#27 - Arctic Monkeys - Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino

27. Arctic Monkeys - Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino 

Domino, 2018

I chronicled my love affair with Arctic Monkeys in a five-part piece on this blog many years back, and while I thoroughly loved Suck it and See and AM, upon learning the high-concept science fiction premise of Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino and the whisperings of its lounge-music vibe, I thought this might be where I got off. And wouldn’t you know it, it not only became my favorite Arctic Monkeys record and my favorite album of 2018. Considering how Alex Turner & company frequently defied my expectations throughout the decade, I can’t say that I’m surprised that I love this album so much. When I needed confidence for my interviews with Johnson County Library that spring, I listened to this album as I slicked back my hair, fake crooning to “Star Treatment.” I vividly remember singing along to the album IN ITS ENTIRETY on a family road trip to Colorado after being subjected to an hours worth of Taylor Swift. 

This is admittedly a goofy album (it is ostensibly about a resort on the moon, with a taqueria on the roof that was very well reviewed, receiving four stars out of five), but the way Turner sells it is essential and makes it cool. Beneath the silly artifice is a set of songs preoccupied by the screen addicted, consumerist dystopia we are currently trapped inside. Where AM was Arctic Monkeys by way of The Stones, Tranquility Base is Arctic Monkeys by way of Serge Gainsbourg. The guitars that are so pervasive on every other Arctic Monkeys album are almost entirely absent here. I don’t think the riskiness of that can be understated. This is a band effectively upending their sound to do something different and pulling it off with aplomb. I’m sure this album has its haters but I don’t think you can argue with the immaculate and innovative production or the wild ideas on display.

#28 - Bright Eyes - The People's Key

Bright Eyes - The People’s Key 

Saddle Creek, 2011

For the final Bright Eyes LP, Conor Oberst & Co stripped away the alt-country sound they had been working with (with great mainstream success, considering that I heard a reworked version of “First Day of My Life” in an insurance commercial the other day) since I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning. In a way, The People’s Key feels like a natural progression that spans all the way back to Oberst’s bedroom recordings. Though I zoned out on Bright Eyes during Oberst’s “doing cocaine and dating Winona Rider” period, these songs feel like they are the product of having done some living and come out on the other side. Oberst dwells on spirituality in a way that really resonated with me in 2011. Rastafarianism, Celtic Paganism, and Buddhism all make appearances, and the overall effect is that of trying to feel at home in a world that is often cruel and unusual (“A snuff film on a jumbotron for all the world to see”). Also, it wouldn't be a Bright Eyes post if I didn't mention that I still own that original copy of Letting Off the Happiness with the screen printed cover that I bought at the Lawrence Antique Mall for $35. It's not as valuable as it was, but still in the $200 range, and I'm still terrified to sell it lest it becomes one of those highly sought after records that people drop megabank on years from now. This is all despite having kids who could destroy it in two seconds if they so chose. Alas.

#29 - Mixtapes - Ordinary Silence

Mixtapes - Ordinary Silence

No Sleep Records, 2013

Just give me that earnest, full-hearted pop-punk. Ordinary Silence was a Top 5 record for me in 2013 (which, in my humble opinion, was the best year of the decade for music given that 24% of the albums on this list were pulled from 2013), and it got there by virtue of being the album I listened to the most. I feel like this was playing on repeat that summer, and it was playing on repeat because the songs are just so damn catchy. I mean, this album has 14 songs on it, so if I’m this gaga over it it must be good right? One reason this works so well is that Maura Weaver and Ryan Rockwell split their vocal duties in a way that makes this much more dynamic than your average power chords and hooks music. I’m going through this album track by track trying to find a b-side and it’s just, “That’s a good one, that’s a good one, that’s a good one…” Mixtapes have this fighting spirit that is so captivating, and it’s a damn shame they went on hiatus a year after this album was released. I’m here for the next Mixtapes record whenever they want to release it.

#30 - John K. Samson - Provincial

John K. Samson - Provincial (2012)

Anti, 2012

The Weakerthans were my gateway drug that led me out of my punk rock exclusivity into indie rock’s warm embrace, and as such, John K. Samson is one of my guys. If not THE guy. He’s easily my favorite songwriter and this point in my life I have been a Weakerthans fan longer than I haven’t. His first solo album isn’t the most cohesive effort--it’s comprised of songs from two 7”s released in 2009 and 2010 with 6 brand new songs--but it’s an album I listened to obsessively. It’s also the album I put on at 4 in the morning when we drove to the hospital so that Jenny could give birth to Rosie. I knew it was an important moment, and the DJ in me had to find the right vibe, and I instinctively put on Provincial and didn’t give it a second thought. I knew it was right. Provincial is as good as everything else he has written (which is pretty much all on the same level which is “beyond extraordinary”) but there is a pair of connected songs in the middle of the album–”When I Write My Master’s Thesis” and “Letter in Icelandic From the Ninette San”--that always stop me in my tracks. Set a hundred years apart, “When I Write My Master’s Thesis” is a punchy pop tune about a grad student struggling to finish his Master’s thesis on the Ninette Sanatorium, and “Letter in the Icelandic from the Ninette San” is a melancholy tale told by a man dying of Tuberculosis in the sanatorium. Finding the little ways these songs connect is great, and it ties to the greater themes of connectedness to people, places, and cats named Virtute that dominate Samson’s songwriting.

#31 - The Menzingers - After the Party

The Menzingers - After the Party

Epitaph, 2017

On my library staff account I have an unfinished list called “Fist Pumping Anthem Music” that’s just this, Japandroids, and the Hold Steady. I have a lot of barely there lists that sound fun in my head but we just don’t have enough in the catalog to support it. But it’s there because if you put a gun to my head this is my favorite kind of music. Sing-a-long punk-tinged power-pop with big guitars and bigger hooks. The band first caught my attention with their very good 2014 album Rented World, and I feel like After the Party fulfills the promise you can hear on that album. Honestly the only issue I have with it, and the reason it’s not in the Top 20 is because it’s about 3 songs too long. Not that there are any real weak links here, it’s just when you’re getting into this kind of anthem rock the albums have to make you want to immediately throw them on again. You want them to leave you a little hungry, and this one doesn’t do that. But the first four songs are all unbeatable, and even though the album is damn long, the back half has all-timers like “Your Wild Years” and the title track. The real killer here though is “Lookers,” which if you don’t know what to do with that I don’t know how to help you. That’s a perfect song if there ever was one.

#32 - Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City

Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City

XL, 2013

Considering that Vampire Weekend’s sophomore LP Contra was well received, it’s wrong to call Modern Vampires of the City a redemption story. However, considering how much I disliked Contra, that’s what it felt like to me. Vampire Weekend emerged from a pile of polo shirts in the northeast when I was in my PEAK MUSIC CONNOISSEUR phase circa 2007. I remember soaking up the early CD-R rip and not know what to make of it. Since then Vampire Weekend has been one of those bands I forget about until I put one of their albums on and realize how good they are. Why I didn’t like Contra when it came out is still a mystery (though I still haven’t listened to it since then), and why I loved Modern Vampires of the City is also a mystery. It’s just one of those albums where I look at the tracklist and go, “Yep, yep, oh that one is great, oh that one is outstanding…” I think a lot of that comes from how controlled this record sounds. That kind of “everything just so” quality can make for a fussy record that isn’t a lot of fun to listen to, but there are so many interesting quirks in the synth programming and the brilliant melodies that this one always ends up feeling timeless every time I run through it. We’ll see how it stands up a decade from now, it could very well sound the way 80s music sounds today, but you never know. Also I’d be remiss if I didn’t shout out this album’s sequencing, which does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to making this one such a treat to listen to. There’s such a diverse array of sounds on this album that you didn’t get from their Graceland indebted debut. It’s an album that feels like a band actively pivoting into a fuller and more mature sound, and that is exhilarating to me.

#33 - Neko Case - The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You

Neko Case - The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You 

Anti, 2013

Album title of the decade. One of those titles I heard and knew that if the album didn’t live up to the title, it would hurt. Fortunately, I didn’t have anything to worry about because when has Neko Case ever released anything less than great? 2018’s Hell-On is more adventurous, and maybe the superior record, but this is the album I spent the most time with. Not that this album is somehow safe or doesn’t take risks (just take a look at the A Capella “Nearly Midnight, Honolulu” in which Case puts an abusive mom at the Honolulu airport on blast and apologizes to the poor kid getting yelled at). She still belts the hell out of every song, and I think I’m defensive about this one because the usually reliable AV Club  panned this album and I just didn’t understand how they could whiff so bad. How do you listen to a song like “City Swans” and go, “Eh”? Immaterial. This record is excellent and relistening to it now I feel like it’s better than I remember.

#34 - Serengeti - Family & Friends

Serengeti - Family & Friends 

Anticon, 2011

While the continuing saga of Kenny Dennis--Chicago rapper David Cohn’s mustachioed, bratwurst, Chicago sports, and Brian Dennehy loving alter-ego--was a fantastic treat in the 2010s, it only represents one side of Serengeti’s exhaustive output this decade. At the top is 2011’s Family & Friends, which highlights Cohn’s significant talents as a rapper and storyteller and pairs them with fantastic production from Why?’s Yoni Wolf and Advance Base’s Owen Ashworth (which is probably why this one so cleanly broke through my indie rock barricades). Though Wolf and Ashworth each handle about half the album each, Family & Friends feels like a three-way collaboration. Three great artists in their own right, putting it all together and creating something spectacular. The high point for me is the Advance Base produced gem “The Whip,” which chronicles a MMA fighter who never quite made it, lives in the southwest with his stepmom, and fantasizes about returning to the Octagon and what his life would be like had he avoided getting knocked out at UFC 3. That one gets me every time, and it’s a highlight on an album that is infinitely listenable.

#35 - Martha - Blisters in the Pit of My Heart

35. Martha - Blisters in the Pit of My Heart

Dirtnap, 2016

That the English group Martha has their roots in a village called Pity Me sounds like fake lore that bands make up to give themselves an air of mystery (see: Arcade Fire). But no! Sometimes things just work out perfectly. You know works out perfectly? Martha’s sophomore LP Blisters in the Pit of My Heart. The 2010s was finding music that appeased both my punk rock heard and my indie rock brain. It’s why you get Los Campesinos!, Hop Along, Joyce Manor, and fiercely contending for spots on my favorite albums and favorite songs of the decade lists. Martha is firmly in that indie-punk-rock mold with a lot of bedroom power-pop thrown in for good measure. 

I feel like every year this decade had one album that was just like, solid as a rock (though it was an honorable mention, Muncie Girls’ 2018 LP Fixed Ideals is one of those albums) where every song is great and you wouldn’t dare skip to your favorite track (because they’re all your favorite track). Standouts here include “Goldman’s Detective Agency,” “Do Whatever,” “The Awkward Ones,” and the phenomenal single “Curly & Raquel” (which will make an appearance relatively high up on my favorite songs of the decade list). The melodies are out of control. The guitar solos are janky as hell and it feels like every song has one. Blisters in the Pit of My Heart is bursting with joy, and for someone who listens to a lot of sad bastard music that is more than welcome.

#36 - Father John Misty - Fear Fun

Father John Misty - Fear Fun 
Sub-Pop, 2012

Summer 2012. Jenny and I have just moved to Minneapolis and I’m working at the Half Price Books in the suburb of St. Louis Park. I’m in charge of pricing the CDs in the store’s basement, and considering that this was one of the chain’s Top 5 stores in regard to buying used books, DVDs, and CDs, there were a lot. My buddy David--who took over the post when I transferred over to the store in St. Paul--wrote an excellent essay about his attempt to collect 100 copies of 10,000 Maniacs MTV Unplugged live album because we saw so many copies of that damn album that he could have built a little clubhouse in that basement (check out David’s book One Million Maniacs). So, the scene is set. I’m sitting there working through hundreds of CDs a day. It’s the best job I ever had. It was an absolutely zen experience sitting down there, playing whatever CD looked interesting on the stereo we had for “testing” the discs to make sure they worked. I see the cover of Father John Misty’s debut and think: what the hell is this? I see that it’s on Sub-Pop which gives me the green light to pop it in the stereo. And then I listen to the album at least once a day for the next two months. Tillman’s voice hypnotized me. The bizarro, swaggering story of this guy out of his element in Los Angeles was captivating in every way. It’s out there, under the influence of psychedelics, and sure I Love You Honeybear and God’s Favorite Customer are more refined distillations of Father John Misty, but the rawness of this one, of this dude who had pigeonholed himself as this indie folk singer breaking off the shackles and getting weird, is pure magic. I feel like I should be irritated by Josh Tillman, but his albums keep ending up on my year end lists and I know better than to question this kind of stuff. “Only Son of a Ladiesman” is one of the absolute killers of the 2010s and if that song doesn’t do it for you I don’t know what to tell you.