The Best/My 25 Favorite Albums of the Last 10 Years (2005-2014)

I've never had a desire to do this list until about 2 weeks ago. I've been stocking up on my "half-decade" list (2010-2014) since I've been back home from my mission. At the end of 2014, I realized: The hour hath cometh. But I've lately wondered: How do 2010 albums compare to 2009 albums? One does not simply cross decades of music! Or can you?
I didn't become a Pitchfork junkie until 2008-2009, but I got into Rolling Stone around 2006-2007. So it's fair for me to say I've been following music intently for almost all the last 10 years. If I made this list go any further back, I'd be lying to myself about actually remembering when these albums came out. Also, for me, albums from over 10 years ago have reached a new level of vintage status.
It was hard to make this list. It was 2013 when I started listening to (roughly) a new album every week! So I have a firm opinion on music from the latter end of this 10-year span. However, I also have nostalgic emotions toward my beginning days of reading music reviews and year-end lists in the late oughties. When making this list, I had over 50 different albums I considered putting on it. I have a long, admirable "honorable mentions" list of albums basically tied for 26th place. It was sad to see a lot of these albums not make this list. But who cares...
The last 10 years have possibly been the worst 10 years in music history (and things will probably only get worse). It's hard for me to say the music world has made a lot of "progress," yet it seems like there's something new brought to the table every year. That's just how it works. This list covers albums that demonstrate studio production progressiveness, new songwriting approaches and front-to-back quality of listen-ability. And small doses of my personal bias.
So here it is: A top 25 collection of the best- or perhaps the most influential-- or perhaps just my personal favorite--- albums from the past 10 years.

#25~ The Flaming Lips Embryonic [2009]

Lots of folks (Flaming Lips fans included) don't like Embryonic because it took away the confetti cannons and Wayne Coyne's space-bubble crowd-surfing from their fun live shows, but this gives a guy like me reason to love it.
This album is a dark, heavy, patient take on what's basically an intergalactic jungle remake of Physical Graffiti (including some discomforting music videos).






#24~ Kanye West My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy [2010]
Why This Album Could Be #1:
Dark Fantasy, Gorgeous, POWER, Monster, Devil in a New Dress, Lost in the World, Gil Scott-Heron outro, horns on All of the Lights, Pusha T's Runaway verse, Chris Rock talking about Twista's watch on Blame Game, overall cohesiveness.
Why This Album Shouldn't Be On This List:
Nicki Minaj storybook intro, every guest artist on All of the Lights, So Appalled's lazy chorus, Runaway's lazy chorus, Hell of a Life's lazy chorus, John Legend's lines on Blame Game, corny melodramatics.



#23~ Flying Lotus Cosmogramma [2010]

Cosmogramma is an important step in the world of electronica, a genre I usually don't care about.
The incorporation of jazz music is respected even by the highest standard of jazz purists and production emphasizes on zany keyboard sounds and FlyLo's signature chopped-up beats.








#22~ Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago [2007/2008]

As long as this list has something to do with their influence on modern culture, I'm going to put it on here.
And screw it, I love this album.










#21~ Dirty Projectors Bitte Orca [2009]
There's not a lot to say about the last 30 years of prog rock, although Dirty Projectors have always been weird enough to fit the genre.
Their strategy here is to both strip down prog to its basics and utilize their pop senses, making for some beautiful, harmonic, rare "prog-pop" music.







#20~ TV On The Radio Return To Cookie Mountain [2006]
Here we have some harmonic, blues-influenced vocal parts blended in with mysterious noise instrumentation.
At times it comes of as complex and dark, and some times it can sound natural and soulful.

#19~ Run The Jewels Run The Jewels 2 [2014]
This can be passed off as a nice little cocky indie-rap album from two aging hip-hop veterans, but Killer Mike and El-P cover an important topic here.
Between the (sometimes comical) images of violence and self-centered bragging, there's a dark reality hanging over the conscience of RTJ: Death.

#18~ LCD Soundsystem This Is Happening [2010]

Not only did James Murphy have to follow up a decade's worth of singles critics were hailing as modern classics, he had been considering discontinuing LCD Soundsystem as a whole.
This album is their most fun, mixing some nonsensical and romantic lyrics with musical throwbacks to electo-new wave, cementing the band's legacy.







#17~ J Dilla Donuts  [2006]
I guess 'instrumental hip-hop" wasn't a new genre in 2006, but Dilla made it sound like it was.
The sampling on here still sounds fresh and fantastic, the beats are still original and this 31-song compilation jerks from track-to-track with surprising flavors at every corner.








#16~ Destroyer Kaputt [2011]

Indie songwriting veteran Dan Bejar destroys any signs of indie rock and pop in exchange for a lovable, surprisingly suave and sexy musical display of early '80s soft rock, disco and jazz.
In the songwriting world, I have a thing for old men, and due Kaputt's  sonic value and relevant, stream-of-conscience lyrical content, I refuse to call this a "novelty" album.

#15~ Panda Bear Person Pitch [2007]
With Animal Collective winning streak of 2000s albums, what else could have Noah Lennox possibly added?
This album is as much a producer's goldmine where the sound schema is a matter of distance, reverb and random sampling, creating a magically genre-less album that sounds like it's buried under ice.

#14~ M.I.A. Kala [2007]
M.I.A. enters the big leagues on Kala.
After impressing us with her catchy world-music rap of Arular, she experiences even more modern electronica, claustrophobic lo-fi beats, a wide array of guest artists both popular and underground and even disco.

#13~ Kanye West Late Registration [2005]
Kanye takes a step up from 2004's The College Dropout and presents an album full of fresh '70s R&B samples, hypnotic melodies and impressive lyrical concepts.
Switching back and forth between laughable pride and unique political commentary, this album makes for an eyebrow-raising conceptual experience.

#12~ The Knife Silent Shout [2006]
With this album, The Knife introduce a new artistic personality and become what some still call the perfect band.
Yes, it's dark, but its wide variety rhythms (from world music to Euro-techno) are crazy and Fever Ray's vocal delivery is so unique, it's as creepy as it is goofy.








11~ Vampire Weekend Modern Vampires Of The City [2013]

Modern Vampires is a triumph in both the songwriting and studio production world.
The band's songs are as catchy as ever, yet somehow their usual sunshine pop turns into a murky fog driven by cathedral-esque keyboards, instrumental experimentation and Ezra Koenig's tongue-in-cheek outlooks on God and growing old.







#10~ Burial Untrue [2007]
What is dubstep-- or rather, what has it become?
This album will change the way you think of beats and without only a few, distant spoken-words, it tells a story of adolescent city life.









#9~ Sun Kil Moon Benji [2014]
At age 47, Mark Kozelek released some of the deepest, most personal music of his career (making it some of the most personal music you'll ever hear).
Benji tells life stories (everything from '70s childhood movies to dying relatives) accompanied by raw acoustic instrumentation, making for an eternally gorgeous, 1-man road trip album.






#8~ Fleet Foxes Fleet Foxes/Sun Giant EP [2008]
Every man in a plaid jacket with an acoustic guitar and a thick beard starting up a multi-vocalist chill indie rock band should take all the money from their pockets and mail it to Seattle, WA.
The 16 gorgeous, mountainous tracks between these two releases definitely weren't the first indie folk songs to hit the scene, but what they have done to the genre has changed everything from the Ho-Hey's and the Take-Me-To-Church-ey production styles all the way to the very clothing worn by that one guy who always shows up to your bonfires.




#7~ Deerhunter Halcyon Digest [2010]
Indie rock has become a thing of the past, and I'm not saying that Halcyon Digest killed it or that it perfected it, yet somehow the genre's gone nowhere since it's release.
Bradford Cox dubs his voice on every track like he's a pop star underwater, Locket Pundt's guitars range from fuzzy marijuana lounging to bright shoe-gazing and with some various percussion approaches, this album turns into a fun, psychedelic, low-budget adventure for the lonely (and/or stoned).




#6~ Radiohead In Rainbows [2007]
In 2007, I really thought I was a cool kid in high school for being the only guy who listened to Radiohead, but in my 2015 college days, it's like EVERYBODY annoyingly worships In Rainbows.
(sigh) I'd hate to admit it, but fact is... between the sci-fi keyboards, lush guitars, beautifully executed strings arrangements and its hopeless-yet-romantic tracks... it's a freaking good album.








#5~ Beach House Teen Dream [2010]
I dare say, this is both the dreamiest (ex: Galaxie 500) and poppiest (ex: Fleetwood Mac) dream pop album ever made.
I've yet to hear such a lo-fi album sound so pretty and radio-pop inspired, with Alex Scally's Hawaiian shoegaze guitars meshing with an impressive variety of percussions (both raw and electronic) and the sentimental, harrowing, heartbreaking, soulful singing of Victoria Legrand working together to make these 10, ridiculously lovable songs.





#4~ LCD Soundsystem Sound Of Silver [2007]
This album proved that James Murphy was more than the anxious Steve Malkmus songwriter of the EDM world.
These songs take influence from a slew of innovative '70s artists (Brian Eno, Lou Reed, David Bowie, David Byrne, Steve Reich, to name a few) and fuse them with modern techno tactics for the musical recipe while Murphy delivers some of the smartest, most unique lyrics ever written on eternal friendships and the falsehoods of the New York partying life.




#3~ Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavilion [2009]
Just to settle any contention (or perhaps I'm raising some), everything from hereon out is stuff I've considered being #1.
Meanwhile, Animal Collective released a run of (what I believe to be) 4 great LPs before MPP, and it's amazing to me that they were able to top all of them with an album that changed the course of synth-pop of all genres with this progressively psychedelic, exciting, grandiose, bright, positive, romantic, accessible album that remains as harmonic and weird as their past work.





#2~ Sufjan Stevens Illinois [2005]

Illinois is an adventurous ode to the state of Illinois with a dazzling, ambitiously vast variety of raw instrumentation, layered on top of each other in the most theatrical Aaron Copeland/100% American manner, a humbled singer telling childhood stories, his relationship with God and in-depth Illinois history lessons, making for epic songs structured like you're walking home (filled with a heart full of love and painful questions) after watching the 4th of July fireworks with all your best friends.
So basically, I'll never think of folk music the same way again.




#1~ Kendrick Lamar good kid, m.A.A.d city [2012]
Via the stories told within the songs and the recorded phone call samples abridging its tracks, Kendrick Lamar's major label debut tells the story of a shy Kendrick at age 17, having a night on the town in Compton, CA with the "homies" where he hooks up with his hoodrat girlfriend Sherane, robs somebody's house, gets drunk, watches a man get killed then comes to Jesus.
Each song is like a monument in their own right to their concepts, as Dr. Dre's lead-production beats sound crisper than a $100 bill, the music shifts drastically from track-to-track and Kendrick spits at the mike like he's the voice of poverty... or perhaps just the voice of The New King.




EXTENSIVE/LOVEABLE ALBUM TITLES HONORABLE MENTIONS LIST
2005: I Am A Bird Now, Feels, Arular, The Sunset Tree, The Woods, LCD Soundsystem
2006: Hell Hath No Fury, Boys And Girls In America, Fishscale, The Warning, Ys
2007: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, Night Falls Over Kortedala, Strawberry Jam, Hissing Fauna..., Boxer
2008: Vampire Weekend, Microcastle, Nouns, Dear Science
2009: Album, Fever Ray, Veckatimest
2011: Helplessness Blues, Bon Iver, Strange Mercy
2012: The Money Store, Channel Orange, The Idler Wheel...
2013: Settle, Sunbather
2014: To Be Kind, LP1