MusicOlogy presents… The Top 50 Albums In Ology History: our look back at the best albums, mixtapes and EPs of the past three years.
Since January 2009, our crack team of smarter than the average bear music editors has scoured every last corner of the internet to bring you… the frustratingly smart and dazzlingly attractive readers of Ology.com… the absolute best new music in the world. From leaks to street dates, reviews to Rewinds, we've brought you all the latest in pop, hip-hop, indie/alternative rock and more with wit, know-how and, most of all, enough tasteless sarcasm to last two or three more lifetimes.
| Related: The 10 Best Indie/Alternative Albums Of 2012 (Halfway Edition) |
Three and half years and a billion cups of coffee later, we presented ourselves with a seemingly simple challenge: compile the definitive list of the 50 greatest music releases in the history of our (we think) pretty awesome web destination. What did that entail, exactly? So glad you asked. Since April, music editors Brett Warner and JT Langley have been digging through three years worth of music, checking out your suggestions, staying up sleepless nights and eventually debating, deciding and arm-wrestling the pool down to a final 50.
We've been rolling out the entire list every Monday all this month here at MusicOlogy, so be sure to check out the complete list following the Top 10 below.
Alright, let's finish this thing...
Amy Winehouse
Lioness: Hidden Treasures (2011)
Despite the tragic loss, death doesn’t come into play in terms of the quality opinion of Amy Winehouse’s posthumous Lioness: Lost Treasures, because the exceptionality of the style maintains everything we’ve known of her prior as one of the premier female vocalists keeping soul alive in mainstream music. While Lioness still wears the revivalist tag, Amy’s unique direction alongside Salaam Remi’s production breathe contemporary music themes into an era long-lost to modern generations. It may not be Amy’s magnum opus, but in terms of sound, it’s rare to come across an artist so famed for adapting core elements of music simply through instinct rather than direct effort. Were time backwards, it isn’t difficult to believe that predecessors such as Etta James or Linda Jones wouldn’t find Amy’s Lioness: Lost Treasures a direct influence and innovation. - JT
Our Favorites: "Like Smoke," "Halftime" and "Body And Soul" (feat. Tony Bennett).
The Roots
How I Got Over (2010)
undun (2011)
Timelessness in hip-hop is becoming a highly-exclusive outside of the early pioneers, and is usually arranged around specific albums and events rather than entities, so while their career spans nearly two decades, The Roots proved through How I Got Over and undun that their impeccable ability to creatively advance hip-hop in a manner inexhaustible to thought is something far from expiring. Whereas 2009’s How I Got Over wrote more commercial commentary through a traditional layout, undun drove further into artistic concept, being very much an album of literary quality centered around the unforgettable character of Redford Stevens and his relation to the human condition as is presented in reverse-chronology. The Roots have become perfect in terms of riding the limbo between the mainstream and socially conscious rap, and they continue to give us some of the greatest expression of life through exceptional sounds that trailblaze through their every note. - JT
Our Favorites: "Right On," "Dear God 2.0" and "Radio Daze" (How I Got Over); "I Remember," "Tip The Scale" and "Kool On" (undun).
M83
Hurry Up, We're Dreaming (2011)
Anthony Gonzalez's sixth (and first double) M83 album is a majestic, sprawling, gorgeous journey through fluorescent dreams, midnight cities, and childhood afternoons set to the sometimes propulsive, sometimes agonizingly beautiful sounds of his vast sonic palette: thumping '80s drums, waves of shoegazing keyboards, fluttering dream pop guitar chords, and (most endearingly of all) Gonzalez's own voice, sounding even more beautifully adrift than ever. A double-album without a moment of wasted space, Hurry Up, We're Dreaming expands wondrously on the John Hughes nostalgia trip of Saturdays = Youth by incorporating even more ambient, modern classical, experimental folk, and analogue electronica influences. Hell, it even boasts the best saxophone solo since "I Still Believe"! By keeping one foot in the past and aiming both eyes towards the future, M83 expunged the best record of their career and maybe even 2011 at large. Hit the lights, grab the car keys, and expect to drive around until the dawn—Hurry Up, We're Dreaming is an undisputable new classic. - Brett
Our Favorites: "Midnight City," "OK Pal" and "Splendor."
Grizzly Bear
Veckatimest (2009)
It surprised no one to hear Grizzly Bear music in the background of director Derek Cianfrance's devastating Blue Valentine. With Veckatimest, the Brooklyn indie rockers delved further into the lilting, harmony-laden acoustic blueprint of Yellow House, delivering a song cycle so aesthetically brittle, so emotionally fragile, you can't help but fear it will disintegrate if approached too closely. From the breezy post-Beach Boys harmonies of "Two Weeks" through the somber piano dirge of "Foreground," the band—built largely around the vocals and multi-instrumental prowess of Ed Droste and Daniel Rossen—positively exhales this music, creating rapturously detailed soundscapes full of heartbreak, wanderlust and a transporting, almost tangible sense of sonic space. To our ears, Veckatimest ranks high amongst the most achingly essential indie releases of the past decade—listen to this thing in its entirety alone and attempt not to crumble. - Brett
Our Favorites: "Two Weeks," "Cheerleader" and "Ready, Able."
The Weeknd
House Of Balloons/Thursday/Echoes Of Silence (2011)
R&B music has ridden a consistent pattern of artists making themselves visible in pieces as they climbed to fame rather than suddenly appearing from the nowhere, and The Weeknd managed to not only breach the typical system with his opening House of Balloons that essentially dropped from the sky, but evaporated any artist in proximity to the style he introduced himself in. It’s difficult to recall someone so talented at expressing true depression and the dismal aspects of life in such a spectral musical manner without falling away from producing hits, and The Weeknd’s unrivaled talent in his strange codeine-overdosed corner of R&B is something we can’t help but require as a soundtrack to the more negative aspects of life. House of Balloons, Thursday and Echoes of Silence were something 2011 could never have expected, and despite his reclusive nature, The Weeknd surpassed much of music overnight with his beautiful misanthropy and haunting ideology. - JT
Our Favorites: "High For This," "The Morning" and "Coming Down" (House of Balloons); "The Zone" (feat. Drake), "Life of the Party" and "The Birds Pt. 1" (Thursday), "Montreal," "The Fall" and "Echoes of Silence" (Echoes of Silence).
Kendrick Lamar
Overly Dedicated (2010)
Section.80 (2011)
At this point, there’s very little you can say about Kendrick Lamar, so I’m going to leave it at that. His brilliance has surpassed the ability to be summarized, and he is without question the future of hip-hop music. - JT
Our Favorites: "The Heart Pt. 2" (feat. Dash Snow), "Ignorance Is Bliss" and "She Needs Me (Remix)" (feat. Dom Kennedy and MURS) (Overly Dedicated); "A.D.H.D.," "F*ck Your Ethnicity" and "HiiiPoWer" (Section.80).
Adele
21 (2011)
Nothing on golden-voiced London singer Adele Adkins's debut album 19 could have prepared fans, listeners, critics and sales statisticians for her beyond blockbuster follow-up effort. Originally intended as a more upbeat sequel to her bluesy folk debut, the album famously poured out of Adele in the wake of her painful breakup with a man 10 years her senior. The results were bolder, tighter, cleaner and more gut-wrenching than anything else on the radio or elsewhere in 2011, from the knife in the chest gospel howl of "Rolling In The Deep" to the funereal catharsis of "Someone Like You." 21 filled the Amy Winehouse void in a big way, channeling Adele's no-nonsense heartache and her ear for retro soul-pop melody into a monster of an album, one that's still breaking hearts and sales records across the globe. It's no fluke we're all still buying copies—more than a year on, Adele's triumphant sophomore LP is a still pop revelation and one of the few undisputed new classics of the 21st century. - Brett
Our Favorites: "Rolling In The Deep," "I'll Be Waiting" and "Someone Like You."
Arcade Fire
The Suburbs (2010)
"Sometimes I can't believe it / I'm moving past the feeling…" Even without the whole "first indie rock album ever to win the Grammy for Album of the Year" validation, Arcade Fire's third album is an absolute landmark. Threaded through a loose concept about love, war and boredom in the suburbs are some of the band's most immediate songs to date—both painfully intimate and rapturously anthemic. Bookended by two versions of its boisterous title track, The Suburbs dabbles in synth-pop ("Sprawl II") and post-hardcore ("Month Of May") without traveling too far outside the limits of the group's firmly established post-Springsteen folk rock groove. Relentlessly thrilling on every level, The Suburbs is a post-millennial landmark from arguably our generation's most vitally important band. "Grab your mother's keys, we're leavin'…" - Brett
Our Favorites: "The Suburbs (1 and 2)", "Ready To Start" and "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)."
The National
High Violet (2010)
If you're lucky, there's that one record each year that grabs your hearts and squeezes out every last drop of blood like a ratty old sponge. Over the past few years, no rock band made us sigh, swoon and sob more than The National-- their 4AD debut, High Violet is a rugged, reverb-drenched, stark portrait of hopeless, jobless and loveless America, a garish wasteland filled with swarming bees, traveling angels, crying geeks and girls getting sucked into the sky. The Brooklyn by way of Cincinnati band created an entire universe within forty-eight minutes of startlingly bleak, emotionally ruthless folk-tinged, post-punk informed, yet eternally black and soulless American rock. "Stay the night with the sinners," booms lead vocalist Matt Berninger's elegant baritone over the album's incendiary, soaring climax, and boy did we ever. Desperate to entertain or not, High Violet did so with grace, grit, and authoritative grandiosity. So there-- I’ve explained everything to the geeks. - Brett
Our Favorites: "Afraid Of Everyone," "England" and "Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks."
Kanye West
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010)
Did you expect to find Kanye elsewhere? Sure, there’s the popularity contest to complain about in terms of the placement of his music, but coming from someone who initially wanted Kendrick Lamar in this position and holds his fair share of negatives toward Kanye, it’s impossible to deny the cultural significance of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Upon release, it was the hip-hop album of 2010, and very little could be done on other artists’ end to catch notice beyond it. In the numbers and Billboard game, MBDTF was unrivaled, and the conceptual sound beneath the lyricism was something that cannot be argued as less than untouchable. The thing of Kanye’s fifth studio album is that there is neither the necessity nor capacity for more, and for all the complexities of the masterwork, there’s a cohesiveness that makes the album incapable of reorganization. Sure, it was directly aimed to the mainstream, but Kanye brought the mainstream portions of music that the populous’ ears had yet to hear, and stylistic elements uncommon in popular hip-hop have now been embraced, leaving room for less-conventional underground artists to begin emerging with their own unique styles to listeners more willing to accept aspects of the avante-garde. Like Kanye or not, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is an album of the decade, and pioneers silently beneath all of the grandeur. - JT
JT's Favorites: "Runaway," "Blame Game" and "Devil In A New Dress."
In more ways than perhaps any other record of the past decade, Kanye West's complex beyond all reckoning fifth studio album was… well, everything-- intensely focused and fascinatingly sprawling, dense and limber, lush and aggressive, beautiful, dark, twisted and fantastic. Simultaneously a culmination of West's previous albums and a boldly abstract, post-impressionistic collage of sonic brushstrokes unlike anything in pop, rock, hip-hop or elsewhere, the album managed to sample Aphex Twin, spotlight Bon Iver's Justin Vernon, make a star out of Nicki Minaj and squeeze upwards of 42 singers onto "All Of The Lights" without missing a beat. Soaked in opulence, lyrical dexterity and bombastic nuance (if it didn't exist before, it does now), My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is an outright masterpiece of contradiction—its strengths and weakness are intertwined in an audacious dance of broad strokes and splendorous details. Hyperbole much? It can't be avoided: the album knows how important it is and earns every ounce of praise with grace, faculty and (of course) bravura. - Brett
Brett's Favorites: "All Of The Lights," "Monster" and "Lost In The World."
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Don't forget to leave your responses/reactions in the comments section below and be sure to check out the entire Top 50 Albums list below. Thanks for reading and contributing everybody! See you in another three and a half years.
Nos. 50-41 | Nos. 40-31 | Nos. 30-21 | Nos. 20-11 | The Top 10
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