Commencing part four of my ten-part review of critic’s choices for the 52 best albums of 2010-2019! (Wait! What? 52? There is a reason, see below…) If you missed the earlier editions, you can find them here:

(Part 1 Part 2 Part 3)

This is one of three musical blog series I’m doing this year. So go check out the latest installments of my overview of the critical consensus on the 20 best albums of 2020, and my monthly review of new releases en route to finding the best 21 albums of 2021.

So, wait, did I say 52? This is what happened: I took “best of decade” lists from the AV Club, Billboard, Jim DeRogatis, Greg Kot, the New Yorker, New Music Express, Paste, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and Vice. For any album that appeared at least once in these lists, I tallied up votes between them. Albums getting 4 votes and up totaled 52, which was close enough to a top 50 that I decided to go with that as a cutoff.

I’m doing 10 total posts of 5 each (or 6 each on the last two) and then a final wrap-up. With that explained, let’s get on with Part 4!

Celebration Rock (Japandroids, 2012, 5 votes)– Hey, that’s some good rock! At least on the opening track. It’s got the guitar. It’s got the backbeat. It’s got surging passionate vocals. It’s got the feedback fade after. They totally know how rock song structure works as well, and there are affecting lyrics. Without sounding absolutely the same track after track, there isn’t a track that stops rocking. God bless Canadians, I sometimes think they’re the only ones who still get it.

    

Black Messiah (D’Angelo & the Vanguard, 2014, 5 votes)– In a previous iteration of this kind of exercise a few years back, I had been confidently informed by critics that D’Angelo’s album Voodoo was one of the best albums of the 00s. I had trouble getting there. It was good stuff, but I couldn’t see what I was getting from it that I wouldn’t, for example, get from Prince (who it felt heavily derivative of). I’m having a similar reaction to this. To be fair, though, I suppose this could be considered praising by faint damnation, since that’s a pretty darn elevated reference point.

Channel ORANGE (Frank Ocean, 2012, 7 votes)– This is the second of two albums of his that made the list, and the chronologically earlier of the two (the other one being Blonde from 2016). Well done Frank! Like that album, the autotuned nature of some of the vocals here gives me pause. Also, like that album, the lyrical wit, interesting sampling and production, and varied musical approaches utterly overcomes those reservations. I can see how this got listed, especially since it came out first!

Control (SZA, 2017, 7 votes)– Musically sophisticated, emotionally honest, and lyrically complex R&B. Some tracks are harrowing, some sweetly vulnerable, some sarcastic, and some downright hilarious, like Doves in The Wind in which she (SZA is the stage name of Solána Imani Rowe) uses samples from Westerns and Kung-fu movies and a guest appearance by Kendrick Lamar to explore the obsession with pussy. On the downside, it’s got more than a bit of the “autotuned” sound that’s the bane of the decade and maybe falls a little short in overall coherence. Part of the issue may be that, as the 19th album from the list I’ve listened to, I’m now comparing it to the very best-structured albums from the list. That’s pretty minor sour grapes considering how high quality this is, and how powerful she is.

Currents (Tame Impala, 2015, 4 votes)– This is a little trippy, which I hear is their jam. But, more on the dance/electronic side of trippy, with some new wave influence. It reminds me, perhaps, of something the Flaming Lips might put out, except from them I’d expect even more weirdness, and also more overarching album structure. The tracks are also tending a lot toward sameness. Not bad, by any means, but I’m not convinced this adds up to a “decade best” album.

And that’s it for this installment! 20 down, 32 to go…