Here begins part seven of our ten-part review of the critic’s choices for the best 52 albums of 2010-2019! (One for each card in the deck! That wasn’t the reason for choosing the number, though. See further below.)

If you missed the earlier installments, you can read them here:

( Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 )

This is one of three musical blog series I’m doing this year. So go check out the final installment of my overview of the critic’s choices for the 20 best albums of 2020, and my latest monthly review of 2021 new releases as I search for the 21 best albums of 2021.

Okay, now that you’ve read all that, why 52? 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.

This series will have 10 posts of 5 albums each (or 6 each on the last two) and then a final wrap-up. And with that, let’s get on with Part 7!

Invasion of Privacy (Cardi B, 2018, 6 votes)– Strong bold vocal flow? Check. Self-empowered swagger? Check. Spare, clean, sampling and production full of interesting choices? Check. Tracks that get your head bobbing, and strike a variety of moods? Check. Songs that are about something and show moments of reflection and vulnerability among the swagger? Check. Sometimes the guest stars get a little distracting, but otherwise this is pure gold.

 

Lemonade (Beyonce, 2016, 7 votes)– Her voice, of course, is never less than amazing. But that’s almost the least of the things going on here. Multilayered production, clever and varied musical choices, deeply personal lyrics that tackle the political and the private (sometimes the very private matter of marital infidelity), with equal parts biting humor, anger, and raw vulnerability. It kind of puts every other pop record of the decade on notice for their lack of ambition.

Lonerism (Tame Impala, 2012, 5 votes)– Some years ago, I was driving through the wilds of western New York with my wife when we heard something on the radio so weird and wonderful that we immediately had to know what it was. It turned out to be Tame Impala’s song “Elephant” from this album. I’ve listed to two later Tame Impala albums in this blog series and my 2020 review, and expected them to be amazing based on that song, but was decidedly underwhelmed. It turns out this is the album I was looking for the whole time after all. It’s a (distorted) pitch-perfect neo-psychedelic masterpiece from start to finish.

Lost In The Dream (The War on Drugs, 2014, 4 votes)– It starts off vocally and musically billowy and  golden, but with maybe too smooth a production. And yep, track two is in the same vein, it reminds me of the 80s, and not in a good way, but in a victory of airtight musical package over authenticity/vitality kind of way. I mean, it’s technically very good, there are some flourishes I enjoy, but I don’t really feel anything the whole way through.

LP1 (FKA Twigs, 2014, 4 votes)– I must confess, I’d heard the name, but I had no idea what kind of twig an FKA twig was. So this was all pleasant surprise- the theatrical vocals, air of vulnerability, music based in dance/pop but full of experimental edge and offbeat surprises. Tahliah Debrett Barnett (FKA Twigs is her musical stage name) is an English singer-songwriter, record producer, dancer, and actress, aka she’s overflowing with talent, and all of it is on display here. It never let go of my attention the whole way through.  

And here we close for now, 35 in and 17 to go…