Car Fever

Cast your mind back ten years or so, and you may recall what a spectacular cultural phenomenon Top Gear used to be. There was the TV show, to start with: at its peak, more than eight million people decided that was how they wanted to spend their Sunday evenings. And then there were the feature-length special shows, the live show, and endless merchandise and tie-ins. Not bad for a magazine programme based on middle-aged men reviewing the latest cars. You can point to various reasons why it exploded the way it did: the subsequent success of The Grand Tour while the new Top Gear seasons have floundered shows that producer Andy Wilman was probably a big part of it; the way the show kept throwing in new ideas, running jokes and celebrity appearances doubtless drawing many in. But, when it comes down to it, I think most would agree that the show's three presenters were the main draw, for their banter, sometimes very interesting historical pieces, and the way they all balanced each other so nicely. There was the brash, bombastic Jeremy Clarkson for the red-blooded, red meat-eating views who were in it for the supercars and explosive stunts; the cute and cuddly Richard Hammond for the families looking for some light entertainment. And then the reserved, cultured James May for anyone left who was looking to learn something about the nuts-and-bolts engineering behind the various machines they showed off.

All three had their roots in straightforward journalism; all three, their TV fame notwithstanding, wrote for some of the UK's biggest newspapers and specialist magazines. And I've read writing by all of them, which is why I feel qualified to say that Captain Slow is the best writer by some way. Yes, Jezza and Hamster could be brilliant at times - Clarkson's article on what he would do if elected Mayor of London is one of my all time favourites - but May takes a much more measured, intellectual approach that means, taken as a whole, his body of work is a lot more consistent. Car Fever collects together writing from his columns in Top Gear magazine and the Daily Telegraph as Top Gear was entering its golden age, from around 2006 to 2010, and while cars are mentioned in some way in every article, they are often far from the primary focus. Instead, we are treated to May's insights on such things as government transport policy, interior decorating, the French and Christmas carols.

And the writing is just splendid at times. While I can't claim to have read everything they've ever written, it's hard to imagine either of his colleagues using terms like "louche" or "rent asunder", or quoting Samuel Johnson or W.B. Yeats. Or the Bible. In one piece, in hindsight quite possibly written after a day sampling a few too many Californian wines while filming his series with Oz Clarke, May ramps up the virtuosity to dizzying heights. Forget the motoring press, how many journalists full stop could get away with dropping such words as "ruched", "for'ard" or "paean" into what is, after all, a review of an American mobile home? But the fact is, May is just as much a perfectionist when working with the English language as he is when rebuilding or restoring a car, and it's hard not to be caught up in his enthusiasm for romanticising the engineering feats of the past and present, whether good or disastrous.

They say you should never meet your heroes: I've been told by a motoring journalist who has met James that, nerdy exterior notwithstanding, he's actually quite arrogant and opinionated, and I have to say that side of him can simmer in the background sometimes here, particularly when attacking Alistair Darling's ill-advised road schemes. But that doesn't detract what is ultimately an engaging, beautifully written and, yes, amusing collection of short-form journalism.

4.5/5

Been a while since the writer of the book also provided the song, so... yeah.

The Willows

Algernon Blackwood's 1907 novella The Willows was another work I added to my collection of classic horror literature on the recommendation of NPR's top 100 list, and one I had intended to read a bit closer to Halloween - but my big project got in the way somewhat. Anyway, tipping the scales at just over 100 pages and praised by H.P. Lovecraft himself as the finest supernatural tale in English literature, I decided it would be worth squeezing in.

The Willows is an account of two men canoeing down the Danube from Bratislava (or Pressburg as it was at the time) towards Budapest. Things start to go wrong for them as they get further from civilisation, the water gets rougher and the forest starts to close in around them. Maybe it's just their imagination, but the willow trees that line the banks seem to come to life, and display possibly threatening - although not necessarily towards the two men directly - intentions. Trapped on a rapidly shrinking island of sand, their equipment and supplies diminshing, our protagonists come ever closer to losing their grip on reality and the willows become increasingly sinister.

All in all, it's not a bad story, and well written at that. I can see why Lovecraft was such a fan; it was clearly a huge influence on his cornerstones of weird fiction that came shortly after. But it does suffer from a lot of the flaws that, for me, make his writing something of a struggle: the stoic, po-faced tone, the firmly turn-of-the-century turn of phrase and the attempts to eff the ineffable that generally don't quite work. What it gets right, though, are the biggest scares of all: the unknown, the idea that there may be forces out there so great that humanity pales into insignificance, and the way in which we are never so helpless as when we are at the mercy of the elements.

A short review for a short book - The Willows deserves its place in the horror fiction canon, but it won't go much further than that. Blackwood's other famous work, The Wendigo, is now on my radar.

3.5/5

I've actually been on a boat down that part of the Danube. Seemed pretty chill to me.

The Top 50 Albums of the Decade - 10-1

This is where things get serious.

10. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Nonagon Infinity (2016): there are a few artists on this list who may have deserved more than one album but no decision was harder to make than when it came to King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Since emerging at the start of the decade, the Melbourne rockers have released a ridiculous 15 full-length albums, including five in 2017 alone; ear-melting excursion into Middle-Eastern scale cycles Flying Microtonal Banana and brain-melting excursion into African-style polyrhythms Polygondwanaland being my personal highlights. They also put out two extremely solid efforts this year, in environmentalist psychedelic freak-out Fishing for Fishies and straight tribute to '80s thrash metal Infest the Rats' Nest. But their best, for me, is the album that broke them out of merely being one of the best Australian alt rock groups and laid the foundation for all of their releases since, establishing the group as a proper global name. King Gizz love a concept, and Nonagon Infinity is one of their best - an album where the end of the last track joins up seamlessly with the beginning of the first, meaning it could, in theory, be played for eternity. And it's a pretty good choice for anyone who would want to try that. The opening bars of Robot Stop set the tone, a chugging, driving garage rock beat that reappears as a leitmotif on several other tracks and, of course, acts as the ending of metal-inspired closer Road Train. And the bits in between keep things interesting. Big Fig Wasp, Gamma Knife and People Vultures act as a kind of extended medley for the first half of the album, with themes and melodies cropping up in various places throughout, plus plenty of space-age sound effects, harmonica solos and brilliant vocal work from Stu Mackenzie. Things then get a little more experimental on the likes of the 7-minute Evil Death Roll, jazzy Invisible Face and two grooving tracks that throw back to the band's psych beginnings, Mr. Beat and Wah Wah. Michael Cavanagh and Eric Moore battle as twin drummers, Joey Walker and Cook Craig create riff after memorable riff, and Ambrose Kenny-Smith and Lucas Skinner anchor things with deceptively tight organ and bass work. Play it over and over again, play it in reverse order, play it on shuffle, play all of the tracks at once... okay, so that last one probably wouldn't work, but the fact it's even a consideration is testament to how fun an idea this is, and how well it has been executed.

9. Jean Grae and Quelle Chris - Everything's Fine (2018): the decade was positively rife with introverted, intellectual, self-exploratory hip-hop albums - a few of them made this list - but head and shoulders above the rest is this collaboration by New York's Tsidi Ibrahim (Jean Grae) and Detroit's Gavin Tennille (Quelle Chris). Forget The Carters, this was the husband-and-wife event album of the decade. Everything's Fine is a satirical, acerbic and at times hugely sensitive trawl through the pressures and anxieties of modern life; a life in which, increasingly, it feels like the only way to self-express is to say that everything is fine, even though the world seems to make it increasingly hard for that to be true. Jean Grae and Quelle Chris explore that world in depth here, and no one is safe from their biting wit: from politicians and corporations to Instagram influencers and redneck racists, people from all sides of the coin come under deserved fire for their inherent ability to make life more complicated. And while some of those targets may seem obvious, the lyrics and concept are genuinely highbrow stuff: from the opening Everything's Fine, which uses a parodical game show setting to introduce the album's idea, through My Contribution to This Scam, in which Jean Grae and Quelle Chris trade bars about life's frustrations, big and small, to the likes of Peacock and Breakfast of Champions, intensely frank examinations of the mental health issues that so often build up under the surface veneer of everything supposedly being fine. There's plenty of musical variety as well: lead single Ohsh features a bumbling, bubbling bass line, House Call goes for full-on '90s-style G-funk, Scoop of Dirt is the biggest beat of the album thanks to heavily distorted keys and closer River is based around melodramatic piano, guitar, and the soulful vocals of Anna Wise. Comedians such as Nick Offerman, Hannibal Burress, John Hodgman and Michael Che add weight to the spoken-word interludes - often a sign of undercooked songwriting on rap albums, but here adding to the avant-garde tone of it all. The two rappers complement each other well, too, Jean Grae building layers of savage wordplay and takedowns, Quelle Chris remaining more deadpan and laid back. Rap really doesn't get much classier than this.

8. Run The Jewels - Run The Jewels 2 (2014): and then there's Run The Jewels. Like Jean Grae and 

Quelle Chris, the duo hail from two cities with serious rap pedigree - Jaime "El-P" Meline from New York and Michael "Killer Mike" Render from Atlanta - and both have careers stretching back to the early 1990s in their respective scenes. They came together in 2011 and have since released three self-titled albums; all solid, but the best came in the middle, being the tightest both muscially and lyrically. Run The Jewels 2 comes in with an impossible amount of swagger in the pounding, saxophone-inflected beat of lairy intro track Jeopardy, and the pace doesn't really relent after that. El-P takes the reins on production, providing earth-moving beats and a brooding, dense synth backing that takes inspiration from the electronic pioneers of the 1980s. I have genuinely never found a set of speakers that can properly handle the bass on Oh My Darling Don't Cry, which gets the body of the album off to a thumping start, and tracks like Blockbuster Night, Pt. 1 and Lie, Cheat, Steal aren't far behind. The guest spots are suitably left-field: Rage Against The Machine vocalist Zach de la Rocha and Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker are the big names and slide into their roles well, Jordan "Boots" Cruz - one of Beyoncé's preferred songwriter contributors - pops up on Early, Lola "Gangsta Boo" Mitchell gets stuck in on the absolutely filthy Love Again and Diane Coffee provides a touch of welcome sensitivity on Crown. But again, it's the tandem rapping skills of El-P and Killer Mike that make this what it is, as they bounce lyrics back and forth between each other as if they'd known each other for much longer. It's political at times; anarchistically so, with plenty of contempt for social injustice, police brutality and the political inefficiency that has allowed things to get this far. They're really at their best, though, when not focusing on any particular subject, allowed the freedom to juggle wordplay and giggle-inducing self-aggrandising at impressive pace. Run The Jewels 2 is one of the best workout albums of all time - and nothing else on that list can make you mentally smile as much at the same time. As Blockbuster Night, Pt. 2 rounds things off with a trumpeting elephant and an odd shuffle beat, there's not much else to be said: it covers more ground in 40 minutes than a lot of artists manage over an entire career.

7. Queens of the Stone Age - ... Like Clockwork (2013): there has been some great music made by artists in huge physical or mental pain. Some of it came close to this list: John Grant, who produced some of his best work following his HIV diagnosis; Sephine Llo, who released I Your Moon in the aftermath of her husband's death; David Lamb, who recorded Brown Bird's final album as a farewell before his passing from leukaemia. The story behind ... Like Clockwork is truly astounding. Following routine knee surgery in 2011, Queens of the Stone Age main man Josh Homme ended up comatose for four months; he was actually pronounced medically dead on the operating table. This album was recorded shortly after and remains probably the group's second-best work - an affirming, defiant set of survival anthems borne of one man's unique experience. It's the sixth album released under the Queens of the Stone Age name: if I were to produce a list of this type for the previous decade, 2002's Songs for the Deaf would undoubtedly be in the top three, but this is a very different prospect, a result of a changed group and a changed leader. Listening to it again, I was surprised at how upbeat it all sounded - certainly more so than I remembered. Perhaps that's because it's the more solemn tracks that stand out: gothy piano ballad The Vampyre of Time and Memory and then the double closer of I Appear Missing and ... Like Clockwork, the latter two tracks being the moment where Homme tackles his experience most directly, with mentions of hospital robes and the brink of the abyss, and then a pondering of where to go next. But for the most part this is an album with a distinctly positive spirit. The opening Keep Your Eyes Peeled snarls along like the best of their middle period, If I Had a Tail and My God is the Sun strut and preen with the grooves of Homme's early work in the East Californian alternative scene. Kalopsia starts off atmospheric and spooky thanks to Trent Reznor's eletronics, but culminates in a sound more like Pearl Jam or Alice In Chains. The remaining two tracks, Fairweather Friend and Smooth Sailing, are undeniably catchy and not without their experimental moments; overall it's just an extremely polished and well-rounded album. Matters are helped by the return of some of Homme's best past collaborators: the ever-dependable Dave Grohl on drums and the ever-inventive Dean Fertita on guitar, while Nick Oliveri, who left the group under a cloud in 2004, returns to back things up on bass. Screaming Trees vocalist Mark Lanegan provides some grit, too, and Alex Turner and Elton John make interesting cameos. But for all the gloss, this still feels like an album that is deeply personal to Homme, tapping into the kind of feelings that very few people will ever know.

6. Triggerfinger - By Absence of the Sun (2014): the Antwerp power trio finally hit their peak with their fourth studio album, a slice of brash, brutal, bruising and downright loud garage rock. Game bashes down the door with its opening muscular riff, Ruben Block's guitar strings screaming, albeit never quite in protest, Mario Goossens hammering at his drums like a man possessed and Paul van Bruystegem anchoring things with a shuddering bassline. But what elevates this above the rest of their work, and makes it the highest-placed out-and-out rock album on the list, is Block's songwriting and vocal work. He never fails to be sensitive and melodic, even when positively wailing out the chorus of this opening battering ram of a track, and it's this heartfelt, crooning, sometimes sensual style that makes the rest of the album so special as well. Game is perhaps the best song, with its scorching guitar solo and sweaty lyrics, but there's really not much of a gap to the rest. Perfect Match is more or less a straight love song, albeit a very cocksure and sultry one, with a blues-rock riff and a stadium-ready chorus; the title track dials back the noise somewhat for its tuneful, road-trip sound; And There She Was Lying in Wait and Black Panic are as heavy as it gets, the latter an absolute juggernaut that descends into anarchic chaos at the end. For all the headbanging, though, the pervading theme is subtler: songs like Big Hole, Off The Rack, Splendour in the Grass and Trail of Love are all more melancholy, gentle, and the result is a much deeper, more varied album. Possibly the weakest tune is also the most interesting, Halfway There representing a departure into moody electronics, and Master of All Fears signs off with more searing riffing and howled vocals. This is a band on top of their game: they know they're good, and getting better, and they let their music do all of the talking. While Block may be the main creative force, he never dominates things, and the group work in perfect balance with each other throughout. From their sharps suits on the album cover, to the effortless swagger of their music and lyrics, rock really doesn't get much classier than this.

5. Father John Misty - Pure Comedy (2017): every once in a while, a song comes along that completely stops me in my tracks. Josh Tillman is a songwriter who had been on the edge of my radar as the brains behind Fleet Foxes, but as a solo artist writing under the Father John Misty nom de plume, he has become so much more. This album's title track left such an impression on me that it has been the only song in the past three years that I knew I had to learn to play right away - it just seemed like it could be important. Pure Comedy is a vast, epic piece dealing with the idea of human existence through the medium of just slightly left-field piano backing, swelling brass and strings and brilliantly poetic lyrics exploring the futility of life in the bigger scheme of things, but also condemning the way the human condition prevents us from making the most of it anyway. The subsequent album deals with similarly weighty themes: Total Entertainment Forever predicts the future of a human race totally devoted to ever more on-demand media, Things It Would Have Been Helpful to Know Before the Revolution takes a wry look at the potential hypocrisy of the environmental protest movement, Two Wildly Different Perspectives is Tillman's spin on the death of bipartisanship in the US and The Memo takes aim at big business with some of the album's best satirical barbs. Tracks like Ballad of the Dying Man, Birdie, A Bigger Paper Bag and When the God of Love Returns There'll Be Hell to Pay are less specific but nonetheless deeply philosophical, asking the biggest questions about mankind's purpose and existence. It's a songwriting approach that has often been criticised as self-congratulatory, but I disagree. In an artistic landscape where our films are three hour one-liner-and-fight-scene marathons (not a criticism of the Marvel output, by the way), our music is increasingly manufactured and hyperactive (not a criticism of pop music, by the way), and our literature seems doomed to irrelevance, it's perhaps jarring to come across an artist who is so unapologetically serious. And indeed this is to a fault at times: yes, Leaving LA needs to be long to make its point, but probably could have been shorter than 13 minutes, and sappy country ballad Smoochie could have been dropped altogether. But there's little else wrong with this, especially given how Tillman wraps things up: So I'm Growing Old on Magic Mountain being a sincerely whimsical song building to a stunningly beautiful musical conclusion, and In Twenty Years or So finishing on a genuinely optimistic note. And the title track elevates this to masterpiece status anyway. Most of the songs here are songs for our time. Pure Comedy is a song for all time.

4. Swans - To Be Kind (2014): for an album to be two hours long without ever getting boring, it has to be something pretty special. Swans emerged from the avant-garde "no wave" scene in the early '80s, and have released some of the most forward-thinking and accomplished albums of the past 40 years. To Be Kind is their thirteenth, and their third since reforming in 2010 after a lengthy hiatus. It is, at its core, a blues album, but it draws its inspiration from the swampy, muddy, rough-shod blues of Mississippi and Louisiana rather than the jazz-inspired, cosmopolitan sound of the group's native New York. This provides a much more sinister, esoteric, folkloric sound, something akin to stumbling on some arcane ceremony in the darkest corner of America's wilderness: centrepiece track Bring the Sun / Toussaint L'Ouverture may stretch out for 34 minutes, but every second of it demands your attention; it builds bar by bar, phrase by phrase into a ritualistic frenzy that seems ready to crush you with the power of the sun itself. And then it breaks down into a meditative portrait of the titular Haitian revolutionary, frontman Michael Gira barking out lyrics in French and Spanish over a vaguely tropical backing. The song even merits its own cool-down coda in Some Things We Do, a minimalistic poem of a tune that drifts away into the void. To rewind a bit, it's the opening Screen Shot that sets the tone, starting out with a jittery bass line and incessant vocals from Gira, with the occasional stroke added to the sonic canvas - a funereal drum beat here, a chilling piano melody there - until the song explodes without warning into a full-scale shuffling blues-rock tune. Just A Little Boy, dedicated to Mississippi blues legend Howlin' Wolf, follows up with the album's most direct nod to its roots, with sinister slide guitar work by Cristoph Hahn and rock-solid swung drumming from Thor Harris. A Little God in My Hands is a madness-inducing, relentless seven minutes that culminates in eerie chanting; She Loves Us takes seven minutes just to settle into its groove, but rewards us with perhaps the album's catchiest rhythm and distinctly Asian choral vocals. Kirsten Supine slows things down again to almost a complete stop before Oxygen cranks up the tempo in the work's most straightforward rock song - albeit one with edgily atonal riffs and occasional bursts of chaotic brass. Credit here to guitarist Norman Westberg, doing so much while staying true to the limitations of the genre. Nathalie Neal and the closing To Be Kind are just desolately pretty pieces of songwriting, and both build from heartbreaking melodic sections to shattering, obliterating crescendos; legitimately, a soundtrack for the end of the world. To Be Kind is a transformative experience: listen to it, and you'll never look at music the same way again.

3. Major Parkinson - Blackbox (2017): at any other time in history, Major Parkinson would be the type of band that I would never have heard of. Obscure even in their native Norway, venturing rarely to other countries and passive when it comes to marketing, they would simply have come and gone without even entering my radar. But we live in the present, and this is why I truly believe there has never been a better time to be a music fan. And so, one day in early 2010, Spotify decided I had more or less exhausted everything worth hearing from the alternative rock scene of the American Northwest, and instead suggested I would enjoy something from the European Northwest. There are bands on that list that I still listen to regularly: Motorpsycho, Thulsa Doom, Audrey Horne, Kaizers Orchestra. De Staat cropped up in that period as well. And Major Parkinson. Their 2008 self-titled debut is just an incredibly solid artistic rock record, and 197 and Awkward as a Drunk are still among my favourite songs. Songs from a Solitary Home was the soundtrack to my first days at university, and Twilight Cinema the soundtrack to my last. And then, in 2017, they topped the lot with Blackbox. It's just a different beast - two years in the making, featuring the group's most expansive lineup, a full orchestral backing and a female-voice choir, the album whisks you away on a journey through the dark, frozen north; it's Scandinavian noir given a musical voice. Lover, Lower Me Down! announces the stylistic intentions with booming drums and a swirling, sinister synth backing; main man Jon Ivar Kollbotn growls along in the very depths of the male range as the music opens out into twanging guitars and shouted choral vocals. Night Hitcher picks up the pace a bit with maybe the work's most memorable chorus. Isabel - A Report to an Academy and Madeline Crumbles blend the dark aesthetic with something approaching pop songwriting, while Baseball is literally a 10-minute song called Baseball, that wanders around in gloriously aimless fashion, picking up and dropping themes as it goes. Before the Helmets and Strawberry Suicide are the band at their stripped back, intimate best, as Kollbotn does his best Tom Waits impression and violinist Claudia Cox lends her virtuoso skills to the mix. Founding member Eivind Gammersvik is as solid as ever on bass and Sondre Veland deserves a medal for working out drum lines to all the chaos, but a large slice of the credit must go to Lars Bjørknes for his synth, piano, organ and programming work - without him, this would not have sounded anything like the end result. As the closing title track builds to its thunderous orchestral conclusion, I can't help but be grateful that this weird and wonderful Norwegian masterwork found its way to me. It's also a world away from A Boat on the Sea, making guitarist Sondre Skollevoll the only artist to contribute fully to two albums on this list. Well deserved.

2. Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly (2015): there are some albums that simply transcend the medium of music. By 2015, Kendrick Lamar had already established himself as one of the best rappers around: his early mixtapes generating considerable buzz for both their complex, high-minded lyrics and unorthodox production. He stepped things up, though, in 2013 with Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City, which realistically would have made the top ten of this list as well, a sprawling, meandering, but hugely astute concept piece following the last day in the life of a young LA gang member. To Pimp A Butterfly, though, leaves all of that behind. While Good Kid made a lot of pertinent and sobering comments on the quality of life for working-class black teenage men in Compton, To Pimp A Butterfly turns on modern-day society in its entirety. It's an approach not short on ambition, but Lamar just gets it right on every level. Barely five minutes in, on the opening Wesley's Theory and the following jazz-backed slam poem For Free?, he's already given tongue lashings to black exceptionalism, white supremacy and the failings of the American economic system - and there's another 75 minutes still to go. To listen to the whole thing in one go is like taking in a thesis on America; an exploration on all of the problems created from above and perpetuated down below. Greed, ignorance (wilful or otherwise), apathy: these are the root causes and Kendrick delves deep into the way they have come to characterise humanity as a whole. Tracks like Institutionalized, How Much A Dollar Cost and Hood Politics are the most overtly political; others, such as u and For Sale? represent something of a mid-album cool down as he turns his attention inwards, discussing in often uncomfortable detail the ways this obsession with the woes of the world has been detrimental to his own mental wellbeing. Cutting through the gloom, though, are the more optimistic tunes like These Walls, a tenderly erotic R'n'B ballad, and i, which remains the most self-affirming and accessible of all and, being placed second from last on the tracklist, does suggest a possibility of a better future. Yet with The Blacker the Berry and Alright, Kendrick sets out a defiant reminder that inequality and injustice are still at large, and have to be actively confronted. On the whole, it's a sophisticated work of songwriting, and it's backed up by consistently excellent instrumentals: collaborators ranging from Snoop Dogg to Pharrell to Anna Wise to Kamasi Washington to Sufjan Stevens, of all people. Funk legend George Clinton lends a hand and clearly had a sizable influence on the album's sultry, bass-heavy sound, as downbeat brass and jazzy keyboards add some flourish to the more traditional hip hop beats. Such is the diversity of backgrounds that Dr. Dre was called in to act as "executive" producer, and he tightens the screws just the right amount, resulting in a slick, mature, record that deserves to be remembered a century from now. It doesn't seem to have had much influence on rap music since, but that doesn't matter; crowds were singing the hook from Alright at protests across the States, and that does.

1. Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010): a lot can change in ten years. A decade ago, I was still a teenager, making the kind of choices that would go on to change the rest of my life to date. I didn't listen to much rap, though. And ten years before that, Kanye West was doing much the same; having dropped out of community college, he was just emerging in the background of the US scene, selling beats for studio time and climbing the ladder with increasingly impressive credits. By the end of the '00s, he was among the biggest names on the planet. And ten years on from that, he's had something of a bumpy ride: various spells in mental health institutions, some concerning public rants and a bizarre love for Donald Trump have meant that his public life has overshadowed his generally still solid music. It remains to be seen where he will go from here - this year's Jesus Is King does point in a more positive direction - but for now we will have to settle for the fact that, in the middle of it all, he produced one of the best albums of any era and any genre. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, like many works of art, came from a place of turmoil. 2009 was the year things really started to (sorry) go west for Kanye, with his infamous interruption of Taylor Swift at the MTV Music Video Awards, the subsequent media fallout and then his cancellation of a joint tour with Lady Gaga. He retreated to the relative safety of Hawaii, and set about recording what remains his magnum opus. It's just ridiculous how good this is, from every angle; it doesn't so much ooze class as unleash a raging torrent of the stuff from beginning to end. While his public image may have been suffering, Kanye clearly still held clout within the industry - the feature list reads like a who's who of urban music and beyond for the time. Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Rihanna, John Legend, RZA and Nicki Minaj - her verse on Monster is still the best of her career - all step up to add to the experience, while Kid Cudi, Pusha T and Bon Iver provide something more cerebral. The list of uncredited performers, while hard to verify, goes even further - names from Seal to Elton John to M.I.A. to Beyoncé have all been suggested. And so to the album itself: it's long, but never self indulgent; ambitious, but never too much; confident but never (quite) arrogant. Dark Fantasy gets us underway with an eerie spoken word intro, massive choir vocals and some of West's best lines of the whole piece. Gorgeous sets up a more accessible, pop-influenced section that continues with Power, All of the Lights and Monster, all successful singles and the latter featuring the best guest contributions from performers on top of their game. So Appalled takes on the exhaustion of the celebrity lifestyle while Devil in a New Dress, Hell of a Life and Blame Game provide a lifetime's worth of break-ups, make-ups and make-outs. Lost in the World and Who Will Survive in America close things out with a more introspective, political bent. And then there's Runaway, which builds from a melodramatic, single-note piano intro to dark, rumbling, pop-rap and then devolves into a five-minute autotune improvisation. In anyone else's hands, it would likely have been a disaster, but Kanye was in the zone here and the result is sensational. The music assault is relentless: nothing is considered too outlandish or overblown, and it all works. My Beautful Dark Twisted Fantasy changed my perspective on music in a way that very few albums do, and it seems to have done the same for a lot of the musicians who followed it. It is every bit as exciting today as it was in 2010, and if this period of music is remembered by one album alone, then let this be it.

The Top 50 Albums of the Decade - 25-11

A complaint often levelled at modern music is that, decades from now, none of it will be remembered; that it lacks the artistic or cultural significance to go down in history. While I won't try to predict the future, I will say that every album from here on deserves to be remembered for a long time. And I'll also say that, while the top ten - the top five especially - were sorted fairly early on, there is not much at all to separate this group.

25. All Them Witches - Dying Surfer Meets His Maker (2015): the third album by the Nashville blues-rock outfit remains their most varied, and therefore their most interesting. Dying Surfer is an extremely loose concept piece that - sort of - tells the tale suggested by its title, although it does so in a totally abstract way. Indeed, these are songs that deal more with ideas of death and the afterlife in general. On the musical side the influence of their home city is more than apparent, with sighing slide guitar work, harmonica solos, violin backing and melodic electric piano all provided by Allan van Cleave. Credit too must go to Ben McLeod for his guitar lines - drawing on a vast range of tone and ensuring that, while a lot of this comes close to metal, he always twangs rather than bludgeons. Drummer Robby Staebler and bassist Charles Michael Parks, Jr. round things out with a cavernous-sounding rhythm section, and the end result is deep, mournful and mystical. Opener Call Me Star is a haunting acoustic ballad that gives way to the much heavier El Centro and Dirt Preachers, while Open Passageways and Talisman showcase the group's breadth of sound. The best is saved until last, however, on Blood and Sand/Milk and Endless Waters, a spacy, shifting, seven-minute ballad showcasing McLeod's best work.

24. Diablo Swing Orchestra - Pacifisticuffs (2017): the trouble with having a trained opera singer as your lead vocalist is that, at some point in their career, they will realise that there is more money to be made in opera. So it was for Swedish metal collective Diablo Swing Orchestra, who parted ways with original singer AnnLouice Lögdlund for that reason in 2014, losing an integral part of their sound in the process. Pacifisticuffs, as a result, sounds very different to their previous three albums - but that's mostly a good thing. While Lögdlund's vocals were often impressive, it sometimes felt as though the band as a whole were relying on them to the detriment of their musical contributions. Kristin Evegård steps in to fill the gap here and the result is a much tighter, more coherent and - dare I say it - mature record. The album still fits into the vaguely defined avant-garde metal genre, but the sound is much more cabaret than classical. That adds up to a whole lot of fun as the brass section blends with thrashing guitars on Interruption, Evegård is backed up by a full gospel choir on Climbing the Eyewall and Daniel Håkansson takes over on lead vocals on Karma Bonfire, sounding like Elvis on steroids. The genre-bending of earlier releases is still given some room as well - with hints of bluegrass on Knucklehugs, calypso on Superhero Jugganath and disco on Jigsaw Hustle. Lots of albums are unique, but this is more unique than pretty much any other.

23. Parquet Courts - Wide Awake! (2018): for a long time, punk was the last frontier of rock for me; the one corner of the genre that I could not access, no matter how open-minded my approach. Yet towards the rear end of the decade, artists started crawling out of the woodwork and started making sense. A lot of the rock albums on this list are punk by style or at least by influence, and Wide Awake! is the best of them all. The reasons why I like this album are varied, and go a long way to explaining why I haven't liked punk in the past: first and foremost is the musicality, in particular Sean Yeaton's gloriously melodic bass work that drives all of the tracks here, or the tuneful organ of A. Savage - a far cry from the ultra-basic crashing chords that usually typify the genre. Then there's the gentle humour that is so often lacking - hearing Austin Brown drawl in his New York accent through metaphors based on European football tactics from the '70s on Total Football elevates this on its own. It's political in all the right ways, on the likes of Violence and Before the Water Gets Too High, and the way the tracks cascade from one to the next means that, after a couple of repeat listens, the effect is like watching a favourite film and looking forward to the best moments each time. It is, all in all, a very pleasant listen - as Brown sings us off on Tenderness, sounding more like Mungo Jerry than Johnny Rotten, it leaves you wondering whether you've been listening to punk at all, and yet still ticks all the right boxes.

22. Aldous Harding - Designer (2019): quirky female singer-songwriters are far from a new phenomenon. From the founding mothers Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell, through Kate Bush and Tori Amos, to Joanna Newsom, there's a lot of good stuff out there. Aldous Harding, though, is more interesting than most. Born in Lyttelton, New Zealand, a town with a population of less than 3,000, Harding channels the kind of loneliness yet cosiness that can only come from living in the furthest corner of the world into nine introspective, lyrical and occasionally wonderfully weird tracks. She's fleshed out the sometimes tortuous, ultra-stripped-back voice-and-guitar sound of her earlier career: from the very beginning of Fixture Picture, with its thwacking drums and vocal harmonies, it's clear that this will be a much more upbeat and uptempo album. The title track throws in a playful xylophone melody, Zoo Eyes adds a flute backing, and Shape of the Planets has touches of almost funky strings. The result is that, when the instrumentation is pared back, on the likes of piano dirge Damn, guitar dirge Heaven is Empty and the closer, other piano dirge Pilot, it all feels a bit more significant, exclusive and intimate. The standout, though, is lead single The Barrel, the kind of esoteric, deceptively creepy and ultimately naggingly groovy tune that most songwriters of this breed can only dream of conjuring up.

21. Niko Is - Chill Cosby (2012): yet another rap album that strays about as far as possible from the genre's origins while still acknowledging the past, Chill Cosby was a marvellously assured debut mixtape from Brazil born, Orlando based rapper Nikolai Paiva. His USP is simple enough - he's a chill guy, and will proceed to tell you exactly how chill in great detail. The song titles alone are testament to his one-track approach - Chillusions, Chilluminate, $100 Chill... it might seem like beating a dead horse on paper, but the result is actually far more entertaining than it has any right to be, thanks to Niko's incessantly clever wordplay and infectious enthusiasm. By the end, it's hard not to feel relaxed, thanks to both his "chillosophy" (yeah, there's rather a lot of that) and the lush, orchestral, soul-influenced musical backing. Action Bronson pops up on Steffi Graf, one of the more uptempo numbers, Barracuda verges on a hazy trap beat, Stars is just effortlessly mood-improving and Wink & the Gun sounds like something out of a '70s cop show. Things peak in the middle, though, with Crazy, a reworking of Patsy Cline's 1961 country classic, with lyrics about moving on, moving up and the importance of loving yourself. With not an angry word to be heard, nor a note out of place, Chill Cosby is one of the most admirably positive rap albums ever made. Now more than ever, we need music like this.

20. Igorrr - Savage Sinusoid (2017): it's hard to know where to even start with this one. Perhaps a bit of background would help: Igorrr is brainchild of French experimental musician Gautier Serre, a mad scientist of a producer who decided to forge his own path after he found the process of running his music by his bandmates was limiting his creativity too much. He cites his influences as Bach, Chopin, Aphex Twin, Portishead and Cannibal Corpse, and manages to sound like all of them at once. Oh, and the project is named after his pet hamster. So far so bizarre, but Savage Sinusoid is actually by far his most accessible album - with the idea fleshed out to a full group, eliminating all use of samples and clips, the result is a much more cohesive, enjoyable and, yes, listenable record than previous works such as Nostril and Hallelujah. The real star is vocalist Laure le Prunenec, who showcases a quite staggering range between black metal and bel canto, a modern-day Diamanda Galas and only slightly less terrifying. While screamed vocals generally turn me off, their effect here adds humour to the proceedings. Songs about spaghetti, houmous and horses nestle alongside achingly beautiful piano-and-voice compositions - Problème d'Emotion and Au Revoir are as haunting as it gets, ieuD sees Serre hammering away at the harpsichord and Cheval features genuinely virtuoso accordion. There's room for sitars, lutes, electronics and primary school recorders. It's frantic, eclectic, really quite absurdist, and there is absolutely nothing else in the world that sounds anything like it.

19. Kill Bill - RAMONA (2014): 51 utterly charming minutes of bedroom rap out of South Carolina. The lower East Coast is a bit of a wasteland for rappers, really - Pusha T is the only other example that comes to mind - but with Pharrell and Timbaland hailing from Virginia, there is something of a tradition of producers. And the production does do a fair bit of the lifting on RAMONA. Kill Bill is, by his own admission, something of a nerd, and that comes to the fore here musically, with samples pulled from anime soundtracks, Japanese jazz and retro video games. And while none of that should resonate with me at all, it's hard not to feel a vague nostalgia for another time and place while listening. It's backed up lyrically as well, Kill Bill seemingly riding the crest of a wave with his happy-sad examination of his own mental health, his insecurities around adulthood and the ways in which he tries to help himself: all things that are very much in the public consciousness today, but maybe were less so even five years ago. He does so with an admirable eloquence as well, his southern drawl occasionally deceiving the depth of it all. Tracks like Backwoods, Pork, Abandoned 2 and Then There's Me strike that balance perfectly - staying catchy while making you both laugh and cry; Good Luck Chuck is a modern take on the Appalachian murder ballad tradition of Kill Bill's home region; and Conversations with Gravity is the kind of beat that just does not leave your head. A shout out, too, to Dream Eater: "I had a dream that I had woke up / It turned out to be a nightmare" is perhaps the best opening line of any song of the last ten years.

18. Die Antwoord - TEN$ION (2012): the South African electronic rap trio exploded onto the scene at the tail end of the 2000s, and proceeded to go from strength to... well, they actually dropped off pretty hard after 2012. 2014's Donker Mag wasn't bad but felt like a step back, 2016's Mount Ninji and da Nice Time Kid is already largely forgettable, and there's still no sign of their long-awaited fifth and final album, which seems to have stalled amid a wave of unsavoury accusations and unconvincing rebuttals. So their best will remain this sophomore effort, which struck the perfect balance between their low-budget beginnings, the futuristic aesthetic they tried to move onto, the characters they built for themselves and a knowing sense of humour about the fact that it was all for show. There was something truly original about how they emerged as a band of misfits claiming to be for real - products of the working-class Cape Town suburbs - and for a while it was very hard to tell if that was true. Of course in this day and age there's little room for mystery and they were soon exposed as art-school graduates who had tried similar things in the past under different identities with less success; in recent years they've become increasingly standoffish about how genuine they are, tried harder to shock and be different. But TEN$ION gets it right in being a legitimately fun ride through the weird and wonderful world the group created, and with a significant upgrade on the musical side as well. Never Le Nkemise 1 gets us going with an African choir and dubstep beats, singles I Fink U Freeky and Baby's on Fire are club-ready, Fatty Boom Boom is propelled by clattering tribal percussion and DJ Hi-Tek Rulez deserves to pass into legend. It wasn't to last, but there was a moment back then when Die Antwoord seemed destined to stay at the top for a long time.

17. Macintosh Plus - Floral Shoppe (2011): of the various criticisms levelled at the decade's music, perhaps the most valid is that no truly new movements have arisen for some time now - everything has merely been a development of what has gone before rather than breaking new ground. I would stake a claim for an exception, though, when it comes to vaporwave. Okay, so the premise doesn't get it off to a great start - the reappropriation of '80s and '90s mood music into a new and alienating context. But it's the way the artists go about it that makes it special, and arguably deserving of a label as the decade's legacy for future music ideas. By stripping, rearranging, and remixing those long-forgotten tracks, vaporwave artists create music that is both nostalgic for a past that never happened and evocative of today's increasingly disposable, automated, impersonal society. Floral Shoppe is a seminal vaporwave project from Oregon's Ramona Xavier, created and released when she was just 19. Forget the associated memes, forget those who supported it purely ironically, forget the vast torrent of low-quality, no-effort imitators that followed in its wake - Floral Shoppe deserves far more praise than it gets for starting a movement and proposing a new approach to making music. ブート (Boot) sets the scene with juddering electronics - sounding, intentionally, like a broken computer disc. This is followed by by far the best known track, リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュ (Lisa Frank 420/Modern Computing), a dreamy, surreal seven minutes of plodding keyboards and slurred vocals, before a long cool down - the highlight being the huge-sounding ECCOと悪寒ダイビング (Chill Diving with ECCO) and a grind to a halt on 月 (Moon) and 海底 (Seabed). We live in a world that looks more and more like the future that was promised to us - and vaporwave is the soundtrack for that world.

16. Ghost - Meliora (2015): always quick to polarise, Ghost released their third album in 2015 to equal measures of praise and derision. The derision is (just about) warranted - serious metal fans claiming that the band's music doesn't really match up to their visual or thematic aesthetic. A metal band who don't play metal, some would say. Scooby Doo chase scene music, many others have said. But I'm on the side of praise, and it's because to my mind the critics have missed the point: Ghost, with their papally robed, skeleton face-painted frontman Papa Emeritus and supporting cast of masked "nameless ghouls" were always trying to be all of those things anyway. They're like the Die Antwoord of rock music, and they pull it off better than that group because while, again, identities were revealed a while ago - Papa Emeritus is actually a former synth-pop artist called Tobias Forge - they roll with the punches and play it all for laughs, regularly "replacing" Emeritus with new frontmen who are clearly all still Forge and adding to the Ghost mythos through promotional films. Of course, Meliora wouldn't be as high on this list as it is if the music didn't back things up. As it opens, the Scooby Doo comparisons seem to be valid, as a creepy-camp theremin melody kicks things off, but this soon gives way to the pounding drums and crushing guitars of Spirit and From the Pinnacle to the Pit. These lead into the softer rock of Cirice and He Is, and the rest of the album follows suit, by turns heavy and brooding, majestic and mesmerising. It is, in short, an album full of nice touches: an extra guitar ramping up the final chorus of Cirice, a spine-tingling piano line on Mummy Dust, thunderous timpani rolls and soaring strings on He Is, an Elton John-esque keyboard breakdown on Absolution and a full choir on Deus in Absentia. Cheesy? A lot of the time yes, but Ghost own it. And as an aside, with this being the fourth and final Swedish act on the list, to add to the best song of the decade and the best Eurovision winner, it's probably time to crown the Swedes the world champions of music for the last ten years.

15. Jamie xx - In Colour (2015): five years in the making, it was worth waiting for this frankly ludicrously accomplished bit of electronic wizardry from the button-pusher behind The xx. James Smith had always been something of a perfectionist - struggling to finish music and abandoning several projects prior to this having collaborated with such names as Diplo and Richard Russell. His micro-managing approach works, though, on In Colour, which provides an incredible scope and depth of sound, production techniques, and vocalists. It's a very British album - even a distinctly London one - evocative of dimly-lit streets and rainy nights and warehouse raves and occasional moments of bleak beauty. The production sways between the bare minimum and almost overwhelming breadth - the likes of Gosh and Stranger in a Room are sparse, tense, and lovely tracks that make the fuller, richer sound on I Know There's Gonna Be (Good Times), The Rest Is Noise and the closest we get to a proper The xx-style pop song, Loud Places, all the more vibrant. Smith's The xx bandmates crop up, in fact, individually on Stranger in a Room and Loud Places, while Yung Thug and Popcaan put in some of the more enjoyable performances of their careers so far. But this is still very much Smith's album, a mash of his influences from steel drums to acid house bass to minimalist electro pop that, as pretty instrumental love song Girl fades out, cannot help but leave you wanting more. The videos are well worth a watch, too. 

14. Death Grips - Exmilitary (2011): there is some music that simply defies classification. Death Grips are one such act - the Sacramento trio riding the line between punk, rap, electronic and purely experimental. And while their sound has started to gravitate firmly towards the latter in recent years, this debut mixtape is testament to how eclectic their approach once was. Exmilitary is a furious onslaught of barely controlled noise, sonic experimentation and the throat-splitting vocals of frontman Stefan "MC Ride" Burnett: Beware gets things rolling with a recording of a Charles Manson interview before Burnett roars in with the song's cryptic, anthemic hook - "I close my eyes and seize it / I clench my fist and beat it / I light my torch and burn it / I am the beast I worship". The album's lyrical content follows on in much this vein, a succession of abrasive, abstract raps that are the perfect match to the other side of things: the production work of Zach Hill and Andy Morin. Samples from '50s garage rock, '60s psychedelia, '70s prog, '80s hip hop and '90s alt rock fight for air alongside the electronic insanity of Hill and Morin, plus a high-school marching band's drum corps. The result is an incessant, head-banging 50 minutes that is far catchier than it really should be - from Guillotine, Spread Eagle Cross the Block and Takyon (Death Yon), all of which set a breathtaking pace, through the more measured Culture Shock and almost vaporwave style 5D into a slightly slower ending on I want it I need it and Blood Creeping. A reminder that there are still new ideas to be had within the medium of music.

13. Jack White - Boarding House Reach (2018): while Jack White may have seen his biggest successes in the previous decade, it was in the 2010s that he finally dropped all pretense and established himself as an out-and-out solo artist. Unfortunately, this seemed to coincide with him taking his foot off the pedal somewhat. Under the flag of The White Stripes, he redefined rock music and what could be done with simply guitar and drums. With The Raconteurs, he created some of the most perfectly-formed old-school rock tunes of all time. The Dead Weather, too, was an interesting project, creating a murky, Southern blues sound. But while his first two solo releases, Blunderbuss and Lazaretto, are both fine albums, they also feel like an amalgamation of everything that has come before and, ultimately, a bit safe. There was a point where it seemed as though the most daring thing he would do this decade was a collaboration with fellow Detroit outsiders Insane Clown Posse to cover Mozart, seemingly without much irony. So Boarding House Reach came as a welcome surprise; a truly experimental collection of tracks drawing on far more diverse influences than any of his previous work. Opener Connected By Love provides a teaser of what to expect - on the surface, a fairly straightforward slow blues number, but with throbbing electronics and recklessly processed choral vocals. Indeed, electronics are a dominant theme here, with Corporation and Respect Commander sounding almost like house tracks, albeit processed through a vintage rock filter, Ice Station Zebra going down a funk route and What's Done Is Done following up on the opening track's tone. Abulia and Akrasia, Everything You've Ever Learned and Ezmerelda Steals the Show can barely be considered songs, mixing spoken word sections with instrumental tomfoolery, and Humoresque closes the show by reviving lyrics from a now-forgotten writer named Howard Johnson set to Anton Dvořák's 1894 composition. It's not perfect, but it's so exciting to hear White trying again.

12. Danny Brown - Atrocity Exhibition (2016): I was recently watching the cinematic version of The Who and Elton John's Pinball Wizard (the high point of all of their careers, by the way) when something occurred to me: 40% of the musicians involved in that died before their time. It's not something that has happened to many who have come to fame beyond the '90s - raised awareness of the risks of such a reckless lifestyle, as boring as it may seem, probably saving a lot of lives. But over the past couple of years, a trend has emerged in the hip hop community, seemingly not a month going by without another young, promising artist turning up dead, usually by overdose, suicide, or both. For a long time, it looked as though Danny Brown could go the same way following a string of increasingly concerning public appearances and a devil-may-care attitude to drink and drugs reflected in his lyrics. Fourth album Atrocity Exhibition, though, feels like a genuine turning point for him both musically and emotionally. Because while the hyperactive hedonism of previous releases remains, and is still just as much fun as before, it's all tempered with self-reflection and an explanation of how he got to this point. You can't have the high without the hangover, and the album lurches chaotically between the two, starting with the jittery, agitated Downward Spiral, through the bristling Really Doe, the frantic Ain't It Funny and the gruelling White Lines, as paranoia and psychosis seem ready to set in. But there's light at the end of the tunnel, as Brown wraps things up in a much more relaxed, positive mood on Today, Get Hi and Hell For It, suggesting he is starting to come to terms with his self-medication behaviours and looking at how he can heal. All in all it's an emotionally draining listen, aided by jolting, abrasive production, but Brown's lyrical flair is what really elevates this to the level of greatness. He's lived fast, and may or may not die young, but with Atrocity Exhibition, Danny Brown's legacy should be assured.

11. De Staat - Bubble Gum (2019): had I allowed more than one album per artist on this list, De Staat would surely have had two or three in the mix, and their best just misses out on the top ten. Hailing from Nijmegen, a staunch socialist outpost of a city on the fringe of the Dutch bible belt, the five-piece group have never really played by the rules. Bubble Gum is their fifth studio album, and finally drops all masquerade of being part of the Benelux alternative movement in favour of fully embracing the ultra-slick Kraut Rock sound that had crept into 2013's I_CON and 2016's O. It's packed with moody, spiky, but ultimately infectious tunes, politically charged lyrics and moments of devastating musical might. The opening KITTY KITTY is propelled along by a thudding bass line and harsh electronics over a relentless beat as frontman Torre Florim decries all that is wrong with the games played by those in power today. The likes of I'm out of Your Mind, Pikachu and Level Up ramp up the pace with almost Krafwerk-style synths from Rocco Hueting and Florim practically crooning on top. Credit, too, to Tim van Delft's rock solid drum work and the inventive licks from Vedran Mircetic's lead guitar - taking as much of a back seat as he ever has in the group's sound but somehow never having seemed so vital; Jop van Summeren rounds out the sound with pulsating, effect-soaked bass. Mona Lisa and Luther take things to the next level with the atmospherics, but the best track by far is centrepiece Phoenix, a truly apocalyptic soundscape of crashing, crushing synthesisers evocative of Vangelis and again featuring disarming sensitivity from Florim's vocals. De Staat have continued to get better with each release, and Bubble Gum has set the bar even higher - it's almost hard to imagine what they're going to sound like moving into the next decade. For now, they're setting the world on fire.

Into the home straight now...

The Top 50 Albums of the Decade - 50-26

We begin with the bread-and-butter of good, interesting and forward-thinking music over the past decade: what I hope is a decent spread of work that showcases how much there is out there for those willing to look.

50. Moron Police - A Boat on the Sea (2019): from beginning to end on this arty rock record, there is very little that makes sense. Walls of guitar sound bounce off prog-style keyboard work, Nordic folk melodies and the occasional oboe solo. In another time it would be confusing. But then nothing made sense this decade, did it? We had people dying in the name of selfies, seagulls stealing dogs; thousands of people tried to elect a dead gorilla as president of the USA and that probably would have been better than what we actually got. And then four bearded Norwegians come in and start shouting about childhood pets (The Dog Song), social awkwardness (Captain Awkward) and, um, Norway's production and export of military drones for the US (Beware the Blue Skies) and you realise - yes, actually this all fits quite nicely.

49. Deltron 3030 - Event II (2013): the 2000 self-titled debut from this West-Coast collaborative hip-hop project has deservedly gone down in history as an album that legimitely redefined the genre - pushing the envelope in terms of production, narrative concepts and lyricism. This extremely belated follow-up doesn't come close, but there's still plenty of fun to be had thanks to adventurous orchestral arrangements courtesy of Dan "The Automator" Nakamura, Kid Koala's virtuoso turntable work and the surreal and satirical rapping of Del the Funky Homosapien. Like its predecessor, Event II is a concept album, set ten years later on and charting societal collapse, the perils of technology and hope for the future in the year 3040. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, David Cross and Amber Tamblyn provide spoken-word interludes, while guest spots range from Mike Patton and Damon Albarn to The Lonely Island. It's not perfect, but there's also nothing quite like it.

48. Chase & Status - No More Idols (2011): some of the best music out there is the music that has the ability to transport you instantaneously to a particular moment in time. This magnum opus from the London-based electronic duo was simply huge, garnering both commercial radio and club play - and it's a shame that it's not talked about more nowadays. The feature list alone is frozen in time: Tinie Tempah, Delilah, Sub Focus, Plan B... the latter's collaboration End Credits seemed destined to become a song for a generation, but like the vocalist himself has sadly faded into obscurity. Cee Lo Green appears too on Brixton Briefcase, fresh off his biggest solo success with Forget You, in case there was any doubt as to the legitimacy of the talent on show. And the album as a whole is a searing collection of drum 'n' bass and dubstep beats, occasionally sombre vocals and the kind of hits that leave you yearning for Cactus Jack's apple sours and Blackburn Rovers in the Premier League and being able to get away with wearing a shirt over a t-shirt on nights out.

47. R u n n e r s  C l u b  9 5 - Panama Papers (2017): the information age arguably started a while ago, but it was during this decade that the general public fully began to feel its effects. With adverts for whatever you were thinking about five minutes ago being directly beamed to your phone, the ability to connect via video to just about anyone else in the world, and people making millions from YouTube videos, it seems there's nothing technology can't achieve, for better or worse. So too in music - at no point in history would it have been so easy for Pool House Ltd., an independent record label based in Hartlepool, to release this spacy, hazy slice of electronic delirium from Swedish production duo R u n n e r s  C l u b  9 5. There are times when Panama Papers can feel like something of a parody of contemporary "plunderphonics" releases - the pan pipes on Troubles of Mind drip with cheese, Post School Sadness drives its minimalist beat straight into your head; even the album cover, with its mournful Greco-Roman statue, seems like an emulation of what has come before. And yet at its best, such as the jubilant Made For You ライト, or in the twanging guitar line of Devon, it represents the genre at its most intriguing. Not to mention it was created without using a single sample, elevating it above 99.9% of its inspiration by default.

46. Riff Raff - Neon Icon (2014): the bottom line in the kind of so-bad-it's-genius, tasteless, low-budget rap that cluttered up the mid part of the decade, Neon Icon represents the Texan rapper finally slipping into his groove. It's not completely devoid of the kind of ultra-basic novelty tracks that make his earlier work a vaguely irritating listen, and the spoken-word sections are just too bizarre; but listen closer and there are actually some seriously sharp tunes to be found. From fast-paced opener Introducing the Icon through the punk-rock beat of Kokayne and the abrasive How To Be The Man, there are more than a few genuine lyrical witticisms and it's all pretty musically unique. The likes of Cool it Down, Childish Gambino collaboration Lava Glaciers and the magnificently tacky-yet-classy Tip Toe Wing in my Jawwwdinz offer something smoother as well, and the way in which Riff Raff makes it all seem so effortless will never not be cool.

45. Viagra Boys - Street Worms (2018): Sports deserves its place in my top 10 songs list, but the associated album is well worth a listen in its own right. Street Worms is a murky, almost jazzy post-punk album, packed with nervy guitar riffs and rasping baritone saxophone; lyrically there's an edge of dark comedy to it all, but also more than a hint of Swedish, noirish, melancholy. Tales of illicit affairs, broken dreams and the inevitability of death give everything a truly adult feel, but - they are Swedish after all - the depression is warded off by a succession of infectious, memorable hooks and choruses. Down in the Basement kicks things off at a furious rate, Worms chugs along with a slow blues groove and closer Amphetanarchy wouldn't be out of place on one of Frank Zappa's heavier works. Gloomy it may be, but you can still dance to every song.

 

44. Earl Sweatshirt - Doris (2013): it's easy to forget, less than a decade on, just how influential the Odd Future collective were for the underground hip hop scene. At the tender age of 16 in 2010, Earl Sweatshirt gained the kind of attention for his 25-minute, self-produced debut mixtape that most never see. His secret, unfortunately for everyone else, was astonishing raw talent, and his debut full-length album Doris goes above and beyond in that department. It's a moody, dank, dense record both musically and lyrically, a challenging listen at times but also a rewarding one in the end, and bursting with the kind of lyrical virtuosity that earned him such a reputation to begin with. Reading the words to Pre, Hive or Chum - saying them out loud can leave you tongue-tied, and yet Earl lays his lines languidly across the beat with disarming ease. Guest appearances from the likes of Tyler, the Creator, Mac Miller and Frank Ocean add some spice, and the end result is a far more enjoyable listen than his subsequent releases.

43. Ocean Wisdom - Wizville (2018): as a British rap fan, it would be remiss of me not to include my favourite British rap album of the decade. Many would point to ultra-slick releases from Stormzy or Skepta, or maybe Loyle Carner; I personally gave serious consideration to Rizzle Kicks - all good choices for sure. Ultimately, though, my vote goes to this slightly lesser-known record from Brighton MC Ocean Wisdom. Debut single Walkin' was cause for genuine excitement back in 2014, but the following album was patchy - this second release takes everything up several notches. The actual rapping is just ridiculous at times, openers Eye Contact and Don ratcheting up the pace to light speed, Ocean Wisdom's flow skipping around the beat and offering up new wordplay every time you listen; on Tiptronic he fills three minutes with nothing but metaphors about gearboxes and Burning a Bridge is the cleverest breakup tune I've heard for a while. Dizzee Rascal makes a welcome appearance on Revvin' and the likes of Pete Cannon and Leaf Dog step up on production. If there's a complaint, it's that at over 80 minutes it's just too long - but that's also testament to the limitless creativity on show.

42. Superorganism - Superorganism (2018): another group that would never have existed in another time, Superorganism came together online from across the globe in around 2015, as internet friends exchanged recordings and experimented with each others' clips. The band in their current form, though, are now based in London, and the development is actually plain to see on this concise, tight experimental pop album. Superorganism features some nicely inventive guitar work from Chistopher Young and extremely chill vocals by Orono Noguchi, but the real credit should go to the production trio of Young, Mark David Turner and Tim Shann. Something for Your M.I.N.D. literally samples a pigeon, urgent car horns on Relax make me jump every time and It's All Good has an almost grungy sound with its crashing guitar chorus and hazy verses. The Prawn Song is the standout track, though, providing a deceptively simple analogy for the human race that really goes quite deep. Sums up the album really.

41. Tommy Cash - ¥€$ (2018): rap music has been expanding since its inception in the '70s, but it has never been as global a phenomenon as it is now. The result is artists popping up from the unlikeliest of places - Russia, Israel and Indonesia producing some of the most interesting acts of the decade. But none are quite as interesting as Tallinn's Tomas Tammemets. Under his stage name Tommy Cash, he released some of the most intriguing and unique music videos of recent times - the result being that, while SURF, WINALOTO and LITTLE MOLLY are by no means bad songs, they work better with the visual concept art that accompanied them. ¥€$ works as an album because it cleanses the palette - by not including any of those tracks, the focus is brought back to the music. Which is good, as it's as eclectic and different as any of Cash's visual pieces. Intro WAIT A MINUTE announces the album's searing, choppy musical tone, and the likes of MONA LISA, BRAZIL and DOSTOEVSKY carry it on - but songs such as BLACK JEANS, WHITE T-SHIRT and NOT CARE offer a more measured approach, too. X-RAY is probably the most polished tune, drawing on the pounding beats of Eastern European dance music, and the video is up there with his best.

40. Flamingosis - Flight Fantastic (2018): New Jersey producer Aaron Velasquez gets it all right on his astounding eighth fully-fledged album in just four years. The likes of Pleasure Palette and Bright Moments showed moments of brilliance in crafting neat, retro beats and jams, but Flight Fantastic feels much more like a proper LP. The actual tunes themselves are more structured, the basslines more solid, the drums crisper, the lyrics fitting more standard patterns. And the album as a whole has a genuine flow to it, starting with lush, soulful motown-style tracks in Return of The Love Jones and You Were Meant For Me, tightening into more straightforward funk on A Mile High and Bob Saget Gets New Real Estate before drawing on Velasquez's Latin roots with Bruncha Nova and Tumbao, and fading out nicely on Last Stop. It's a sunny, pleasant collection of tunes that feels both '70s and current, and one that, unlike a lot of similar music, demands a repeat listen.

39. The Jackets - Queen of the Pill (2019): here comes the fuzz... there's a lot of obscure music on this list, but arguably none on par with this ultra-rare album from Swiss rock outfit The Jackets. Eschewing the formulaic psychobilly sound of earlier releases, Queen of the Pill is a thunderous collection of '60s-style psych-rock tunes. The influences are obvious - Shocking Blue, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane - but it couldn't have been made without the edge of the earlier garage rock sound, the swagger of '70s punk and the snarl of '90s alternative. Frontwoman Jack Torera blends powerful vocals with a guitar sound drenched in valve distortion, matched with the melodic bass work of Samuel Schmidiger and clattering drums from Chris Rosales. It's slightly front-loaded - Dreamer and Steam Queen are the best tracks, perfectly-formed all-out rock songs - but crucially doesn't overstay its welcome, going out with a bang after 31 minutes of almost flawless, manic retro sounds.

38. Action Bronson - Dr. Lecter (2011): for all the expansion of hip-hop into the wider world, it's worth remembering that a lot of the best of the genre can still be found in its New York heartland. Ariyan Arslani - Action Bronson - rose to prominence in the city's underground scene at the tail end of the last decade, but his pinnacle came with this masterful jazz-rap mixtape; probably the finest ever inspired by the culinary arts. A chef by training, Bronson took up rapping as a hobby but decided to go full pro - and the two backgrounds come together here to impressive effect. With a sprinkling of food and cookery metaphors in among more standard hip-hop fare, all backed by a laid-back selection of jazz, funk and soul, the likes of Larry Csonka, Ronnie Coleman and Brunch are as fun as anything to come out in the last ten years. Bronson seems to be returning to his roots as a chef now - albeit one with his own TV show - but Dr. Lecter deserves to stand as testament to never giving up on your hobbies.

37. Colour Haze - In Her Garden (2017): there are more than a few people out there who claim that good music died in about 1979 - the advent of digital and automated aids in the mainstream killing off organic, artistic music that required actual talent to create. In fact, this decade provided plenty of evidence to shut them up, with conceptual rock scenes burgeoning all around the world. Cream of the crop is the 12th studio album from Munich-based veterans Colour Haze, a strung-out, intricate, symphonic slice of psychedelic, largely instrumental, rock that provides enough layers of complexity to keep even the most anal music theorist happy. Not that it's a difficult listen - the grooving riffs of Black Lilly and Magnolia nestle alongside the softer, organ-infused Arbores and chill prog track Labyrinthe. Tubas, trombones and clarinets give everything a hint of Oktoberfest swing, while the mantric chanting at the climax of Lotus can only be described as joyous. It all goes about as hard as a prog-influenced concept album inspired by flowers can be expected to, as well.

36. La Femme - Psycho Tropical Berlin (2013): it is to my regret that there are only a couple of foreign-language albums on this entire list - for all my attempts to branch out into global music, I always seem to keep coming back to artists that write in English. But my goodness is this a good one - the debut from Biarritz's experimental-pop-rock-new-wave-garage masters rarely misses a beat. Antitaxi kicks things off with demented surf guitars, and Amour Dans Le Motu and Hypsoline ratchet things up with edgy, über-cool, extremely French grooviness. Things do eventually slow down, on bluesy suicide lament Saisis La Corde and ethereal other-woman revenge tale Le Blues De Françoise, but all in all this album makes it very hard to stay still while listening. Themetically things can get dark at times, but there are antidotal moments of irony to soften it up just a bit and the disarmingly sweet vocal delivery of Clémence Quélennec bounces off Sacha Got's jagged guitar work to splendid effect. La Femme will probably be best remembered for soundtracking a Renault advert, but there's so much more to them than that.

35. バミューダ b e r m u d a - 80 Minutes of Pure Relaxation (2017): does what it says on the tin. This debut release by the production duo, who are in fact from Bermuda, hovers somewhere between classic ambient, new age and the chillwave microgenre - but it's elevated from massage-parlour reception muzak status by its showcasing of genuine composition skill. These are tracks that ebb and flow like the Atlantic itself, there are crescendos and changes of direction; all of which keeps the listener engaged and stops the album becoming forgettable. europa and theia get things going with almost trance-like rhythms, while luna and dystopia, with their wavy, wobbly synths, are as close as this gets to true chillwave. synesthesia somehow feels a lot shorter than its 22-minute run time, and bermuda is a wonderfully clever musical triptych culminating in a reggae-tinged reworking of God Save the Queen that has to be heard to be believed. This was the perfect soundtrack to lying poolside on a beautiful holiday in Rhodes.

34. Deca - The Way Through (2017): as should already be evident from this list, I listen to a lot of rap, in a lot of its many forms. Christian rap though? Not so much. But Deca is different. Unlike the histrionic, holier-than-thou Christianity of so many American Christian groups, the Denver MC preaches a much more introverted, self-fulfilling, spiritual side of the religion. I'm being serious when I say that Sailboats and Trains, which cropped up on 2013 release The Ocean, contains the best lyrics of all time - and The Way Through comes very close on every single track. Deca weaves poetic, sometimes abstract, lines about higher powers, mankind's purpose, self-belief and self-affirmation. It's hard not to be swept up by the positivity and clarity of it all - not enough to convert me, but I find it hard to disagree with anything he says. Skyward, Milk, Mammon's Mantra and 6th and A are all essential hip-hop tracks of the decade, and it's worth bearing in mind that, regardless of lyrical content, it all holds up musically as well.

33. Tyler, the Creator - Wolf (2013): has it aged well? Nah. Back when I used to do this on a yearly basis, I rated this album very highly - but just a few years on, and given what rap sounds like these days, the clunking synths and off-kilter beats of Tyler's third release already seem impossibly dated. It gets worse when you put it in the context of where his career has gone since, too: with Cherry Bomb effectively a conscious distancing from this album's whole vibe, and Flower Boy and IGOR the subsequent post-coming-out cooldown, Wolf, with its tales of summer camp and teenage lust, becomes almost laughable. And yet I will defend this album to the death. Listening to it again now cannot fail to produce almost overwhelming emotion in me, as it did for a lot of listeners at the time who were looking for something completely different. From the lyrical twists and turns of Jamba to the likes of Domo23 and Tamale, still among his most fun songs, to the heart-wrenching IFHY and Lone, a eulogy for his late grandmother, there was nothing quite like it at the time. I hate to bring things back to his sexuality again, but a lot of the more questionable lyrics can be forgiven knowing they came from a closeted young man - bear in mind he was just 22 at the time - struggling to express himself. And he wrote and played all of his own music! And designed his own clothes! And formed his own crew of rappers who hung out together in LA and appeared on each others' albums. I accept that I'm part of the problem he describes on Colossus, but Wolf really resonated with me. It's hard to listen to him practically scream at the end of Pigs, "I got 99 problems and all of them's being happy" - but I'm glad he's doing better now; I certainly am and I hope a lot of the people this spoke to are as well.

32. The Fat White Family - Serf's Up! (2019): ah, the internet. It's introduced me to a lot of good music over the years; one day, for instance, YouTube thought I might be interested in a band called The Fat White Family. And with a name like that, how could I resist? I was rewarded with this extremely polished collection of post-punk, post-britpop, post-ironic exercises in inventive songwriting. From the sweeping strings of Feet through the almost Kraftwerk-style beats on I Believe in Something Better and the incessantly needling bassline of Fringe Runner, to the softer Rock Fishes and Bobby's Boyfriend, there's impressive musical range on show. Frontman Lias Saoudi is everything punk frontmen should be but so often aren't: eloquent, provocative, not shy to satirise. His influence is felt on When I Leave, which sits somewhere between Blur and Monty Python, but best by a mile is Tastes Good with the Money, a deliciously sleazy indictment of Britain's persisting class segregation - and it doesn't just aim upwards. Here's to many more from this bunch of weirdos.

31. Skrillex - Recess (2014): it was surprisingly difficult to decide whether to even bother considering Skrillex for this list. Because while his influence on electronic music is totally undeniable, equally undeniable is the speed at which he became a punchline for the most easily-lambasted aspects of the genre; a hyperactive, noisy soundtrack for the age of internet memes and viral videos. Recess has aged infinitely better than his earlier work precisely because it falls back on what came before rather than trying to blaze a trail, and since what came before was so largely established by Skrillex himself, I'd say that's enough to qualify it. Anyway, it's a very enjoyable album, gathering together all of the festival-ready sounds of mid-decade EDM into a high-budget, polished package. The title track and Dirty Vibe bounce off the speakers, Stranger has more of a jungle vibe, and Ease My Mind and Fire Away are perhaps the most neatly-written dance tracks of the whole decade.

30. Stoned Jesus - Seven Thunders Roar (2012): it was a turbulent decade for the people of Ukraine, for sure, and out of the maelstrom of Kiev came this brooding, bleak, meandering work of doom metal from the country's best power trio. Comprising just five tracks, some might dispute its status as an album, but clocking in at 48 minutes gives it a pass from me. Besides, it's just too good to leave out, thanks in large part to the guitar work of Igor Sidorenko who tempers his muscular riffing - defiant political statement Indian features the best riff of the decade, hands down - with melodic solo segments, atmospheric effects and the occasional well-advised switch to the acoustic. The result is a record evoking the mountains and forests of eastern Europe, even in its more standard rock tracks, Bright Like the Morning and Electric Mistress, and grooving closer Stormy Monday. The highlight, though, is definitely I'm the Moutain, a 16-minute slow burner with more musical twists and turns than most bands manage in their whole career.

29. Michael Kiwanuka - Love & Hate (2016): the London-based soul-singer-songwriter followed up his pleasant 2012 debut Home Again with something from a different universe. Love & Hate lays out its intentions with ten-minute opener Cold Little Heart, an epic journey through orchestral strings, sparkling piano work, gospel choirs and mournful aesthetic, and the rest of the album follows on from there - track after track of masterful arrangements, vocal harmonies and musicianship. Danger Mouse pulls the strings on production and it shows - despite Kiwanuka's British-Ugandan roots, this sounds like it came straight from the West Coast of the US in the '70s, especially on the title track, Rule the World and the more uptempo One More Night. Kiwanuka croons along in a voice sounding decades older than his 29 years, but which can be deceptively powerful when it needs to be, and he's not afraid to let loose with the occasional searing guitar solo.

28. clipping. - Splendor & Misery (2016): on paper, the members of experimental rap trio clipping. seem wholly incompatible. Rapper Daveed Diggs has won both a Tony and a Grammy for his performance in Hamilton, producer William Hutson holds a PhD in experimental music, and other producer Jonathan Snipes came up through the LA electronic scene. But work they do, putting out some of the most interesting-yet-accessible music of the decade. Splendor & Misery combines this eclecticism into a coherent concept album, a space opera tale of a slave mutiny aboard a spaceship that leaves just one survivor, who then has to argue with the ship's AI for his freedom. It's a world away from most hip-hop, and that's true on the musical side as well. Long Way Away and Story 5 sound like futuristic sea shanties, Diggs is utilised more as a slam poet than a rapper, and it's not until around two-thirds of the way through on Air 'Em Out that we get something even approaching a traditional beat. Baby Don't Sleep teases an old-school boom-bap rhythm composed entirely of tuned static and A Better Place jangles with prog-style organs before fading into chaotic noise. One to stroke your beard to.

27. TV Girl - Who Really Cares (2016): the sophomore release from the San Diego indie pop band who describe themselves as something "you can sing along to, but wouldn't sing around your parents" is marketed as "an album about sex, or lack thereof". So far, so edgy. But that self-deprecating humour permeates and softens what is ultimately quite a sweet album, filled with tales of walks of shame, petty disputes over once-shared possessions and the awkwardness of bumping into your ex at a party. The likes of Safe Word and Heaven is a Bedroom even serve as a reminder not to let your sex life define the rest of your life - because ultimately who really cares? The musical side of things is equally charming, with the twin vocals of Brad Petering and Madison Acid - the latter might possibly just be Petering's voice pitch-shifted up - harmonising nicely over a backing of tuneful electric piano and a dreamy, washed-out rhythm section. It's adult, but not in the way you would immediately think - and that's what makes it work so well.

26. Hail Mary Mallon - Bestiary (2014): when it comes to rappers, very few are held in as high regard as Aesop Rock. A legend in the underground scene for his staggeringly verbose lyrics, he teams up here with fellow NYC MC Rob Sonic for a second stab at the duo's Hail Mary Mallon project - and the result is far closer to their full potential than debut Are You Gonna Eat That? Their lyrical skill is just breathtaking at times - I'm pretty sure no rap song had featured the word "tapenade" until King Cone - and they bat lines back and forth between each other with ease. The couple of tracks that actually mean anything - Krill bemoaning the urban rat race and Whales an increasingly OTT account of a pair of homeless men fantasising about future riches - are perhaps objectively best from a songwriting point of view but practically every line here represents wonderfully surreal, absurdist poetry, inventive rhyme and meter schemes and, all in all, far more astuteness than most would expect from the genre. Oh, and there are plenty of big beats too, from the funky Used Cars, to the creepy piano riff on 4AM, to the crooked waltz time signature of Dollywood. I know I've included a lot of rap albums here that "aren't your typical rap album" - but this one is as worth a listen as any.

So that's the back of the list broken. Up next is the really good stuff...