My 20 Favorite Songs of the 2010s
The decade is finally coming to a close and, now that I sit down to write this on December 30th, 2019, I can finally say with confidence that there won’t be any interesting music releases for the rest of the year (seriously, there had better not fucking be).
I didn’t want to call this the “Best 20 Songs of the 2010s” because, as much as I try to take in as much new music as possible, there’s always gonna be something I missed and either won’t discover until much further down the road or won’t discover at all. Also, I don’t particularly feel like having to deal with anyone messaging me, “WHY DIDN’T YOU INCLUDE MY FAVORITE SONG?!”
My list is in alphabetical order, mostly because I have a full-time job and putting this shit in rank order is a whole ordeal. So, without further ado, here are the songs that left the biggest impression on me this decade. YouTube and Spotify links included for your convenience.
- Alright — Kendrick Lamar
Pharrell production. A powerful rallying cry. A perfect beginning and ending (not to mention a mesmerizing music video). It’s a song that commands your attention and that I’m still incapable of skipping, even four full years after its release. It’s one of the best rap songs of this (or any) decade and it’s not up for debate.
2. Ave Cesaria — Stromae
Sorry to the I-don’t-read-subtitles crowd, but this one’s in French (shout-out to Belgium). It’s a danceable song, but also a moving tribute to Cesária Évora, a singer from Cape Verde. Ave Cesaria pulls of the impressive feat of making me nostalgic for a place and era I knew nothing about.
3. BFK — Freddie Gibbs
The reason I usually sequence my year-end playlists like albums is to avoid super jarring mood switches like this. Anyway, Freddie Gibbs had as good a decade as any rapper, so it should be no surprise to see him pop up here. Even in a decade that saw him release two great albums with Madlib, this is the song I played the most. Gibbs absolutely consumes this beat and sums up his unique position in rap with the line, “way too thug for these mufuckin’ rappers. Rap way better than your neighborhood trapper.”
4. Crowns for Kings — Benny the Butcher & Black Thought
I don’t know how to describe this other than that it’s an absolute masterclass on rapping. No chorus. No frills. Just two East Coast vets rapping out of their damned minds. Both Benny the Butcher and Black Thought showcase the uncommon ability to string together complex multi-syllable rhyme schemes, all while carrying forward a compelling narrative. Lines like “the money generated from me leavin’ microphones broke/ probably almost on par with all of Escobar’s coke/ when I finish, I’ma keep a tennis shoe on y’all throat / just in case you mention in an interview you want smoke” are delivered with an effortless that suggests that, no, you cannot imitate them.
5. Doin’ It Again — The Roots
“Doin’ It Again” may not have been the album’s lead single (or a single at all) but it’s serves as the turning point in the The Roots’ ninth studio album. The album was a strikingly mature piece of work — I’ve probably referred to it as the band members sorting out their midlife crises — with a narrative that starts somber and desolate, before growing more and more resolute. Doin’ It Again is the bold proclamation that they will get through this, a point they make with a big, bold instrumental and Black Thought’s verse from that year’s BET Cypher.
6. Fajr — Brother Ali
To put it simply, this a towering, powerful piece of music. Brother Ali’s passionate vocals rise over Jake One’s multi-layered instrumental. The second verse is as raw as it gets, as Ali paints a vivid picture of struggle and exploitation. It reads like a scene out of Dante’s Inferno, but it’s a unflinchingly honest description of modern power dynamics.
7. Grown Up — Danny Brown
You can tell which entries I wrote last because they’re really short (I’m getting tired and I want to finish this shit before it’s 2021). Anyway, “Grown Up” is Danny Brown at his swaggering best as he takes his audience on a trip down memory lane.
8. Half Time — Amy Winehouse
One of my favorite Amy Winehouse songs is a sleepy track hidden away on a posthumous album. She’s famously a huge music nerd and this sweetly-written ode to the music she loves — “rhythm floods my heart; the melody, it feeds my soul/ the tune tears me apart; and swallows me whole” — is incredibly affecting. As she says, the music truly is a gift.
9. LIFE — Saba
“LIFE” is a dark, deeply personal track from Saba, who absolutely let everything out in the studio on this one. You can hear the pain in “I tell death to keep a distance; I think he obsessed with me,” and “I got my granddaddy’s soul” and the chorus is absolute punch in the gut. It’s tremendous stuff from one of the most talented young rappers out right now.
10. Lost In The World — Kanye West
I was today years old when I found out this song had a music video.
Anyway, it was hard to pick the absolute standout track from one of Kanye’s finest pieces of work, but Lost in the World, the climax at the album’s end, is the first track I think of when I think of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It goes in all kinds of directions, with distorted vocals from Bon Iver mixing with all kinds of madness. Kanye’s one rapped verse isn’t quite as profound as he thinks it is, but “if we die in each other’s arms, still get laid in the afterlife” is….strangely iconic? I’m going to try not to think too hard about how Kanye went from the type of person who’d end an album with “Who Will Survive in America?” by Gill-Scott Heron to someone who rocks a MAGA hat. Good vibes only in 2020, okay?
11. Milestone — Smoke DZA & Pete Rock
Pete Rock‘s been producing rap songs for longer than I’ve been alive and he hasn’t lost a single step. Smoke DZA, Jadakiss, and Styles P sound right at home on a classic east coast beat, and BJ The Chicago Kid’s buttery chorus is the perfect compliment for that piano loop.
12. Money Trees — Kendrick Lamar
This is one of those songs that’s so infectious that I know every damn ad-lib in the song. I should also note that, in addition to being one of Kendrick Lamar’s signature songs, it features a verse from Jay Rock — at the time not the most hyped member of the Black Hippy collective — that launched him to a whole new level.
13. Q.U.E.E.N. — Janelle Monae
I wanted to say a lot of really insightful and artsy things about this song but all I’ve gotta say is:
“THEY BE LIKE SAID OOO, LET THEM EAT CAKE. BUT WE EAT WINGS AND THROW THEM BONES ON THE GROUND”
14. Redbone — Childish Gambino
I was never particularly into Childish Gambino — can I please just call him Donald Glover for the rest of this? — as a rapper so I never dug too deep into his catalog. His style was overly reliant on cheap punchlines and I thought a lot of his stuff was pretty corny. So, when this song first came up in my YouTube recommendations, I kind of just played it in the background while I did other things. “That’s a cool interlude,” I thought. “I wonder who’s singing those vocals.”
Then some of the pre-release buzz started up. That was actually Glover on those vocals, it turns out. And the whole album would be like that. An homage to the 70’s funk that I grew up listening to with my parents. Naturally, I gave Redbone another listen (a friend said it reminded him of me. Did I really say “woke” that much?) and, damn, that song is most certainly my shit. I’ll never not sing along in my horrible falsetto if I hear it playing somewhere.
15. Run the Jewels — Run the Jewels
Run the Jewels is three albums in with multiple singles released. They’ve had songs placed on video game soundtracks and big-budget Marvel movie trailers. But for me, their signature song will always be track one on their very first album. I first heard it during an 11-hour layover and I probably listened to it 10 times that night. It’s pure adrenaline, with Killer Mike and El-P trying to outdo each other with the wildest boasts they can come up with — Killer Mike threatens a poodle at one point — and you can tell they’re having all the fun in the world while they do it. It’s a track that takes their live show up to insane levels of energy and routinely gets me yelling at highway traffic.
16. Suede — NxWorries
Anderson .Paak has had as good a decade as any artist, whether it be his solo work, or him popping up on other artist’s singles and adding all sorts of flavor to their work. I’d argue that the highlight of his decade was when he linked up with Knxledge for the second time on NxWorries, which features .Paak talking all kinds of slick shit over Knxledge’s dusty, off-kilter production. “Suede,” of course, is the centerpiece. And you’d be hard-pressed to find a line as fun to yell out loud as “most of y’all can’t do shit. But all my chicks cook GRITS!!!”
17. The Games We Play — Pusha T
At one point in 2018, we were all subjected to a bunch of “IS KANYE WEST BACK” hot takes and Pusha T’s DAYTONA album (and this song in particular) is why. Yeezy’s next couple of albums would fail to live up to expectations (he, uh….is not back), but he gave us some incredible production serving as the Eric B to Pusha T’s Rakim (sorry, that was a washed reference). Drake’s boogeyman (and apparent amateur private investigator) gets some (mostly undeserved) shit for being one-note, but if your fastball is this dominant, who needs a slider?
18. Them Changes — Thundercat
I love that even the instrumental sounds a little bit drunk and moody. It’s a perfect post-heartbreak song. It’s a truly great encapsulation of how it feels to be a “broken mess.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNCd_ERZvZM
19. Untitled — Killer Mike
On “Untitled,” the standout track of 2012’s R.A.P. Music, one of the best albums of the decade, Killer Mike muses on his post-death legacy, redemption, and the obligation to spit the truth over the low rumble of one of El-P’s best beats.
20. Ye — Burna Boy
When “Ye,” the massive anthem from Burna Boy’s Outside album, dropped, the rest of the world found out what people on his home continent (and some other members of the diaspora) already knew — this man is a star. Now, damn near every major artist on the planet is trying to work with him and it’s a safe bet that for many of them, this banger was their introduction.
BONUS: Here’s my full top 100 of the decade list (my favorite 100 songs, limited to one song per album) that I pulled these songs from. The songs are in no particular order.