The Best Albums of 2010

Back from the dead.

I haven’t used this blog in over two years, and a lot has happened in my life. This is the first time I’ve written about any music that isn’t my own in ages. But here we go: a fresh start, on my old blog. Welcome back, those who’ve been in here for the long run.

It’s the time of the decade that every music publication and their nan are releasing their “album of the decade” lists. I started trying to make one of those too. It’s a huge, huge task and I wouldn’t recommend it. So much brilliant music has been released over the decade, and so much have it has soundtracked critical phases of my life, be that finishing school, moving home several times, relationships beginning and ending, and an upheaval of friendships. It’s difficult to compare albums that my 13-year old self loved way back in 2010 to the records I regularly listen to now.

So in lieu of an impossibly large list of albums encompassing the 2010s (have we decided on a shorter word for this decade yet, by the way?), I’ve decided to break it down, year-by-year, and rank my top ten albums of each year of the decade. Some of the albums will be those I listened to at the time, some are those I discovered later.

This was still a really hard task – there are far more than 10 great albums for each year of the decade and having to cut so many personal favourites hurt – but one I found easier to dissect than looking at the decade as a whole. I may come to regret this and wonder why I chose to undertake such a mammoth task, but that’s a problem for my future self.

2010 was a year with a lot of musical memories for me. I fondly remember staying up late to watch Glastonbury and Reading performances with my parents that year, and getting to see favourite bands both old (Muse, Arcade Fire) and new (Gorillaz, Klaxons). So many other bands that I didn’t know at the time released era defining albums that I’d later discover and fall in love with. So without further ado, let's break down what I believe to be the best albums of 2010.

10. A Thousand Suns - Linkin Park

Something about Linkin Park resonated with so many people I know in my generation. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t heard some of their era-defining singles from Hybrid Theory, one of the first albums I bought. While they’re always going to be remembered as nu-metal crossover stars with aggressive hits like Crawling or Faint, their 2008 effort Minutes to Midnight represented a sea change, leaning into mellower emo rock, and away from the Limp Bizkit inspired tones of their first two albums.

Things got more interesting with A Thousand Suns, which for me remains the highlight of their long career. It’s a curious album that incorporates many skits and interludes to add a grave atmosphere. Hell, it doesn’t properly get going until the third track, Burning in the Skies, a brilliant ballad foreshadowed by two separate introductory songs. This may sound pretentious, and I can’t argue against that – while some of the interludes really enhance the album (the stunning Jornada Del Muerto in particular), others feel unnecessary – did we really need Empty Spaces, consisting of 18 seconds of explosions on an album just shy of 50 minutes?

But this doesn’t detract from what is a great emo-pop album. It tackles themes of mental health and celebrity better than they ever did, Mike Shinoda’s lyrics are sharper than ever, Chester Bennington gives incredibly impassioned performances, and the production is sublime.

Key tracks: Burning in the Skies, When They Come For Me, Waiting for the End

9. Imperfect Harmonies – Serj Tankian

There was a while when I considered Imperfect Harmonies, Serj Tankian’s second solo album, better than any releases by his former band, System of a Down. While I completely disagree with my former self and think he should have listened to Toxicity a lot more, it shows just how much this album meant to me at the time. Listening now, this album is a lot weirder than I realised at the time. Tankian’s first album, the more popular Elect the Dead was very similar to his System output. With the exception of singles Left of Center and possibly Disowned Inc, there’s very little metal influence here. The songs are mostly structured around keyboards and loops rather than guitars – a few songs feature just Tankian at a piano with backing vocalists, including highlights Gate 21 which displays his underrated vocal range, and the haunting Yes, It’s Genocide, sung entirely in his native Armenian.

Its understandable the album didn’t receive the love Tankian’s previous output had – while its very much a rock album at heart, it displays his electronic and jazz influences more than any other of his releases. Tracks like Reconstructive Demonstrations shift in sound making them hard to identify from a genre standpoint, while others such as Electron bends standard pop structure to fit into the album’s strange world.

After this album, Tankian went on to release Harakiri, the album closest in sound to System since their hiatus. While that album has its moments (the title track in particular coming close to the intensity of Toxicity), it was the last “pop” album he released, suggesting a drought of ideas. Let Imperfect Harmonies stand as evidence of one of metal’s most underrated songwriter’s capabilities, and a celebration of just how well he performs outside of his fanbase’s expectations.

Key tracks: Borders Are…, Gate 21, Yes It’s Genocide

8. Brothers – The Black Keys

This is one album I’m surprised I haven’t seen on more decade-spanning lists. As anyone who remembers Brothers coming out can attest, it was a critical and commercial smash. To this day, you can’t go a week without hearing Howling For You in public or in advertisements. I’ve seen this album cited by boomers as evidence that rock ain’t dead – it’s that sort of good ‘ol fashioned rock and roll. Nothing on this album breaks new ground, and there’s nothing especially revolutionary here. But hey, what’s wrong with that?

While Brothers isn’t exactly reinventing the wheel, The Black Keys know how to write a perfect rock song, and they prove it on what I believe to be their best album. Even their recent comeback tour features more songs from Brothers than any of their other releases. It’s easy to see why – for a 15-track garage rock record, there’s surprisingly little filler. It’s not just the inescapable singles that land – check Unknown Brother or She’s Long Gone for career highlights. I remember this album unfairly compared to The White Stripes – I’d argue almost every song here has a more memorable riff than your average Jack White effort.

Brothers is a fantastic blues rock album that’s a lot better than its often given credit for. It’ll remind forever me of when I’d just finished secondary school, my friends were starting to learn to drive, and there was nothing better than long rides listening to this album turned up to full. As the band themselves have stated with the title of their most recent album: let’s rock.

Key tracks: Everlasting Light, Howling For You, Unknown Brother

7. Plastic Beach – Gorillaz

I truly believe that Gorillaz will be one of the most fondly remembered bands of the generation. For most of the noughties, their music videos and radio singles were truly inescapable. I’ll always remember watching their Glastonbury headlining set on TV, with Damon Albarn and Snoop Dogg performing, both full of joy.

Plastic Beach captures them at their creative peak. It features some of my favourite collaborations: see Kano’s verse on White Flag, Bobby Womack’s incredible performance on Stylo, and Yukimi Nagano’s showstopping turns on Empire Ants and the devastating To Binge. The songs carry the album’s narrative incredibly well without getting weighed down by its heavy message thanks to pop gems such as On Melancholy Hill or the joyous Superfast Jellyfish – I mean, where else are you going to hear De La Soul and Gruff Rhys duetting?

I can never decide if I prefer this album or 2005’s Demon Days. Regardless of personal preference, this album highlights how Gorillaz, and by extension, Damon Albarn and De La Soul, will be remembered as one of the most iconic and influential pop acts of the decade. I was lucky enough to see them perform in Manchester a few years ago. Watching a crowd of all ages singing back the lyrics to Rhinestone Eyes was an experience like no other. Bands like Gorillaz don’t come often – thank goodness we’re around for them.

Key tracks: Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach, Superfast Jellyfish, On Melancholy Hill

6. Invented – Jimmy Eat World

Time for a hot take. Invented is a far more consistent album than Jimmy Eat World’s breakthrough record Bleed American. I don’t think I’ve known anyone else to hold that opinion, but I don’t care – I adore this record. It marked a departure of sort for the band, with lyricist Jim Adkins writing each song inspired by a series of photographs rather than his own personal experiences. It’s an experiment that paid off, allowing him to write some of his more interesting character studies in Movielike and Invented.

In terms of sound, there’s something for fans of all eras of the band: a throwback to their Clarity days with the aggressive Action Needs An Audience, the Chase This Light-reminiscent single My Best Theory, and the sublime Evidence which recalls the huge-sounding highlights of Futures. The band branch out in new directions too, with the string-laden heartwrenching balladry of Cut or the new wave Higher Devotion, one of their most underrated tracks.

The album closes out with two long songs, Invented and Mixtape. The former is a career highlight, a sprawling tale of a failed relationship, going from subdued reflection to explosive finale, while the latter is a beautiful tribute to the music that soundtracks pivotal moments in your life and the connections it helps us make. It’s a fitting end to one of the best albums of a band’s career that has soundtracked so much of my life and will continue to for years to come.

Key tracks: Evidence, Littlething, Invented

5. The Winter of Mixed Drinks – Frightened Rabbit

Frightened Rabbit will always be an incredibly important band. The Winter of Mixed Drinks was the difficult follow up to their incredible breakthrough, The Midnight Organ Fight. To try and recreate the rawness of that masterpiece would have been a challenge for most bands. Not for Frightened Rabbit.

The result is a no less emotional record than its predecessor, one combining intense sadness with radiant joy and hope. From the stunning opener Things through to fan favourite closer Yes, I Would, not a moment is wasted. We get the best of the band, with impeccably layered instrumentation on tracks like The Wrestle and Living in Colour, and the best of Scott Hutchison’s lyrics. Songs like Things and Not Miserable contain some of my favourite lines he’s ever penned.

While Frightened Rabbit have released albums that I prefer to this one, it is still an incredibly powerful record. A fan group I am part of recently polled its members on which of the band’s albums were people’s personal favourites, and it made me happy to see this album praised as much as it was. The album’s strengths are best represented by its most popular track and live staple, The Loneliness and The Scream. Frabbit shows would often end with this song prompting a mass singalong, forming a manifesto for the band and their fanbase: “our communal heart beats miles from here”.

Key tracks: Things, The Loneliness and the Scream, Not Miserable

4. The Suburbs – Arcade Fire

I can vividly remember when this album came out. I’d enjoyed Arcade Fire’s previous album, Neon Bible, which my dad had bought one Christmas, but this was the moment I really “got” the band. I’d watched a TV performance of Ready to Start which resonated with me, and when I learned they were playing in Cardiff, I pestered my parents to go. We did, and its still one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to.

While Arcade Fire’s lyrics can be very hit and miss for me (the less said about anything on Everything Now, the better), on this album they get it right with every song, fully capturing the feeling of small-town isolation. I don’t think there’s a single song on the album which doesn’t have a line that meant a lot to me at some point, be it the brilliant opening couplet of City With No Children or the entirety of the explosive Rococo. Win Butler’s social commentary fell down hard with subsequent releases, but here, instead of invoking annoyance or arrogance, he creates empathy, firmly putting you in the position of the protagonists of the band’s songs.

The album also features some of Régine Chassagne’s best vocal performances. Her voice has always been one of my favourite features of Arcade Fire, and her turn on Sprawl II is nothing short of showstopping. It proves the perfect finale to the band’s best album. However my favourite track on the album has to be the underrated gem Wasted Hours, the moment where all of the band’s pretentions disappear, and we’re left with a devastatingly honest song about isolation and loneliness. The band may have outgrown their suburban hometown but the memories and the music remains.

Key tracks: The Suburbs, Wasted Hours, Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)

3. White Crosses – Against Me!

A surprisingly popular opinion among some Against Me! fans that I’ve seen is that they peaked early on with Searching For A Former Clarity, went downhill for a few albums, before making a comeback with 2014’s brilliant Transgender Dysphoria Blues. It’s an opinion I wholeheartedly reject, as I truly think that White Crosses was the band’s best album to date, and when they really came into their own.

The album marries their earlier ground-breaking folk-punk style with a classic rock, Springsteenian influence to brilliant effect, particularly on anthemic tracks like Because of the Shame, a track that sounds nothing like the band’s earlier work and is nonetheless one of their best songs. Laura Jane Grace’s lyrics are more personal than ever before on this album, and tracks like this and Bamboo Bones contain some of the most devastating lines of her career.

It’s heartening that while White Crosses seems to be far from a fan favourite, many songs have become staples of the band’s incendiary live set, including the title track and the anthemic I Was A Teenage Anarchist, which contains one of their best choruses. More than anything, I feel White Crosses is an album about self-assurance. It’s uplifting, motivational, and vital, like all the best Against Me! albums. What more could anyone want?

Key tracks: I Was A Teenage Anarchist, Because of the Shame, Spanish Moss, Bamboo Bones

2. This Is Happening – LCD Soundsystem

It took me a while to get into LCD Soundsystem. I remembered first hearing the opening track to this album, Dance Yrself Clean, and being completely blown away. The iconic synth ‘drop’ is one of the most incredible musical moments in any song I’ve ever heard, in this year or elsewhere, and when paired with James Murphy’s brilliant lyrics, it makes for one of my favourite opening tracks of any album. However, despite this, I never made an effort to listen to any of the subsequent tracks of the album until around 2016. I don’t know what took me so long, as this is one of my favourite electronic music albums that I’ve ever heard.

It's an album full of perfect pop songs, intricately constructed, expertly performed, and designed for people to go absolutely wild to live. It takes just one listen to imagine crowds of people chanting along to Drunk Girls or breaking down to You Wanted a Hit. Some tracks work as homages to other artists – I’m sure I read that ballad Somebody’s Calling Me was intended to pay tribute to Iggy Pop – but above anything else, the music is unmistakably that of LCD Soundsystem and nothing else. From the heart-breaking lyrics to centrepiece and single I Can Change to the primal One Touch, there’s no other band I’ve heard that sounds anything like this album.

The two finest moments bookend the record. The closing track Home and the aforementioned opener Dance Yrself Clean cover similar topics lyrically – late nights with good people, nostalgia, the passage of time. Both sum up for me what LCD Soundsystem do best – make music that moves your body and makes you cry at the same time.

Key tracks: Dance Yrself Clean, One Touch, I Can Change, Home

1. Romance Is Boring – Los Campesinos!

I've learned more from toilet walls
Than I've learned from these words of yours
Your feelings are buried in scriptures and fictions
It's all in the words, but I'm here for the pictures

Los Campesinos! are a band that elicit strong reactions from everyone I’ve known to have more than a passing interest in them. They’re verbose, often self-absorbed, have overarching concepts and recurring imagery from album to album, reference football trivia in ways I won’t pretend to understand, and have to be the only band I’ve ever known who have confessed to eating too much crisps and throwing up. All of these are reasons I love them, and Romance Is Boring is for me their masterwork.

Gareth Campesinos’ lyrics are often brought up as being incredibly niche, with lots of specific references. A perfect example of this is Plan A, a song based on his sixth form ambition of moving to Malta, applying for citizenship and becoming a star footballer. I don’t think anyone other than Gareth and his friends have ever related to this, but that doesn’t stop it from being an incredible song that invokes intense feelings for me. Similarly, tracks like We’ve Got Your Back uses incredibly specific imagery of childhood memories in a relative’s taxi, and while I have never experienced this, the feelings invoked in the song become all the more potent for it. The specificity draws you into the songs in a way that would be impossible otherwise. It’s all incredibly earnest, and sometimes feels like eavesdropping on personal confessions, particularly in tracks like the intense Who Fell Asleep In or the anthemic Straight In At 101. As an older LC! song memorably said, “if you don’t exist with hearts the size of a house brick, cease and desist”, and the band’s hearts are bigger than most.

I recently read an article where the band considered this to be their best record, citing its maximalism and how so many tracks have become cult favourites. I’m inclined to agree with them: I honestly believe there’s not a single weak track on the project. The instrumental arrangements are exciting to listen to in any context, be that laying in the dark with headphones on or in a live show. While there may be cases made that other albums released in 2010 are technically better, this is the one I like best, hands down. Romance may be boring, but this album certainly isn’t.

Key tracks: There Are Listed Buildings, Straight in at 101, A Heat Rash in the Shape of the Show Me State; or, Letters from Me to Charlotte, The Sea Is A Good Place to Think of the Future