As the decade comes to a close, it’s only fitting that Music Week puts the question everyone is talking about to the biz: what was the best album of the past 10 years? We’ve already heard from Noel Gallagher, Annie Mac and DJ Premier for Part 1, but there’s a whole lot more execs and artists still to hear from. Read on to find out which records made the cut...
JAY-Z & KANYE WEST
WATCH THE THRONE (2011)
(DEF JAM/ROC NATION/ROC-A-FELLA)
“I remember how important this album was here when it came out. I was obsessed with it. It was such an iconic time – one of my favourite eras. No Church In The Wild was great .As a mixed race kid in the countryside, I could listen to it and relate. There are some really empowering lyrics.”
Tiffany Calver (DJ, BBC Radio 1/1Xtra)
ED SHEERAN
÷ (2017)
(ASYLUM/ATLANTIC)
“It’s a bit corny choosing Ed, but not only do I Iove it, it’s a brilliant record. And it will be etched on my memory forever, that just taking off. Selling over 700,000 week one was just phenomenal, the whole thing was just brilliant. And I’ve never got sick of Shape Of You, however many times I’ve heard it.”
Damian Christian (Director of promotions, Atlantic UK/SVP, promotional strategy, Warner Music UK)
MICHAEL KIWANUKA
LOVE & HATE (2016)
(POLYDOR)
“Partly informed by Marvin Gaye, this is Michael Kiwanuka’s version of What’s Going On. I think it’s a hugely unrecognised classic album, it’s brilliant. He’s great, his new album is awesome as well. Loads of other records [from the decade] will probably jump into my mind, but I won’t feel bad about having named Love & Hate, it’s a great album.”
Paul Firth (Director, Europe, Amazon Music)
GRUFF RHYS
AMERICAN INTERIOR (2014)
(TURNSTILE)
"An album telling a story that of John Evans/Ioan Ifans, an explorer who went to America in search of a tribe of Native Americans rumoured to speak Welsh. He then defected to the Spanish and eventually died in New Orleans, but he discovered the Mandan tribe in 1796 and spent the winter with them. Unfortunately, he found no trace of Welsh speaking among them. The album was also a book, a video and an app."
Annabella Coldrick (CEO, Music Managers Forum)
KAYTRANADA
99.9% (2016)
(XL RECORDINGS)
“Kaytranada’s debut is a record that works on the dancefloor and at home. That’s something that I can listen to at home, or if I’m travelling, and there are definitely a few records within that album that work on the dancefloor. It draws on all of the things that I love within dance music, whether that be house music, jazz, soul, funk, electronica. It was inspired by all of those elements, which is why it resonated so well.”
Simon Dunmore (CEO, Defected)
KENDRICK LAMAR
GOOD KID, M.A.A.D. CITY (2012)
(TOP DAWG/AFTERMATH/INTERSCOPE)
“This to me is Illmatic, but set on the West Coast. Nas was watching these things go down on the streets but he wasn’t participating, he was seeing drug deals, gangsters and reporting. This album is the same. Kendrick is not a gangster, he’s seeing what’s going on around him. The reason I know this is the best album of the decade is my brother. He has had the same car since it came out and he has never changed the CD in its stereo once! Seven years he’s been driving around! The shelf life of this album is impeccable. It’s very diverse in range. Kendrick Lamar will go down in history, he’s created a few classics already.”
Tuma Basa (director of urban music, YouTube)
REX ORANGE COUNTY
APRICOT PRINCESS (2017)
(REX ORANGE COUNTY)
“I don’t have a favourite album of this decade! Oh wait, yes I do, it’s Apricot Princess by Rex Orange County. Iconic!”
Grace Vanderwaal (artist)
DEAN BLUNT & INGA COPELAND
BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL (2012)
(HYPERDUB)
"As I am reluctantly narrowed to just one album for the decade, I have to say Dean Blunt and Inga Copeland’s Black Is Beautiful on Kode 9’s influential Hyperdub label kept resurfacing. In a watershed decade for the industry, Black Is Beautiful pushed the boundaries of music, and the album form, as a piece of art. It bookmarks a period in which many genre distinctions and sub-scenes were obliterated."
David Martin (General manager, Featured Artists Coalition)
FRANK OCEAN
CHANNEL ORANGE (2012)
(DEF JAM)
“Oh my god, that came out right before my birthday in 2012 when I started making music. That's crazy. I just think Frank Ocean is the perfect artist. I think he's like the perfect specimen of a human because he makes his art and it's so unbelievably good, to the point where his music is healing. He stays away from all things that you would expect every other artist would love. There's no ego there. I hope Frank Ocean is an artist who will continue to put out albums because I feel like he's just an uber-talented human being.”
Brooke Candy (artist)
LIANNE LA HAVAS
IS YOUR LOVE BIG ENOUGH? (2012)
(NONESUCH)
“Totally personal, this album reminds me of the year I first went freelance… and met my other half!”
Remi Harris (Remi Harris Consulting)
GLASS ANIMALS
HOW TO BE A HUMAN BEING (2016)
(WOLF TONE/CAROLINE INTERNATIONAL)
“We work with them a bit, but that’s not the reason. If I was 16 or 60, they’d just be a band I love on every level. They are the perfect band, I love them and would go and see them even if I had to buy the ticket myself, shock horror!”
Richard Griffiths (Co-founder, Modest! Management)
TAYLOR SWIFT
1989 (2014)
(BIG MACHINE)
“I didn’t buy it at the time and then it was randomly on my devices, this is just a few months ago and I had a long road trip, so I took the album and I was like: ‘Oh my god, I know every song on this album!’ I knew them from streaming and radio, but I didn’t know they were all from just one album. It was just smash hit, smash hit, smash hit. She’s a really good songwriter. Some of the big songs she legitimately wrote by herself. She also collaborates with the best people in the industry. Wildest Dreams is my favourite track on the album. What I think is cool about that song is she's interesting. She’s a really good writer and she’s got a pretty voice – a delicate style delivery, not a powerhouse, belting out singer. That song really uses what she brings to the table in a really great way. Like it's really framed the way she sings in a perfect way.”
Josh Ramsay (songwriter/The Marianas Trench)
KANYE WEST
MY BEAUTIFUL DARK TWISTED FANTASY (2010)
(DEF JAM)
"Kanye West may have completely lost his way since, but right at the tip of the decade he made his definitive masterpiece. Featuring everyone from Justin Vernon to Rick Ross, and of course Nicki Minaj, it's a chaotic, imperious and thrilling album. All over the shop in the best way possible! He is yet to surpass it, but to paraphrase Catch 22 author Joseph Heller, ‘who has?’"
Paul Reed (CEO, Association Of Independent Festivals)
YOUNG FATHERS
DEAD (2014)
(BIG DADA)
"Angry, dystopian, thrashing energy meets thoughtful, emotional vocals and instrumentation. Singing of cultural identity, hedonism, conflict and revolution, this album is a confrontational listen in all the ways music can, and should, be. They flipped what it meant to be a 'band from Scotland’ on its head and continue to make superb music."
Jayne Stynes (General manager, Music Managers Forum)
NO CHOICE
“I’m a singles person, I don’t mind telling people. Most albums bore me stupid, even my favourite Beatles and Motown albums, I like the best tracks on them. You have to take your hat off to Ed Sheeran for the diversity of his albums and maybe Coldplay still make great albums. But what’s really happened in the last decade is we’ve gone back to the singles. We’re now a song market again, where singles can be massive, have two billion streams and then the next track does nothing. Because people just take the tracks that they want and not the tracks you want them to hear. So I don’t have a favourite album of the last decade. But my favourite track is Happy by Pharrell Williams, that’s an amazing track. I would have given my left arm to make records like that. We just didn’t have the quality and the technology that some of these artists have got now, it’s just amazing. Singles sound better than they ever have. I still work for the BBC on Saturdays doing a two-hour radio show and I rarely play my favourite records from the ‘70s and ‘80s because they don’t sound as good as the stuff that’s coming out now. I would have died to make records like that.”
Pete Waterman (Founder, PWL)
WORDS: GEORGE GARNER, JAMES HANLEY, BEN HOMEWOOD, ANDRE PAINE AND MARK SUTHERLAND
