The Student Playlist

Showcasing the Best New Music, Curating the Classics

The Top 200 Albums of the 2010s

075. Kevin Morby – City Music (Dead Oceans) (2017)

Following a brace of West Coast-influenced albums, Kevin Morby decided to revisit old territory by taking New York as his muse once again on City Music for his fourth solo effort, examining ideas of belonging and salvation. Unlike the Greenwich-folk-indebted sounds of his wide-eyed 2013 debut Harlem River, this was an altogether grittier and more streetwise affair. With Velvet Underground and Ramones-influenced salvos like ‘Aboard My Train’ and the incantatory ‘City Music’, these were hard-bitten, cynical, even desolate tracks at times, but Morby’s puppyish narrative charm was still present. (LISTEN)

074. Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me (Drag City) (2010)

Taking four years to assemble following the huge critical success of 2006’s Ys, freakishly talented composer Joanna Newsom returned with a massive three-disc collection at the start of the new decade. Though it lasts for over two hours, it was a much more accessible and less divisive affair than her two previous efforts. The songs’ florid, poetic arrangements were more finessed and polished; Newsom’s previously rasping voice had subtly changed to a more measured, mellower delivery, easier on the ear for those not won over by Ys or The Milk-Eyed Mender. As the title implies, you should pour yourself a drink to accompany an airing of this album, in order to appreciate the blotches of exquisite beauty amid the embarrassment of creativity. In lesser hands, Have One On Me might have been an incoherent brain-dump of a record, but Newsom makes eighteen exquisitely carved individual moments all make sense in each other’s proximity.

073. Titus Andronicus – The Monitor (XL) (2010)

A concept album loosely based around the American Civil War and named for the first ironclad ship commissioned by the U.S. Navy, The Monitor was the moment that Patrick Stickles and Titus Andronicus realised their full potential. Like a cross between Billy Bragg and Bruce Springsteen, and featuring a huge guest cast of their mates – including Vivian Girls, Felice Brothers and Wye Oak – their bar-room-blues-meets-hardcore collision was spellbinding, climaxing in the 14-minute epic ‘The Battle Of Hampton Roads’. (LISTEN)

072. St. Vincent – Strange Mercy (4AD) (2011)

Annie Clark made the great leap forwards that all truly great artists execute at the start of the new decade with Strange Mercy. She had already built a solid platform by way of two accomplished predecessors (2007’s Marry Me and 2009’s Actor), but this was something else. Clark displayed a complex, shifting femininity with this lean collection of songs, coming off as seductive and elegant and yet darkly menacing often within the same lyric: there was anger, hysteria and humour beneath the shiny, glass-like surface of the performance. Strange Mercy’s music was inspired in equal parts by post-punk, Talking Heads-style polyrhythms and the confessional open spaces of Patti Smith. Along with her American contemporaries, it was one of those rare instances that pop makes a bid to be considered as high art – or should that be the other way round? – and consequently it didn’t go over anybody’s head. (LISTEN)

071. Real Estate – Atlas (Domino) (2014)

Just like their previous album Days, Real Estate consciously attempted to make Atlas as close to their live experience as possible. Pitched somewhere between psychedelia and twee, it channelled its gentle indie influences such as Television and R.E.M. into something truly wonderful. The bright, intertwining guitar melodies formed seemingly modest, innocuous soundscapes that, if we’re honest, seemed very pretty but not that notable upon first listen. Very soon afterwards, we found out that these ten tracks, in particular the drop-dead beautiful ‘Had To Hear’, truly had the power to disturb both the conscious and the unconscious mind – we still haven’t got them out of our heads! Martin Courtney’s soft, yearning vocals suited the subject matter: the band were reaching the end of their twenties, settling down and starting families, with all the responsibility and anxiety that comes with that. Atlas was an album of such forlorn grace and depth that you could listen to it endlessly and still uncover hidden treasures. (LISTEN)

070. Moses Sumney – Aromanticism (Jagjaguwar) (2017)

Only to be described as something in between indie and classical music, Aromanticism sounded like little else that’s out there today. Moses Sumney’s pleading falsetto is perfectly complimented by ambient guitars, restrained drums and string arrangements that swell around it, delivering some of the most relentlessly gloomy, yet heartfelt insights into what romance can be in the modern age. (EW) (LISTEN)

069. ANOHNI – Hopelessness (Rough Trade) (2016)

The thrill and brutality of Hopelessness is hard to describe. Pulsating with crystal clear synths and trembling bass, it’s a singular showcase of songs of protest that stay with one for a lifetime. Bombing the American Dream, so to speak, Hopelessness is a close look at all the perversions of the West and post-9/11 America, with all of its surveillance scandals, death penalties and, as mentioned, drone bombings of the innocent. An unforgettable voice with a personality keen on extreme expression of their truth, ANOHNI released her debut, outside of her previous guise as Antony & The Johnsons, providing a steely experience of excellent production and cut-throat lyrical accuracy. (AS) (LISTEN)

068. Laura Marling – Once I Was An Eagle (Virgin) (2013)

Once I Was An Eagle was Marling’s fourth album by the precociously young age of 23, and yet another that seemed so complete in its own right but suggested so much more frightening potential of even better things to come. It took the jazz-influenced, full band sound of 2011’s A Creature I Don’t Know and mixed it with some of the startling, peculiarly English bleakness of her 2008 debut Alas, I Cannot Swim. What we get is not only mature and accomplished – several of the songs blend together as suites or movements – but also bares its creator’s soul for the world to hear, full of vivid wordplay and relatable storytelling in the vein of Joni Mitchell and PJ Harvey. Recorded in just ten days, it also retained that feeling of spontaneity that animates all the best folk music. Along with 2015’s Short Movie, this has been her fullest statement yet. (LISTEN)

067. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Skeleton Tree (Bad Seed Ltd.) (2016)

Nick Cave’s 16th album with his ever-present musical foils The Bad Seeds came into existence in the context of unthinkable tragedy. In July 2015, the singer’s teenage son Arthur fell to his death from a cliff near Brighton. Cave had always used tragedy as a creative conceit throughout his 30-year career, but for many it was hard to imagine him countenancing the use of something so personal and airing it on one of his albums. Finishing sessions that had already commenced earlier in 2015, Skeleton Tree was what was eventually delivered: the sound of rock’s foremost authority on torment and destruction coming face to face with his own unimaginable grief. Cave’s personal loss is never front-and-centre of the record – rather, it is a spectral presence that looms over the music and in its background, as wraithlike epics like ‘Jesus Alone’ and ‘Distant Sky’ uncoiled themselves in stately fashion. The Bad Seeds provided the most nebulous and unintrusive of accompaniments, as Cave’s writing skills were relied upon to do the heavy lifting, which it did with all the grace and insight you would expect from him. A striking and deeply poignant experience. (LISTEN)

066. Young Fathers – Cocoa Sugar (Ninja Tune) (2018)

If anyone can, at any point in history, deem indie music to be ‘experimental’, Young Fathers is it. Always presenting an odd yet enticing mish mash of indie, hip-hop and electronica, the trio’s third studio album Cocoa Sugar displays the best side of everything Young Fathers have to offer, from the subtle sociopolitical commentary of ‘Turn’, to the catchiest/oddest song of 2018, ‘In My View’. (EW) (LISTEN)

065. Lorde – Melodrama (Universal / Lava / Republic) (2017)

Pure Heroine established Lorde as a teenage pop icon and won her a Grammy at the annoyingly young age of 17, but it was Melodrama that firmly placed her along the front lines of those pop artists considered to be pushing the envelope of pop music today. Enlisting Jack Antonoff for production, the album sounds as colorful and rich in sound and texture as one could expect, while Lorde delivers lyrics that range from reflections on youth and partying to genuinely effective emotional gut-punches about a long-term relationship coming to an end. (EW) (LISTEN)

064. Kurt Vile – Wakin On A Pretty Daze (Matador) (2013)

The second of two excellent records released by former member of The War On Drugs Kurt Vile, Wakin On A Pretty Daze saw the singer-songwriter finally break links with Adam Granduciel (2010’s Smoke Ring For My Halo had featured contributions from him). It was a more spacious and graceful record with a greater freedom from verse-chorus-verse structures, bound up in its own little universe and marching to its own beat. One hates using phrases like ‘the voice of a generation’, but there’s something undeniably now about Vile’s outlook despite the classic rock and folk reference points of his music. Two monster tracks that border 10 minutes (‘Wakin On A Pretty Day’; ‘Goldtone’) bookend the album, and it’s a tribute to his abilities that neither ever becomes boring. (LISTEN)

063. Thundercat – Drunk (Brainfeeder) (2017)

Stephen Bruner, a.k.a. Thundercat and the sonic architect of Kendrick Lamar’s masterpiece To Pimp A Butterfly, took the limelight for himself in 2017. Collecting an ensemble of his musical heroes such as Kenny Loggins, alongside former collaborators and fellow-travellers like Kendrick, Pharrell and Wiz Khalifa, Drunk was a 23-track consciousness-stream of squelchy, futuristic jazz and bugged-out musical tangents that formed a kaleidoscopic whole. It addressed serious issues like death and depression in a cartoonish but oddly profound manner that made complete sense when intoxicated. (LISTEN)

062. Sharon Van Etten – Are We There (Jagjaguwar) (2014)

The black-and-white photo on the cover of Are We There told the listener that this would be a safe, dependable follow-up to 2012’s Tramp, the record that had brought Sharon Van Etten to international attention. In many ways, this was true: the piano-based, confessional nature of the songs, occasionally furnished with strings or sparse electric guitar. But having expressed torment on Tramp, now she was quietly triumphant on the likes of ‘Afraid Of Nothing’ or ‘I Love You But I’m Lost’, taking the time to look outwards, critiquing domestic abuse (‘Your Love Is Killing Me’). Her defiant drama was compelling, but never ostentatious or self-centred. Like Cat Power, with whom she shares more than a passing musical resemblance, Van Etten had total command of her artistic vision and guided her songs with the precision of a Cave or a Cohen. The broad appeal of Are We There is what edges it ahead of its predecessor. (LISTEN)

061. Run The Jewels – Run The Jewels 3 (Run The Jewels, Inc.) (2016)

Christmas Day 2016 was filled with even more joy when Run The Jewels 3 was released, with no prior fanfare. Filled with bombastic production and brash, unrepentant dialogues, El-P and Killer Mike built upon their larger than life personas through a flurry of vetted experiences that offer little apathy for anyone not in line with their vision. As the most balanced of the RTJ saga, with party starters like ‘Stay Gold’ and ‘Legend Has It’ rubbing shoulders with firebrand tracks like ‘A Report To The Shareholders’, RTJ3 feels like a hyped thrill ride crossed with a torrent of speaker blasts aimed at prophesising power to the people. (DA) (LISTEN)

060. Bill Callahan – Dream River (Drag City) (2013)

After fifteen years of recording as Smog, Bill Callahan finally began making music under his own name in 2005. As a writer, he’s always been an artist of opposites and contradictions: strong yet vulnerable, warm yet distant, unflinchingly honest yet aloof, often in the same album. This has always led to some inconsistency in his output, but Dream River – along with its predecessor Apocalypse, to an extent – was the first album he’d made in a long time to match the magisterial peaks of Smog’s Dongs Of Sevotion or Knock Knock. An eight-song examination of American myths and its folk and roots traditions, interpreted from the sideways glance perspective of an eternal outsider, it relied upon Callahan’s distinctive perspective on the world and his storytelling to work. (LISTEN)

059. Robyn – Body Talk (Konichiwa) (2010)

Having scored a Number 1 hit single with 2007’s ‘With Every Heartbeat’, a piece of utterly sublime modern pop, Swedish enigma Robyn sought to bring the same qualities to Body Talk, her first album for five years. Though it was technically a compilation edited down from three mini-LPs’ worth of material, it was the most vivid artistic vision in pop music in 2010. Her talent was to infuse the cold, pristine electronic soundscapes of her music with genuine heart and soul, pointing the way to a glinting future for pop, sounding like a more chart-bound version of Scandinavian avant-garde compatriots The Knife. Robyn portrayed herself as a kind of emotionless cybernetic (on opener ‘Fembot’) and intoned over throbbing, intense rhythms that spanned krautrock to Eurodisco, providing a template for dozens of artists subsequently. (LISTEN)

058. Janelle Monáe – The ArchAndroid (Wondaland / Bad Boy / Atlantic) (2010)

Debut albums are rarely as ambitious as this, and when they are, they’re virtually never as impressive as this either. The ArchAndroid, appearing in early 2010, consisted of the second and third parts to her Metropolis concept series that Janelle Monáe had commenced with an EP back in 2007. Incorporating conceptual elements of Afrofuturism and science fiction, The ArchAndroid continued the project’s fictional tale of a messianic android, while also encompassing themes of love, identity, and self-realisation that have been influential to so many artists in the 2010s. (LISTEN)

057. Bon Iver – 22, A Million (Jagjaguwar) (2016)

Not many could predict where Justin Vernon’s musical story would head, given its start in the melancholic folk pool back at For Emma, Forever Ago, but at the end of the decade we have four steps of the journey in front of us, each a notch in the post to mark what the collaborative indie/electronica beast that the Bon Iver project has become. The strongest jerk towards something unexpected was, and continues to be, the dark and glitchy third child – 22, A Million. It could be called the aftermath of the anxiety and paranoia-ridden storm that raged on after Vernon’s sudden fame overtook his previously private reality. Brash, full of off-kilter samples and vocal processing experimentation, it’s the result of an artist reinventing themselves in a sound that feels more fitting, with Vernon’s production at its most modern and aggressive. Cryptic messages abound, calling for the usage of new technology programmed bespoke to Vernon himself by engineer Chris Messina to achieve the ultimate heart-wrench that is ‘715 – CRΣΣKS’. Intricate, challenging yet captivating, 22, A Million was divisive at the time of its release, but now stands proud as a stepping stone to the creative unit Bon Iver has become. (AS) (LISTEN)

056. Japandroids – Celebration Rock (Polyvinyl) (2012)

Dwelling in the mid-point of the anthemic heartland rock of Springsteen and the post-hardcore raging of Hüsker Dü, there was something deliciously old-fashioned about Japandroids’ second album. With lyrics about great existential divides and eternal truths – age and youth, good and evil, life and death – Celebration Rock was an immensely satisfying throwback to when rock was about teenage wastelands and dancing in the streets. (LISTEN)

055. Beach House – Bloom (Bella Union / Sub Pop) (2012)

After four years of careful craft and development, Baltimore duo Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally had been refining a singular, instantly recognisable sound for guitar music with their third album Teen Dream in 2010. As ever with cult albums, its reputation spread slowly by word of mouth to the point that, by 2012, everyone was in the mood for even more. Beach House duly delivered with Bloom, an album that may as well be an identical twin. From the gently undulating beauty of ‘Myth’ to the dopamine release of the climax to ‘Irene’, they locked in with precision to the pleasure centres of the brain, all the while indulging their talent for subtle songcraft. Scally’s nimble guitar picking added more layers to Legrand’s penchant for drawn-out syllables and lingering keyboard notes. Everything about Bloom was like some kind of blissful waking dream, an effortlessly beautiful lap of honour that scooped up the sales figures where Teen Dream had won the plaudits. (LISTEN)

054. Parquet Courts – Light Up Gold (Dull Tools / What’s Your Rupture?) (2012)

Though it reached a much bigger, international audience when it was reissued in 2013, New York’s Parquet Courts came to underground prominence with the cassette-only release of Light Up Gold in 2012, a combination of slack indie and taut post-punk so glorious that you wonder why nobody else bothers to try it more often. The foursome came across as your classic college dropouts, casting a cynical eye on the world when they’re not too busy curing their munchies. It sounded like the work of a band whose individual members had each discovered their own way of playing their instruments, throwing everything together in one take with little regard for polish or professionalism. Light Up Gold was brilliant precisely because it sounded so heroically amateurish and spontaneous – it sounded like there was no risk of them overcooking their ideas by faffing around in post-production. The joyous two-chord romp of ‘Stoned And Starving’ and the false stops and starts of the frenetically angular ‘Borrowed Time’ were some of the tightest arrangements in guitar music this decade, belying the lo-fi sound quality. In this way, Parquet Courts understood the innate qualities of the best American indie records throughout history, from The Modern Lovers and R.E.M. to Pavement and The Strokes: innocuous, effortless cool is an extremely valuable quality. (LISTEN)

053. Savages – Silence Yourself (Matador / Pop Noire) (2013)

London four-piece Savages released their Mercury-nominated debut Silence Yourself to minimal popular attention back in May 2013. However, in the style of all great slow-burners, its plaudits grew in number as time wore on. Their classical training gave Savages’ atmospheric post-punk a tangible sense of drama, and the album as a whole demonstrates a real understanding of the dynamics of the genre, leaping out of the speakers in a manner strongly redolent of the eternally underrated Siouxsie & The Banshees. So many recent groups (White Lies, Editors et al) simply haven’t grasped the basic truth that post-punk revivalism is not just about noise but real emotion too, about the gaps between the notes as well as the notes themselves. Indeed, the quieter moments on Silence Yourself are the most profound and eerie, though the panicked, frenetic jolts of guitar noise on the likes of ‘Husbands’ have the power to move also. (LISTEN)

052. M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming (Naïve / Mute) (2011)

Anthony Gonzalez, the man behind French outfit M83, had dwelled in the hipster hinterlands of electronica for the best part of a decade, crafting several impressive albums in the noughties without ever garnering serious media attention. At long last, he broke through with his most exhaustive artistic statement yet. Powered by the success of ‘Midnight City’, the glorious, flashy ’80s reverie that became the soundtrack to countless adverts, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming was a smorgasbord of contrasting styles. 22 cosmic compositions of ambient electronica, funky bass, sparkling synth, smoky sax and psychedelic imagery made it a charming and thoroughly immersive experience, that could be listened to in one go or as parts of playlists. (LISTEN)

051. The National – High Violet (4AD) (2010)

The National’s modus operandi may be fairly unchanging to the untrained ear, but many consider High Violet to be the apex of the band’s cult years, the point at which a great many people sat up and took serious notice of a band that was producing wonderful records one after the other for most of a decade. 2005’s Alligator and 2007’s Boxer were your archetypal ‘growers’, albums that needed to be listened to repeatedly in order for you to wring maximum pleasure from them, slowly revealing their charms to you. High Violet managed to inject proceedings with a little more immediacy, with thrilling rackets like ‘Bloodbuzz Ohio’ balanced out by the group’s more typical slow-burners like ‘Afraid Of Everyone’, and it put paid to the “depressing” tag with which many had lazily labelled them. The National have always been morose and downcast, but, underneath it all, fundamentally optimistic. High Violet was their clearest statement yet, a graceful quiet celebration in the face of massive odds or imminent defeat. It finally gained the group some serious exposure in Britain, to the extent that they were able to headline festivals as big as Latitude and were nominated for a Brit Award for International Breakthrough Act. (LISTEN)

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