41 Favorite Albums of the 2010s

A decade has come and gone, and boy, we’ve been through it. Popular music is often a reflection of the times – Harry Styles’ very Bowie-influenced “Sign of the Times” is certainly an appropriate marking point here – but it goes much deeper than that. 10 years brings a flood of personal changes, too; if you’re human, you’ve made mistakes, readjusted priorities, and hopefully, grown up a bit. Music has been the soundtrack to our highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Everything we do or think or say or experience most likely has a song, an artist or an album attached to it.

Here at B-Sides & Badlands, we poked around a bit and crafted a list of our favorite records of the 2010s. Notice we didn’t say “Best,” as “Best” is so arbitrary these days and doesn’t really mean much. Everyone’s tastes are so subjective that putting such a label on these things feels disingenuous. Instead, here are albums and its creators who have truly moved us, shaped us, forever changed us.

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Jason’s Honorable Mentions: I’ll be honest. I (Jason/Britney) ran out of time to review some of my favorite records of the decade. Here are some that I truly do love on a deeply-personal level. I reserve the right to add to this list at any time. Wink wink.

Bunny by Halo Circus; The Weight of These Wings by Miranda Lambert; Ivory by Gin Wigmore; I am the Rain by Chely Wright; Do Not Revenge by Dan Black; Take Me When You Go by Betty Who; Farmer’s Daughter by Crystal Bowersox; Listen Up! by Haley Reinhart; Breathe In. Breathe Out. by Hilary Duff; Small Town Dreams by Will Hoge; Cut to Impress by Maggie Rose; All I Need by Foxes; WHEN WE FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? by Billie Eilish; 12 Stories by Brandy Clark; and I Cry When I Laugh by Jess Glynne.

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Mark’s Honorable Mentions: Here, writer Mark Escalante offers abbreviated reviews and insight into some of his favorite 2010s albums, alongside a list of still others which hooked him nearly as much this past decade.

Sam Fender, Hypersonic Missiles

A common complaint about modern rock music is its shallowness with bands gunning for catchiness rather than substance. “Music was better back in the day,” whether sonically or lyrically, isn’t a new opinion. Sam Fender begs to differ. On Hypersonic Missiles, he sings about male suicide and mental health (“Dead Boys”), the death of a friendship (“The Borders”), racial privilege (“White Privilege”), and even hating your landlord (“Saturday”). Perhaps because Sam Fender’s sound isn’t as frequently heard on the radio and because of his influences, the album inspires nostalgia, but instead of looking at the past through rose-colored glasses, it dares the listener to contemplate, if not confront, reality.

Kelela, Take Me Apart

To say that this is what Aaliyah would have sounded in her thirties would be unfair to Kelela. It’s easy to pinpoint moments where the influence shines the most, but Take Me Apart is not a throwback. Instead, it’s a subtle innovation on a genre. Kelela describes her début as “an honest vision of how we navigate dissolving ties with each other” (Better) and “yet remain sanguine for the next chance at love” (LMK). It’s as much about liberation (Frontline) as it is about reflection (Jupiter).

Troye Sivan, Blue Neighbourhood

It’s easy to mock teen pop. The sub-genre is often trite and dishonest, with songs written by out of touch adults and interpreted by inexperienced kids. But it doesn’t have to be. Recorded at the tail end of Troye Sivan’s teen years, Blue Neighbourhood freshly captures the nuances of teenage euphoria (“Wild”), confusion (“Fools”), and frustration. While Troye Sivan follows the same pop formula his contemporaries use, he unabashedly sings about love (“For Him”) and bravely asks questions about his place in the world as a young gay man (“Heaven”).

Rodriguez, Searching for Sugar Man

In the late nineties, two South African men decided to prove or disprove the death of the folk-rock singer whose socially conscious lyrics soundtrack the lives of those during the Apartheid. Their search is chronicled in the documentary, “Searching for Sugar Man.” Rodriguez is alive, but hasn’t made music since the seventies. The accompanying soundtrack reintroduces songs that offer a glimpse into a drug addict’s life (“Sugar Man”) and loneliness (“I Think Of You”), as well as social commentary on early seventies Detroit (“This is Not a Song It’s an Outburst: Or, The Establishment Blues”).

Mark also loved: The Altar by Banks; Everybody by Logic; Liberman by Vanessa Carlton; Joni Was Right by Marit Larsen; Hopeless Romantic by Michelle Branch; and Stranger in the Alps by Phoebe Bridgers.

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Halsey, Badlands

Release: August 28, 2015

Label: Astralwerks

Genre: Pop

Halsey’s debut album Badlands was the impetus behind B-Sides & Badlands – a nod to her weirdly fascinating brand of angsty, establishment-busting pop. “You should be scared of me. Who is in control?!” Halsey, born Ashley Frangipane, cries out rather feverishly on her devilish “Control,” a Badlands wasteland of haunting electricity and aggressive grittiness. Her first record is bigger than anything she could have imagined — enlisting the masterminds of LA-based duo The Futuristics (Cody Simpson, Bruno Mars), Ryan Lott (Sisyphus, Nathan Johnson, eighth blackbird) and Norwegian rapper, songwriter and producer Lido, the resulting 16 dirty, raw, sexually-energetic songs chronicle her youthful escapades and journey into adulthood. Halsey’s arrangements crackle, embers yearning to consuming everything you toss into the fire pit – eliciting visions of a fleeting reality, soaked with drugs, sex and rock ‘n roll. Her hand-drawn portrait is one of societal rebellion (“New Americana”), as it relates to personal redemption and sexual awakening (“Hold Me Down,” “Hurricane”). Her ties are often religious, too, as a medium through which she sharpens her perception of the world. Binding together unforgiving, even foolish, martyrdom (“Coming Down,” “Strange Love”), Halsey cobbles together a declaration of addiction and sacrifice. “These violent delights have violent ends” reads the tattoo on her right arm (a line from Romeo & Juliet): written in elegant, sweeping typography and a manifesto of her own unraveling and addicting novel. She sees people in vivid “Colors,” as drugs induce kaleidoscopic images of sorrow and loss drenched with intoxicating love and hope. She stains together atmospheric rock with frosty pop edges (“Roman Holiday” is quite the Lana Del Rey-Tove Lo fusion), and there is never a moment on Badlands that doesn’t throb in the veins like a needle (“Young God,” “Castle”). Her highly personal stories make for a dreamy, out-of-body experience that is glued together with sexually-arresting images like “Could you imagine the taste of your lips if we never tried to kiss on the drive to Queens? ‘Cause I imagine the weight of your ribs if you lied between my hips in the backseat,” she coos on “Roman Holiday.” Her proclivity for detailed sexual encounters feeds her monstrous need to understand herself. Badlands is as striking as any debut record could be, and since its release, Halsey has cemented quite an early legacy. – Jason Scott

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Robyn, Body Talk

Release: November 22, 2010

Label: Konichiwa

Genre: Pop

Why Robyn’s three-part Body Talk EP series, and eventual compilation album of the same name, never managed to set the charts ablaze is an unsolvable mystery. Hailed by music pundits far and wide as a monument of pop transcendence, every track on Body Talk is a high-voltage and playful masterstroke of genius, a true testament to Robyn’s abilities and standards as an artist. Dare yourself not to be infected by the oscillating beats that are woven throughout its 15 tracks – you’ll surely fail. Its electricity shocks your limbs to life and before you know it, you’re dancing with your eyes shut, relinquishing control of your body to the melody. Album highlights like “Dancing On My Own” and “Call Your Girlfriend” are clear examples of the therapy Robyn finds in her songwriting. She perfectly encapsulates her inner turmoil at the hands of love, coating them in a candy shell, making the pill just a little easier to swallow. On the rambunctious and cocky collaborations “U Should Know Better” (with Snoop Dog) and “None of Dem” (with Scandinavian brethren Röyksopp), she psyches herself up out of her funk, putting on rose-colored glasses and forgetting her worries. Body Talk is very much a personal diary desperately seeking catharsis. Even when the album lacks the structure of traditional pop music, like on the brazen “Don’t F*****g Tell Me What to Do” or the automatic “We Dance to the Beat,” the body of work as a whole remains consistent and cohesive, aligning with Robyn’s futuristic vision like the teeth of a cogwheel fitting snugly into another. Its supercharged intensity is relentless from start to finish, but never grows tiresome. The only thing that is sure to get exhausted is the replay button. – Joe Kadish

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Melanie Martinez, Cry Baby

Release: August 14, 2015

Label: Atlantic Records

Genre: Pop

Melanie Martinez’s major label debut is ambitious and revolutionary. Cry Baby hinges on a concept and character named “Cry Baby,” who is forced to navigate a dark, dangerous and polluted world to find herself. “They call me cry baby, cry baby / But I don’t fucking care,” she sings, configuring the outlandish storyline as her own – she plays narrator to great effect, mining her own personal currency for a taut universal theme of coming of age. Martinez is a fascinating, bizarre and truly wondrous storyteller with an indelible knack for sticky, bubblegum pop hooks that are never wanting for strong social and cultural messaging. “Mrs. Potato Head” dissects, perhaps quite literally, the plague of plastic surgery and shiny magazine spreads, while “Dollhouse” lets the paint dry and flake to expose a nightmarish dolly playground of a dysfunctional family grappling with emotional detachment, alcohol abuse and a gnarly identity crisis. With each chapter of her elevated fantasy, Martinez employs childhood innocence as a way to reframe adulthood – sometimes diving into joyfully macabre territory. “Tag, You’re It,” “Soap” and “Carousel” are among her most alluring artifacts, pieces that tinker with wildly juvenile gurgles, bubbles and various toy sounds to experiment what it means to struggle in relationships, within one’s own self and the relentless cycles of life. Then, with “Pity Party,” she samples Leslie Gore’s classical song “It’s My Party,” for her own twisted and emotionally-pummeling song about loneliness. “It’s my party, and I’ll cry if I want to / Cry if I want to / I’ll cry until the candles burn down this place / I’ll cry until my pity party’s in flames,” she sings, a witchy conjuring blending the sample into her own confectionary. Between very bizarre compositions, her voice an undeniably penetrating guiding light, Cry Baby emerges as the kind of record to which every future Martinez release, including her second LP K-12, will be compared, and that’s the mark of true, unapologetic and inescapable greatness. – Jason Scott

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Gabriella Rose, Lost in Translation EP

Release: February 1, 2019

Label: Independent

Genre: Pop/Blues/Alternative

Pop luminary Gabriella Rose confronts issues of humanity, sanity and our role in continuing the cycle of destruction with her song “The Chair.” Foot-stomps and a ghoulish choir of chains crash and break as waves onto jagged rock, bubbles lapping at her feet in an insatiable display of sadness. “Mother your little boy’s sick / I don’t know why my hands are red / Mother, I’m scared of what I did / Now, they’ve locked me up and left me for dead,” she sings, gutting the listener clean and turning the screws of every emotion. Rose, who drew inspiration from Truman Capote’s In My Blood, combs the most brutally harrowing, dusty corners of human consciousness for a story that’s never been more relevant. Maximum impact, though, comes much later. “This chair, they strapped me up / I’m sorry mom, I really do love you / And the man in the mask, he looks at me and laughs / And screams that this is what I deserve / And my head is a mess, I can’t catch my breath / I can’t find the perfect final words,” she extends in breathy murmurs. She’s stepped into the role as a murderer on death row, taking care to soak her words in beauty and compassion, and her performance is downright chilling. On the hook, the character’s life drips out as water into a drain pipe, “He was given a count, (1,2,3) / They fried his brains out, (1,2,3) / The only sound, (1,2,3) / The screams from his mouth…” Rose’s Lost in Translation (produced by Chris Molitor) is an altogether devastating, yet exemplary, collective of the mental hellscape. “She started cutting her skin / Because to them, it was much too thin / She loved the color red, she watched it spill onto the bed,” she cries out on “Welcome to the Dollhouse,” arms showered in blood and draining her spirit of all color. [Full review] – Jason Scott

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Beyoncé, Lemonade

Release: April 23, 2016

Label: Parkwood/Columbia

Genre: R&B

After taking the 2000s by storm and setting herself apart from Destiny’s Child to become the international solo superstar the world has always known her to be, Beyoncé solidified her place as the most important female artist of this decade with the surprise release of her self-titled album back in 2013. Since then, the Bey-hive has been on high alert knowing that their idol could release a new album at any time without any announcement or warning. Which is why when lead single “Formation” dropped in February 2016, we were no strangers to the stealthy artform Beyoncé has mastered when it comes to releasing new music. Later in April, we patiently waited for the clock to strike midnight as the full-length film that (we hoped) would go on to feature her sixth album premiered on HBO. The film, titled Lemonade, was Beyoncé’s way of allowing us into her elusive life as she told us the story of the recent years of her marriage, her challenges with her self-worth and the way she learned to forgive everyone around her and, most importantly, herself. Lemonade displays Beyoncé from devastatingly vulnerable (see “Sandcastles”) to undeniably furious (see “Don’t Hurt Yourself”). This range of emotions is complemented by the range of genres that Beyoncé explores throughout her most experimental album to-date: trying her hand at country, alternative rock and hip-hop, with each risk paying off beautifully. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Beyoncé record without a cultural moment of “I woke up like this” proportions; this time around it was “Becky with the good hair” off second single, “Sorry.” Full-on investigations attempting to figure out the identity of this “Becky” character went on, and memes using the phrase have gone viral throughout the internet since the release, further proving that everything Queen Bey does is deeply intertwined in today’s society and culture. In that same vein, Beyoncé drops part of the iconic diva façade to show us the struggling human being underneath and to share how she overcame it all, which is key to why Lemonade is her best and most important art piece so far. – Galvin Baez

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Kesha, Rainbow

Release: August 11, 2017

Label: Kemosabe

Genre: Pop

“I’ll just keep on living the way I want to live,” Kesha makes a turn with acoustic guitar on album opener, “Bastards,” slowly curling vulnerability with her typically-brash attitude. “Don’t let the assholes where you out,” she later coos, coolly and doggedly. Kesha has walked through the valley of the shadow of death, clawed her way back to the surface and bravely recounted her sojourn across 14 musically-adventurous tracks. Rainbow exhibits literally every color – fire reds burn through the clouds and cool blues, purples and greens wash up in frosty, refreshing ripples. He-who-shall-not-be-named allegedly sexually, emotionally and psychologically manipulated and abused the pop star, who combated against her abuser through various stages of the court system. It was during such patriarchal turmoil that she gained wisdom, for better or worse, and her 2017 LP is a manifesto of strength, determination and true will of spirit. She doesn’t avoid confronting the misery, however, often writhing around in it one last time before she dusts herself off and braves a new dawn that crests the horizon stretching out before her. Kesha’s pop-punk roots are still glowing, rainbow-like from her skull (as you’ll find on such rock bangers as “Let ‘Em Talk” and the bodacious “Woman”), and she plants her heels even deeper into the eye of the storm that determines to destroy her. But she doesn’t go down; in fact, she slays and conquers the metaphorical (and quite literal) dragons that have had free reign to stomp on her back for far too long. She also playfully extends her palette with doses of country [the Dolly Parton-featuring “Old Flames (Don’t Hold a Candle to You),” “Boots,” “Hunt You Down”)] and incisive singer-songwriter (“Bastards,” “Rainbow”). She also offers up a witty John Prine-worthy ditty called “Godzilla,” which’ll make you chuckle and then feel all warm ‘n fuzzy inside. Lead single “Praying” is a heart-hallowed ballad of the highest order, the kind that’ll break your knee caps and make you beg for mercy, and even after everything she endured, she still offers up forgiveness. A bizarre fanciful bookend, “Spaceship” not only nods to Kesha’s very real belief in the extraterrestrial but the gaseous entry is as if she’s finally relinquishing everything from her past into the cloudy ether overhead. Her former self ascends, and her new, more empowered, self readies for what’s next – which is nothing but greatness. – Jason Scott

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The Lone Bellow, Self-Titled

Release: January 22, 2013

Label: Descendant Records

Genre: Americana

Tragedy, hope, betrayal and redemption are cogs in The Lone Bellow machine – each rotating and scraping against one another. It’s also the devastating truth of existing, and when those cogs fatefully crack and crumble, you slog through stages of life as best as you can. The strength you’re capable and willing of mustering up defines who you are. The Brooklyn three-piece’s self-titled debut – a hearty blend of blues, rock and folk music – writhed around in it all, rubbing and caking mud into skin-torn wounds. “Breathing in, breathing out, it’s all in my mouth / Gives me hope that I’ll be something worth bleeding out,” singer and songwriter Zach Williams punctures his lungs to get the words out. It’s a brutally emotional and cathartic journey, one that not many bands are inclined to do. From the most intimate, heart-splitting moments (“Two Sides of Lonely,” “Looking for You,” “Fire Red Horse”) to the boisterously dangerous chest-pounders (“Green Eyes and a Heart of Gold”), the album scans the darkest and most tortured corners of humanity with an eye for visceral honesty that knocks you to the ground. The Long Bellow – also comprised of singers, songwriters and musicians Kanene Donehey Pipkin and Brian Elmquist, who each leave an incredible imprint on the work – stock up on volatile intensity that stares you right in the face. “Take my ink and take my blood / Take the time to wish me luck / Wish I was gone, wish I was dust,” the pain of a failed relationship spills off their tongues inside the walls of “You Can Be All Kinds of Emotional.” Harmony warm and tight-knit, the band’s vocal work is as vital to the stories as the blustering arrangements and production, courtesy of producer Charlie Peacock (Ben Rector, Holly Williams, The Civil Wars). “You waited at the bus stop, flowers in hand / A yellow tulip for each hour we’ve spent / Apart for now, my broken heart, an empty hand,” Pipkin broods on a relationship’s slow descent. “You Don’t Love Me Like You Used To” finally severs the chains, a liberating moment once the dust settles. The Lone Bellow is a debut for the ages. – Jason Scott

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St. Vincent, Self-Titled

Release: January 1, 2014

Label: Loma Vista / Republic

Genre: Alternative

St. Vincent’s eponymous 2014 release sounds like the work of a celestial being masquerading as a human. On the cover art, Annie Clark positions herself on a pale pink throne in the center of her alien hive, stoic and dressed in a costume of flesh. It’s a character she embraces in her videos as well: bleached hair styled at an unnatural angle and a vacant stare, she stands prostrate when she should move and contorts her body when she should dance. Naturally, St. Vincent, like most of Clark’s work, reflects the same extraterrestrial aura. She completely abandons the traditional notion of music-making, carving a niche that she alone fits and creating a sound undeniably weird and fresh. Buzzing guitar riffs and punchy brass horns sound like the emissions of a temperamental robot, providing the perfect backdrop to Clark’s angelic voice and poignant lyrics. She has a lot to say about the state of our society, words that still ring true five years later. She laments the humdrum repetition of suburban life on the discordant “Birth in Reverse,” struggling to keep the stir-crazy thoughts at bay. “What’s the point of even sleeping? / If I can’t show it and you can’t see me,” she sings on “Digital Witness,” mocking a generation of narcissists, keen on digitally documenting their every move. She plugs into the machine on “Huey Newton,” uploading her consciousness onto its hard drive as a robotic symphony of firing neurons pulses behind her. More than halfway in, the song morphs into a completely new beast, as she abandons her physical self to become a sequence of zeros and ones. The rest of the album is a further realization of Clark’s vision, an accomplishment many strive to achieve, but are so often unsuccessful. She makes it look effortless, uniqueness and artistry dripping from her pores. The world needs talents like St. Vincent – and we should be thanking our lucky stars that she landed from wherever it is that she came. – Joe Kadish

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Holly Williams, The Highway

Release: February 5, 2013

Label: Georgiana Records

Genre: Country/Americana

Albums can be a vehicle of deliverance from a troubled, agonizing past. Or it can transport you back to those moments, reopening stitched-up wounds and allowing the blood to flow freely. Holly Williams brandishes searing fragility with her career-defining The Highway album, an earthy, painstaking character study of sorrow, redemption and seeking “the things worth living for,” as she casts on “Without You.” The 2013 disc, her third album and first independent release, ages quite eloquently. At the time, it earned mixed reviews, ranging from PopMatters‘ paltry 50 to Country Weekly‘s stalwart 83. It’s a confusing jumble of scrutiny for Hank Williams’ granddaughter, who rarely uses her namesake for attention or as a driving force to her music. Her heritage pumps in her veins, and its natural occurrence permeates every vocal tick, production tumble, lyrical detail. Instead, she employs her caramel contralto to peddle heartbreaking narratives, breathy and brittle tales of death’s inevitably through passing generations ⎯⎯ “I never liked to see my daddy cry / I guess I’ll never know how grandpa died,” she weeps on “Gone Away from Me.” And later, she exposes another brutal blow, “Strangers live inside my childhood home / And I can’t believe daddy’s really gone.” Williams makes you feel every savage edge, the rawness of time’s merciless killings, the sharpness of clear, definable reality. “Well, the truth came out and the church burned down / Daddy’s heart stopped on the edge of this town / I’m out here searching for that boy of my own / Don’t ever make a judgment if you ain’t been shown,” she cautions on “Railroads,” one of the record’s prime examples of flighty juxtaposition, the jangle of production, thanks to producer Charlie Peacock, contrasting profoundly against the story. She has no qualms about stepping into the male vantage point (as she also does on closer “Waitin’ on June”), injected with her own womanly experiences, a jarring but necessary disparity. “These seasons change and the ground will turn to snow / New blood, old heart still trying to let you go,” Williams maintains on “Let You Go,” another spunky number pouring out a duality of tone. Then, with “A Good Man,” she considers losing the love of her life, which can also play as a poignant examination of any type of relationship, really, singing, “If I never saw you once again / If suddenly you met your bitter end / I’m not sure I’d ever understand.” The Highway is a timeless embodiment of some of life’s greatest, most universal tragedies and its stranglehold, looming as an omniscient force over even the mundane: death grips and shakes to the very core of humanity. – Jason Scott

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Edens Edge, Self-Titled

Release: June 12, 2012

Label: Big Machine

Genre: Country

From the deep muddy waters and brambly countryside of Arkansas, a trio of players, who met through mutual friends, came together to make some sweet and wonderful music. Singer-songwriter Hannah Blaylock, guitarist and dobro player Dean Berner and mandolin, guitar and banjo aficionado Cherrill Green bonded over shared ambitions of twinkling Nashville lights, fresh-scented record contracts and massive worldwide tours. Upon winning a CMT-sponsored contest, they moved to Music City and performed a showcase at the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. As the story goes, Scott Borchetta, CEO of Big Machine Records, was in attendance and became so enthralled by their talents, he set up a meeting the very next day. The moment they walked in, he offered them a record deal. Edens Edge arrived with a cannonball splash in the summer of 2012. “Swingin’ Door,” framed around a Texas honky-tonk, and “Skinny Dippin’,” a galloping sneak-away into the brush, are sun-bleached and tangy. The band together ramble hard and fast, scurrying between the crackle of banjo and the guitar’s kitten-sized purr. “Too Good to Be True,” which was the record’s second and final radio single, combines the zip of The Judds with the unquenchable zest of Terri Clark, with some added Dixie Chicks body-slamming for good measure. Smack-dab right in the center is “Last Supper,” among Blaylock’s finest vocal performances. She whirls and tilts like a tilt-a-whirl gone haywire, her soprano sizzling and breaking at the ends. “Look at the couple in the corner booth / Looks a lot like me and you / She’s looking out at the window / He’s staring down at his shoes,” she sings, rearranging the words into various states of wordplay. “She gets another glass of Cabernet / She’s searching hard for something to say / He’s got that little-too-late look on his already-gone face…” – Jason Scott [This is an excerpt from a Throwback Thursday installment]

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Sylvan Esso, Self-Titled

Release: May 12, 2014

Label: Partisan Records

Genre: Electronic/Pop

When Mountain Man’s Amelia Meath and Megafaun’s Nick Sanborn came together to form the electronic duo we now know as Sylvan Esso, fans scratched their head in confusion due to the unlikeliness of it all. However, when you take Amelia’s southern-folk songwriting sensibilities and fuse them with Nick’s experimental production prowess, it creates a recipe for a brand-new sound unique to anything heard in today’s music soundscape. Sylvan Esso’s debut is pop music that didn’t go through the industry machines; it isn’t worried about sounding like anything available today. The self-titled record consists of ten tracks of mechanical music made by humans, singing about real-life human experiences – such as the feeling of falling in love for a second time on lead single “Coffee” or the realities of being a woman in public spaces on the opening track “Hey Mami.” Amelia’s dulcet vocal tone perfectly complements the hard-hitting drums and synths that the record consists of, and it helps create an electronic record that is by no means devoid of heart and emotion. Look no further than on “Uncatena”, where Amelia painfully coos, “All I want from you’s a letter and to be your distant lover / That is all that I can offer at this time,” a lyric Amelia took from a voicemail left by a former lover who left her heartbroken. That is one of many instances where the band invites fans and listeners to connect to the record, and we are invited to partake in all of our emotions and to dance them all away within the span of the 38-minute body of work. Years from now, Sylvan Esso’s debut will be considered a blueprint for anyone who wants to get into the artform of creating an electro-pop record humanely. If you’re a fan of storytelling lyrics and well-crafted electronic music, “Sylvan Esso” is a must-have for your collection. – Galvin Baez

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Lana Del Rey, Born to Die

Release: January 27, 2012

Label: Stranger / Interscope / Polydor

Genre: Pop

A noir filmmaker’s obsession with Hollywood ripples outward with an expectant coo. Lush romanticism buttons together with a fire-pit cinema. Lana Del Rey’s label debut proper is an extravagant statement-piece, heavy on a well-plotted orchestra which always heaves and sighs in appropriate moments to make her style burn even hotter and brighter and longer. Born to Die was groundbreaking for its time; while it navigated in a sea of torch song classicism, it was her angelic vocal cords that ignited something more god-like and otherworldly, nearly always entrancing through a polaroid starburst. She was a siren, detached enough to be cloaked in mystery and slyly accessible with hooks laced-up like Nancy Sinatra. “You were sort of punk-rock / I grew up on hip-hop,” she spits with “Blue Jeans.” She was a velour-styled charmer right from the beginning, a silky sensuality directing her every syllable, and it was her viral hit “Video Games,” originally released the previous fall, that sparked this almost glamorous rebellion. “Baby, put on heart-shaped sunglasses / ‘Cause we gonna take a ride,” she coaxes her new beau on “Diet Mountain Dew,” a sentimental nod to Lolita and her own burgeoning figure. She loses her innocence to time and her own proclivity to explore sexuality, freedom and what it means to be alive and to be a woman. “National Anthem”s very Verve-like string introduction, which quickly pops into a fireworks display and her most dangerously sticky groove, rips her naivety to ribbons as paper through a shredder. “Dark Paradise” descends into a devilish slumber as she wades into fear of never knowing if a loved on is “waiting on the other side,” her voice fades like all memories inevitably do. “Your face is like a melody / It won’t leave my head / Your soul is haunting me / And telling me that everything is fine / But I wish I was dead.” Lana Del Rey’s daring in both lyric and tone, tempering the senses with smokey lounge singing (“Million Dollar Man,” “Carmen”) or perfecting and tightening her aesthetic to a suffocating degree (“Summertime Sadness,” “Off to the Races”), gave her license to shake up the status quo. Numerous albums later, Born to Die carries with it a timeless sheen, and knowing what her later musical endeavors would offer, emerges an artistic treasure. – Jason Scott

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Carrie Elkin, The Penny Collector

Release: March 10, 2017

Label: Independent

Genre: Folk

Grief and joy hang in a delicate balance, life’s merciless tightrope act overlooking life and death and the great yonder. For many, birth can be redeeming, baptizing whatever sins away or erasing a deeply troubled past. It all leads to something, and there’s always a return. Death, then, is birth’s way of wiping the slate clean. On the day Carrie Elkin was driving to Taos, New Mexico for her father’s funeral, she found out she was pregnant. “This is where my battle cries / This is where my father died / This is how the falcon flies,” she howls to a low-floating silver moon on “New Mexico,” the table-setting entry on The Penny Collector, a disc which celebrates the birth of her first child as much as it laments the untimely arrival of the Grim Reaper. It’s a sobering threshold over which we all must cross sooner or later, and it’s such potency which casts Elkin’s voice with a heavenly polish. She later moans – carrying a caramel-smooth weight much like Linda Ronstadt before her – later in the song, wailing, “This is where my poet lives / This is where my feathers rise / This is where the wreckage lies / This is where I first came alive… on the Pueblo.” Ironically – or maybe it was a nudge from God above – her first born gave out an adorable squeal, perhaps as affirmation of Elkin’s pivotal, life-altering journey. Her father’s hobby as a penny collector would later become integral to her transformation well after his death (and inspire the album’s title). “And then the birds came; they took my dad away. It was so quiet,” she later muses on album deep cut “And Then the Birds Came,” an especially profound recording. “Then, the world just came alive / My mama came alive / My brother came alive.” Later, with “Crying Out,” Elkin crawls through the emotional grim, feeling every single pang and sore swell up on her skin. “I’m lonely now / I know it’s hard for you / I know you know what to do / But I know it’s hard for you,” Elkin, whose voice is angelic but tattered, torn and trembling, sing. And then, later, she yearns, “I’m a girl that’s been thrown, and I’m on the telephone, and I’m crying out.”  The fabric of Elkin’s entire life is woven through the frankness of her pen and the might of her voice, also touching upon the grit of Patty Griffin – but it’s Ronstadt who is her most prominent influence, from the gliding melodic choices to her earth-shaking interpretative skills. Ronstadt might have lost her voice forever, but Elkin is her heir apparent. The circle of life, from anguish to hope and new beginnings, is the driver behind not only the stories she tells but how she approaches the phrasing and rhythm. Elkin’s solemn timbre sets the bar for a record which is as lonesome as it is uplifting. “Always on the Run,” “And Then the Birds Came” and “My Brother Said” are equally splendid, moving and tearful revelations of the heart. – Jason Scott

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Brandy Zdan, Secretear

Release: May 11, 2018

Label: Tallest Man Records

Genre: Rock

The heart’s decaying plunder has long been integral to falling apart, rising above and living to write about it. Ask any songwriter, and they’re likely to entertain that notion with their own stories of hardship and misery. From Hank Williams’ weepy “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” to the spitting venom of Alanis Morissette‘s “You Oughta Know” to Miranda Lambert‘s utterly-paralyzing confessions to the “Tin Man,” matters of the heart are forever imprinted on country and rock music, especially in processing trauma through art and highlighting personal growth. Rocker Brandy Zdan (formerly of The Trishas) keeps her heart close to the chest with her sophomore record, Secretear, a Spanish word which roughly translates to “whisper” or “to talk secretively,” hammering home the album’s general beat, drawing lines between intimate relationships that have gone down in flames and her own enlightened self-love. “Cold and knocked out on the floor / The fears are always at my door / All that I hide kept me up in the night,” she sings on “Secret Tears,” bruised and caked over with fractured electric guitar. She wields her voice in splintered reverence, a stormy quiet branded in a furiously dire mental state. Her capacity to exhume the darkest and dustiest emotions out of the listener’s cobwebbed subconscious is the central tie-in, a mighty, unbreakable thread sewing each stained and tattered piece together. Secretear, produced by Zdan, along with Teddy Morgan (John Oates), is as bedeviling as a lion in wait, arresting and brutish. Zdan navigates each throbbing vessel of the heart with delicacy and precision. “You’re always looking to begin again / Are you the night rider / Are you the truth teller,” she presses with the smooth-gulp of “Night Rider,” painting a vivid escapist scene right at dusk, as the sun crests the earth, splashing hues of pinks, reds and golden yellows across the usual blue. It’s splendid and apt to wreck your heart even further, behind recognition and understanding. “On the dusty flatlands, there’s a wind that could take you for miles, take you for miles / Take you for miles, and you could just disappear.” [Full review here] – Jason Scott

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Taylor Swift, 1989

Release: October 27, 2014

Label: Big Machine

Genre: Pop

Taylor Swift’s decision to record a full-blown pop album was far from surprising. Her previous album Red had already begun to peel away the layers of her country sound, which always possessed a faint glimmer of pop anyway. Her former label and current adversary, Big Machine, was reluctant about this sonic shift, attempting to persuade the singer to record songs that aligned with her previous releases. But Swift, ever strong in her convictions, trusted her instincts, eventually creating an album that would sell over 10 million copies worldwide and earn her her second Album of the Year Grammy award. The cultural impact of 1989 will forever remain a career highlight for Swift. Each of its seven singles became fixtures on mainstream radio, catapulting them to the top of the charts and exhausting them to the point of annoyance. And yet, Swift’s ability to craft infectious melodies made the songs irresistible even on the hundredth listen. By releasing herself from the confines of being labeled “country,” she allows herself to have fun with things and experiment more with her sound. Pop geniuses like Max Martin, Shellback, Ryan Tedder and Jack Antonoff lend a helping hand, seemingly saving their finest material for a star of Swift’s caliber. Swift rides an ‘80s synth wave on punchy album opener “Welcome to New York,” setting the tone for what’s to come on her hook-heaviest work to-date. She pokes fun at her public image on the chart trailblazer “Blank Space,” quite possibly the catchiest song in her catalogue, with clever lyrics that show just how ridiculous the tabloid headlines are. Even when her songwriting is far from profound – like on the borderline farce that is “Shake It Off” – Swift’s charisma is amplified when she loosens up and stops caring about what other people think of her. Even album deep cuts like “How You Get the Girl” and “Clean” are masterfully-produced pop gems. Whether you love her or love to hate her, it would be a tough case to argue that Swift isn’t good at what she does. 1989 is likely to serve as an archetype to future singers of everything that pop should be. Many will attempt to replicate its success, but few will come close to the perfection of one of the best albums of the decade. Swift herself has tried. – Joe Kadish

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Fickle Friends, You Are Someone Else

Release: March 16, 2018

Label: Polydor Records

Genre: Pop

Natti Shiner, who fronts synth-pop troupe Fickle Friends, doesn’t have anything to prove. She’s a fearless daredevil, a bad bitch, navigating the toxicity of a music industry and her own mind with acrobatic precision. “In My Head,” packing on the heart-throbbing misery, opens up her excursions through the haze and torment of mental health. It’s a sobering and downcast and rather strained ballad, allowing Shiner to expose every laceration. “I’m alone in my head, my alarm isn’t set / Getting used to American time / Still awake if you call, don’t feel normal at all / So I’m back smoking Camels instead,” the melancholy freezes her in place, and the listener, too, is locked in a mental ice-cap. “She,” “Hard to Be Myself” and “Paris” heave out a similarly evocative mood, plastered on the inside of her skull and filtered through frigid modulations and sending a remarkable subtlety to the veins. Then, such standouts as “Glue,” “Wake Me Up” and “Hello Hello” rely heavily on Cyndi Lauper-eschewed rhythms and melodies, hooking your eardrums like a rainbow trout lurking in the shadowy depths, fated for something greater. “Heartbroken,” allegedly about the band’s record label pulling them into tired circles, is the crown jewel ⎯⎯ owed in large part to Shiner’s cheeky vocal inflections and the beat’s pummeling drive. “You think everything sucks / I really couldn’t give two fucks / And why do you rely on luck / When it don’t really work like that?” she sings, her words both splintering her own self-worth and striking naysayers with colossal teardown.  “And man, do I wish it did / Imagine me throwing a fit / I can’t because you’re being cryptic / And I can’t really work like…” A century from now, You Are Someone Else will be cemented as one of pop’s greatest moments. – Jason Scott

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Amy Shark, Love Monster

Release: 2018

Label: Sony Music

Genre: Pop

A prominent fixture of the pop art boom of the 1960s, Andy Warhol, whose artistic exploration at the fork of celebrity culture and self-expression was both ornate and organic, once said of creation: “Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” That shrewdness served him well over the course of his prolific career, and it behooves us mere mortals to take his advice. Amy Shark (real name Amy Billings) certainly has taken it to heart. Hailing from Queensland out of Australia, she began scribbling down songs on parched notebook paper in high school, and she wouldn’t release her first project until 2017’s extended play Night Thinker, a cool and quick-cut six songs indebted to the outpouring of blood, sweat and tears onto weathered and cracked concrete. Three years later, she finally issues her first proper full-length, called Love Monster, which executes a daring trapeze act in a sparkling spread of hip-hop and indie-pop. “I’m just getting started,” she pledges with lead single “I Said Hi,” a nimble underdog anthem positioning the record as a hypnotizing and miraculous pinnacle of the year. “You can only put your heart into something for so long and get nothing back before you start redirecting your focus,” she expressed in a radio interview. Blessedly, the stars have aligned, and Billings is leaving her imprint in lavish strokes worthy of the highest order. “I Got You” skids and banks a hard left in a fashion similar to that of Julia Michaels, whose “Uh Huh” bares a striking musical chord here, but Billings nudges the barometer to infinity and beyond. Her instincts are scary, as she ransacks each and every risk she dares to attempt. “What did you think about me the second that you saw me / What did I think about you, baby, I thought of everything / Spending more time than I should / I sound like you, I knew I would,” she sings, ca-cooing in time with the song’s sticky downgrade. She makes like a snake in the weeds, slicing the stalks with devilish beauty. “All Loved Up,” co-written with and produced by pop master Jack Anonoff, known in recent times for his work with Lorde, St. Vincent and Taylor Swift, among others, demonstrates the quirky and swanky, as trendy as you might expect but never relinquishing Billings’ ability to make you crumble. – Jason Scott [Full review here]

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Grace Potter, Midnight

Release: August 14, 2015

Label: Hollywood Records

Genre: Rock

Grace Potter is a vocal tour de force. There are few contemporaries who can compete with the snapping she does on a song like “Delirious,” which bends the back around groovy disco before unleashing the bloodhounds on a moon-gazing belt. Midnight is chock full of vocal acrobatics; “Look What We’ve Become,” soaked in a serpent’s tongue on the guitar, and “Alive Tonight” are equally as intoned with an animalistic battlecry, Potter licking her wounds with her vocal cords. She entices you into a complete upheaval of pop and rock conventions – led with the smoldering glisten of “Hot to the Touch,” on which she allows her slender soprano to dice and slice with supple sensuality. “Your Girl” is a soul-top spinner, and “Empty Guitar” rides an acoustic-funk wave into a star-struck dimension. “You know how to make me weak in the knees when you pour yourself all over me,” she bathes the listener in liberation of being a woman owning herself and her body, as she also seeks for deep human connection with a lover. “Instigators” flicks through Nintendo-nuked synths, never compromising the hard-rock writhing that she’s wanton to do, and later, with “Low,” she strips it back for a weirdly avant-pop power-ballad moment, always just slightly off-center. “Nobody’s Born with a Broken Heart” is a made-for-soundtrack zinger which restlessly shifts from acoustic singer-songwriter to stormy torch-pop that gives Potter even more license to decorate in shiny vocal shading. “There’s a young man living under the freeway / He sleeps in any warm place he can find / And he’s still looking for the strangers / Who gave him green eyes and a restless smile,” she paints like a storybook. Her characters live in a world of uncertainty, often prisoners of “circumstance,” as she later points out, and she is the empathetic narrator whose voice and platform seeks to do only good in this dying world. “Let You Go” caps off the story, a Carole King-worthy piano ballad in which she lets everything, all the pain and heartache, drain from her body. “There’s no turning back tonight / You’re just… gone,” the gasps very narrowly escape her lungs. With a flourish, Midnight breaks with daylight’s sharp flutter. – Jason Scott 

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Lianne La Havas, Is Your Love Big Enough?

Release: July 6, 2012

Label: Warner Bros. Records

Genre: Folk/Neo-soul

UK singer-songwriter Lianne La Havas takes you on a beautiful, lush experience throughout the entirety of her debut album Is Your Love Big Enough? – a journey you can hear begin once those first layered harmonies open up and hit your headphones on the introductory track “Don’t Wake Me Up.” Astrology fans could argue that it’s due to the fact that Lianne is a Virgo, or you can just chalk it up to her innate talent, but this album is as strong in its overarching theme as it is in the details. Lianne has commented that this album tells the story of when she first experienced heartbreak but was able to find love again. Lianne is a multi-instrumental virtuoso able to play both piano and guitar, which makes it unsurprising as to why music legend Prince reached out to her after discovering her music. Despite her prodigious talents, however, it’s her enchanting vocals and honest lyricism that take the wheel on this record. Invited into her deepest thoughts by her smooth tone and rich control, you suddenly feel held and bundled up by touching lyrics such as “You broke me and taught me to truly hate myself” on the heartbreaking “Lost & Found,” or “Love is not blind / It’s just deaf and it is dumb / So how could I fool myself thinking you were the one?” on the stunning “Gone.” There’s more to offer on Is Your Love Big Enough? besides beautiful melancholy; songs such as “Forget” and the title track pack a punch full of self-love and confidence that you wouldn’t suspect based on the album’s softer moments. Lianne manages to capture each emotion in a beautiful way which only someone who has seen the light after their darkest moments can. If you’re looking for an album that serves as a shoulder to cry on, with a voice that will tuck you in at night, look no further. – Galvin Baez

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Courtney Marie Andrews, May Your Kindness Remain

Release: March 23, 2018

Label: Fat Possum Records / Mama Bird Recording Co.

Genre: Americana

There is something about the sweltering Arizona climate ⎯⎯ or maybe there’s just something in the water ⎯⎯ that fosters tear-soaked, heaven-bestowed vocalists, reared in humbled beginnings and torn through the wringer of life. Linda Ronstadt writes bemusedly in her 2013 memoir, “My mother used to joke that when she first met my father, he had a red convertible, a horse, a ranch, and a guitar. After she married him, all he had left was a guitar.” Born inside a “cloudburst,” as she remembers it, of the Tucson haze, Ronstadt mined sunny California folk-rock, dipped in dyes of traditional country, sentimental cinema and pop, throughout her legacy career. She might have lost her voice, tragically to Parkinson’s disease, but she remains the definitive benchmark for evocative, mountain-shredding bombast. Courtney Marie Andrews, who also rises out of the Arizona dirt from a city called Phoenix, just over 100 miles away from Ronstadt’s birth place, cultivates a sprawling, thimble-pierced set with May Your Kindness Remain, a timely reminder never to discard our humanity. Trapped inside a pressure cooker of cultural, social and economic affairs, aggravated by fake news, photo shop hoaxes and disastrous policy changes, Andrews’ withering southern drawn and adept song craft offer a bit of solace, sun-baked from years of endless highway blacktops, grimy dive bars and couch hopping. She wraps her caramel-smattered voice around blazing torch ballads, often weighted with generous doses of misery. Even when she’s howling and ripping her heart from her chest, as she does so willingly and sacrificially on the title cut, which reads as the anthem of our generation, she reassures us bad times are temporary. Its timeless shimmer is owed to two things: Andrews’ raw, but loving, appetite to strike change through our nervous system and the well-oiled gospel application. “The richest of people aren’t rich with Elvis, cars or fame / No, they’re not rich with something that can be bought or arranged,” she sings, dissembling our bias about wealth and uncovering a heart that beats just as urgently as our own. She then points to something far more universally potent, “No, it’s kindness that makes them beautiful / And a kind heart don’t cost a dime / It’s a GIF that keeps giving for the rest of your life.” [Full review] – Jason Scott

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Adele, 25

Release: November 20, 2015

Label: XL Recordings / Columbia Records

Genre: Pop

“The present is too much for the senses, too crowding, too confusing, too present to imagine,” reads the last line of Robert Frost’s timeless poem, appropriately titled “Carpe Diem” — an enduring rhetorical device through which creatives and poets and thinkers examine their own inevitable death march. “I feel like my life is flashing by, and all I can do is watch and cry,” Adele reflects on her own quandary “Million Years Ago,” a sharpened, mature vocal narrative on futility and vulnerability. The passing of time becomes the threadline of 25; and Adele was as majestic as she’d ever been, clutching onto the timepieces of sorrow and tireless regret — ”give me a memory I can use,” she laments on the potent “All I Ask” (co-written with Bruno Mars), perhaps her finest, most visceral performance of her career. “When We Were Young” — in which she upends a former relationship, “let me photograph you in this light, in case it is the last time that we might be exactly like we were, before we realized, we were sad of getting old,” she ponders — and even the monstrous anchor “Hello” focus on that crushing weight and a hefty, glorious progression. Adele’s wisdom, too, flickers past like a book of classic poetry (with impressive songwriting and producing contributions from Danger Mouse, Ryan Tedder and Tobias Jesso Jr.), each poem constructed on sturdy images of fading love and anguish. 25 should not be examined as the 21 sequel. Instead, it is a collection of prose, sweeping into a grander vision and abruptly spiraling into a darker abyss. “We both know we ain’t kids no more,” the singer chides on the poppy kiss-off “Send My Love (To Your New Lover),” a guitar bone-structure created under the watchful eyes of pop titans Max Martin and Shellback. Adele’s sheepish, witty delivery is an intoxicating reprieve from her harder edge, into the wistful, nearly whimsical, portrayal as she, too, recounts her very own responsibility in the dying embers of forlorn lust. “But be delicate with my ego,” she coos on the tribal-pinned, ghostly chapter “I Miss You.” She illuminates her misery with effective strings and driving rhythms; her vocal beckons the listener into a fire-storm of insurmountable pain. When she’s not pushing the envelope sonically, “Water Under the Bridge” is particularly effective, a high-flying design of gospel overtones and contagious Top 40 ardor. “If you’re gonna let me down, let me down gently. Don’t pretend that you don’t want me. Our love ain’t water under the bridge,” she implores on the pounding hook, grappling with her own ache and loss of forever. Selling more than three million copies opening week, 25 carries with it a sobering clarity four years later, and it remains gutting and truly a wonder. – Jason Scott

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Carly Rae Jepsen, E•MO•TION

Release: June 24, 2015

Label: 604 / School Boy / Interscope

Genre: Pop

To say that there wasn’t much hype for the release of Carly Rae Jepsen’s third album would be a fair assessment. Her sophomore album, Kiss – despite the commercial success driven by global pop juggernaut “Call Me Maybe” – was little more than a hurried collection of saccharine bops that seemed to be made for Jepsen, rather than by her. The release of E•MO•TION seemed to flip that notion on its head, showcasing an artist that had more substance and vision than what previously met the eye. The ‘80s-tinged album maintains the same infectious pop sensibilities of its predecessor but feels like the work of a more mature and involved artist. From the glistening synths on slow burner “All That” to the blaring, anthematic horns that open “Run Away with Me,” E•MO•TION silenced any naysayers who had doubts about Jepsen’s abilities as a singer. Though its sales paled in comparison to Kiss, by the year’s end, it had made its way onto every critic’s best of list from Rolling Stone to Vice and the underground music scene had crowned Jepsen as the new queen of “cool pop.” Over the course of its 15-track run, E•MO•TION is driven by an impressive roster of A-list writers and producers, but it’s clear that Jepsen climbed her way up to the front seat to help steer. Don’t be fooled by lead single “I Really Like You”; the songwriting is exponentially more sophisticated than her previous work and proves without a shadow of a doubt that this is pop star that should be taken seriously. Whether or not another smash hit is in the cards for Jepsen, she should be proud to have such a remarkable body of work in her repertoire that is the epitome of pop excellence. – Joe Kadish

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LOLO, In Loving Memory of When I Gave a Shit

 

 

 

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