Music reviewer John Hayden lists his best albums of the decade.
10. Pusha T - Daytona (2018)
Few releases this decade were as ruthlessly economical as Pusha T’s third solo LP. A masterclass in taut atmospherics and exactitude, Daytona dripped with portent over its 21-minute duration — all scrunched-nose sneering and dazzling wordplay, with not one syllable wasted as King Push exuded an air of accomplished menace; his dead-eyed drug trade realism bolstered by warped samples and claustrophobic intensity.
Key track: Come Back Baby
9. Azealia Banks - 1991 EP (2012)
If not for Twitter, Harlem’s Azealia Banks would be mentioned in the same breath as Beyonce, Rihanna and Ariana, thanks to her sky-scraping vocals and genre-blurring virtuosity. Sadly, her 280-character tirades against the likes of Elon Musk, Cardi B, Zayn Malik and Lana Del Rey made Trump look amateurish. Still, her runway-ready debut EP electrifyingly stood at the confluence of rap and house music as Banks vacillated wildly between baby-doll breathiness and serpentine rhymes across its four prodigious tracks.
Key track: 1991
8. Young Thug - Jeffrey (2016)
In a decade where hip-hop was prodded and cajoled into brave new sonic territory, none utilised the voice-as-instrument more effectively than Atlanta’s Jeffery Smith. On a mixtape whose titles are named for his "idols" (RiRi, Wyclef Jean, Harambe), Thugger wheezed, howled, rasped, slurred and ad-libbed his way to immortality, and with that cover – chic, androgynous and inflammatory – toyed with rap’s staunch machismo, establishing himself as the genre’s iconoclast-in-chief.
Key track: RiRi
7. Grimes - Art Angels (2015)
Once the darling of the digital underground, Art Angels was Grimes’ pop star coming out party. Inhabiting a singular universe where Riot grrrrl and K-pop co-exist with kaleidoscopic intensity, The Canadian producer/singer/one-woman art installation’s fourth LP was a bewitching fusion of electronica and pop, with an undeniable melodic knack to the fore — bubblegum coos collided with bowel-shaking bass and even bigger hooks, propelling her into mainstream pop consciousness without compromising one iota of her fearsome DIY ethos.
Key track: Butterfly
6. Frank Ocean - Channel Orange (2012)
An R&B smoothie aligned with oddball LA hip-hop collective Odd Future, Frank Ocean’s debut swept off into unexpected directions. Channeling pioneers Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder and Sly Stone both in execution and subject matter (tales of drug addiction, black history and love’s labours lost were set to his gorgeous falsetto and tender gospel inflections), the tone was intimate yet daring – nowhere moreso than on the disarmingly frank Forrest Gump or the bravura Pyramids – and fortified by eclectic arrangements (church organ, Elton-styled piano vamps, hazy basslines and muted drums) which set the nu gold standard in nu soul.
Key track: Pyramids
5. Lorde - Melodrama (2017)
The Grammy-gobbling Takapuna teen defied the sophomore slump, disregarding Max Martin’s sage advice ("incorrect songwriting" allegedly plagued Green Light) as she continued carving out new modes of young adult expression, at turns bruised, wry, bitter and heroically self-aware. Expanding Pure Heroine’s minimalist manifesto (piano-led balladry and house beats are to the fore, as The Louvre’s "broadcast the boom boom boom boom/and make ‘em all dance to it" archly attests) amounting to a key jewel in the crown - yoof music that credibly captured the experiences of real life adolescents, puncturing the pretences of pop’s backroom Svengalis.
Key track: The Louvre
4. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs (2010)
Brimming with the weight of an Old Testament prophecy, 2007’s Neon Bible announced Arcade Fire as stunningly accomplished art-rockers. On the follow-up — a wistful ode to a suburban upbringing — The Montreal septet toned down the bombast, echoing instead Springsteen’s small-town nostalgia: cars, streets, children — even the title — acted as recurring motifs throughout; yet such reminiscences were far from plaintive, as on the title track’s jaunty piano line or the spiky assertion "I wanna make a record about how I felt then" on Month of May’s garage rawk rumble.
Key track: Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
3. Kanye West - Yeezus (2013)
His beautiful, dark, twisted fantasy may have birthed baroque rap, but it was Ye’s Spartan follow-up — an antisocial, abrasive roar — which saw him at his combative, voluble best. From the Daft Punk-assisted electro howl of On Sight to Black Skinhead’s industrial-strength wardance and New Slaves’ maniacal coda, this was West ripping up rap’s rulebook with brutal brio, achieving Maximum Kanye by being at once experimental and popular, confronting and compelling, and every bit as brilliant as he thinks he is.
Key track: On Sight
2. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake (2011)
A jaw-dropping turn for the bluesy songstress from rural Dorset, PJ Harvey’s eighth LP saw the black-clad indie heroine become an art-rock auteur with this opus of imperial decline, documenting military conflicts past and present from a poetic distance. Stark yet ethereal, Let England Shake’s macabre magic lay in its otherworldliness — the muted, off-kilter bugle calls that peppered The Glorious Land, The Words That Maketh Murder’s compelling cribbing of Sufin’ Bird’s riff as Harvey opined "I’ve seen and done things I want to forget," and the gorgeous yet harrowing imagery that pervaded The Colour of the Earth.
Key track: The Glorious Land
1. Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly (2015)
Before the Pulitzer Prize, there was this audacious state-of-the-nation address where Kung Fu Kenny fused the personal and political, unflinchingly grappling with the price of fame in an America divided. This bleak outlook was offset by a thrilling excursion through black music history, pinballing between rap, jazz, funk, soul, and freeform scat freakouts, and buoyed by a breathlessly dexterous ferocity. Such was ... Butterfly’s seismic impact that it has since been added to the Library of Congress, and explicitly inspired Bowie’s swansong Blackstar, anointing him this generation’s most gifted and fearless MC.
Key track: The Blacker the Berry
