The big ten are here. These ten albums aren’t merely our favorites; they’re veritable modern classics that will go on to shape the course of music as time passes. In fact, some of them have already imparted a huge impact to artists that have achieved success in their wake.

It’s safe to say that the brilliance of these albums over the past five years has influenced the sounds currently being produced, and even albums we’ve already discussed in the previous four lists. These are the kings, queens, and genderless royalty of this decade’s albums to date. And after we list these albums, you can find our contributors’ picks for personal favorites left off the overall list—we call these Passionate Orphans—as well as why we think these albums should’ve made the cut.

Listen to all the albums on this list conveniently on our Spotify playlist, and check out all the other playlists we’ve made to get you caught up on the best this decade has offered us so far.

Best 50 Albums Of The Decade So Far (#10-#1)

Angel Olsen – Burn Your Fire For No Witness

Angel Olsen’s ghostly, haunting, lo-fi folk albums for Bathetic Records indicated that she had even greater things to come. After signing to bigger label Jagjaguwar and entering the studio with storied producer John Congleton and a full band to expand her sonic palette, she released sophomore album Burn Your Fire For No Witness in 2014 to still-growing acclaim. Many listeners will enjoy these songs on an initial listen of this album, and subsequent listens will likely expand on the emotional appeal of these songs. But their deep, undying resonance is achieved unexpectedly, after some time away from the album; these songs play forever in listeners’ heads, their candor and vitality never fading. On Burn Your Fire For No Witness, Olsen achieves the daunting task of turning her personal romantic struggles into unforgettable, uniting art via eleven fascinating, highly re-playable songs.

On a formal level, Burn is riveting due to its diverse influences. “High and Wild” throws piano shuffle and 12-bar blues into a rockabilly shuffle; “Forgiven/Forgotten” screams with grunge power; “Stars” aches with PJ Harvey’s primal, terrifying beckon; “Lights Out” slowly drips with swirling, dizzying echo and reverb. On a sonic level, each of Olsen’s many masks suits her incredibly well, and each of these eleven songs is branded with her unique mark despite their often divergent styles. Few musicians could get away with including the dreary folk sprawl of “White Fire” on the same album as the fully ironic cowgirl spree of “Hi Five,” but on Olsen’s watch, genres don’t mean a thing. Her priority is choosing any vehicle fit to deliver her breakup anthems, and she’s able to employ a wide diversity of approaches thanks to her nifty lyricism. “High and Wild” uses a handful of witty metaphors to describe a lover who’s departed in spirit, but still physically present; “Stars” describes the plight of an emotionally traumatic relationship without ever explicitly stating it; “Unfucktheworld” tries to find solace in solitude. With words and instrumentals this powerful and clever converging, it’s no wonder Burn has so much staying power and longevity. [Max]

Kendrick Lamar – good Kid, m.A.A.d. City

Following up on the success of his iTunes-independent record debut, Section.80, Kendrick Lamar got signed on one of the biggest rap labels in the country, under the tutelage of Dr. Dre. Thanks to Aftermath, Lamar released a concept-album as his second record (and first on a major label), pouring out his thoughts, dreams, and worries about the current state of rap, but mostly nostalgically and therapeutically reminiscing about his lifestyle growing up in Compton, California. Labeled as a short film on the cover, good kid, m.A.A.d City introduces various characters (“Sherane” on the opening track, Lamar’s parents through hilarious and poignant voicemails, and so on) and is incredibly effective in how it shapes an entire world of a disenfranchisement community, abound in poverty, violence, and all kinds of vice. It’s clearly a cathartic exercise for Lamar, who had to dodge vile temptation at every corner in order to become the artist he is. In that way the entire album is greater than the sum of its parts, and its parts are some of the greatest examples of modern hip-hip, so what does that tell you? Personal standouts include, “The Art of Peer Pressure,” “Money Trees,” “good kid,” and “m.A.A.d City,” but the biggest appeal of the album is between the lines; its complex structure that halves tracks to emphasize the duality of Lamar’s struggle, and the snippets and samples of various characters anchoring the narrative and thematic depth of the story. Supported with Lamar’s exceptional delivery and lyrical skill, and mature production values, good Kid, m.A.A.d City will likely remain one of the decade’s greatest examples of contemporary hip-hop. [Nik]

Fiona Apple – The Idler Wheel…

One of the most idiosyncratic, under-appreciated songwriters of our generation, Fiona Apple seems to love to keep us waiting—and waiting—and waiting for her to gift us with new batches of songs, which don’t come out frequently enough. She’s often said that, for her, writing is a necessity, an uncontrollable act that springs up when she’s accrued so much pent-up angst and hate and regret that she has no choice but to sit at the piano and empty out her mind and soul. Her career started nearly twenty years ago, and yet we’ve only been graced with four albums, her latest, The Idler Wheel… releasing in 2012 after a seven-year hiatus. Why does she torture us so?!

The reason her fans so rabidly await her work is that she’s really, really good at what she does. Not just good, but good in a way almost no one else working is. Her vocals are a study in controlled chaos, quivering when she’s sad, lilting when she’s happy, and insanely tense when she’s pissed off. Her lyrics are her main source of strength, streams of consciousness that are poetic and eloquent while also being bizarrely childish and impish as well. (Apple’s stated that she loves combing the dictionary for strange words to use in her songs.)

On The Idler Wheel…, Apple loosens up a bit after her gorgeous, streamlined third LP Extraordinary Machine, creating darker, more tumultuous soundscapes that harken back to the aggression and vinegar that informed her early work. The spectrum of emotion she plays with here is vast, though as per usual, the persistent theme is relationships-gone-south and the resulting ping-pong of feels. There’s some pretty disturbing stuff she deals with here, like in “Werewolf,” in which she talks about coaxing out the monstrous side of a lover who’s otherwise a great guy. On “Anything We Want,” she sings, “My scars were reflecting the mist in your headlights/I look like a neon zebra shakin’ rain off her stripes,” a perfect example of her ability to come up with lyrics that could have sprung from the mind of no one else. Even her piano chops, which were excellent even in the ‘90s, have evolved in a strange way. Take The Idler Wheel…’s fourth track, “Jonathan.” The almost discordant piano riff permeating the song is as stripped-down as it gets, a stupid simple sequence of notes and chords that, while easy to play, is ingenious in its conception. When the melody and lyrics come in and somehow blend perfectly with the left-field chord progression, Apple’s gift is on full display. [Bernard]

St. Vincent – St. Vincent

Annie Clark doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of tempering her artistic ambitions as her career as indie pop monarch St. Vincent continues to blossom. Her first two albums, Marry Me and Actor, were excellent collections of well crafted songs that appealed very directly to those with a taste for approachable art pop. Her third LP, Strange Mercy, took a step into noisier territory, draping abrasive electronic crackling and buzzing over her beautiful melodies and lyrics, which dealt with love in a bittersweet, almost mournful way. A goth-domestic theme bumped the ambitiousness of that album even higher. With her fourth, self-titled album, Clark pushes the envelope further than ever before, maintaining her pop appeal just barely. The crunchy, textured instrumentals she concocts with producer extraordinaire John Congleton sound like shattered digital glass over her beautiful, fuzzed-out vocals and technical guitar playing. Very much like Kendrick Lamar, Clarke is a music industry anomaly in that, as her albums get weirder and funkier and further out of line with convention, her sales get better and better. It’s an encouraging sign that the industry’s still got a beating heart underneath all the scrambling and panic over how to monetize this stuff.

Clarke is a goddamn wizard on the guitar, and she shreds harder and faster on this album than ever before. The driving lead single, “Birth in Reverse,” is an onslaught of catchy, nimble guitar riffs that slice through the air like a switch blade. “Digital Witness,” the subsequent single that has one of the coolest music videos ever, is a cautionary tale about the mesmerizing, indoctrinating effects of smart phones, television, and any other screen that fills our heads so completely we’ve got no room for anything else. “I want all of your mind!” she beckons in a voice that recalls the oddball characters Kate Bush plays on her records. On this track she leaves the axe on the stand, revisiting the punchy horn sounds she explored with David Byrne on their joint album, Love This Giant, to head-nodding effect. There seems to be a fascination with synthesizers and glitchy noises seeping into Clarke’s work more and more as she evolves as a musician and writer, and St. Vincent could very well be the peak of this stage in her artistic journey. It’s hard to imagine her work getting more out-of-this-world than this, but then again, St. Vincent never fails to surprise. [Bernard]

Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Following Kanye West’s strange, successful auto-tune opus, 808’s and Heartbreak, he returned to his more aggressive, sample-crazy mode with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, an ambitious, cinematic journey through the shadier side of his celebrity that’s arguably one of the top two albums in his discography. Crafting monstrous, symphonic beats with samples from King Crimson, Bon Iver, Aphex Twin and Smokey Robinson, West reached higher levels of drama and epic-ness than we’d seen from him before. His gift for manipulating samples to his whim, turning them into heightened, mutated versions of their former selves is astonishing, and on this album he excels maybe more than ever.

The album’s gurgling, white-hot centerpiece banger is “Monster,” a study in creep-out braggadocio featuring his ol’ buddy Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Justin Vernon, and Nicki Minaj, who blasts us in the face with some of the best bars of her career, surprisingly out-rapping everyone else on the track, including the almighty HOVA. John Legend and Chris Rock lend a hand in “Blame Game,” a meditation on spousal abuse, unrequited love and heartbreak, while the sonic fireworks show “All of the Lights” features a litany of guests, including Rihanna (in the most prominent singing role), Elton John, Kid Cudi, Fergie, John Legend, Alicia Keys, and more.

Back in 2010, embroiled in a firestorm of controversy that took its toll on his head, West conceived the album while on a head-clearing retreat to Hawaii as a reactionary piece to to the media’s coverage of his infamous outburst at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. Disgusted by his public crucifixion, he hit the studio and birthed this ungodly, effed-up collection of tracks that reminded everyone why we’ll probably never be rid of him: he makes undeniably dope-ass beats. Every track on the album works in tandem with the others to create a sonic collage that vividly depicts the mind of a man pushed to the edge, both creatively and psychologically. [Bernard]

Beach House – Teen Dream

Has an album ever sounded so devastating that you actually want to console its creators for the events that inspired it? Many albums might incite this reaction, but Teen Dream is the decade’s boldest, most penetrating example of such a collection. Melancholy, despair, and hopelessness absolutely flood out of this album; in an era full of heartbreaking, gut-wrenching music, Teen Dream may actually be the saddest album of recent times. It’s anything but melodramatic, though; rather than begging for pity and pining for attention, it paints vocalist Victoria Legrand’s ruin as universally relatable. It’s an incredible aid for powering through any emotionally wrangling situation, as the solemn beauty rushing from these songs tells their listeners that we’ll get through this together.

Teen Dream is the first album Beach House recorded for Sub Pop after two albums on smaller, but still quite reputable, label Carpark Records. The greater financial freedom and resources of their new label allowed Beach House to shatter the lo-fi sheen that had previously gathered them a cult following and rebuild themselves with gorgeous, shimmering production that built them into the indie rock staple they are today. The breathtaking slide guitars and torch-song vocals of “Silver Soul” burst forward thanks to the barriers of Beach House’s newly slick recording style; the crystalline, high-stakes piano of penultimate “Real Love” gain substantial power due to the drastically increased fidelity. The more focused, precise production enables “Zebra” to remain Beach House’s most adored song in 2015, but deeper cut “10 Mile Stereo” remains the duo’s home run. If the impassioned exhausted vocal delivery, cautiously enveloping synths, tearfully galloping guitar line, and song-long upward surge doesn’t do the trick, just read this one lyric: “Limbs parallel/we stood so long we fell.” It’s perhaps the album’s most heartbreaking line, but there are myriad contenders for second place. Teen Dream is rife with potent poetry; it’s downright one of the most emotionally wrecking collections of music ever recorded. [Max]

LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening

In the previous decade, LCD Soundsystem was regarded as the paragon of clever, metropolitan dance-punk, but it wasn’t until 2010 that “dark” and its countless cousin words entered the conversation. This Is Happening, James Murphy and Co.’s final album, puts extra effort into sounding far more brooding than the two albums that preceded it, and it succeeds wildly in this pursuit. The nine songs comprising the album often forgo LCD Soundsystem’s notoriously zany, kraut-like chants (well, except on “Pow Pow” and “Drunk Girls,” the album’s two weakest songs) in favor of moodier anthemics, resulting in desperate dancefloor hits such as “I Can Change” and nightmarish jerks along the lines of “One Touch.” But it’s not all pure bleakness; “All I Want” emerges as one of the album’s most memorable songs thanks to the almost obnoxious wail and slight lag of its screaming lead guitars. That’s not to say this song isn’t bitter; in this instance, Murphy sounds despondent rather than outright scary.

These polar extremes—the desolate state of “All I Want” and the crunching horror of “One Touch”—bookend This Is Happening, supporting it on two sides with supremely strong songs. Opener “Dance Yourself Clean” redefines what it means to jolt listeners out of their seats, and establishes the more incisively ominous tone the album tends to take. Final song “Home” (by extension, also the final song of LCD Soundsystem’s career) reimagines career arc “All My Friends” as a somewhat more lethargic, introspective tear-jerker about leaving the past behind. Each of these approaches is equally affecting, and both ditch the often frantically joyed states of past releases, resulting in a powerful final document from one of the 2000s’ best-respected acts. [Max]

Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

In 2013, many Arcade Fire fans complained about the drastic sonic changes the band undertook with fourth album Reflektor, but this grievance ignores that Arcade Fire have been chameleonic from their conception. The Suburbs, Arcade Fire’s third album, follows the sullen hymns of Neon Bible and the vital, high-stakes Funeral, two albums completely distinct in sound. As with any Arcade Fire album, it diverges from the band’s previous output on the surface, but maintains the universally resonant vocal harmonies and strikingly relatable lyrics of what came before. In fact, The Suburbs, as its super specific title suggests, stands out from Arcade Fire’s thoroughly incredible discography as perhaps their most lyrically impressive, tying the band members’ suburban childhood to the poignant emotions of nostalgia, glee, and despair.

The key to The Suburbs’ appeal is that one need not come from a suburban background to enjoy it. The band has stated that the album neither supports nor denounces the suburbs; what they’ve never said, but what’s quite obvious from listening, is that the suburbs merely frame this album’s universal experiences. “Ready to Start” recalls high school anxiety and romance; the exuberant “Empty Room” relishes letting your guard down and getting in touch with your feelings; woeful “Suburban War” explores the anguish of growing apart from childhood friends; sprightly synthpop (!!!) jam “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” recalls the restlessness of teenage years. Emphasizing the resonance of these widely sympathizable instances are some of the most straightforward instrumentals Arcade Fire has ever committed to record. The ostentatious, bold orchestral rush of Funeral has its time and place, as does the weighty, almost holy Neon Bible, but The Suburbs’ move towards more familiar rock stylings holds the most widely appealing songs of the band’s career. It may have once felt impossible for Arcade Fire to be responsible for songs as straightforwardly everyman-like and stable as “We Used to Wait,” but The Suburbs is rife with such simple and powerful moments. In transforming one lifestyle to a universally human experience, Arcade Fire have gifted listeners with a truly wonderful collection. [Max]

Run the Jewels – Run the Jewels 2

The best rap duo on this planet prove once again why they’re the best with their second studio album, Run The Jewels 2. They’re so good that they don’t even need a real album title, which is of course the greatest thing about Killer Mike and El-P; their simple approach to the art of hip-hop. No fancy dressing, no intellectual pretense, just raw and undiluted rap, two guys spitting about the way they see the world around them. Augmented by El-P’s immense and brooding productions, full of ominous beats and absurdly catchy samples, the duo’s dynamite chemistry takes center stage once again. Take a particular exchange from the pessimistically titled “Close Your Eyes (And Count To Fuck),” when El finishes off his verse with, “No shitting you, little buddy, this fuckin’ island’s a prison/The only solace I have is the act of conjugal visitin” and Mike takes over with “My solitary condition’s preventin’ conjugal visits/Though mainly missin’ my missus, they keepin’ me from my children/Conditions create a villain, the villain is given vision” and on he goes, killing it with alliteration and violent imagery. Think of how 99% of rappers out there have at least one slow love ballad that’s more akin to R&B than rap, and then play Run The Jewels’ version of that, the profanity-laced “Love Again,” brimming with macho confidence and alpha male aggression. Certainly not for the faint of heart, nor the easily offended, RTJ 2 builds on the group’s successful debut album and creates something with irreverent force and biting commentary, every track essential for the overall deconstructive power of the album. The duo paint a harsh, cynical, picture of the America they live in, but if it’s inspiring this kind of artistry, it can’t be all that bad, can it? [Nik]

Kanye West – Yeezus

“Yeezy season approachin’/fuck whatever y’all been hearin’/fuck whatever y’all been wearin’/a monster about to come alive again.”

These are the first lyrics we hear on Yeezus, the sixth and most recent album from one of the most restless, creative, outspoken minds to ever exist within hip-hop’s framework (or the framework of all music ever, really). These first words’ promise is delivered upon: Yeezus is a savage beast, showing Kanye at his most irreverent, angry, and combative. West pulls a complete 180 on this album in every way. Compared to his previous albums, it’s ridiculously short, much less lush and finely detailed, far more abrasive, scathing, and industrial-influenced. This is still the one and only Kanye West though; despite Yeezus hosting some of his most inane lyrics to date (“Eating Asian pussy, all I need was sweet and sour sauce” is actually a line on this album), West’s ego and striking political stances remain clearly and viciously in focus. With Ye’s character shining through these unprecedentedly heavy, pummeling songs, they sound revolutionary, controversial, and incendiary, and have proven to be so within hip-hop music in the not quite two years since the album’s release.

Before Yeezus, Death Grips was the decade’s only act dividing the hip-hop community in a debate about the merit of noise, confrontation, and pure bile in rap music. Since Yeezus, so many rappers have felt the power that melding industrial doom with hip-hop groove can have. Tyler, the Creator’s Cherry Bomb is only the most recent of the new wave of hip-hop albums attempting to recreate the hallowed, terrifying glory that Yeezus delivered upon its arrival. Sure, aggression and political revolution have been vital themes of hip-hop for a long time, but here we have Ye literally screaming in revolt on “New Slaves” both for himself and for the entire black community, and we also bear witness to a track called “I Am a God” on an album whose title is a Jesus pun. The former track is essential: Public Enemy probably feels intense pride in Ye’s takedown of the prison-industrial system on this song, which employs some of the most blaring, ear-shattering percussion that hip-hop has ever heard. Its lyrics loudly rebel against institutional racism, as does “Black Skinhead,” another one of Yeezus’ most blatantly cacophonous songs.

Yeezus is incredibly dissonant and raucous for a hip-hop album, a fitting sound for its often political nature. Hell, even when this album isn’t political, it’s political. “Blood on the Leaves” narrates the hell of divorce proceedings, seemingly not a political topic, except that the song is built from a sample of Nina Simone’s take on anti-lynching classic “Strange Fruit.” “Black bodies/swingin’ in the summer breeze” is woven into the very essence of this track, which brilliantly constructs a club banger from a pre-civil rights movement protest song. Forget convention, forget tradition; this is the point of Yeezus both lyrically and musically, except on final track “Bound 2,” which was probably placed last on the album deliberately. It’s a throwback that unexpectedly recalls debut The College Dropout with its pitch-shifted soul samples and soulful production, yet it still feels padded with the risk and boldness pervading Yeezus. Kanye may be making some of hip-hop’s widest strides forward, but he still hasn’t forgotten where he came from. Hopefully none of Yeezus’ many followers ignore the path Yeezy took to get here. [Max]

See the rest of our Best Albums Of The Decade lists!

View Previous Sections of the List:
Best 50 Albums of the Decade So Far (#50 – #41)
Best 50 Albums of the Decade So Far (#40 – #31)
Best 50 Albums of the Decade So Far (#30 – #21)
Best 50 Albums of the Decade So Far (#20 – #11)

It’s safe to assume that thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands, of albums have been released so far this decade. What we’re about to present to you begins the twenty albums we’ve selected from this batch as our favorites of the decade so far. Narrowing down such a vast array of releases is no simple task, but these albums stick out from the pack.

Get ready for some of the best music this decade’s offered us to date. Listen to today’s 10 albums via our Spotify Playlist and check out the previous three while you’re over there.

Best 50 Albums Of The Decade So Far (#20-#11)

St. Vincent – Strange Mercy

After the omnipresent, seemingly eternal buzz surrounding St. Vincent, Annie Clark’s 2014 breakthrough, finally receded, it became clear that Strange Mercy, her previous album, remains her strongest effort, as well as one of the century’s most gratifying works. Easily her most cohesive and best sequenced album, it ditches the ostentatious, ornate orchestration of previous albums Marry Me and Actor in favor of a grey, stark, stripped-back aesthetic. Although it contains a few crafty, frenetic fuzz guitar blazes that recall Actor’s anxious, grungy glory (“Cruel,” “Chloe in the Afternoon,” the verses of “Northern Lights”), the majority of Strange Mercy is unnervingly bare. Clark’s guitar playing retains the bleak anxiety of her past songs while also forming soundscapes that are much more notably lurching and crystalline, yet more subtly groovy than before. “Cheerleader” contrasts desolate, somber verses with the growling, gradual guitar smashes of its whopping chorus; “Dilettante” sees Clark applying only the smallest amount of distortion to her guitars, favoring newer wah and modulating effects; “Neutered Fruit” proceeds with a squelch and a crunch unheard before in Clark’s music. Strange Mercy’s songs rank among her least frenetic, so it’s fitting that her voice sounds both grounded and poignant. It takes control of central slow-burner “Strange Mercy,” controlling the song’s emotions as it transforms from stable into urgent. A similar transition occurs on “Surgeon,” both Clark’s best song to date and one of the most innately thrilling ever recorded. A bridge following the second chorus delivers on the promise of the song’s slowly growing guitar funk, rising half a key to allow Clark to deliver her most dire vocal performance on record. “Best finest surgeon/come cut me open,” Clark pleads, and it’s hard to resist dissecting the detailed body that is Strange Mercy. [Max]

Bat for Lashes – The Haunted Man

Natasha Khan has been making music as Bat For Lashes for about a decade now, and her third solo EP, 2012’s The Haunted Man, is the latest and grandest artistic statement she’s made thus far. Aside from having the most badass album covers of that year, in which she’s standing tall, a helpless man draped across her shoulders, The Haunted Man is Khan’s vastest, most instrumentally adventurous outing yet. From the mystical choral chants of the title track and “Oh Yeah,” to the gentle drones of “Marilyn” and “Lilies,” to the plucky riff on “All Your Gold,” she’s got an orchestra of wild and weird sounds at her back as she lays down her sensuous, breathy vocals.

In “Laura,” the albums most successful single, Khan sings a melody so timeless and classic it’s a wonder that nobody had written it until now (a “holy grail” accomplishment for most songwriters of her ilk). She coos, “Ooh Laura you’re more than a superstar” and you’re immediately wrapped up in her emotion. Living up to its title, The Haunted Man is, in fact, pretty haunting, a collection of well crafted indie pop tracks shrouded in a haze of ominous, hypnotic sounds you might hear in a particularly spooky graveyard during a full moon. With this album Khan proves she has the potential to hang with the songwriting elite; her main sources of inspiration—-Bjork, Kate Bush, PJ Harvey—-should all be very proud mamas. [Bernard]

Killer Mike – R.A.P. Music

Before Run the Jewels took over and won the hearts of hipsters worldwide, El-P and Killer Mike collaborated on dual solo albums released in 2012 under their individual monikers. Killer Mike laid down his hard-hitting flow on El-P’s Cancer 4 Cure, while the NYC producer/rapper whipped up the beats for Mike’s R.A.P. Music. The latter is an old-school record with heavy, neo-boom-bap beats masterminded by Producto that fit snugly with the Atlanta emcee’s no-nonsense, in-yo-muhfuckin-face flow. “Butane” is a perfect example of the odd couple’s strength as a team, a shot-to-the-face of a track that stomps around like a T-rex and is guaranteed to terrorize your neighborhood should you bump it in your car loud enough.

Mike’s emerged as a light human rights activist in recent years, writing an op-ed in Billboard magazine and appearing on CNN in reaction to the Ferguson shootings. R.A.P. Music reflects his impassioned socio-political stances in the form of “Reagan,” a searing indictment of the U.S. government and its costly obsession with foreign oil. The album’s full of ass-kickers, like the unforgettable intro “Big Beast” in which Mike announces with his shotgun baritone and a clenched fist, “Hardore G shit, homie I don’t play around.” No, he doesn’t. No one says it better than Kendrick Lamar: “Critics want to mention that they miss when hip-hop was rappin’/motherfucker, if you did, then Killer Mike would be platinum.” [Bernard]

Janelle Monáe – The ArchAndroid

As far as first impressions go, Janelle Monáe’s The ArchAndroid is about as good as it gets. She was 24 years old and one of the newest signees at Bad Boy when her debut full-length studio album dropped, and she immediately caught the ears and eyes (check out her blistering performance of “Tightrope” on Letterman if you haven’t seen that awesomeness) of music lovers across the world and across genre lines. Soul kids, indie rock kids, hip-hop heads; they all loved Miss Monáe with equal amounts of passion, and the enthusiasm was out of respect for how freakin’ amazing her album was, front to back.

The ArchAndroid is a gigantic, sprawling production that’ll take you on the ride of your life, touching on more emotions and sounds and music genres than you can shake a stick at. Songs like the irresistible “Dance or Die,” the anthemic “Cold War,” and the relentless “Tightrope” are speedy and thrilling and have a scintillating sense of locomotion; more whimsical tracks, like the lilting “Oh, Maker” and “Wondaland,” slow things down and take you to a funky, colorful paradise. It’s hard not to think of the great Lauryn Hill as a direct precursor to Monáe—-they both had terrific debut albums and transcend genres—-but the young “mini mogul” (she’s got a label of her own now, Wondaland Records) looks to have a longevity Hill unfortunately never attained. [Bernard]

tUnE-yArDs – W H O K I L L

A term ascribed to Merrill Garbus’ tUnE-yArDs often is “kooky.” The word fits: the alternating capital letters, lack of immediately obvious meaning, and seemingly unnecessary dash in the middle of her moniker suggest the eccentric, outlandish nature of her music. Certainly, her sound is bizarre, and quite often divisive among listeners, but W H O K I L L unites her oddball tendencies with intensely catchy, fiery songwriting. It’s not just dumb luck that this album catapulted her to the forefront of blogosphere stardom: the LP is a gripping, ear-popping account of independence and protest delivered in one of the most urgent voices in recent memory. Opener “My Country” hints at the topics ahead with its opening mantra: “My country ‘tis of thee/sweet love of liberty/how come I cannot see my future within your arms?”

The booming, unorthodox percussion and peripheral vocal harmony loops also offers foresight into the album’s novel, alarming sonic palette: Garbus often sings, shouts, yelps, hollers, drums, or strums (on an electric ukulele, not a guitar) several different parts into a looping machine and arranges them into cascades of stomping, direct force. The hood politics of “Gangsta” arrive surrounded by wails intertwined in a cat’s cradle of loops; the skitter of “Doorstep” derives solely from Garbus’ playing; “Powa” blesses her ukulele with the emotional depth of a traditional guitar. Even more idiosyncratic is trailblazing favorite “Bizness,” a fierce, riotous anthem for anyone who’s ever suffered for reasons out of their control. If the sonics of W H O K I L L don’t arrest you, let the words do the talking. [Max]

The National – High Violet

If Wilco is the preeminent “Great American Band,” the guys in The National are the slightly younger runners-up. They’ve been making critically acclaimed, notoriously glum music since the turn of the century, churning out great albums like 2005’s  Alligator and 2007’s incredible Boxer, touring the country seemingly non-stop all the while. In 2010, they released High Violet, their fifth studio album which, despite continuing the band’s tradition of writing “sad bastard” music, was a triumph in that it showed an improved, refined version of their patented sound without pandering to fans who constantly begged for them to “cheer up.”

If you ask the band, they’ll tell you there’s always been a sense of humor about their pathos. In a 2010 interview on CBC radio, guitarist Aaron Dessner explained this misconception, using the song “Conversation 16” as a reference point. “When Matt [Berninger, lead singer] says, ‘I was afraid I’d eat your brains,’ there is something dark and weird about that line, but it’s also kind of funny.” The lyrical content on High Violet, written by Berninger, is undeniably dour and sometimes frightening, but musically, the Dessner twins created some uncharacteristically bright and infectious tunes, like the lead single, “Bloodbuzz Ohio,” whose syncopated groove and bright piano accents sound more pop rock than sob rock. Few bands sound as grandiose and exhilarating as The National does when they reach the height of crescendos on epics like “Terrible Love” and “England,” and High Violet’s soaring sonic foundation makes it their most accessible album in their catalogue. [Bernard]

Sharon Van Etten – Are We There?

Those who familiarized themselves with our Best Songs of the Decade So Far feature shouldn’t be too surprised to see Sharon Van Etten popping up here. I take special enjoyment in it myself, since Van Etten’s “Your Love Is Killing Me” (from this same album) was a personal pick. Brooklyn-based Van Etten has been rising in prominence within the indie rock community in New York and the rest of the U.S. for a few years now, but few expected the kind of attention her last album received. Except, of course, those who’ve never doubted the limits she was destined to reach. Are We There ended up on several year-end best lists, and gave the singer-songwriter her first real taste of fame. The first-time access to a big studio helped Van Etten in the only area she needed improving: production. Now, she’s able to pour her heart out about love, loss, and longing in a way that emphasizes her emphatic vocal range while imbuing the entire mood of Are We There in a coating of grandiose melancholia. Besides the song I’ve already discussed last month, the album is filled with Van Etten’s signature heart-on-sleeve approach, accompanied by mournful pianos, guitars, and drums; other stand outs include the lullaby-like “Our Love,” and “You Know Me Well” where she makes the simplest of lyrics, “You know me well/You show me hell when I’m looking/And here you are/Looking,” drip with immense pathos. Then there are tracks like “Break Me;” shining examples of how far Van Etten has gone in terms of having appropriate production that enable her songs to resonate with more gut-punching force. Equally intimate and universal, Are We There is a must for everyone who’s felt the pangs of love, and one of the greatest examples of how loss can be turned into an exceptionally creative outlet. [Nik]

Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires of the City

I enjoyed Vampire Weekend’s first two LPs thoroughly, and I half expected their third album, Modern Vampires of the City, to be a bit of a letdown, partly because I found their skills as musicians limited, but mostly because I’m a recovering pessimist. I was proven wrong once I gave the album a spin: The indie pop kings from New York City upped every facet of their game, from their playing, to lead singer Ezra Koenig’s singing, to their writing. Exploring themes like faith, mortality, and lost love, the band seems to have grown up considerably in this, the final chapter in a trilogy of great records.

The most notable aspect of Modern Vampires is the earthy, warm quality of the recordings themselves. Utilizing analog equipment whenever possible, the band sidestepped their signature Afro-inspired sound, embracing a more measured, chamber pop style. The heart-meltingly pretty opening track, “Obvious Bicycle,” immediately shows off Koenig’s full range of vocal ability as he gently hums, “You ought to spare yourself the razor/because no one’s going to spare the time for you.” Lyrically, the band’s breached a whole new stratosphere, crafting humble gems like, “I was born to live without you/but I’m never going to understand/hold me in your everlasting arms.” “Hanna Hunt” is one of the best songs they’ve ever written, a quiet interlude charting a lover’s gradual, coast-to-coast dissolution. My pessimism’s been purged; I’ll be anticipating whatever Vampire Weekend offers up with a hopeful smile and bated breath. [Bernard]

Spoon – They Want My Soul

Back when They Want My Soul dropped last August, there was much ado about things that really didn’t matter. Yes, the LP was the band’s first in four years (frontman Britt Daniel had a stint in the Divine Fits in the interim, where he nabbed Alex Fischel as Spoon’s new keyboardist). And yes, there was a fun title track, ripe for interpretation, about all the haters that want Daniel’s soul. But none of that is why we’re talking about this album nearly a year later.

In a year dominated by breakout electronic producers, They Want My Soul serves as one of the strongest reminders that the classic indie rock setup can still produce one hell of a worthwhile listen. It’s got the technical prowess and cohesion you’d expect from an entry on a year-end list (surely producer Dave Fridmann, known for his work with The Flaming Lips, deserves a nod), but more importantly, Spoon doesn’t just find their sound—they have a whole lot of fun with it. Whether it’s that killer bridge taking us up an octave in “Rainy Taxi” or the unhinged distortion in “Knock Knock Knock,” Spoon fills their latest with nuggets of ear candy that make re-listens feel varied and new.

Their optimistic moments have that slight reservation that comes with experience, but there also seems to be a new freedom: the one that comes from letting go of expectations. Screw whatever you thought of the Spoon of yesteryear—they’ve certainly let go of any demons tugging at their soul. As a result, They Want My Soul is both a standout in the band’s 20-year catalog and a well-deserved #12 for us. [Susan]

Beach House – Bloom

Beach House’s career arc from their self-titled debut to third album Teen Dream guided their gradual ascent to legends of dream pop melancholy, heartache, and cosmic resonance. Bloom, the Baltimore duo’s fourth album, is far more optimistic than its predecessors, a shift that few expected. A daring change, in lesser hands it could’ve been a disaster, but Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally can’t help but write tragedy and affliction into even their most beaming songs. Bloom retains the husky, breathy vocals that defined Legrande as the rebirth of Nico to a generation of young music lovers, and recasts Scally’s slide and tremolo-picked guitar beauty as the sound of hope after defeat rather than misery after failure. Where past tracks might wallow in their own deep sadness to unparalleled avail, Bloom tunes including “Wild” and “The Hours” strive upwards from down in their pits. “Wishes” sounds straight up grateful in comparison to the pain of past releases, “New Year” bleeds with resolve, and “Lazuli” shines as brightly as the gem for which it’s named. For all the drastic reductions in woe present, Beach House’s sound differs only somewhat; here, they grow gradually without entirely shedding their skin. Bloom couldn’t be a more appropriate title. [Max]

See the rest of our Best Albums Of The Decade lists!

View Other Lists of this Feature:
Best 50 Albums of the Decade So Far (#50 – #41)
Best 50 Albums of the Decade So Far (#40 – #31)
Best 50 Albums of the Decade So Far (#30 – #21)
Best 50 Albums of the Decade So Far (#10 – #1)

We’ve now reached the peak of this tall mountain. The final 10 songs on our 50 Best Songs of the Decade So Far list is upon us. These songs are all modern classics, and have defined the decade’s music thus far. Years from now, music lovers will think of many songs when they look back upon this era, but these ten are especially likely to come to mind. It’ll be interesting to see if, at the end of the decade, they are still held in such high regard, but for now, these songs have impressed us, as well as hundreds of thousands of other listeners, more than the rest of the music we’ve heard so far this decade.

In addition to our Top 10, we’ve included a section at the bottom we call Passionate Orphans. Songs that are personal favorites and worthy of respect, but that we couldn’t fit and couldn’t leave unmentioned.

Enjoy the list and our accompanying Spotify playlist, including one conveniently containing all 50 songs. Be on the look out for our Best Albums of the Decade So Far list in the coming weeks!

Best 50 Songs Of The Decade So Far
(#10 – #1)

Kanye West – “New Slaves”

Kanye West has been the king of rap for quite some time—almost single handedly reshaping the face of the genre, with both his productions and collaborations. When Yeezus was released upon the world in 2013 it wasn’t tracks like “I Am a God” that surprised the most, it was “Black Skinhead” and “New Slaves,” a pair of superheated songs with aggression so evocative and raw it was a new high, even for Kanye. The stand out, though, is obviously “New Slaves,” a bouncy and lyrically-acrobatic shoulder to the chest that fits perfectly into West’s continual progression at the frontlines of hip hop. Kanye has never been afraid to tone things down, but here the composition is utterly stark, with only a distant thunder of bass, leaving the highly confrontational and politically assertive lyrics to take center stage. The only problem? If West keeps hitting homers like this, he might just deserve that ego. [Gary]

Tame Impala – “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards”

If psychedelic pop perfection were captured in a three-minute bubble, it might sound like this. John Lennon would smile widely if he were around to hear “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards,” or maybe, on the other hand, he would sue for copyright infringement; no one since The Beatles has sounded this much like them. But Kevin Parker isn’t merely copying drug-era Beatles here; rather, he’s taking its best qualities (so, almost all its qualities) and condensing them into a crystalline, gorgeous, infectious pop anthem. “Every part of me says go ahead,” Parker’s falsetto states as it glides over sheets of swirling synths, bubbling psychedelia, and a bass line that never quits. Going ahead is exactly what “Feels” excels in: as this song progresses, it becomes more and more infectious, each subsequent chorus increasing substantially in emotional impact. The key is that the first chorus is already wildly hooky; that the song manages to deliver this statement with more success time and time again is absolutely dizzying. [Max]

M.I.A – “Bad Girls”

No one else has quite brought world music influences to pop prominence like musical wunderkind M.I.A. The multi- talented artist Maya “M.I.A.” Arulpragasam has been a boundary breaking badass for quite some time, skyrocketing to prominence with 2008’s decade-encapsulating track “Paper Planes”—a song everyone knows and hardly anyone knows the lyrics to.

So while she never really went away, M.I.A. came back swinging in 2012 with another genre crushing song. “Bad Girls” is a natural fit in the progressive catalog for the international artist; a song designed perfectly for the time and filling a void that the world hadn’t even known was empty. Not only that, but beneath the glossy, bass packed surface, “Bad Girls” is shockingly empowering, its lyrics loud and clear here, “Live fast, die young, bad girls do it well.” It’s only a matter of time before “Bad Girls” becomes the genre-defining track that it deserves to be. [Gary]

LCD Soundsystem – “Dance Yrself Clean”

How in the world do you compose something so intimate and epic into a 8+ minute track that could never, ever, wear out its welcome? I’ve got no idea, but the recently disbanded LCD Soundsystem sure as hell did. James Murphy and his bandmates kicked off their ultimate album, This Is Happening, with this 8-minute dance-punk cacophonous hybrid that almost sounds like it attempts to exorcise every dancing demon out of the listener’s body. Of course, while Murphy’s vocals and humorous lyrics (“Talking like a jerk/Except you are an actual jerk/And living proof/That sometimes friends are mean”) align perfectly with the production’s primal drum patting, it’s really that moment at 1:40, when the little electronic melody crashes the party in the most beguiling of ways, when “Dance Yrself Clean” triumphantly shimmies its way into the decade’s top-shelf songs. And it goes up (and loud) from there. By the 3 minute mark, the song is unleashed into a dance delirium, and if you’ve done the mistake of increasing the volume on your headphones before, LCD Soundsystem makes you pay for it. In the best way possible. [Nik]

Crystal Castles – “Not in Love (feat. Robert Smith)”

How do you make your song better? Throw Robert Smith on it, of course. Crystal Castles originally covered this Platinum Blondes song on their second self-titled album, with the vocals distorted and warbled to the point of being barely discernible. When they released it as a single, someone had the brilliant idea of letting Robert Smith sing on the track, and the results speak for themselves. Putting Smith on the song is an inspired choice, considering how influential his work has been on bands like Crystal Castles. So naturally his voice fits like a glove, with his mournful vocals elevating the song into another dimension. “Not in Love” goes to show that great songs can sometimes be improved upon in the most surprising of ways. [C.J.]

Beach House – “Myth”

If you were to ask me who the standout musicians of the decade are, so far, my answer would come without so much as a blink of an eye: Beach House. Baltimore duo Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally have been around since the mid aughts, but with Teen Dream in 2010, followed by Bloom in 2012, Beach House redefined the boundaries of dream pop, and reinvigorated my love for the genre. Their first single from Bloom, “Myth,” is as good example as any of the kind of deep, oceanic, emotions the duo successfully reach, in tremendously moving fashion. There’s no other band out there, with the range of Legrand’s voice, and the knack for Scally’s unquenchable melodies, that could make verses like “Found yourself in a new direction/Arrows falling from the sun/Canyon calling would come to greet you/Let you know you’re not the only one” sound like they’re speaking directly to we the listeners. When Legrand sings it, the feeling of loneliness dissipates, because we feel it right down to our marrow. And isn’t that what it’s all about? [Nik]

Grimes – “Oblivion”

Did you know that indie electronic’s club anthem of the decade so far is actually a song about recovering from the trauma of sexual assault? With a groove this thick and steady, “Oblivion” at first masks its important, poignant message. Initial listens of this song entrap willing ears with demonically robotic synths, mechanical percussion, a horrifyingly eerie ambience, and uneasy, fairy-like vocals courtesy of Claire Boucher, the woman behind Grimes. Later listens allow Boucher’s words to crystallize: “Coming up behind you/always coming and you’d never have a clue”, sung hauntingly in the first verse, indicates that “I see you on a dark night”, during the chorus, is directed at a shadowy figure following her home; “When you’re running by yourself/it’s hard to find someone to hold your hand” is likewise completely unromantic, instead detailing the hell of keeping oneself safe from such a figure. The tense situation Boucher describes explodes into catharsis with one minute and forty-five seconds left in the song, when the synths begin to sound like they too are speaking words. If even the instrumentation is trying to say something, there’s no doubting that the message is important. That it’s delivered with arguably the most incessantly replayable synthscape of the decade is just a perk. [Max]

Vampire Weekend – “Hannah Hunt”

The most chilling track on Vampire Weekend’s 2013 album “Modern Vampires of the City,” “Hannah Hunt” is a hushed (until the end) breakup song that stretches from the freezing beaches of the East coast to the shores of Santa Barbara. Ezra Koenig all but whispers the lyrics throughout the sleepy, sparse first two minutes of the track, as if he’s singing with eyes half-closed. Then, the percussion swells and his voice leaps up an octave, shrieking, “if I can’t trust you then damn it, Hannah / there’s no future there’s no answer.” This is Vampire Weekend at their most confident and polished, embracing minimalist presentation and asymmetrical structure while honoring their African music inspirations and keeping up that geographical predilection they just can’t let go of. [Bernard]

Azealia Banks – “212”

Hip-hop has been maligned time after time for containing excessive profanity, so when even the world’s foremost rap critics and listeners were taken aback with the amount of explicit material in “212,” Azealia Banks’ debut single, everyone paid attention. Banks absolutely owns the word “cunt” on this song, whether reclaiming it as a neutral term (“I guess that cunt getting eaten”) or stabbing her opponents with it (“Imma ruin you, cunt”). “Cunt” isn’t the only thing she takes control of, though; she also commands the entirety of Lazy Jay’s “Float My Boat,” a house track created with absolutely no intention for Banks to use it without permission. Hell, Lazy Jay probably had no idea who Banks was when he first heard that a self-described “rude bitch” from Harlem ripped his song, but it all worked out in the end: yep, “212” sounds so great that he got on board, and is now credited on the song. Maybe that’s because Banks not only sings, raps, and screams on “212,” but she does each at the exact moment in the song where it fits best. “This shit been mine!” Banks proclaims during the chorus, but she doesn’t have to say it: this song proves it beyond all doubt. [Max]

FKA twigs – “Two Weeks”

“Two Weeks” was Way Too Indie’s favorite song of 2014, and it remains at the top when we look at the decade in music so far. Really, though, how could it not? This song is nothing short of majestic, an accumulation of everything that trip-hop, R&B, and electronic music have all striven towards this decade. The crystalline synth oscillations and pulsating, deep percussion outline trip-hop’s noblest goals; FKA twigs’ celestial vocal vibratos outdo those of most of her many peers; the song’s overwhelming digital sheen demarcates one of electronic music’s foremost objectives. Then there are the lyrics; in addition to the great sonic template, here we have maybe the strongest example of a woman owning her sexuality and not letting society’s double standard silence her desires. “I can fuck you so much better,” twigs seethes towards an object of desire; “give me two weeks, you won’t recognize her” is an even more sensual threat, one for which twigs reaches towards some of the higher parts of her register. But she saves the highest section for the line “my thighs are apart for when you’re ready to breathe in,” putting everyone on alert, just as a good song should do. We already knew that sex sells, but “Two Weeks” teaches us that owning it is different than buying it. [Max]

Listen to These Songs on Spotify

CJ’s Passionate Orphans (Twins!)

Low – “Nothing But Heart”
Nadia Oh – “Taking Over the Dancefloor”
I couldn’t even begin to count how many songs I tried to fit on this list, so reducing things down to a few passionate picks is even tougher for me. But one song I knew would crush me if it didn’t make it on the list was Low’s “Nothing But Heart.” It’s an eight-minute epic that only has three lines before Alan Sparhawk repeats the line “I’m nothing but heart” a couple dozen times. Sure, it sounds boring, but it’s an achingly beautiful song that builds and builds until it soars. By the end, you’ll want to join in and yell “I’m nothing but heart” along with the band.

Saying that, let me awkwardly segue into my next pick: Nadia Oh’s “Taking Over the Dancefloor.” I don’t have a lot of words left, so let me be blunt: Nadia Oh deserves to be a massive pop star. Her music is like a weird version of pop from an alternate universe, a completely bonkers bastardization of current pop trends that turns into something wholly singular. Just trust me on this one.

Max’s Passionate Orphan

Cloud Nothings – “Wasted Days”
​It’s one thing to recast your lo-fi bedroom pop act as a doom-bearing noise punk project; it’s another to place a nine-minute anthem of angst, dissonance, and dejection as the second of eight tracks on the album marking this unexpected transition. “Wasted Days” actually wastes no time at all; each and every one of this song’s sprawling 494 seconds makes listeners fully inhabit songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist Dylan Baldi’s terror. The cutting chords and slow drum build of its brief intro give way to a lacerating, whipping verse lined with Baldi’s nasal, howling vocals and defeated, exhausted lyrics. “I thought/I would/be more/than this,” goes this song’s straightforwardly anthemic chorus, which Baldi whines its first two times.

This already visceral approach becomes even more gut-wrenching and undeniable during the five-minute noise breakdown separating the second chorus from the third. Just before this final chorus arrives, there’s a bit of a crescendo, over which Baldi transitions from muttering his chorus to absolutely screaming it. In this ultimate moment, Baldi achieves a catharsis unlike any previously heard in noise rock, as will any and all listeners brave and strong enough to endure this incredible song’s hurricane-like nine minutes.

Nik’s Passionate Orphans (Twins!)

Sharon Van Etten – “Your Love Is Killing Me”
Father John Misty – “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings”
Sharon Van Etten has been around smokey underground bars since her album debut in 2009. Slowly but surely, through wondrously introspective and heart-aching songs like “Love More” (from 2010) and “I’m Wrong” (from 2012’s Tramp), she rose through indie folk ranks, and captured hearts with her whispery, sonorous, voice. “Your Love Is Killing Me” from her latest, Are We There, solidifies her status as one of the greatest women armed with a guitar. Naturally it helps that she’s reached a point where she has major studio access because this single is as big room in its absurdly effective chorus, as it is intimate in its quavering, soul-searching, verses. The way she lingers on the repeated “you” in the second verse, before “Stabs my eyes so I can see” ascends to a magnificent melody perfectly tuned to Van Etten’s matchless voice, makes “Your Love Is Killing Me” one of her greatest accomplishments. Here’s a song about painful love that has no substitutes.

Joining Van Etten in my orphanage is Father John Misty’s “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings.” In 2012 J. Tillman released the album Fear Fun under his self-appointed alter ego Father John Misty, after a shroom-stocked road trip. While the whole album is recommended, there’s no song as hypnotic, instantly memorable, and gratifying right down to the core as the psychoactively titled “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings.” The lyrics invite you into an enticing world of psychedelic indie rock, and with lines like “‘Cause the marble made my cheeks look pink/But I’m unsure of so many things” we see the effects Tillman’s mushroom trip had on his creativity. From its beginning, he sings “Jesus Christ” like no one else I’ve ever heard, to its end, when he implores someone “to help me dig,” the song is a gloriously abstract journey I love to repeat over and over. Bonus points for casting Aubrey Plaza in the song’s official video; perhaps the greatest music video casting of all time. Yeah, I said it.

See the rest of our Best Songs Of The Decade lists!

View Other Lists of this Feature:
Best 50 Songs of the Decade So Far (#50 – #41)
Best 50 Songs of the Decade So Far (#40 – #31)
Best 50 Songs of the Decade So Far (#30 – #21)
Best 50 Songs of the Decade So Far (#20 – #11)

Last night saw the release of the lineup of this year’s edition of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. Headliners are The Stone Roses and Blur for Friday night, Phoenix hold their own on Saturday night and the Red Hot Chili Peppers close out the festival on Sunday night. Some of the notable undercard includes: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Lou Reed, Modest Mouse, newly reformed Jurassic 5, Grinderman on Friday night. Saturday night’s subheadliners are the XX, The Postal Service, Sigur Ros, New Order, Hot Chip and Grizzly Bear. Helping the Chili Peppers close out the fest are Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Vampire Weekend, Social Distortion and The Wu Tang Clan.

I’ll be sincere, when I first saw the lineup I thought I was being punk’d. First of all, I can deal with The Stone Roses and Blur, but as headliners? I’m not entirely sold. Phoenix is another band that I’m really not that into. I watched part of their set the last time they played Coachella (2010) and it was fine, but again. Headliners? But to be honest, it’s the Red Hot Chili Peppers that bothered me the most. This to me feels like a contingency plan. If the Rolling Stones rumor (that Golden Voice, Coachella promoters, were courting them and failed) is true, then they must’ve called up Kiedis and the boys to fill in. I don’t hate the Chili Peppers, but this is their third time headlining now and let’s face, they’ve become kind of boring.

But this was all last night. All the sadness and anger I had for this lineup needed to be slept on. Ironically, I had a dream that the Chili Peppers were doing sound checks at my house. I woke up this morning and looked at the lineup. I’m becoming more open to this lineup as the time wears on.

Enough crying from this writer, what bands am I excited to see? Being a big Trent Reznor fan, I could never contain my school girl giddiness for the debut performance of his newest group How to Destroy Angels. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Bassnectar, Dog Blood, Beach House, New Order, Knife Party, Moby, Benny Benassi, Simian Mobile Disco, Yeasayer, Spiritualized, Ritchie Hawtin, Major Lazer, Dropkick Murphy’s, Bat for Lashes, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Pretty Lights, Tame Impala, The Faint, Paul Oakenfold are the artists I’m looking forward to the most.

Over the course of the next couple of months I’ll be dividing my time between Spotify and Youtube, checking out which artists I may want to entertain as well. One of the best parts of Coachella is checking out some random artist in some tent that you’ve never heard of before and they turn out to be one of your favorite sets.

The festival this year runs over the course of two separate weekends in a row. April 12th-14th is the first weekend and April 19th-21st is the second weekend. I’ll be in attendance during weekend two. Expect another article about my “planned” itinerary for the festival a few days before weekend two. I’ll do my best to report from the festival on a daily basis, but odds are leaning towards a full festival wrap up when I get back. If you want immediate updates during the festival, you can always follow me on Twitter @WayTooIndie.

See the full 2013 Coachella lineup poster of bands below.