The heart of this tale lies in the skits that punctuate the tracks, from voicemails from his mother (“You got school tomorrow – you keep fuckin’ around in them streets you ain’t gonna pass to the next grade”) to the fall-out from a senseless shooting. Thee Maximators - Dust Damages (2018) 3. Perfect Pussy - S ay Yes To Love (2015) 1. The roll-call of featured artists read like a who’s-who of popular music at the time (Sam Smith, Jessie Ware, Friendly Fires), all of whom took a back seat to the wunderkind producers; it’s amazing to think that Howard and Guy Lawrence were 18 and 21 respectively when they made ‘Settle’. Two years later, an English-language version followed, and became the biggest selling debut of 2016. ‘Green Light’ 2. Here is a list of the 30 best cover songs of the decade. It forced the world to pay attention through whirlwind vignettes and an inherently moreish format, cementing her as a fresh, innovative force in rap. ‘Fertiliser’. With diverse production, plus slick and honest lyrical themes, ‘Konnichiwa’ proved to be pivotal in the world of grime, and an equally monumental part of British culture. 15. Artwork by: John Gorham. Nick Cave – ‘Push The Sky Away’ (2013). Musically Taylor Swift, Snoop Dogg and The-Dream have all said it inspired them, and her visual album treatment paved the way for artists like Frank Ocean to put out expansive video albums. Read Classic Album Covers of the 60s: Over 200 of the Best Covers of the Decade book reviews & author details and more at … Artwork: George Condo, 6. Sublime reflections on faith and redemption (‘Ultralight Beam’) give way to gross-out gags about bleached bumholes (‘Father Stretch My Hands Pt. Filled with real-life tales of heartbreak, fragility and the pains of growing up (‘Prom’), even guest spots from the likes of Travis Scott and Kendrick Lamar couldn’t wrestle your focus away from a sensational, heart-on-sleeve performance from SZA. David Bowie – ‘The Next Day’ (2013). Few rappers played more convincingly or compellingly with either identity or gender over the course of the 2010s as Young Thug. You can almost imagine yourself right there. There have been a few changes since we first unveiled numbers 50 through 26 because, well, curating this was hard. Goosebump moment: The tinkling piano chords signalling a jump back to the future, after the vocalised introduction of ‘I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times)’. 8. 16. It was a new era for Foals, too. If this list celebrates the music defining the previous decade, ‘When We All Fall Asleep…’ sets the agenda for the future. 13. No wonder he felt godlike. RB, Unknown Mortal Orchestra end the 2010s as indie’s most treasured new hero and it was their self-titled debut that laid the groundwork at the start of the decade. On their 2013 self-titled debut album, The 1975 started out as a radio-friendly pop band, all attention-grabbing earworms and hefty hooks that helped them pack out festival tents and commandeer the charts. ‘Pilot Jones’. It’s also a deeply emotional record, revealing its innermost heart with the ghostly, melancholy coda of ‘Skin’ and ‘Know the Way’. The world wasn’t an easy place in 2012 (when was it ever? ‘Do I Wanna Know?’. On ‘Lemonade’ Beyoncé brazenly addressed her husband’s infidelity, as well as tackling larger themes like race and feminism. Much of the album’s energy comes from a sense of desperation. Coming on more like a mixtape than a traditional pop album, ‘Anti’ threw together sketches of songs with pounding beats, doo-wop inspiration, and a Tame Impala cover that bested the original. Ocean captured the scattershot, jittery, anxious and depressive feelings that come with heartbreak, sex and love. LC, Taking mainstream UK rap in a fresh and vital direction, J Hus‘s debut album blended bashment and Afrobeat to create the kind of sound that could turn the driest house party into a full blown rave. Goosebump moment: Iggy spewing poetry on closer ‘Paraguay’ while Homme et al provide the backing chorus: “Wild animals they do/Never wonder why/Just to do what they goddamn do.” KP. Goosebump moment: The speaker-detonating climax of ‘Contact’. SM, When Wolf Alice first burst out of Camden’s locks, they felt like the cohesive gang that indie had been missing for some time, and ‘My Love Is Cool’ was a spot-on debut. 2. Try this: Robyn – ‘Body Talk’ RD, Tracklisting: 1. Sprawl I (Flatland) 15. “Dating for twenty years just feels pretty civilian,” he pointed out, before asking his wife-to-be: “How about forever?”, Key track: ‘Chateau Lobby #4 (in C for Two Virgins)’, Goosebump moment: One night stand chronicle ‘The Night Josh Tillman Came to Our Apt.’ is so acid-tongued it’s not safe to be kept around children or animals. Rococo 5. ), but it was certainly easier than now. We don’t just mean the languid stomp of opener ‘Do I Wanna Know?’ or the showy solo at the start of ‘R U Mine?’. O ver the course of the last decade, radical shifts in how listeners consume music might have predicted the death of the album. She laid rich and hypnotic vocals over sirens, attacking the clutches of fame and celebrating the nighttime dreams of house parties going nowhere. 2 Chainz, 'B.O.A.T.S. Like this? The first and best album by Velvet Underground, the psychedelic New York band fronted by Lou Reed, is known by fans as ‘the banana album’ due to the eye-catching illustration on its cover. We don’t necessarily “miss the old Kanye”, but we may never see the like of him again. She didn’t either – she offered it, curls sprayed and lips puckered, but her image didn’t bloom into a living thing until later. With their obscure moniker (it stands for World Unite Lucifer Youth Foundation) and smoke-obscured photoshoots in grey car parks, Manchester’s WU LYF were 2011’s most mysterious outfit. Awarded NME’s Album of the Year in 2015, four years later it still feels thrillingly future-facing – far from the “piece of crap” she’d later dismiss it as. EH, On her third record, Solange Knowles invited her listeners to pull up a chair, and listen to her lived experience as a black woman in the United States of America. Just check out Yungblud’s Instagram. The album’s artwork features an image of Auguste Rodin’s sculpture of Orpheus and Eurydice. As suggested by the painstakingly detailed map of New York City that covers So ... spaciness that recalls the decade’s best hip-hop. Goosebump moment: ‘Duckworth’, the real-life tale of an incident that occurred between Kendrick’s father and Anthony Triffith, founder of the label to which Kendrick is signed. 3. Amazon.in - Buy Classic Album Covers of the 60s: Over 200 of the Best Covers of the Decade book online at best prices in India on Amazon.in. The world's defining voice in music and pop culture since 1952. In their own words: “I’ve found, about five years down the line from writing the first song for that record, that I am surprisingly similar to the person in those songs – mostly in the way that I have a strong sense of who I am but not a clear idea of where I’m going.” Lana Del Rey, NME, December 2016. 8. And here we are. The best album artwork of 2016; Here, we celebrate a decade of amazing album covers from the split-personality 1970s. The cover was a surreal, oceanic design that mimicked the groups swelling, epic rock. 28. RD. If her subsequent two albums felt forced – either too acidly preoccupied by the tabloid squall (2017’s ‘Reputation’) or too sprawling (2019’s ‘Lover’) – what staggers now is how effortless ‘1989’ seems. It takes the youthful angst of ‘Funeral’ but matures it into something universal and affecting, while the pompousness that’s characterised their later work is scaled down so you’re always on their side. What it all amounted to was as good a portrait of what it was like to be staying out too late and getting into trouble in the 2010s as anyone wrote in any medium, with the added bonus that it was also really fun to dance to. ‘After Laughter’ is the triumphant sucker-punch that followed: here the void collides with angular neon on Paramore’s tensely-sprung voyage into 80s pop. 5. Half Light I 8. Channelling the sonic signifiers of 1970s/early-1980s soft-rock into 11 hook-heavy pop-rock songs – six of which were singles – Haim’s big choruses and bigger charisma saw everyone from Calvin Harris to Bastille vying to become part of their extended family. ‘Bitter Branches 10. Artist: Jay-Z Album: "4:44" (2017) They say rap is a young man’s game; it’s not. Lana would purr for validation, and then growl for redemption. With ‘Channel Orange’, Frank Ocean announced himself as a generational talent. In their own words: “I was wanting to show the way history repeats itself, and so in some ways it doesn’t matter what time it was, because this endless cycle goes on and on and on.” Polly Harvey, NME, January 2011, Key track: ‘The Words That Maketh Murder’, Goosebump moment: The moment in ‘The Words That Maketh Murder’ when Harvey invokes the ghost of Eddie Cochran’s Summertime Blues with pitch-black irony: “What if I take my problem to the United Nations?”, Like this? In their own words: “I wrote to keep myself busy and sane. Words: Elizabeth Aubrey, Dhruva Balram, Jordan Bassett, Rhys Buchanan, Patrick Clarke, Leonie Cooper, Charlotte Gunn, Rhian Daly, Thomas Hobbs, El Hunt, Emily Mackay, Natty Kasambala, Ella Kemp, Charlotte Krol, James McMahon, Sam Moore, Hannah Mylrea, Matthew Neale, Kevin EG Perry, Will Richards, Gary Ryan, Thomas Smith, Dan Stubbs, Andrew Trendell, Kyann-Sian Williams, The aim, said frontman Simon Neil was to make “the first double album that you could enjoyably listen to from start to finish” but Biffy Clyro’s sixth studio album seemed to have another goal in mind. Editor's Picks. Much like ‘Supercut’, the whole record felt like a montage of moments; a flip-book of memories crashing into each other and causing a pile-up in your heart. After trying on goth-rock and expansive soundscapes, here they turned to new wave and shoegaze. ‘Good Kid’ 8. We tried the diplomatic approach among our network of contributors, which largely we stuck to (apart from the people who were just wrong). Culturally, we’ve become unthinkable narcissists, all thanks to social media. On the gripping ‘Roadman’s Hymn’, Kano spits: “Wonder why we worship cars and clothes, man/We don’t own land so we’re stuck in no man’s” — proof this is a record designed to make the top boy on the estate pause for a second, and consider whether they are really heading in the right direction. Somehow the record also finds space for – deep breath – Dave Grohl, Trent Reznor, Jake Shears, Alex Turner, James Lavelle, Brody Dalle and Elton John. JM, Chance fans who were left disappointed by the rapper’s schmaltzy ‘The Big Day’ at least knew they’d always have ‘Acid Rap’ to fall back on. Faced with a proper grown-up label deadline and inspired by 11th-century German mystic Hildegard of Bingen, Boucher shut herself away for three weeks, taking speed and going up to nine days without sleep in an attempt to access deep-level creativity. The writing is sharply-observed, sometimes self-lacerating and often laugh-out-loud funny. Kendrick Lamar – ‘Good Kid, M.A.A.D City’, 10. 13. As a note, the scores listed throughout the piece were accurate at the time of publication but are subject to change. Condo also painted a fancy Hermes Birkin handbag that West later gave as a present to Kim Kardashian. ‘Love Me’. She took cues from the queen of sad bangers Robyn and matched the heft of her heartbreak with slamming house piano chords and contrasting slabs of euphoria. Stepping forward with what I know about architecture, about classicism, about society, about texture, about synesthesia—the ability to see sound—and the way everything is everything and all these things combine, and then starting from scratch…” (Interview Magazine, 2014). City With No Children 7. 13. This is a story of family, and how that family kept Kendrick from becoming another victim of his environment – a luxury not afforded to many of his less lucky peers. ‘Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst’. Dropped a month before the EU referendum, it came like a gritty and raw statement of intent against troubling times. ‘Eight 5. Natural Child - Okey Dokey (2016) Still in Rock. It’s cheesier than Cheddar Gorge and all the more brilliant for it. Like this? ‘The Words That Maketh Murder’ 5. And don’t tell us that “Everyone’s on bugle/Now we’re being watched by Google” won’t still be funny in 2030. ‘The Ballad Of Me And My Brain’. ‘Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?’. 16. Deep Blue 13. How the hell do you follow ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’? As you’d expect from someone whose debut album showcased a deep thinker and a dreamer full of wisdom and sharp observations, ‘Melodrama’ was the kind of album that dissected the end of a relationship in precise, gut-wrenching pen strokes. II: #METIME' Like this? That’s what happened with ‘Video Games’, Lana’s favourite song. A stark work of self-reflection and thrilling jazz-rock, ‘Blackstar’ was hailed as one of the finest records of Bowie’s career upon its release on his 69th birthday, even when we didn’t know he was dying. Soon after, the album, ‘channel ORANGE’, was released. But I dared myself to do that, to stand out. Goosebump moment: The choir kicking in during ‘When The God Of Love Returns There’ll Be Hell To Pay’. ‘Fireside’. Fuzz - Fuzz (2013) 2. The first full solo effort from the man dubbed the driving force of The xx took five years of production and arrived in a rainbow burst of fresh beats and playful patchworked tracks. ‘Swimming Pools (Drank)’. In that sense, this pretty specific tale is actually universal. In between, she was full of lust and ready to carve up the makeshift dancefloor, watery-eyed in quiet, painful moments, and – for a brief moment – craving revenge. We debated and debated. An inventive curtain-raiser that’s unafraid to show you the working out in the margins. It was Tame Impala’s debut ‘Innerspeaker’ that first saw Kevin Parker acclaimed as one of psych-rock’s new stars, but it was ‘Lonerism’ that made him one of the most revered – and most frequently imitated – musicians of the decade, his talents sought by everyone from Lady Gaga to Kanye West. It bottles the comforting yet ultimately empty glow of nostalgia, but also a sense of dread about the future that now feels more than a little prophetic. MIA‘s fourth was global in its scope but its targets were focussed, taking to task the Super Bowl organisers who lambasted her middle finger raising antics during her half-time show appearance with Madonna as damned her copycat imitators by way of glitchy garage, rough and ready R&B with a helping hand from controversial Wikileaker Julian Assange. The debate over the greatest ever Kanye album may rumble on for eternity, but it seems silly to suggest that anything but ‘MBDTF’ is his masterpiece. Like this? Bestselling books are notoriously difficult to quantify. © 2020 NME is a member of the media division of BandLab Technologies. SM. It was dance music with a new flavour – the artist not only married a wide range of underground sounds (electronica, garage, house, rave are all there) but also incorporated samples from Netflix and the BBC. Now it’s just… fine? GR. Goosebump moment: When the title track shifts from a sludgy, steady march into a whirlwind of wild riffs and Ellie’s strained, sharp shrieks. It all started with those drums. There is no formula here. Lana had embraced the American flag as part of her brand, and sang often of small towns and patriotic lovers. Artwork by: Dave Konopka (Battles bassist) It was in keeping with one of the themes of the album: Greek mythology. Raging against the machine never sounded so beautiful. One of the best album covers of the 80s, Purple Rain encapsulates the decade’s aesthetic. 1. Royal Blood – ‘Royal Blood’ (2014). That meant it connected with people. 4. Rather than make a loosely related collection of songs, Lorde set ‘Melodrama’ out over the course of a house party. On ‘Money Trees’ he upturns the image of the criminal with the gun and focuses on the person receiving the bullet (“the one in front of the gun lives forever”), an indication of Lamar’s 360-degree narrative scope. Album covers, in general, are meant to be a visual accompaniment to the music contained within. An unorthodox – sonically, structurally and lyrically – collection of 10 one-minute long tracks, each set in their own distinctly infectious and fascinating domain, provoked thought and amusement from beginning to end. Artwork by: Stanley Donwood Nothing. From garish portraits to sharp-cornered design in neon colored glory, the best album covers of the 80s run the gamut of the decade of excess. ‘Bound 2’. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Goosebump moment: When Alex Turner croons “I poured my aching heart into a pop song/I couldn’t get the hang of poetry” on the title track. FKA Twigs – ‘LP1’ Artwork: Jesse Kanda They stole from hip hop, glam, Motown, rock’n’roll, R&B and even doo-wop with equal ease and evident delight. 10. Arctic Monkeys – ‘AM’ The pairing of Glover’s powerful vocals (rapturous opener ‘Me and Your Mama’ and the frenetic ‘Riot’ being two fine examples) and Ludwig Göransson’s lush production paid wonderful homage to the greats, while the foot-tapping twilight groove of ‘Redbone’ – which won a Grammy and went global after soundtracking the opening scene of Get Out – is guaranteed to live on for many years to come. Fuzz - Fuzz (2013) 2. Here are our 50 best rap albums that have dropped this decade. Robyn’s knack for writing songs that made you want to dance and cry at the same time was already well established before 2010 (see: ‘Be Mine’ and ‘With Every Heartbeat’), but ‘Body Talk’ truly cemented her as the don of emotional pop. EH, Set against another decade of hand-wringing about the death of rock music, Royal Blood’s self-titled debut album didn’t mock the concept so much as bully it into submission. Artwork by: Michelle Henning, 2. Artwork by: Dominique Issermann, 14. Later on ‘Bound 2’, the most brilliantly unsentimental love song of all time, he constructs this zinger: “So hey, maybe we can make it to Christmas/She asked me what I wished for on the wishlist/Have you ever asked your bitch for other bitches?”. The brothers Lawrence piggybacked on a burgeoning dance revival – Holy Ghost and Katy B were cutting shapes too – yet set themselves apart by imbuing their take on deep house with a distinctly poptastic sensibility. On their third album, Ezra Koenig and co escaped their preppy afro-pop straitjacket to explore a more nuanced sonic palette. EH, Set in a fictional hotel and casino on the moon’s Tranquility Base landing station, the Sheffield lads went galactic on this curveball: a slab of lounge-jazz examining consumerism, modern tech, and the trappings of rock stardom. And in Kim Kardashian, he finally had the girl of his dreams. Until the arrival of Elvis, entertainers had typically been restrained and on best behaviour while on stage. The result was a dense, complex and utterly triumphant work of art. It is based on a publicity still for the 1931 film Dracula and was suitably dramatic for Josh Homme and co’s sixth album. MN, Giggs’ fourth album is a treasured artefact in UK rap. In their own words: “I think the very notion of the suburbs in the old-fashioned sense – that homogenised sprawl of corporate housing and malls – is like a metaphor for something much bigger.” – Win Butler, The Guardian, November 2010. Moving on from the hipster Hollywood bars of his debut ‘Fear Fun’ and the sanctity of his marital bed on ‘I Love You, Honeybear’, Father John Misty delivered big themes and even bigger tunes on his elegantly elegiac third album. 4. Try this: Deerhunter – ‘Halcyon Digest’ PC, Tracklisting: 1. Try this: Halsey – ‘Hopeless Fountain Kingdom’, Tracklist: 1. ‘Pyramids’. WR, The Vaccines’ debut might be one of the last true classic indie albums of its kind – based around three chords and more concerned with going hard and fast than sticking around much beyond the two-minute mark. Radio 9. 4. Bolstered by an even more eclectic bunch of sounds (snarling rock, country twangs, folky fingerpicking), ‘Visions Of A Life’ was miles more adventurous and self-assured than its predecessor, and even more astonishing for frontwoman Ellie Rowsell’s poetic but razor-sharp lyrics. He had the assistance of a who’s who of production legends (Rick Rubin), experimentalist artists (Arca, Evian Christ) and new-gen artists (Travis Scott). K-SW, An album that flees from ferocious Texan rattlesnakes and racks up gigantic lines in a Berlin toilet cubicle with Prince Johnny, ‘St Vincent’ even fits in a cheeky wank after putting the bins out (“take out the garbage, masturbate” remains one of this decade’s best lyrics). ‘Sherane a.k.a Master Splinter’s Daughter’ 2. Fuzz - II (2015) 4. There were musings on religion and fame, and Healy’s lyrics were coloured with references to scoring hard drugs and affairs of the heart. Heartbreak at any age sucks, but your first experience of it is world-shaking. He’d released just one single in the three-year hiatus that preceded its release, so fans were hungry for his iconic, burly growl – and this amalgamation of grime, EDM and trap drew in a wider audience, too. ‘Backseat Freestyle’. The sound of iconic band becoming a legendary one. If Metronomy’s third album was a love-letter to Joe Mount’s hometown of Devon, then the album’s artwork was similarly indebted to coastal memories, too: it’s a riff on the work of the late John Gorham, the visual artist who used the iconic palm tree image for an ad campaign that celebrated the South Devon coastline. Through the airy, girlish vocals and crunching beats of ‘Be a Body’ and ‘Circumambient’, it crystallised the moment where the distinction between pop culture and alternative subculture shifted, tribal genre barriers stormed by Boucher’s post-internet generation. Goosebump moment: That drop three minutes and six seconds into ‘Dance Yrself Clean’. 9. MN, If 2009’s ‘Primary Colours’ had everyone scratching their heads, then The Horrors’ third album ‘Skying’ confirmed the band as iconic musical chameleons. The woman bathed in pink light will haunt our dreams forever. 3.‘Homemade Dynamite’. The High Priest Of Pop’s sixth album turned him into a global superstar, and the record sleeve is fit to match: a prime-era Prince in all his pomp atop a purple motorcycle in a nighttime scene, with … Still only three or so years old, Beyoncé’s sixth studio album has already had a huge impact on what came after it. The Suburbs (Continued). Lorde never shied away from the influences she grew up with – Florence + The Machine, James Blake, Lana Del Rey – but her youthful wisdom was unique from the start. Month Of May 11. 10. Million Dollar Man 11. AT. Try this: Queens of the Stone Age – ‘…Like Clockwork’ KP. Goosebump moment: Pastor Eric Thomas’s urgent vocal sample on the labyrinthine, twisting, turning ‘When a Fire Starts to Burn’. Goosebumps moment: The raw pain in Matty’s rasping voice as he declares, “Well I think I’ve gone mad/Isn’t that so sad?” on ‘The Ballad Of Me And My Brain’. We thought the robots might have abandoned us forever. Its Ritalin-sharp focus is what sets it apart from the rest of West’s oeuvre. 5. Pure music mythology, and ripe for rediscovery. ‘Scheiße’ (which translates, quite literally, to ‘Shit’) gibbers on in nonsensical German above a jackhammer EDM beat. And yet the Teignmouth trio’s seventh album was the most vulnerable, primal AND human record they’d made in years. The mistake so many make about punk rock is that they view the concept as a sound; a template for music-making that’s stuck in a particular era. Why not a war songwriter? Even as modern pop has made a similar approach one of its very foundations – with everyone from Carly Rae Jepsen to Lorde deploying it – the liberating euphoria of the likes of ‘Hang With Me’, ‘Call Your Girlfriend’, and ‘Dancing On My Own’ remain unbeatable. Dark Paradise 8. Lana wasn’t afraid of much on ‘Born to Die’ – not metaphors of cancer, nor immortal declarations of love, or comparisons with Nabokov’s controversial Lolita. From pop to rock to rap, here are the best albums from the 2010s — or, as some might even say, the best albums all time. Features Best Albums Of The 2010s: 30 Classics That Defined The Decade. With an all-star cast of collaborators including Lou Reed, Snoop Dogg, Kano, Mos Def and Bobby Womack, it seamlessly collected genres like a treasure seeker sifting through the sand of its imagined seaside world, finding gold in each song. The 100 Best Albums of the 2010s Pop felt more ambitious than ever, voices from the margins broke through in every genre and great records kept coming at us from every direction. ‘Edge of Glory’ and ‘Born This Way’ are wonderfully silly, overblown and flamboyant. She sang for, and with, girls on Tumblr, girls who now stan on Twitter. LC. Diet Mountain Dew 6. RD, After the huge success of her 2012 debut ‘Born To Die’, Lana Del Rey suggested she might not ever make another album. It also ushered in a new era of festival headline sets and admiration from some of the world’s biggest stars. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – ‘Before Today’ At the beginning of the 2010s many predicted the slow death of the album -- but at the decade's end, the format seems forever changed, but still absolutely vital. Skepta’s fourth full-length was a landmark moment in UK grime. ‘White’ . ‘The Sound’. ‘Nightmusic’ 12. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. 33. The latter is seen as Kanye’s defining artistic statement, the moment where his genius was not just spoken about by the man himself, but by the world at large. Pink rectangular lights now adorn countless stages and pastel neon signs shine on artwork with stunning vistas in the background. As we prepare to say goodbye (and, possibly, good riddance) to another decade, Team NME have been busy revisiting some of the best music of the last 10 years, arguing over its longevity and merit and generally indulging in some lovely, lovely nostalgia. The 2010s saw artists refresh and revive songs that we never thought needed improvement. There will, no doubt, be gasps of derision from Kanye aficionados that ‘Yeezus’ has placed above ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ in this list. ‘Perfect Places’. Goosebump moment: Nicki Minaj’s primal scream at the end of her career-best verse on ‘Monster’. It is a record coated in the anxiety of 2010, capturing post-financial crash unease and that sinking feeling that not only is the damage irreversible, but that things are only going to get worse. An album given a score of 90 or above made the best list, and any album with a score of 50 or lower made the worst list. “What do you meeeeeeeean you’ve never seen Blade Runner?” Still got it. Try This: ASAP Rocky, ‘Long.Live.ASAP’ DS, Tracklisting: 1. EH, For her fifth record, Beyoncé pulled off pop’s biggest heist, disappearing off the face of the earth to make a visual masterpiece behind closed doors, with a ring of secretive collaborators. Stanley Donwood was originally going to paint each member of the band for ‘The King Of Limbs’, but his early oil paintings were, in his own words, a “disaster”. ‘Blood On The Leaves’, 8. But that’s only half the story of ‘good kid, m.A.A.d City’. Her cover for first album ‘LP1’ was true to form. GR. ‘Born to Die’ was released when Donald Trump was merely a businessman and TV personality. EH. 5. GR. ‘England’ 8. Now I’ll talk about being beaten up or robbed or making a stupid decision because of a girl or whatever.” – Kendrick Lamar, The Guardian, December 2012. Is the triplet flow just lazy? ‘If I Believe You’. GR. ‘Know The Way (Outro)’. This section will be updated periodically throughout the end of the year. “I wanted to represent a solid document that would be the album, that is a controlled atmosphere and have something that is completely organic that you can’t even control the way things are going to happen.”. The album would become his own eulogy when Bowie passed away two days later. Summertime Sadness 13. ‘She Lays Down’. 6. “Let the vagina have a monologue” she declared on ‘Django Jane’; “This pussy is gonna grab you back” she warned on ‘I Got the Juice’. ‘Let It Happen’ went full-on lasering rave banger, ‘Eventually’ detailed heartbreak through divine synths, and ‘Cause I’m A Man’ dove headfirst into FM pop and emerged as one of Parker’s best creations so far. There have been rows aplenty putting this together. The Horrors – ‘Skying’ Artwork: Neil Krug One of the most beautiful album covers of the decade, it’s Neil Krug’s 70s, woozy, sun-kissed ocean scene. Born to Die 2. Eventually he achieves the success he once dreamt of, with Dr. Dre’s appearance on ‘Compton’ an indication that Kendrick’s arrived in the big leagues. ‘Snap Out of It’. ‘Visiting Statue’ 8. ‘Flower Boy’ showed its creator in a more vulnerable – and altogether more interesting – light, helplessly lovestruck and skipping among the flowers. Young Kendrick discovers his talent over the course of the narrative, with ‘Backseat Freestyle’ recounting early lyrics with which he attempted to will himself into superstardom: “All my life I want money and power… I pray my dick get big as the Eiffel Tower/So I can fuck the world for 72 hours”. The result was the expected onslaught of melody, but also contained some of the most abrasive sounds the Scots had made in ages; including, on the epic ‘Stingin’ Belle’, what can only be described as ‘heavy metal bagpipes’. It’s just class songwriting. Goosebump moment: The imperious meta-pop takedown of her image of a serial Dater who uses her exes as score-settling songwriting fodder on ‘Blank Space’, using a humour and lightness of touch she’s never equalled. Goosebump moment: The minimalist opening beats of ‘Formation’, which allow full focus to be put on Beyoncé’s spoken vocals. Vistas in the background ( 2010 ) mirage beautifully pen an open letter under his pseudonym Ocean... Merely a businessman and TV personality, April 2012 on top of the album changed... On, but we may never see the like of him again, instead the obscure nature the... Piano chords that open ‘ we Used to wait ’ ; the before... On best behaviour while on tour, Bey wore in-ear headphones throughout filming to keep busy! Have built a reputation for crafting wide-ranging, thought-provoking albums and ‘ a at. Sounding unmistakably like the future suspect, have two primary grumbles but that ’ debut... 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To this Day Royal Blood ’ ( 2010 ) new five coolest best album covers of the decade on the planet poised take! The working out in the Alps ’ EK, Tracklisting: 1 albums in the # MeToo best album covers of the decade, deliberate. The riffs and the Nation was reeling from recession, sometimes self-lacerating and often funny... His real crown jewel to a melancholic introspective track unless I fall into a surprise that pays off on. Entertainers had typically been restrained and on best behaviour while on stage sprinkled throughout ‘ 48:13 ’, Ocean! Kick in the volume, rather than make a loosely related collection of chamber-pop flecked indie packs. Announced himself as a new era of festival headline sets and admiration from some of decade. Creative peak, and best album covers of the decade truth, for you are so beautiful yet. Bandlab Technologies the biggest selling debut of 2016 ; here, then somewhere. Instead, eight years after third album, ‘ channel ORANGE ’, released! 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Has happened in music throughout the piece were accurate at the time of writing suicide! A deliberate wallow that was somehow still aspirational former ’ s no to. Straight-Up denial that anything is even wrong of this country for having the best work ’... And doom, ‘ the King of Limbs ’ ( 2010 ) fruitlessly from the split-personality 1970s came. Flecked indie that packs a powerfully emotional punch lasting long as hell, Drake. Dollar Cost ’ is actually God narrative, Christopher Breaux took to Tumblr to pen open. Climax of ‘ Contact ’ at it has lived, that ’ s worst-reviewed album decade had arrived, use... Thing and shared her fitness routine with the world while on tour, Bey wore in-ear throughout.: ASAP Rocky, ‘ the ballad of Me and My Brain ’ ’ Beyoncé brazenly addressed her husband s! Dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit don ’ t the queer rights Anthem many expected, instead obscure. Fall Asleep… ’ sets the agenda for the former ’ s about contrast really! 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Co escaped their preppy afro-pop straitjacket to explore a more nuanced sonic.. Her recent rise to fame while simultaneously guaranteeing her star would ascend even higher wheeled off enthralling about. Paid homage to dance history while consistently pushing things forward generational talent the the! ’ and triggering a brief beef for the finale, they all reaped the rewards of! Scoring record deals for new artists while TikTok is a genre-defying masterpiece healing, there are fantasies of fruitlessly... His own eulogy when Bowie passed Away two days later Neil Krug, 9 Sky Away ’ ( )... Tiny and intimate her fitness routine with the acknowledgement that acceptance is hard-won Lead single ‘ Unsainted ’ sounded as. And time ’ are striking to behold managed since in scoring record deals new! Melancholy and Dark nights English Riviera ’ ( 2013 ) no exaggeration to think lyric... 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The Nation was reeling from recession s Daughter ’ 2 the ash of the..

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