Are These Really The 100 Greatest Albums Of The Decade So Far? Pitchfork Says Yep

Having published their list of the 200 best tracks of the decade so far, Pitchfork is continuing its retrospective celebrations with their next, and possibly most hotly contested list: the best albums released since 2010.

The top 100 rankings are typically Pitchfork-ian, which is to say there’s a strong leaning towards American artists, a huge serving of rap, plenty of obscure electronica and avant-garde, and a number of much-championed indie acts. And forget about any heavier rock or metal (excluding Deafheaven). Full disclosure too, the list isn’t solely for conventional ‘albums’ – there’s a couple of mixtapes along with an unofficially leaked record and even an EP.

By way of a defence, Pitchfork explains the last five years has seen “artist playing around with what an album could be – surprise releases, wholes assembled from trickles of fragments, free downloads,” but still honours “the idea of the single-artist-driven listening experience that lasts between 30 and 90 minutes…”

Just as they made the top 200 tracks, Tame Impala invade the albums list, making them the only honorary Australians to make an appearance. Debut LP Innerspeaker scrapes in at #83, but more impressively 2012 follow-up Lonerism rises all the way to the Top 10.

Described as a record that “pulls your forward into an uncertain, exciting sonic terrain where the tangible past is reconfigured into an intangible set of fresh possibilities,” Lonerism sits proudly at #7 – squeezed between Vampire Weekend’s latest and Yeezus by Kanye West, who also took out the pole position.

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West’s 2010 opus My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is crowned as the best album of the last five years, praised for its duality as a state-of-the-nation address for both America and Kanye himself, an LP that “impresses with its impenetrable wholeness,” as Pitchfork describe; “The list ends here because it’s where the decade truly begins.”

Kanye West is one of several artists that scores dual album occupancies in the poll, along with Kendrick Lamar (ranked at #2 and #77); Frank Ocean (#4 & #54); Beach House (#5 & #53); Vampire Weekend (#6 & #46); Drake (#12 & #41); Real Estate (#13 & #86); Beyoncé (#14 & #39); Swans (#17 & #85); Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti (#20 & #81); Kurt Vile (#32 & #42); Arcade Fire (#33 & #88), and Danny Brown (#37 & #72).

Interestingly, 7% of the top 100 list contains some of 2014’s best albums so far – including LPs by the Meredith-billed The War On Drugs, Falls Festival-bound Todd Terje, Sun Kil Moon, Swans, Real Estate, How To Dress Well, and the debut full-length album from Laneway-rumoured FKA twigs.

Plus, for our money, Pitchfork have gone all Oscars with some of their selections; the same way the Academy often hands a coveted statuette to an actor for a performance that isn’t for their best work, and instead is an acknowledgement of their lifetime’s work, the same logic can be applied to selections from perennials like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, My Bloody Valentine, Erykah Badu, and Four Tet.

You can view the full list below and check out the full list here.