#40 New York Narcotic - The Knocks (2018)

Full credit to me even knowing this album existed goes to Foster the People, with whom The Knocks partnered with on ‘Ride or Die,’ which appears on this album. While it’s a little all over the place stylistically, with Big Boi, Method Man, Sir Sly, Sofi Tukker and Alexis Krauss (formerly of Sleigh Bells) all featuring as well. Even so, it’s a ton of fun and a nice change of pace whether you came for the alternative or hip-hop features.

Favorite Track: Ride or Die, feat. Foster the People

#39 AM - Arctic Monkeys (2013)

Sometimes you listen to an album and just know that it’s the artist at their peak. AM feels as if it was the moment Arctic Monkeys were building to, accompanied by a tour that somehow seemed to include headlining every music festival on the planet. The album is certainly a little front-loaded, leading off with the first two singles ‘Do I Wanna Know’ and ‘R U Mine.’ The back half is a bit chiller, and overall it’s a good balance of the two sides of the band. I appreciated this more after hearing the follow up, 2018’s Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino, which is all chill with none of the rock.

Favorite Track: R U Mine?

#38 Lover - Taylor Swift (2019)

I was skeptical about this album before its release. I didn’t love ‘Reputation’ and it felt very up in the air as to which direction Taylor Swift would go next. The album’s first single, ‘ME!',’ with Brendan Urie didn’t help. I think it’s the worst song on the album, which ended up being a compliment. 'Cruel Summer,’ ‘I Think He Knows,’ ‘Paper Rings,’ ‘Cornelia Street’ and ‘London Boy’ are all jams and help make Lover one of her best albums. I think it was a legitimate question what Taylor Swift would do if she couldn’t wright breakup songs after they were her bread and butter for a decade. Turns out she’s gonna be just fine.

Favorite Track: Cruel Summer

#37 Some Nights - fun. (2012)

It feels fairly routine now for songs that could be classified as modern alternative to make the jump to pop radio (they spend about 6 months on alternative stations first, but that’s beside the point). In terms of this era, it feels like that started with fun.’s ‘We Are Young,’ which was absolutely unavoidable on radio and at at school dances if you were in high school at the time. It seems strange that this was the band’s last record (they only made two), but they went out on a high note, though maybe note quite as high as some of the notes Nate Ruess hits on the album.

Favorite Track: All Alright

#36 LAUNCH FLY LAND - Dreamers (2019)

Dreamers were a band I was only briefly aware of before this album, the song ‘Sweet Disaster’ off their debut album This Album Does Not Exist having hung around the alternative charts for a while in 2016. But when the single ‘Screws’ dropped as part of an EP last year, I was immediately hooked. The song didn’t end up on “LAUNCH FLY LAND” but it has the same energy as the album (you could say it was thing LAUNCHing point…). In a way it was the appetizer for the main course. It was easily one of my favorite albums this year, with ‘Someway, Somehow’ a strong contender for my favorite song of 2019.

Favorite Track: Someway, Somehow

#35 Be Impressive - The Griswolds (2015)

I don’t really have any deep thoughts on this album, it’s just fun. How can you not like a song whose title (‘Beware the Dog’) is a metaphor that goes out of the way to avoid cursing and not call an ex-girlfriend a bitch, but then has a part in the chorus where the singer yells “and now you’re fucking crazy!” The rest of the album maintains that same carefree attitude (‘Thread the Needle’ being perhaps the one exception, an unexpectedly serious song), and is one of the albums on this list you’re least likely to have heard (would recommend).

Favorite Track: If You Wanna Stay

#34 My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy - Kanye West (2010)

If you know my music taste, you don’t I don’t listen to a ton of rap. I’ll dabble here and there (I felt bad leaving all three of good kid, m.A.A.d city, To Pimp a Butterfly, and DAMN. off this list) but mostly just listen to individual songs rather than albums. That said, I’m not sure what to tell someone who can’t appreciate that MBDTF is art. Kanye’s recent (solo) music and bizarre political misadventures have made me nostalgic and wishing that I had appreciated this album when it came out rather than several years later.

Favorite Track: Runaway (I could listen to this song on repeat for hours)

#33 The 1975 - The 1975 (2013)

The first album to feature from one of my favorite artists of the decade is, fittingly, their first. At some point in 2012, iTunes (lol) made ‘Chocolate’ their Free Single of the Week, and I had probably heard it on Q101 (RIP) at some point and decided it was worth the minimal space on my iPod. At the time I didn’t listen to much more of the album, but went back to it when their second album was released (we’ll get to that). There’s some standout phenomenal songs on this record, some of which are still among my most-listed to now. Sex, drugs and synth-infused rock and roll.

Favorite Track: Sex

#32 Dream Your Life Away - Vance Joy (2014)

While for most of this album Vance Joy is backed by a band, I’d happily listen to every song on this album as just him and an acoustic guitar. It’s perfect music for reading, working, driving or cramming for finals (most likely my original purpose for it). If you’re ever just looking for some chill music to put on you could do a lot worse than this.

Favorite Track: Red Eye

#31 My Mind Makes Noises - Pale Waves (2018)

Credit to a combination of Walk the Moon and The 1975 for brining this band into my life. They were discovered by The 1975’s Matty Healy and referred to Dirty Hit records, who signed the band. I first found out about them as the openers at a Walk the Moon Lollapalooza aftershow. The 1975 influence on the band is obvious, with similar glittery guitar sounds but a female voice instead. There’s a lot of songs about heartbreak, as you might expect from songs written over the course of high school and college, but it can be serious as well and the honesty in the lyrics is refreshing when compared to the boiler-plate pop songs that dominate much of popular music.

Favorite Track: Noises

#30 Contra - Vampire Weekend (2010)

Vampire Weekend’s self-titled first album sounded like it could have been recorded in a college dorm room. Contra sounds like the sequel, but recorded in a state of the art studio. That’s more or less what happened, as we got largely more of the same that was so popular about the first record. If you wanted to distill indie rock down to a single album, it would be hard to pick a better one than this. It’s only 36 minutes start to finish, but VW makes the most of it and Ezra Koenig packs an incredible amount of rhyming prose.

Favorite Track: Giving Up The Gun (which also has maybe my favorite music video of all time)

#29 Walk The Moon - Walk The Moon (2012)

Like the aforementioned ‘We Are Young,’ the song ‘Anna Sun’ was among those that set the tone for what alternative rock would sound like the rest of the decade. It’s too bad the rest of this album didn’t get wider attention (it would take a true mega-hit for Walk the Moon to make that leap) because it’s a phenomenal debut album. It has held up in the the band’s act as well, with their sets consistently featuring several songs from the album. Another one of those albums that’s just fun from start to finish.

Favorite Track: I Can Lift a Car

#28 The Journeyer - Anew to Wander (2017)

This will certainly win the award for least well-known album on this list. Shoutout to Joe, Patrick, Andrew and David who I got to know and had the privilage of seeing play live a couple of times during my time in Dayton, Ohio. It’s in a bit of a similar vein to the Vance Joy album, with some banjo thrown in. It’s a record that came at a time in life where I really needed it, and I’ll be thankful for this music for a very long time. Also, in the age of Spotify, the CD may be destined to live in my car’s CD player for eternity.

Favorite Track: As It Is

#27 The Bones of What You Believe - CHVRCHES (2013)

CHVRCHES have found success in sounding unlike just about any other band, with the combination of synth-driven beats sprinkled with guitar and Lauren Mayberry’s vocals. Their debut album is, in my opinion, still the best work they’ve done and another of the albums that will define what alternative music was in this decade. Any list of the best songs of the decade should certainly include ‘The Mother We Share.’

Favorite Track: The Mother We Share

#26 + (Plus) - Ed Sheeran (2011)

Like Vance Joy, none of the tracks on this album require anything beyond a guitar. The crazy thing is, almost none of the songs on + do. Sheeran is arguably the modern pioneer of the loop pedal, touring around the world with nothing but his guitar and a small box with pedals that allows him to be his own band. He’s made some really great songs since his first album, but I still think + stands out as a cohesive piece of music. Also, while the music and emotion on this album are hard to match, its most memorable moment may be the hall of fame pun that is “they say I’m up and coming like I’m fucking in an elevator.”

Favorite Track: You Need Me, I Don’t Need You

#25 Red - Taylor Swift (2012)

Taylor Swift is another of the artists who will feature multiple times on this list with what is her most respected album by websites and publications that consider themselves the arbiters of “good music”and make lists like this one that people actually care about. Red was where country music Taylor Swift ended and pop Taylor Swift began. While it seemed like the next step in Taylor Swift musically growing up (she was, as the song says, 22 at the time) in hindsight it makes sense as a stepping stone to where she was headed (‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ and ‘22’ being the best examples). But there’s plenty of “old Taylor” there too, and songs like ‘State of Grace’ and ‘Holy Ground’ feel like Fearless all grown up.

Favorite Track: All Too Well

#24 Melodrama - Lorde (2017)

It’s really hard to follow-up a hugely successful debut record. Some artists struggle to write in a couple years what, in some cases, first took them a decade or more to compile. That didn’t happen for Lorde, as Melodrama was one of the best albums of 2017. It certainly sounds more grown up than her debut, Pure Heroine, and is the reflections of someone who went from a working-class life in New Zealand to global superstardom incredibly fast. It’s clear, however, that fame hasn’t changed her and I think I speak for a lot of people when I say this album left me excited for whenever Lorde decides to make more music.

Favorite Track: Perfect Places

#23 The Suburbs - Arcade Fire (2010)

Normally, the Grammys infuriate me with their complete lack of attention paid toward alternative rock in general and basically forgetting that indie music exists (unless it’s Bon Iver). However, once in a while, they inexplicably get it spot on like in 2011 when The Suburbs won Album of the Year. I like a lot of Arcade Fire’s catalog, but The Suburbs is certainly their best work start to finish. This is also an opportunity to note that they’re one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen, and anyone who loves live music should make it a point to see them.

Favorite Track: Ready to Start

#22 Off to the Races - Jukebox the Ghost (2018)

I do love me some good piano rock, and that’s what Jukebox the Ghost give you. Sure, some of it’s pretty silly but we all need that once in a while. There’s a broadway musical quality to the vocals on some of these songs which gives them an incredibly grand sound for a three piece. Also, the band specializes in Queen covers including playing a “Hallow-queen'“ show every October, so these guys seem as likeable as their music.

Favorite Track: Everybody’s Lonely

#21 Simple Forms - The Naked and Famous (2016)

While my favorite two or three songs by The Naked and Famous aren’t on this record, it’s still certainly my favorite of their three. There’s a constant energy from beginning to end. Alisa Xayalith’s voice has both a soothing and addicting quality to it, and when combined with Thom Powers (the band’s only other permanent member) they produce some of the best harmonization I’ve ever heard in alternative music. I should say I’m a sucker for male/female vocal combos.

Favorite Track: The Runners

#20 Our Own House - Misterwives (2015)

Misterwives are the foremost members of the “bands I discovered because they opened for Twenty One Pilots” club. The best bands have something unique and identifiable about them; Misterwives have two: a guy who plays saxophone (and wears a bowtie) and Mandy Lee’s voice, which sounds as if she should have a thick, Irish brogue (she doesn’t, she’s from Queens). This album is largely an extension of their Reflections EP, much of which is included. I’ve never seen a band that looks like they’re having so much fun on stage as these guys, and their music carries that energy with it.

Favorite Track: Imagination Infatuation

#19 Lost Friends - Middle Kids (2018)

In a music world driven by singles where albums are often just a random collection of songs, it’s refreshing when albums are sonically cohesive. There’s a fine line between this and all the songs sounding the same, but Middle Kids walk the right side of that line perfectly. It’s as if Lost Friends is one long song with several different movements. There’s nothing super unique about it, it’s just really, really good music with well written lyrics. The band is a standard guitar-bass-drums trio, and there’s nothing fancy about the sound; you could easily believe you were hearing it all played live (fun fact, singer/guitarist Hannah Joy, who is left-handed, plays her guitar upside down, usually strumming up rather than down, because she learned by playing her brother’s right-handed guitar).

Favorite Track: Never Start

#18 Night Visions - Imagine Dragons (2012)

Yes, there was a time before Imagine Dragons became a meme and seemingly were booked for every sporting event. Say what you will about them or any other band selling out, but before all that they produced a debut album that I still really enjoy. While ‘It’s Time’ and ‘Radioactive’ got absolutely played to death once pop radio got ahold of them, this record has plenty of depth to it in terms of great tracks. If you’ve written off Imagine Dragons for the music they’ve produced since this (I can’t blame you) I’d go back and give this another shot even if you have to skip those two singles because you’ve heard them enough for several lifetimes.

Favorite Track: Demons

#17 Babel - Mumford and Sons (2012)

Mumford and Sons’ first album, Sigh No More, just misses out on the list having been released in 2009. It certainly would have landed among my favorites, but Babel does just fine in its place. While their music is different, this album is similar to Vampire Weekend’s Contra in that it largely preserves the sound of the band’s first record and produces equally impressive results. This album also marked the end of the first phase of Mumford, as they’ve understandably experimented a bit since this (to lesser results in my opinion, but I get not wanting to write the same kind of stuff forever). Who says rock needs drums? More banjo!

Favorite Track: Below My Feet

#16 Tourist History - Two Door Cinema Club (2010)

Another album that set the stage for alternative/indie rock this decade, Tourist History, and the introduction of the world to Two Door, was defined by the incredible speed at which these guys could continue to strum a guitar song after song after song. This started with the earworm that is ‘What You Know’ (a song that is at its best at a festival) but is also a focal point of songs like ‘I Can Talk’ and ‘Cigarettes in the Theatre.’ They’re one of a few bands on this list who have made good music since their debut but are unlikely to ever reach those initial heights.

Favorite Track: What You Know

#15 Mylo Xyloto - Coldplay (2011)

At the time, but even more so in hindsight, this album felt like the end of something. Coldplay even hinted that it might be their last record. Maybe it should have been, with how all over the place their music has gone since, but Mylo Xyloto feels like the last movie in a box set; the end of a journey from a mellow, acoustic rock band to arena-packing supergroup. There were hints of what was to come (an ill-fitting duet with Rihanna) but this still felt like a Coldplay album, with ‘Every Teardrop is a Waterfall’ matching the energy of ‘Viva la Vida’ and songs like ‘Charlie Brown’ and ‘Hurts Like Heaven’ sounding like they could have been stripped down a bit and fit right in on 2003’s A Rush of Blood to the Head. This album was also the platform for what is probably the best live concert I’ve ever seen and it will always score points for that.

Favorite Track: Don’t Let It Break Your Heart

#14 Blurryface - Twenty One Pilots (2015)

I can’t remember there being an album I anticipated more or that made me more nervous, particularly when ‘Fairly Local’ arrived as the first single and was greeted with apathy by a usually devoted fanbase (the band actually cut it out of the setlist a couple months into touring). Thankfully, things turned around quickly with the release of ‘Tear In My Heart’ as the second single and the full album which made the early concerns soon forgotten. This is the record that improbably catapulted Twenty One Pilots to the top of the world, and I feel strongly that the back half of this record (the stuff that never made the radio) is just as good as the singles. I think the most impressive thing is how long this album’s cycle lasted, with ‘Ride’s’ radio popularity peaking over a year after the album was released.

Favorite Track: Stressed Out

#13 A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships - The 1975 (2018)

The sequence of singles for this album was incredible, with ‘Give Yourself A Try,’ ‘Love It If We Made It,’ ‘TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME,’ ‘Sincerity Is Scary,’ and ‘It’s Not Living If It’s Not With You’ all being top notch. The album is also finished off with a song, ‘I Always Wanna Die Sometimes,’ that wouldn’t sound out of place on Oasis’ (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?. It’s definitely weird at points, but I listened to songs from this album basically non-stop last year. I also appreciate the honesty of this album, not just Matty Healy expressing his opinions about the world but being very transparent about the drug addiction he battled prior to this album. He didn’t need the drugs to write a great record.

Favorite Track: Give Yourself A Try

#12 Heard It In A Past Life - Maggie Rogers (2019)

“I don’t have any notes for that,” Pharrell, when the song ‘Alaska’ was played for him while visiting a class at NYU Maggie Rodgers was in (if you haven’t seen the video, you should). That’s how I feel about this album, it’s hard to think how she could have improved it. It’s perfect execution of the idea I talked about with Middle Kids, where the album all fits together without being repetitive. I’m pretty sure I could listen to her sing anything and it would sound good. It’s by far my favorite album of this year, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a few years from now I look back and move it up a few spots.

Favorite Track: Retrograde

#11 The Lumineers - The Lumineers (2012)

This is just about a perfect folk record and I bet could have been popular at any time over the last 100 years. There’s just something classic about the sound and the simplicity of an entirely acoustic album. The Lumineers probably top my current list of bands I want to see but haven’t, and much of that is a credit to this album. I’d like to think there will always be a market for this kind of music, and I’m glad the Lumineers have stayed true to the roots of this album in their more recent projects.

Favorite Track: Submarines

#10 I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it - The 1975 (2016)

One of only two artists to feature on this list three times, The 1975 cap off their inclusions with the exhaustingly named I like it when you sleep…. (I think mid-2000s Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco would be proud). If their debut record was drugs, sex and rock and roll, this record is the realization that there actually might be more to life than those things (but there’s still plenty of the first two), a realization that stems from the heartbreak that’s central to the album. Matty Healy goes searching for answers unsuccessfully in a lot of places, notably religion and inside his own head, but by the end you feel like he’s in a more positive place. By his own omission, his drug use hit its peak during the touring for this album, some of which he doesn’t remember. It’s terribly sad that he struggled for so long, but perhaps makes it even more impressive that during that process he was able to articulate his feelings as authentically as he does on this record.

Favorite Track: Paris

#9 Never Trust a Happy Song - Grouplove (2011)

And album to which my response was “what the hell?” but in a good way. The story of this band is wild, having met at a music commune in Crete back in 2009, with singer Hannah Hooper having invited singer/guitarist Christian Zucconi despite having just met him (they now have a daughter together). The eventual result was this album, which of course contrary to the title is full of almost nothing but happy songs. This album is also indirectly responsible for me discovering the #1 album on this list (see below).

Favorite Track: Itchin’ On a Photograph

#8 Pure Heroine - Lorde (2013)

This is one of those records that just made me say “holy shit” when it came out. I continue to be impressed by how a 16-year-old wrote an album like this. I’d argue it’s the best album someone Lorde’s age at the time has written (sorry Taylor Swift and Hayley Williams), and it leaves me dumbfounded how people are so impressed with Billie Eilish. It’s clear that she had seen a lot for her age, and there’s a really interesting mix of someone who feels very much like an adult but at the same time just wants to be a kid.

Favorite Track: 400 Lux

#7 1989 - Taylor Swift (2014)

While Red indicated change was coming for Taylor Swift, I don’t think anyone could have predicted that her next step would be making arguably the best pop album the decade. This album boosted by Swift looking for outside input on the writing of some songs, collaborating with the likes of Jack Antonoff (fun./Bleachers), Ryan Tedder (One Republic) and Imogen Heap. This album was unavoidable my junior year of college, and the accompanying tour was an incredible spectacle. My only real complaint is that she should have gone with ‘New Romantics’ over ‘Welcome to New York’ as the opening track, but I’ll let it slide.

Favorite Track: I Know Places

#6 Bad Blood - Bastille (2013)

It’s always incredible to watch how a single song can boost a band from complete unknowns to being absolutely everywhere. At the time, ‘Pompeii’ felt like it could be one of the biggest alternative songs of all time on a tier with the likes of ‘Mr. Brightside.’ The album wasn’t an immediate success when released in January 2013, with Pompeii gaining traction that summer and band’s rise continuing from there. I remember the first time I saw Bad Blood was in a story in Ireland that summer. The combination of instruments (they have a keyboardist rather than a guitarist) creates a bit of a unique sound, while Dan Smith’s voice is unlike anything I’ve ever heard.

Favorite Track: Flaws

#5 Modern Vampires of the City - Vampire Weekend (2013)

As great as Vampire Weekend’s first two albums were, they left the college indie rock behind with Modern Vampires. It’s as if the band, and their music, decided it was time to face life’s more serious questions. Religion is a central theme, as Ezra Koenig’s writing grows in its sophistication. He makes you think in a way beyond the barrage of puns and references you might have had to look up on the first two albums, and the result is his best work.

Favorite Track: Step

#4 Torches - Foster the People (2011)

I’ve mentioned how a few albums were indicators of where alternative music was headed, but perhaps no album deserves that distinction more than Torches. I think it could have been released at any point this decade and been popular. ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ is also a strong contender for alternative song of the decade, having peaked at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100. So many songs on this album have remained favorites of mine, and I think this album was also important to me in that it came out around the time I was just really getting into music and realizing there’s much more to bands then the songs that make the radio.

Favorite Track: Don’t Stop (Color on the Walls)

#3 Go Farther In Lightness - Gang of Youths (2017)

There are a combination of people (you know who you are if you’re reading this) who are responsible for my discovery of various artists on this list, but Gang of Youths may be the only one that was a direct recommendation (thanks, Jeffers). The first song I heard was ‘The Heart Is a Muscle,’ one of the best rock ballads I’ve ever heard. It’s not somber, but rather a man releasing everything he feels inside. I really connected with it, and it served as an introduction to the rest of the album. It breaks all the conventional rules. The songs are mostly long (averaging just under 5 minutes) and there are orchestral pieces that flow out of one song and seamlessly into another a few minutes later. This creates an album clearly intended to be listened to straight through, yet the songs stand on their own just fine. Given that you’re likely familiar with many of the artists on this list, if I can recommend one album to you on this list it’s this one.

Favorite Track: The Heart Is a Muscle

#2 Talking is Hard - Walk the Moon (2014)

Walk the Moon are a band who managed to succeed at the difficult task of following up a relatively successful first album with an even more successful second. This was in no small part to ‘Shut Up and Dance,’ one of the most memorable songs of the decade and now permanent fixture on most wedding playlists. I love that song as much as anyone else, but it’s too bad the rest of the album didn’t get the same amount of attention. Walk the Moon may go down as a one-hit-wonder in the popular consciousness but their work, particularly this album, deserves better than that. They also put on a hell of a show.

Favorite Track: Portugal

#1 Vessel - Twenty One Pilots (2013)

My introduction to this album, and Twenty One Pilots as a band, was walking into a Grouplove show in Chicago a few minutes late to see Tyler Joseph playing the song ‘House of Gold’ on his ukulele. What unfolded over the next half hour was the craziest opening act performance I’ve ever seen. Despite the fact that few people there seemed to have any clue who these two were, by the end of the set the crowd was going crazy. Tyler Joseph climbed into the balcony and jumped through luxury boxes; Josh Dunn backflipped off a piano. It then just so happened they were playing at Notre Dame a few weeks later, where I saw them play to less than 100 people at a bar on campus. Within a few weeks, I had memorized the entire album; I couldn’t get enough of it. I would list my favorite tracks, but that would be almost the entire record. It is amazing to look back on how far they’ve come in the last seven years. I never could have imagined that I’d be seeing them with 20,000 people in an arena less than six years after that show in South Bend. This is one of my favorite albums ever, and I consistently go back to it. It’s without question my favorite album of the past decade, and I doubt if any album will top it for me in the next decade.