Captura de Pantalla 2019-12-27 a la(s) 0

25

TEEN DREAM

Beach House (2010)

We really can't say that Beach House invented the wheel of Dream Pop, but it is a fact that Teen Dream was a fundamental reason for the revival and explosion of the genre throughout the decade that was beginning. The dream-like textures that feel like walking in velvety clouds with the background of a soft pastels sky, if heavenly influenced by Mazzy Starr or Cocteau Twins, held a distinctive undulating quality that immediately created a "Beach House style", that influenced, in turn, many other new bands.

The chemistry between Legrand's emotional vocals and Scally's psychedelic guitar riffs is palpable in the way they are able to create full atmospheres and landscapes as if they were painting a 3D world just with their voice, guitar and leyboards.

Best tracks: Norway, Zebra, Used to Be.

24

MAGDALENE

FKA Twigs (2019)

Magdalene opens with FKA Twigs' version of Gregorian chants and throughout the whole album, the religious themes keep appearing. Using the figure of Mary Magdalene as a symbol to represent how she was signaled by the media and the society in her relationship with a famous actor, Tahliah Barnett explores the sacred and the profane in love and sex, while also analyzing how her identity has been shaped by the social views towards women.

A complex work that keeps pushing boundaries of what is possible in pop music, with an elegant and innovative production; a full avant-garde experience that is not easy to access, it is designed as a labyrinthine cathedral. Magdalene is intense and demanding, but warm and rewarding if we are open to the experience.

Best tracks: Cellophane, Sad Day, Holy Terrain (feat. Future).

23

HONEY

Robyn (2018)

In a time where every pop-dance record seems to be modeled to Robyn's legacy, the Swedish diva shook things up again to show that no one else can transform intern turmoil into dancefloor stamina in the way that she does.

Honey is undoubtedly a pure Robyn album, but at the same time it has clear differences with anything that she has done before. For once, there's a sense of space and air in these tracks, there's not an urgency to explode her intense emotions in a danceable beat; instead, she takes time to fully experience every emotional state that she presents, and there's also a warm (almost tropical) breeze that enfolds the synths to reach a sensual atmosphere that was never present in her music before.

Best tracks: Honey, Missing U, Ever Again.

22

TOTAL LIFE FOREVER

Foals (2010)

For their sophomore album, Foals kept experimenting with math rock, but now with a much more controlled sound and a bigger scope for what they wanted to achieve. Total Life Forever knows when to restrict their energy to paint elaborated sonic landscapes and when to unleash the fury of their guitar riffs in an outstanding use of contrast in rock music that showcases their skills as musicians and their inventiveness as artists.

Lyricism also shows much more depth and maturity, with verses that evoke intense sensation and are able to give you goosebumps when paired with the precise guitar riffs. A work that is equal parts cerebral and passionate, that is over all a work of complex design but that exudes a raw energy and pure love for the rock music they are creating.

Best tracks: Spanish Sahara, Blue Blood, Total Life Forever.

21

AM

Arctic Monkeys (2013)

AM is the album that turned Arctic Monkeys from rockstars to legends, not only cementing their place as the most important band of their generation, but also assuring them a place in the pantheon of rock music, the band that people will remember for decades to come.

AM rivals in greatness with Arctic Monkey's debut, but both albums couldn't be more dissimilar. Their fifth album goes for classic 70's rock, sleek and fiery, but with hints to Elvis rock'n'roll, with powerful riffs and a vigorous vocal performance by Alex Turner that exudes virility and seductiveness. As they mature from clever indie lads to masterful rock men, they haven't missed an ounce of the wit in their lyrics, giving us another record plagued with lines of wisdom and irony for our wild nights and regretful mornings.

Best tracks: Do I Wanna Know?, R U Mine?, No. 1 Party Anthem.

20

TOO BRIGHT

Perfume Genius (2014)

For two consecutive albums, Mike Hadreas penned sad and beautiful songs about his struggles as a young queer man that are incredibly potent in their simplicity, just as in Too Bright's first track. But when the aggressive opening synths of Queen make an appearance, it's the point of no return: Hadreas has decided to confront any preconceived ideas we have of him, personally and musically.

Too Bright is a disruptive lyricism that isn't afraid of the shock factor of embracing the darkest parts of queer sexuality, the ones that are normally much of a taboo to be sung about. Musically, it goes for the avant-garde. If his piano is still a central figure in his music, now we see the project venturing in more complex structures and darker atmospheres to complete the political statement.

Best tracks: Queen. Grid, Fool.

19

TO PIMP A BUTTERFLY

Kendrick Lamar (2015)

Lamar never uses rap music to boost his ego or brag about his new found richness. Instead, he knows that his music is a weapon, an inflaming device to call the systematic injustice that black people are submitted to; a political statement that is as strong and confrontational as Colin Kaepernick kneeling in a field. Lamar knows that the figure of a "Yeezus" isn't relatable to the life that million of young black men and women face on a daily basis.

But beyond the harsh politics, To Pimp a Butterfly is innovative in the way he approaches rap, mixing it with different genres, like soul, R'n'B, but overall with the constant presence of jazz elements. As much as in the lyrics, the music tries to hold black culture and showcase its grandiosity and complexity.

Best tracks: Alright, King Kunta, The Blacker the Berry.

18

BODY TALK

Robyn (2010)

Right there in 2010, Robyn already lived in 2020. Body Talk was such an imaginative approach to pop music that it influenced any subsequent pop album that was made after hers. Every big pop act of the decade has at least one track that carries the Body Talk imprint (from Ariana's No Tears Left to Cry to Lorde's Green Light; from Dua Lipa's New Rules to Troye Sivan's Bloom), and somehow, without ever been close to the charts, there's a large cult, both mainstream and underground, to the legacy of this album.

Body Talk are stories told from the dignity of a broken heart that keeps dancing even when the tears are hitting the dancefloor. The style and festive mood that Robyn exudes from her quirky sad narratives have turned her in the pop diva that the world doesn't deserve.

Best tracks: Dancing on my Own, Call Your Girlfriend, Hang With Me.

17

SOMETIMES I SIT AND THINK, AND SOMETIMES I JUST SIT

Courtney Barnett (2015)

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There are two elements that sharply stand out from Barnett's debut. The first one is her witty lyricism; she is able to write about the most mundane aspects of life with the detail of an experienced novelist, but with the snarky irony of a sharp social commentator. Barnett's slacker voice is at stark contrast with the millennial trends: she is able to point the flaws in the society as much as in herself. She is as clever talking about gentrification as she is when she explores the anxieties of her own hype as an artist.

The second element is the vibrancy and urgency in her sound, a much needed revival of Nirvana's grunge music, but adapted to millennial topics and sensibilities. Barnett has an ability to play the guitar in exciting ways but making it sound as if she's not even trying at all.

Best tracks: Pedestrian at Best, Depreston, Small Poppies.

16

SETTLE

Disclosure (2013)

In their debut album, Disclosure managed to reconfigure the rules of the game for the diversity in electronic genres and the possibilities to jump from one to another and to mix them to create a perfect celebration experience that expands the limits of danceable music.

Every single song in this albums defies our expectations, from the evangelical pastor's speech turned explosive techno, to the tender minimal house collaboration with the hyped new star of pop ballads. Settle sounds like a compilation of greatest hits of electronic music, with every track having the potential to be a banger single, but all of them working together as the perfect mixtape for the coolest party. This duo of teen brothers, with full confidence in their music power, managed to attract quite a diverse crowd to a single dancefloor.

Best tracks: Latch (feat. Sam Smith), White Noise (feat. Alunageorge), F for You.

15

VISIONS

Grimes (2012)

Grimes' mind is a whirlwind, listening to her interviews one gets the impression that her thoughts run at a speed that her words can't keep up with. Listening to Visions, her third album, and the one that graduated her from bedroom experimentalist to avant-garde superstar, is almost hallucinatory by the quantity (and quality, of course) of ideas crammed in a single record.

We're dealing with an incredibly weird hybrid of sweetened electro-pop with dark atmospheres and lyrics; a set of experimentations that vibrate to the beat of a hyperconnected and hypersensorial digital generation. Claire Boucher successfully plays with the idea of technology and robotics as the natural evolution for our daily life quests.

Best tracks: Oblivion, Genesis, Be a Body.

14

CURRENTS

Tame Impala (2015)

Currents is the exact moment in Tame Impala's history when they transitioned from critics darlings to festival headliners. While that they managed to do it, like many other indie bands, by exploding the poppiest side of their project, the curiosity in their case is that going full pop meant the opposite of what it could suggest: a bigger sound, more risks in production, and a more ambitious project as a whole.

There is still the psychedelia that separated them from the rest of the bands of their generation and that inspired many more to come, but here they rely much less in the use of hazy guitars and more in the intoxicating sensations of kaleidoscopic synths. Although by its release it seemed like a transition album, in perspective we can see the band at its best.

Best tracks: Let it Happen, The Less I Know the Better, The Moment.

13

DIRTY COMPUTER

Janelle Monáe (2018)

Monáe's alternative R&B is bigger, brighter and more assertive than ever, her futurist android persona is embracing the warmest sides of humanity to bring a message of hope and self-confidence to every single person that has ever been ashamed of being themselves. With the blessing of her godfather, Prince, and borrowing his groovy sexual energy, Monáe offers bold riffs and rich synths to expand his musical realm, she is as good in a classic rock n roll ballad as she is rapping, as electric in a modern soul rendition as in a catchy pop tune.

An album full of ideas of what means to live in a postmodern world, a feminist and queer testament of how music can (and should) inflame and affirm the sense of one's existence and force us to make questions and push for a world that is fair, diverse and inclusive.

Best tracks: Make Me feel, Pynk (feat. Grimes), Django Jane.

12

THIS IS HAPPENING

LCD Soundsystem (2010)

Hipsterism is probably dead by now. The Gen-Z meme trap generation has taken over and is transforming everything that was considered cool at the beginning of the decade. But back in 2010, the possibilities for hipster indie music were endless, an album like This is Happening encapsulated everything that was amazing about the vintage revision that alternative musicians were doing to music of the past (70's art rock, new wave and krautrock, in this case), and infusing them with the newest techniques in music production.

LCD Soundsystem's third album is an endless party for intellectuals; the bouncy beats make you shake your body while making incisive and ironic rumination on modernity. By this point in musical history, there was no other persona that embodied "cool" better than James Murphy.

Best tracks: I can Change, Dance Yrself Clean, One Touch.

11

LEMONADE

Beyoncé (2016)

Beyoncé is the queen of pop. No questions asked. But unlike other royals of the genre who seem to release new albums just to keep engrossing their bank accounts with formulaic mediocre songs designed purely to fit in the popularity charts, Beyoncé used her fame and power for something entirely different and quite unusual among her peers: making good music.

Lemonade gives zero fucks about pleasing the masses, Beyoncé defies any expectation and delivers an album that experiments and bends genre norms with every single turn it takes. A narrative that uses her personal story to question gender and race, it is an empowering demonstration of real talent and a desire to open new paths for pop music.

Best tracks: Formation, Hold Up, Sorry.