i'm not going to do a best of the '10s list. if i did, it would have very little overlap with the pop music of the period.

the 2010s were not as awful as the 00s, but they weren't a whole lot better, either. the decade was largely defined by bad retro trends, and a broad lack of artistry. at least the 00s had some legacy acts; in the '10s, the boomers started dying off, and any remaining signals of interest coming from gen x almost entirely dried up, leaving this charred and bland millennial landscape that was just not interested in defining itself. this is a generation of kids that appear to have been taught that creating art is a process of emulation, so all they want to do is find ideas from the 70s or 80s and latch on to them.

the defining act of this decade, in the long run, may turn out to be son lux. the last record was a bit of a step down, but i can't think of much else that was forward-thinking and creative throughout the length of the entire decade. there were some other artists - like st. vincent, and perhaps myself, and i'm just scratching a surface, i can think this through if i had to....there was an awesome record by lingouf around 2011.... - that operated in the same broad space of intersecting electronic music with diverse instrumentation. that's perhaps the most interesting musical idea that came out of the last ten years, but it did so as a function of the technology becoming available and usable - it's neither a new idea, nor did it bring itself to any artistic conclusion. this should carry forwards. how will classical music intersect with technology in the 2020s? will we finally get the opuses that people like me have been imagining since stockhausen and kraftwerk and tangerine dream?

there was some interesting art-punk in the early part of the 00s that was a maturation of the previous decade and perhaps belongs more to it. still, you'd have to put these records in any list.

but, most of what you'll find in this decade that is interesting is interesting because it looked backwards, rather than because it looked forwards. if i'm looking forward to anything in the '20s, it's to start looking forwards again.

the decade was middling, at best. there was not the near absence of art that existed in the 00s, but there was a distinct deficit of it. don't let them convince you otherwise.

their lists are going to be awful, so get ready for that...