It’s fashionable to complain about the state of contemporary music these days (though really, when has declinism not been in vogue?), and there are some reasons to be a little bit down on what manages to rise to the top of the charts. But this really has been a glorious decade for music, in every genre and at every register. The democratization of production and consumption certainly hasn’t been an unadulterated good, but it has at least ensured that the long tail of artistic production is now truly available to the world at large. And that has made things incredible for consumers.
For artists, the story is more mixed. The commodities are widely available but compensation generally doesn’t follow. So I encourage everyone to treat list-making season as an opportunity to find some new things to love, and then go buy them. Or go to shows. Or buy merch. Something to put money into the pockets of these wonderful artists who enrich our lives.
For me, constructing this list was a real journey. My initial longlist ran to about 400 songs, and it was excruciating to narrow it down to just 50. But it was also a joyous process to go back and give each little gem another close look. These songs are etched deep inside me, and it’s wonderful to have an excuse to dig down and think seriously about what makes them each so good.
As always, these are just my favorites. I make no claim that they’re objectively the best.
1. The House That Heaven Built – Japandroids (2012)
To me, this is the greatest rock and roll song of all time. The drums are insistent, marching along with implacable resolve. There is a single stomping beat that drives everything forward faster and faster. And then there is a backbeat, the clashing of cymbals, and the ever-rising sense of explosive potential. This is a song to build empires around.
2. Realiti (demo) – Grimes (2015)
Her voice is ethereal as she weaves her way through a woozy forest of synths and tightly clipped percussive lines. It feels otherworldly, but also strangely familiar, like stepping inside a Van Gogh. The title is fitting, since this song–more than any other I have ever heard–communicates the strangely madness that comes from grasping the world in its unadulterated form. If it feels unreal, it’s only because our whole lives are spent building the artifice that encloses us.
3. Fire’s Highway – Japandroids (2012)
This song hits like a semi-truck, and burns with the unquenchable fire of youth. To spend even one moment filled with this sort of passion is to know what it truly means to be alive.
4. Emmylou – First Aid Kit (2012)
It’s an ode to love, companionship, partnership, and a long history of music. Their voices dance around each other, the guitar sliding around them without the tiniest bit of friction. And it’s all tied together by one of the greatest choruses in musical history—made all the better by those couple dipping notes on the guitar that immediately precede it.
5. Young Enough – Charly Bliss (2019)
Threaded tightly around a single chord guitar line, it builds and builds, until it feels like there is nothing left in the world except this song. One purpose of music is to communicate something fundamental about the human experience. On that count, I’m not sure it’s possible to succeed more completely than Charly Bliss did here.
6. Alabama Pines – Jason Isbell And The 400 Unit (2011)
A work of pure pathos from one of the finest songwriters on the planet. It’s achingly sad: a perfect encapsulation of a disenchanted Southern spirit, of dead-end dreams and a weariness with the world. His voice on the chorus brings me to my knees every time I hear it.
7. Silent Treatment – The Joy Formidable (2013)
If you went into a laboratory to design a song for me, you could hardly do better than this. A gorgeous double-tracked voice, backed by a delicate acoustic pluck, rising up and then falling around a single note…that’s what it takes to make my heart sing.
8. Black Synagogue – Angel Haze (2014)
At her best, Angel Haze is probably my favorite rapper in the world. And this is very much her best. “Black Synagogue” is full of rage and empathy and she spits it all out at 150 MPH.
9. We Found Love – Rihanna (2011)
Pop music is designed to be ephemeral. Even the best of it often fades away quickly. It’s the rare gem that not only lasts but gets better and better with time. We Found Love is such a gem. Its hopefulness and beauty have transcended the momentary and become universal. People will still be dancing to this song a hundred years from now.
10. Continuous Thunder – Japandroids (2012)
The album-closer on a rock and roll masterpiece, it has the impossible task of seeing the act off the stage. It does so by condensing everything down to one glorious question: “Would we love with a legendary fire?” The guitars swirl around and build, and build, and build. And finally, there really is nothing but continuous thunder.
11. Flesh without Blood – Grimes (2015)
In my book, Grimes was the most interesting artist of the last ten years. And this song really illustrates why. Just a couple years removed from the glitchy bedroom electro-beats of Visions and the wispy metronome clicks and murmurs of Halfaxa, Grimes released maybe the best banger of the whole decade. Every piece is in perfect balance, from the propulsive beat to the confident vocals to the buzzing bass.
12. When the Master Calls the Roll – Rosanne Cash (2014)
This is a song you could spend an entire lifetime hoping to write. Beautiful, expansive, heartbreaking, honest. I’m not sure it could have come from anyone but Rosanne Cash.
13. Yulia – Wolf Parade (2010)
The madness of the endless cosmos, the realization that you have already passed beyond the veil even as you still drift alone in the dark reaches of spaces – and that there is only one person far behind who will think of you. All tinged with a sense of awe to simply be out there. What a horrible, wonderful, deeply sad way to die…
14. Genesis – Grimes (2012)
I have no idea what on earth she is singing in this song, and I never want to find out.
15. Julian – Say Lou Lou (2013)
The harmonies are exquisite. It’s got the lush production that has characterized Swedish indie pop for the last decade, married to the atmospherics of classic Fleetwood Mac. It’s a heady combination – the sort of song you can listen to on repeat for hours.
16. C&F – Antarctica Takes It! (2010)
It’s a skittering song, rushing along breathlessly and begging you to try and keep up. It’s one of those tracks that has so many brilliant moments you can hardly believe that it’s only three minutes long. It’s like they’ve packed several years worth of pent-up ideas into one brilliant explosion. It’s got a lot of that 60s era vim and vigor, with words that seem to stumble over themselves with how eager they are to get out into the bright spring sun.
17. Sleepwalker – Julie Byrne (2017)
A song so pure and true that it makes my heart burst. To listen is an act of devotion. Whatever darkness may come, there is still light. And, maybe, the hope of solace for those in pain.
18. No Way Outro – I Break Horses (2011)
The last two minutes of this song are epic, but the thing that absolutely kills me is those two little bass notes that seem to trigger the tidal wave.
19. Graceless – The National (2013)
Berninger’s distinctively smoky voice, the tightly wound guitar lines, and above all that insistent drumming. And when it all comes together, it is sheer perfection. The final minute or so is absolutely, relentlessly good.
20. Elephant – Jason Isbell (2013)
A terrible, sad, heartbreaking song. And a strangely hopeful one. Because look: the girl is still going to die. All the kindness in the world can’t give her death any more dignity. Neither can love. After all, her family loves her, but she is still dying alone. What he can offer, maybe, is a kind of temporary solace in the loss of memory. He gives her the chance to forget what she is now and remember who she really is. Is that enough? We may never know. But we have to try anyways.
21. Immunity – Jon Hopkins (2013)
As it slowly unfolds you can sense the passing of years, perhaps even of lifetimes. A simple piano line establishes the structure of the song. But the true soul is doled out through the indecipherable chorus sung by King Creosote, whose voice perfectly clarifies the otherworldliness of the experience.
22. All of These Years – Vanessa Peters (2016)
There is no song in the entire decade that made me smile more than this one.
23. Only A Clown – Caitlin Rose (2013)
The alchemy of the verse and chorus – I’m sure there are technical explanations for why it works the way that it does, but I don’t know what they are. All I know is that I’m glad to live in a world where it exists.
24. Howl – The Gaslight Anthem (2012)
A sort of postscript to Thunder Road. Once again, there’s a girl whose dress waves and a guy with a car offering to take her away. But this Mary said ‘no’ to the first offer. She stuck around, went to school, and made a life for herself. And now our hero is back, because the one thing that never dies is hope. And when he sings “I waited on your call and made my plans to share my name” there’s nothing you can do but hope along with him.
25. Motion Sickness – Phoebe Bridgers (2017)
This song is so clever and bright that you almost miss how tightly constructed it is. Phoebe Bridgers has penned quite a few great songs in her young career already, but this is the best. And “I have emotional motion sickness” is one of the all-time great lines in music.
26. Meredith & Iris – Carissa’s Weird (2011)
A one-off project from Carissa’s Wierd, who reunited to release a single almost a decade after their last performances. It was a bolt of light in a long night, like Van Gogh returning from the dead, carrying a painting of heaven itself.
27. Should Have Known Better – Sufjan Stevens (2015)
It begins quiet and withdrawn, spare and beautiful. Then, on a perfect hinge, it transitions into something effusive, joyous, full of life and possibility. But in that leap, nothing from the previous half is lost, or forgotten. It all blends together, into an expression of pain, at a lost childhood, of love that went unsaid. And an expression of joy, at the way new families are formed. In the hope for the future. In the faith that, no matter how dark it is today, there’s always the possibility of sun tomorrow.
28. Land of Hope and Dreams – Bruce Springsteen (2012)
You get basically the entire Springsteen mythos here: trains, lost souls, community, redemption, and a killer saxophone solo from the Big Man (one of his very last, sadly). The fact that the mode of reference is almost anachronistic these days (who catches a train to their salvation in 2013?) is actually part of the point. It’s a call to remember what is great in our past, not to say that we can go back, but to caution us about what it means to move forward.
29. I’ve Got Wheels – Miranda Lambert (2016)
In the classic tradition of the American troubadour, Lambert concludes her long journey through the dark night of the soul with a bit of hope. There’s redemption to be found out there somewhere. “Whatever road, however long. I’ve got wheels. I’m rolling on.”
30. World Tour (Weezy, Wale, Dre) – Brenton Duvall (2011)
Picks out the chorus of Wale’s World Tour, and supplements it with lines from Lil’ Wayne and Forgot About Dre, placing each of them against a shimmering, beautiful, insistent background of electronica. The resulting creation sounds totally distinct and organic – it’s almost impossible to recall the individual components in their original form. The Dre part, in particular, is utterly different. What came off as aggressive and petulant when backed by Eminem now sounds strangely humble, even hopeful.
31. Capricornia – Allo Darlin’ (2012)
One of the finest jangle pop songs ever recorded, and possibly the best advertisement for visiting Australia I’ve ever heard.
32. Right Direction – The Dirty Diamonds (2010)
Great harmonies, an awesome underlying beat, a call and response bit at the end that’s just gleefully self-aware (“when I say Dirty, you say Diamonds”). It’s everything I love about 60s doo-wop acts combined with everything I love about electro dance pop. And it’s a right good time. If Right Direction doesn’t get you excited about life, then pretty much nothing will.
33. Red Eyes – The War On Drugs (2014)
I could listen to this song for months on repeat and never get tired of it. It’s so dense, a concentrated burst of rock and roll, full of passion and pathos and glorious rollicking energy. And when the full band returns at 3:35…you get one of the best musical moments of the whole decade. It gives me shivers.
34. The Opener – CAMP COPE (2018)
Equal parts rage and joy. Rage at a world of blatant injustice, filled with men who are utterly incapable of grasping the privileges they wield. But also joy at the sheer audacity of creation and the righteous noise they can make. It would be a great song for any era, but feels absolutely essential for the latter years of this decade.
35. Boom Clap – Charli XCX (2014)
A strong competitor for best chorus of the decade, with bonus points for its onomatopoeiatical effect.
36. Prodigal Dog – Hilary Woods (2018)
It seems insufficient to describe this song as haunting. It weaves itself around you, whispering promises of a world beyond our own. And if you tilt your head just right, you can almost see the veil between realities shimmering in the light. What lies on the other side? Do we dare to step across? That way lies madness…but also maybe redemption?
37. State Hospital – Frightened Rabbit (2012)
A picture of damage and loss, held at a distance. A life lived with little attention or care from those around. And the tiny threads of hope that allow you to keep putting one foot in front of the other. The possibility that someone might be waiting around the next corner to make it all seem worthwhile.
38. Don’t You Want to Share the Guilt – Kate Nash (2010)
This song build and builds, from something tiny and pure all the way up to a mad rant. And each move along the path is perfectly executed. To me, it hinges on the section just as the tide is turning, a little under three minutes in, when she whispers “listen” and the notes that follow are so piercingly clear. It’s when you begin to sense that something truly stunning is about to take place. And oh my does she deliver on that promise.
39. Sad Girls Club – Katie Ellen (2017)
It walks the knife’s edge between exuberance and depression with incredible poise. It seethes with anger, but cut sharply by an unshakeable sense of compassion. It’s a hymn for those who have been told to hide their pain and put on a happy face. For those who can no longer bear to maintain the illusion. And it absolutely slays.
40. Hope U Had Phun! – The Dirty Diamonds (2010)
It jumps right on top of you from the first note, wrapping you up in the most brilliantly orchestrated piece of New Wave, lo-fi, in your face girl-pop. This one of the most joyous songs of the decade, made all the better because I still can’t really understand why it works so well.
41. In Reverse – The War On Drugs (2014)
The emotional core of one of the best albums of the decade, this song resolves–or at least provides closure on–many of the themes that define the record: loss, separation, and depression. It opens with a long, slow wash. After several minutes, Granduciel enters the soundscape, sounding weary but still somehow hopeful. Then, halfway through, the song fully unfurls and it’s a genuinely cathartic moment of release.
42. Into You – Ariana Grande (2016)
An all-time great pop song. Her voice is sultry but pure. The beat insistent. The songwriting immaculate. And when she sings “I’m so into you,” taking a journey across several octaves in the process, your heart melts to a little puddle on the floor.
43. True Love and a Free Life of Free Will – Japandroids (2017)
Probably my favorite drumming of the decade, not for its complexity but for its brutal, glorious simplicity. It’s a simple round on repeat, but it gets inside of you and relentlessly builds until you feel like the whole world will blow to pieces.
44. Cotton Skies – Westkust (2019)
Roll down the windows and let this one blast out at full volume. Ride the storm until it lifts you straight up into heaven. This song rips. There’s really no other way to put it.
45. The Face of God – Camp Cope (2018)
I think a lot these days about just how much we ask of those who have been victimized. How little we are willing to listen. How certain we are that they must by lying, because we’re terrified to acknowledge just how normal this all is. It fills me with rage, and with an unspeakable sadness, a longing for the world to be as gentle and as kind as my heart insists that it should be.
46. In Heaven – Japanese Breakfast (2016)
It shimmers in the dark, like a distant city skyline on a cold November night. Then she starts singing and your breath catches in your throat, the way it does when someone’s about to tell you bad news and is just shuffling around, looking for the right words. But just as the bleakness threatens to overwhelm, she unleashes a chorus – so pure, so heartbreakingly sad, so beautiful – and the whole world shifts under your feet.
47. Troublemaker – Camera Obscura (2013)
So much to love about this song. The bridge is amazing – and the way it leads back into the fadeout is a wonderfully sustained interplay of harmonies and guitar. But ultimately I’m drawn back to the ringing guitar line that frames the song, and to Tracyanne Campbell’s glorious delivery.
48. Blank Space – Taylor Swift (2014)
It strikes the perfect balance between genuine non-ironic commitment to the premise and a slouching meta-commentary on what it’s like to be the biggest pop star in the world. The cleverness of the lyric is wonderfully counterpointed by a soaring vocal performance that makes a relatively compressed audio range feel incredibly expansive.
49. Always Gold – Radical Face (2011)
The opening verse to this song is one of my favorite musical moments of the decade. It is simple, beautiful, and aches all the way down to the marrow. It tells more in a few lines than most novels can mange. The plaintiveness of his voice is pitch-perfect, communicating a sort of triumphant resignation.
50. No More Shelter – Joan Shelley (2015)
Maybe the closest thing this world will ever come to a perfect hymn.
Honorable Mentions:
San Francisco (Little Daylight Remix) – The Mowgli’s (2013)
Words – Outer Spaces (2016)
One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend) – Wilco (2011)
Song For Zula – Phosphorescent (2013)
Green Light – Lorde (2017)
It’s Not My Fault, I’m Happy – Passion Pit (2012)
So Here We Are – Gordi (2016)
New Lover – Josh Ritter (2013)
Troublemaker, Doppelganger – Lucy Dacus (2016)
Dancing on My Own – Robyn (2010)