thread for tracking best music of the 2010s lists

actually intended 2015 -- 2013 is dope ofc but i came to that late, "givemeluv" was one of my most listened songs that year (i regret not making space on the singles list, but that excuse was how i justified not ranking, like, rihanna singles on the songs list)

that excuse = dropping a song from the songs list if the artist had an album i knew would make it

thnx for the good words ppl

all these lists are missing chelsea jade's Personal Best, a favorite of mine.

just listened to "Alright" for the first time

prob not much for me in this decade

https://www.stereogum.com/featured/best-albums-of-the-2010s-list/

ctrl+f 'dawson'

nothing

next

OK I scrolled it. The same rancid shit Pitchfork served up. Genuinely great albums, yes, but diminished by this empty canon-affirmation. What's the point of Stereogum?

SOME genuinely great albums, I mean, and the usual pablum

Here's all the albums Pitchfork told you to love, in a slightly different order! And with Yeezus at 2 - that's OUR power move! Team Stereogum shocked you there!!

stereogum is one of the few sites that actually pays people to go in-depth about particular songs and albums, so they are a net good even if their taste can run towards the corny side. they also promote some pretty excellent guitar-oriented music that few other sites touch on.

i haven't looked at this list yet

their song list has some interesting choices!

https://www.stereogum.com/featured/best-songs-of-the-2010s-list/

not really, and I just scrolled the whole thing

faddish american pop canon reinforced once again. here are your royals

if these are your horizons i pity you tbh

there wasn't even a weyes blood song, presumably as she's a bit too weird. but i don't want to focus on single examples. there's something really empty and aggressively banal about these lists that serve to massage the self-assurance of middling-interest hipsters and achieve fuck all besides

i said 'some' interesting choices.

some people don't like weyes blood as much as you do.

that was just an example of how averse these lists are to anything that's a little tricky or unusual or heaven forbid unfashionable

it's the americanness of it all that's the lost stultifying part perhaps? idk I'd almost want to analyse these lists - pfork, stereogum etc - on an artist-by-artist basis and work out the curatorial parameters, the boxes being ticked, the consensuses they're trying to manufacture

nothing against lists, but there's something about these that gives me a sick feeling the deeper I scroll, and I know I'm not alone in this

*most stultifying

there are a bunch of songs in the 200-101 range (the only part of these lists i look at tbh) that probably won't make the cut on lots of other decades list. katie dey, girl band, polo g, tirzah, frightened rabbit, colleen green, etc., are all solid choices that have little-to-zero chance of making to in other lists.

and the poptimistic choices in that region (zedd, jidenna, fetty wap) appeal to me, personally.

if these are your horizons i pity you tbh

― imago, Tuesday, November 5, 2019 10:58 AM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

you can fuck right off for this btw

katie dey was p much the only time i was pleasantly surprised and that was in the bottom five of the 200!

why are you taking this personally

there's something about these that gives me a sick feeling the deeper I scroll

lol dude is getting a sick feeling from reading some lists

why are you taking this personally

― imago, Tuesday, November 5, 2019 11:11 AM (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i wasn't until you said "if these are your horizons i pity you tbh"

but you must like more sorts of music than this

i mean, surely

i mean, obviously...

actually, the only songs i like are the 200 listed on stereogum's best songs of the decade. no more, no less.

Uhhh this list is exactly the same as the Pitchfork list, like even down to the blurbs being the same length and everything.

Not true, this list doesn't say pitchfork anywhere at all

the blurbs are also much shorter

“this is the music that MATTERED, and this is why it was IMPORTANT CULTURALLY and POLITICALLY”

“Wrecking Ball” and “Telephone” had MEMORABLE VIDEOS and “Formation” had the SUPER BOWL HALFTIME SHOW

Beyonce had great singles for sure but I'm a bit sceptical about all those albums that are being included on the PF list. Kacey Musgraves is some nondescript stuff too and the canonisation of Frank Ocean baffles me.

Also Pitchfork include Aviary as the sole Julia Holter pick and HYIMW is nowhere to be seen. Ridiculous.

The bottom 1/3 of this list is cool. The top half is mostly what we can expect to see in thousand similar lists just arranged differently. The top 3 is even the same ones as pitchfork.

I hope the next decade we’ll see a rise of more focused publications. I know the line between music genres is blurred every passing year but this so called diversity in music actually feels very homogenic by the time these lists come out and everyone is picking the exact same 3 albums and songs as the best in their genres.

otm x2

not fair, moka put it slightly more diplomatically and got the otm lol

moka is nice to me!!!

:(

the grinch who dragged stereogum

Hahaha I don’t have a problem with the list, I just wish the more unique spirit of Stereogum that can be perceived in the bottom 100 would remain in the top 100. It’s not just their problem is a problem that many publications have had and it’s very noticeable at the end of the decade. Publications having a distinct personality and subculture used to be an asset.

Were such lists any less depressingly predictable twenty years ago? (Serious question, I wasn't really paying attention.)

the problem is that time is circling back in on itself, causing the universe to distort, and many people are saying, the internet is shrinking down to a single website that aggregates all others and is able to maintain a consistent, albeit tiny, profit margin.

That website's name? ilxor.com

there's even a thread on it, this is a problem

didn't stylus do a list that asked its staff to rank its 100 favorite albums and then only revealed 101-200?

I mean the audience is to blame too. The moment a publication realizes it gets 10x more clicks writing about Kanye West instead of say, Bon Iver, the strategy shifts to an attack on al fronts. Let’s write about Avicii, Ariana Grande, Animal Collective the same day, three times the chance of getting the interest of different readers.

It’s a trend that even infected music festivals. It’s become a kind of travelling circus that goes around the world with virtually the same “diverse” lineup but with a different festival name.

It’s killing actual diversity in music to only get “the cream of the crop” in any given year but it’s not surprising why it’s happening.

idk I'd almost want to analyse these lists - pfork, stereogum etc - on an artist-by-artist basis and work out the curatorial parameters, the boxes being ticked, the consensuses they're trying to manufacture