What's been the best music of this decade?

beamoflight

Tool - “Fear Inoculum”

Bigboldworld

From an irish perspective Fontaines DC have been a very welcome addition to the Irish music scene, doing very well, won rough trade album of the year and bbc radio 6 album of the year, very good debut album

Diagonalley

Twenty One Pilots

Turquoise Hexagon Sun

Can't really say.

Plaid have released some nice stuff.

Also, Aphex Twin making a return to releasing more music has been nice.

Someone already mentioned The War On Drugs, too. A Deeper Understanding is a superb album.

Yeah, Spotify has been great. I really love the reccommended playlists. Great way to discover new music.

EmmetSpiceland

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

Not wrong, dude, but probably a bit limiting if you're into shoegaze.

“And So I Watch You From Afar” ain’t shoegaze, J.

You should check out their first album, if you get a chance.

TheDavester

Turquoise Hexagon Sun wrote: »

Can't really say.

Plaid have released some nice stuff.

Also, Aphex Twin making a return to releasing more music has been nice.

Someone already mentioned The War On Drugs, too. A Deeper Understanding is a superb album.

Yeah, Spotify has been great. I really love the reccommended playlists. Great way to discover new music.

This so much, its saved me listening to the same dross, on every station, same 10 songs on the hour every hour on every station, Today FM, 2fm, Red FM, 96fm....ireland needs more variety in the stations

DrumSteve

Think metal is pretty healthy.

Have Behemoths last album on repeat since it was released.

DrumSteve

TheDavester wrote: »

This so much, its saved me listening to the same dross, on every station, same 10 songs on the hour every hour on every station, Today FM, 2fm, Red FM, 96fm....ireland needs more variety in the stations

John Creedon still the best DJ on the radio, found so many good tunes through his show.

shamtastic

Car Seat Headrest seriously impressed me with his releases. Tough to follow the noughties with straight up alt rock as it was done to death, but his songs are so awkward, meandering and catchy that it still seemed fresh. Funny songs without being a parody, which is hard to do.

Arghus

Arghus wrote: »

I must give Autechre a go. I've listened to bits and pieces of their stuff, but I was put off by the size of their latest releases, but I'll brave it and report back.

So anyway I gave nts session 1 a listen today as I was out and about. Really enjoyed it. Was able to get into a proper trance listening to some of the pieces, particularly the longer ones like gonk steady one. Definitely not for everybody, of course, but pretty excellent if you're in the mood for it. Quite hypnotic listening to the beats and blips skitter, mutate, and come together and fall apart.

DrumSteve

Also, Frightened Rabbit are a great shout.

What a band.

Arghus

shamtastic wrote: »

Car Seat Headrest seriously impressed me with his releases. Tough to follow the noughties with straight up alt rock as it was done to death, but his songs are so awkward, meandering and catchy that it still seemed fresh. Funny songs without being a parody, which is hard to do.

Car Seat Headrest is great. I don't think his/their(?) albums are consistent from start to finish, but definitely contain some of the best straight up indie rock of the decade: Vincent, Destroyed By Hippy Powers, Drunk Drivers, Beach Life in Death - all great songs.

sabat

Arghus wrote: »

So anyway I gave nts session 1 a listen today as I was out and about. Really enjoyed it. Was able to get into a proper trance listening to some of the pieces, particularly the longer ones like gonk steady one. Definitely not for everybody, of course, but pretty excellent if you're in the mood for it. Quite hypnotic listening to the beats and blips skitter, mutate, and come together and fall apart.

Give tri-repetae and incunabula a spin-a lot of their newer stuff is just noodly **** imo. If you've never heard eutow before you're in for a treat...

JupiterKid

As an old codger, I’m completely out of the loop when it comes to good music this decade. IMO most good new releases during the 2010s were by artists who were long established by then - such as David Bowie’s final album, Black Star, Goldfrapp’s Silver Eye and Placebo’s Loud Like Love.

In terms of new artists to emerge this decade, Lana Del Rey is pretty good.

Relikk

sabat wrote: »

Give tri-repetae and incunabula a spin-a lot of their newer stuff is just noodly **** imo. If you've never heard eutow before you're in for a treat...

Don't forget about Amber. Great album.

They kind of lost me for a while when Confield came out. Oversteps saw a return to form.

Arghus

sabat wrote: »

Give tri-repetae and incunabula a spin-a lot of their newer stuff is just noodly **** imo. If you've never heard eutow before you're in for a treat...

I listened to Autechre before, but it was years ago. I appreciated them, but the newer stuff is just so voluminous that I was always a bit put off by that.

I can see how they could be a accused of being noodly ****, but, honestly, some of what I listened to today was, to my ears anyway, very rewarding.

Bon Iver Bon Iver (2011) by Bon Iver - my album of the decade.

Sort of forgotten about now because it was early on and the name is the same as the group but what a piece.

Justin Vernon is unbelievably talented - he can do it all.

Saw them live at the National Stadium years ago - blew me away.

A cohesive masterpiece of an album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KrmxavLIRM

Quantum Erasure

this won song of the decade at the Q awards,

(only got to number 9 on Pitchfork's list of 200 songs of the 2010's, theres a lot there that I hadn't heard before)

dougm1970

my 15 yr old kept playing 'ren' for me....hes very talented, really is...


https://youtu.be/ZT4PtvgakLU

Arghus

I've given it time, but try as I might I just can't get into Lana Del Ray's music. I find her voice so flat and unemotional. Whether she's singing about her heart breaking or her toast being burnt, to my ears, it all sounds dead inside. I appreciate that Norman Fcking Rockwell had some good songs on it, but there's a distance or artificial aspect to her music, for me, that stops me from feeling it. But to each their own.

Arghus

Arghus wrote: »

I've given it time, but try as I might I just can't get into Lana Del Ray's music. I find her voice so flat and unemotional. Whether she's singing about her heart breaking or her toast being burnt, to my ears, it all sounds dead inside. I appreciate that Norman Fcking Rockwell had some good songs on it, but there's a distance or artificial aspect to her music, for me, that stops me from feeling it. But to each their own.

video games is a great song but very much a one off imo.

nothing else she has done comes close to it.

Anesthetize

Arghus wrote: »

I've given it time, but try as I might I just can't get into Lana Del Ray's music. I find her voice so flat and unemotional. Whether she's singing about her heart breaking or her toast being burnt, to my ears, it all sounds dead inside. I appreciate that Norman Fcking Rockwell had some good songs on it, but there's a distance or artificial aspect to her music, for me, that stops me from feeling it. But to each their own.

The only album of hers that I heard before was Ultraviolence, and it didn't have much impact on me. But Norman ****ing Rockwell is on another level, it's definitely my album of 2019.

bigar

buried

Arghus wrote: »

I can see how they could be a accused of being noodly ****, but, honestly, some of what I listened to today was, to my ears anyway, very rewarding.

ILoveYourVibes

Arghus wrote: »

I've given it time, but try as I might I just can't get into Lana Del Ray's music. I find her voice so flat and unemotional. Whether she's singing about her heart breaking or her toast being burnt, to my ears, it all sounds dead inside. I appreciate that Norman Fcking Rockwell had some good songs on it, but there's a distance or artificial aspect to her music, for me, that stops me from feeling it. But to each their own.

Then you haven't heard her live.

Elemonator

I'm fairly involved in the music scene and I don't think has been a good decade for popular music. It's all computerised and Protools edited now. That removes the human element which is what makes it human in the first place.

That's not to say there isn't good music out there, but it has certainly been pushed underground. There has been a few artists that have been popular and are talented, like Adele, but that isn't the music I'd really go for anyway. Most of the stuff that is popular these days is guys just talking, that annoying warbly singing accent that was popularised by Passenger or just straight ahead electronic pop.

Maybe with the advent of Spotify and so forth, a lot of previously unknown artists will find it easier to break through. The world is at your fingertips.

As for memorable bands there isn't anything that stands out bar a few. There is loads of bands mentioned out there but everyone says they are brilliant just because everyone else is. The National did a good album, Charles Bradley is a big one for me, he had a good album too and he made it big in older age, Tame Impala, The War On Drugs, Bon Iver maybe, Kendrick Lamar did have some really interesting rhythms for me as a drummer, Daft Punk's Random Access Memories because of Nile Rodgers. The rest of the good stuff was old guys with recent albums like Nile Rodgers and David Bowie's Blackstar.

buried

The 'Bandana' LP from Freddie Gibbs & Madlib released this summer is all sorts of good craic.
Just pure entertainment buttered on both sides. These two really bring the best out each other.

piplip87

I think Rock Music has started to come back this decade. To see Guns N Roses with Slash, Axl and Duff, Metallica, The Killers and the Foos play sold out shows in Ireland, among others all going strong and having people in Thier late teens into guitar based music was my highlight.

As for my personal preference Noel Gallagher's first two solo albums where amazing, Liam's two where class too.

Greta Van Fleet, Inhaler and Frank Carter all breaking through the future looks bright too

Arghus

Being honest, I thought the decade wasn't particularly encouraging for rock music. And I say that as someone who still listens to more of what can broadly be classed as "rock" than any other genre of music.

I don't think rock is dead and some guitar orientated bands released some of my favourite albums of the decade, but I think these last ten years is really going to be looked back at as the decade where it lost its place at the forefront of popular music.

Okay, maybe it started losing ground in the noughties in some ways, but if you look back at what was acclaimed and influential during that time, then rock was still doing pretty okay - by some metrics at least.

I think there is a paucity of really fresh ideas in rock right now. There is good stuff out there, undoubtedly, but no matter how good it is, even as excellent as it can be, it can all feel a bit familiar. And I don't just mean stuff that sells and gets popular, I'm talking about across all genres - noise, dream-pop, shoegaze, blackened death, goregrind, twee-pop - whatever you want, the whole gamut.

I can often admire and like what bands/artists are doing, but their creativity stems more from what they do with their influences and how they mix and match the familiar to make some newish sounds. I guess that's partly a characteristic of musical genres generally: building on the past, but every "rock" act that I've listened to this decade - and that's a lot - I can usually pigeonhole into some pre-existing musical box. There's very little that makes me think, "this is totally new and unclassifiable" - aside from the deliberately esoteric and experimental. But even that spectrum of things can feel like a running meta commentary on the essentially played out heart of rocks creativity.

Like I said earlier, I don't think it's properly dead. Indie rock is still relatively popular, metal is still relatively popular. Bands still sell tickets for gigs. But there's a lot of nostalgia at play about that now in relation to rock. Look at the big gig announcements for the summer: dominated by legacy acts.

Rock doesn't feel as culturally relevant anymore. I remember when I first started really getting into music how sites such as Pitchfork were really important, but there's been such a sea change of difference with even those kind of places over the last decade. It used to be a bastion of indie rock snobbery - now it has more time for Cardi B.

Anecdotally, I remember also when Silent Discos started becoming a thing and you'd reliably get guitar bangers at more or less every one. I went to a few in the past year or two, where I definitely felt too old for that ****, and they were 90% hip-hop/trap. Now, I guess the only thing that proves definitively is that I'm getting old, but, it suggests to me that the young folks don't really listen to rock these days. And if the teenagers and young twentysomethings aren't that bothered then rock could be entering a tough period.

Though, it could easily rebound too. Things being cyclical and all. This decade saw the renewed appreciation for a lot of musical styles and sounds of the eighties - so maybe an alternative rock renaissance is due. The sales of flannel will go through the roof. But, to tell you the truth, I'm not betting on it.

smilerf

Rock is alive and well
Check out Greta Van Fleet. Goodbye June Lilac. Badflower