Your Favourite Albums + Songs of the Decade

Discussion in 'The Jukebox' started by SoulPunisher, Jan 24, 2020.

  1. the title says it smh
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  2. I Like It When You Sleep For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It
    by The 1975
    released on February 26th, 2016


    The album starts with ‘The 1975’, a remake of The 1975’s debut album’s (2013) intro track. This rendition is orchestral, shimmering, featuring a choir singing in the background, gaining intensity throughout the song and exploding into ‘Love Me’ at the end. ‘Love Me’ is a Bowie-style funk rock song, commentating on the band’s success following their 2013 debut. Love Me folds into ‘UGH!’, a funky RnB song about frontman Matty Healy’s sugar relapse. We’re given a breather by ‘A Change of Heart’, a soft synth-pop song about falling out of love and wondering if you were ever really in love with the person in the first place. I personally think it was a mistake to have ‘She’s American’, a funk rock/new wave blend about a British singer being idolised by young American girls, come after ACOH, but both are great songs.

    The album again goes into a lull for its midsection. ‘If I Believe You’ is a relaxed gospel song, complete with a choir, about atheism. ‘Please Be Naked’ is an instrumental piano song, with its only voices being the sounds of London’s outdoors as cars drive past the microphone, that serves as a prelude to ‘lostmyhead’, a shoegaze-y progressive rock song that slowly builds up into the album’s... second midsection.

    ‘A Ballad of Me and My Brain’ is a shout-y ballad about not having your best friend around you, with the friend being symbolised as the singer’s brain. ‘Somebody Else’, a dance-y synth pop song about a lover’s jealousy, comes after. The song became a big hit across the UK, and to this day is the band’s biggest hit worldwide, with over 300 million streams on Spotify and has been covered by artists like Lorde, Charlie Puth, and CHVRCHES. ‘Loving Someone’ is a weird synth pop and RnB blend about people’s ability to be in love someone, and is a shout-out to The 1975’s large LGBTQ+ following.

    The album’s final stretch is prologued by the album’s title track, ‘i like it when you sleep for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it’, which is literally just a reading of the poem that the lead singer wrote and, years later, lifted the title from to name his band’s album, backed by a slow-building glitchy but cutesy dance track. ‘The Sound’, the band’s second biggest hit and their highest charting song in the UK, is a synthpop and electronic house blend about, you guessed it, girls. It is followed up by ‘This Must Be My Dream’, yet another synthpop song but this time modelled after the late 80s - I like the song, but I do have to admit it sounds overproduced. Another song called ‘Paris’, which is actually about London, follows that up. Paris is followed by ‘Nana’, a half acoustic song about the lead singer’s Nan’s death - the lyrics are too vague for you to not transplant them onto your own lost loved ones, and I’m unfortunately not ready to listen to it in the context of my dad, so I can’t really review it. The album comes to a whimpering finish, with a piano ballad about postnatal depression, which is the one song I don’t like on this album.

    So yeah, that’s my favourite album of the decade. Although its soundtracked the second half of my teenage years, it was written by a man in his mid 20s about his early 20s - which I am now entering, so I feel like there’s a lot to take from it. That, and I can now relate to every single song on the record besides the last one lol, so... it seems fitting.

    thanks for reading.
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  3. Currency Of Man (The Artist's Cut)
    By Melody Gardot

    Those who have seen me talk about music before, will know that I love the music Gardot makes. She released three albums between 2010 and 2019, one of which a life album. Currency Of Man is the second of the decade, releasing in 2015, and at the time of writing her latest studeo album. This album is a break from her usual smooth-jazz style. going more and more into something that could be seen as a mix between rock and urban jazz, though it has always been hard to give name to the Genre of Gardot's music. The thopics of the songs also drastically changed, from very personal emotional songs to hard critique of western society.

    About the break of style and theme she wrote that, touring the world with her first three albums, the nice and peacefull image she had of the world started falling apart, which lead her to be incapeble of writing about her personal issues, and instead wanting to write about the societal issues at large.

    The album starts with Don't Misunderstand, in which she introduces the style change by slowly fading into the sound the album will have, under the lyrics We are who we are / Who we are / We do what we can / When we can / We only have gotten this far now /So don't misunderstand. The second song is largely about toxic masculinity, the third, building up in musical intensety, is about homelessness, with the first clear statement of the aim of the album: We all workin' for the means to the end of our situation / We all hopin' for the day that the powers see abdication and run / I said it gonna come darling, I said it gonna come.

    After this the album falls down to what may be the most melancholic song on the album Bad News, with its critique of the modern media, and its tendencies to oversimplefy problems. Slowly building up intesion again, via a song about prostitution, the shallownes of most human interaction, date rape culture the album climaxes on Preacherman, which my be my favourite song of all time. This song tells, in very few words, the story of one of the last KKK lynchings, and compares it to our modern society. (Which I wouldn't have seen if she wouldn't have said it in an intervieuw) It opens witha 500-man choir, for which she plucked people of the streats fo NYs, to, after that, contignue with electric gituars and drum, envoking the sound of classic Rock music. More and more intruments jump in, making clear that it is ochestrated with a full ochestra, and climaxing on a saxephone slolo, that sounds more like a crying scream than music.

    With the next song, the album sets up a more hopefull tone. Morning Sun sings about hope of a better future, though the song after that sings about losing hope in the current day. It does this with what Gardot probably does best, using a full-sized ochestra as instrumentation for a song, envoking the feel of the late Romantic period, sounding almost like a Rachmaninoff concerto. Though all songs are fully ochestrated, this is the first time it comes to the foreground. It is what made her famous, which is why it's almost strange the first time it comes up is the 12th song of the album. The album contignues this tone with Once I Was Loved, and the piano solo After The Rain, to end on the song Burying My Troubles, ending on the most posetive note imagineble. (not) Still I know / I will find my happiness / At last / Somewhere in the bottom of a bottle / Or a stone cold glass.
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  4. Balance of Power by Electric Light Orchestra
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  5. Moon Hooch (Moon Hooch)
    This is a relatively new find for me, but I'm a big fan. I like how it mixes traditional jazz elements in a new way and the sound clips of an actual subway that is used as part of the song.

  6. Malibu Nights by LANY. Has some of my favorite songs in it, "Thru These Tears" and "Thick and Thin".


    "whatever's unclear for you, it's the same for me" by -ness. This album is truly an experience, there are obviously a couple songs that can be listened to on their own but the real experience comes from just letting everything play.


    "songs from my room" by Day Bit. This album is shorter but really has that distant, high, bedroom pop sound and I really like it.


    "fka kyko ep" by Kwassa is a fun, energetic, and surprisingly deep album that has upbeat songs that are easy to sing along and have fun with.

    "Mean it" By Lauv and LANY, honestly one of my favorite songs of all time, the album is amazing too but I figured I put enough albums here already so enjoy just the one song.
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