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy – Kanye West	9.5	9	9	9.5	37
2. The Suburbs – Arcade Fire	9.5	9	9	10	37.5
16. Random Access Memories – Daft Punk	8.5	8.5	8.5	8	33.5
6. You Want It Darker –Leonard Cohen	9	8.5	9.5	8.5	35.5
10. Summertime ’06 - Vince Stapes	9	9	8.5	8	35
14. Run the Jewels – Run the Jewels	9	9	8	8	34
20. Watch the Throne – Jay Z and Kanye West	8	8.5	8	8	32.5
19. Big Boi – Sir Luscious Left foot Son of Chico Dusty	8.5	8.5	8	8	33