Everyone knows the best thing about the end of a year is reading and making lists. The end of a decade is even better! I sat down to make my top 10 songs, then accidentally made 100, and then forced myself to cut this to 25. I didn't allow listing more than 1 song by a single artist (otherwise some artists like Tera Melos and Buke and Gase would be listed too much). This ended up taking a lot of time therefore you are morally obligated to read it. I'm so sorry.
25. Dark Dark Dark - Daydreaming
I heard just a small clip of this folk song in the background of a TV show and spent a while trying to dig up what it was. The little repeating instrumental piano part seems like it shouldn't work on paper but it's so great and unique and never gets old.
24. Flying Lotus with Kendrick Lamar - Never Catch Me
They need to make a whole album together in this style.
23. Ian William Craig - A Single Hope
Very distorted and harsh sounds mysteriously adding up to something extremely calm and beautiful. Headphones required.
22. Norwegian Arms - Kiva Ikva
Mandolin-driven Animal-Collective-inspired freak-folk that I imagine SpongeBob would listen to.
21. Black Midi - BmBmBm
Best new genre (auction rock) and worst front-flip. A brand new band that I have a feeling will make some of my favorite music of the 2020s. They feel like the spiritual successor to The Mars Volta.
20. Julia Holter - Turn the Light On
I've listened to this song so many times and still don't feel like I understand it. What is the main "part"? What is the structure of it? What are even the instruments being played? It feels futuristic and alien and not acoustic, yet when I try to listen to each sound it appears they are all classical instruments like strings, horns, and piano? It feels very abstract and beautiful and different on each listen.
19. Dawn of Midi - Dysomnia
It's a little bit cheating that I'm putting the album instead of a track off the album, but really the whole album is a single song and it'd be impossible to pick just one track. It's very unique and hard to categorize, but they are mostly considered a jazz band acoustically playing techno. I don't really like jazz or techno, yet I haven't been able to stop listening to this. The way the instruments spiral around each other and slowly unfold into different shapes is really trance-inducing.
18. Tool - Fear Inoculum
I was happy for Tool to finally make a new album but had low expectations because I figured surely their glory days are over. And at first I just felt like this was "alright". But it really grows on you.
17. Kendrick Lamar - u
The song I've found myself going back to the most from the best hip-hop album of the decade. The transition around half-way through the song is the thing that stands out to me the most.
16. Olafur Arnalds - Near Light
A neo-classical pianist, who made this album "Living Room Songs" in his living room, writing and recording 1 song per day for 8 days. This one in particular mixes in electronic elements; he said "my mother and sister came by for a visit so I made them play some synths."
15. Folo - White Bear and The Birds
Israeli folk-tronica that I think any Radiohead fan would really like. As far as I know, they just made this album and then disappeared without it really being noticed, which isn't fair.
14. Dirty Projectors - Unto Caesar
When should we bust into harmony?
13. PJ Harvey - England
A rock goddess from the early 90s that can then make odd folk stuff in the 2010s and have it be her best music and maybe the best album of the decade.
12. Drop Electric - Empire Trashed
I remember hearing this for the first time, knowing absolutely nothing about them, and being taken aback several times by how the song evolves.
11. Kanye West - Lost In The World
I don't need to say who Kanye West is.
10. Sylvan Esso - Hey Mami
Started by making an a capella song that works as is, then with electronics added in a surprising and exactly-right way.
9. Animal Collective - FloriDada
Most instantly and consistently catchy song of the decade.
8. Cloudkicker - Oh, God.
Just one guy making music on his home computer as a hobby and making all of it available for free. Even though it's of a genre I mostly don't like (metal), I obsessed over all his music this decade, and when I make music I find myself frequently imitating his approach to things.
7. Buke and Gase - Your Face Left Before You
2 people strumming instruments they invented/built while drumming with their feet. Even though a lot of thought and experimentation has clearly gone into it, the songs feel extremely spontaneous and just more alive than other music. Nobody really knows how to classify it; I've seen it called anything from math rock to country pop.
6. Kishi Bashi - Philosophize In It! Chemicalize With It!
Feels like a song from some cult I want to join and live happily ever after.
5. Tera Melos - Purple and Stripes
If I kept making this list from scratch I'd pick a different Tera Melos song to be toward the top each time; throughout their last 3 albums they've been my consistent favorite artist of this decade. This song is like taking clips from unknown insanely catchy 90s punk pop songs, throwing them in a blender, then picking out some of the broken shards and piecing them together into a jigsaw puzzle.
4. Alt-J - Hunger Of The Pine
Only good because it samples Hannah Montana, obviously.
3. Son Lux and Lorde - Easy (Switch Screens)
The original song by Son Lux was already really good and unique. Then they started changing it up live, and also Lorde started covering it on her tour, and then they combined all that together to make it truly perfect.
2. Swans - Apostate
This is what the end of the world sounds like. If you are patient and also listen to it LOUD, it's a very rewarding and intense experience.
1. Sigur Ros - Ekki Mukk
Listen on headphones. By the end your breathing will be slowed to half its normal speed, and you'll have no idea whether the song lasted 1 minute or 1 hour.
