Colin’s Top Ten Albums of the 2010s

The 2010s were a complicated decade for me, musically speaking. It was the first decade where I felt like I was more or less in touch with new music for the entirety of the decade, and yet it was also the first time that I truly felt old while discovering new artists that were younger than me. It was a decade that saw countless albums that I loved, and also in many ways felt like a decade where two of my favorite things — albums and rock music — seemed to decrease noticeably in cultural relevance. It was the decade where I eventually took over as “the music guy” at Mildly Pleased, and thus spent a lot of time writing about the kinds of albums that’ll be appearing on my list. Well, let’s take one last gander at them. Continue reading →

Sean’s Top 10 Albums of the 2010s

Here we go, top albums of the decade. For a long time, I’ve stressed that I’m never trying to make actual “best of” lists, because that’s impossible. But for these ones, I’ve made it known for a while that my approach was going to be even more unusual: Basically, I took all the albums from the previous 10 years of top tens, added a few more that I found out about at the wrong time, and started dividing them into groups. When I had 10 groups, I picked my favorite five album in each group, then my number one of those. Then, when I had all 10 winners, I ranked them somewhat arbitrarily… I guess just overall in terms of how much I like them now.

For me, this was the only way I could take on such a daunting task, and it resulted in a top five I’m extremely confident in, and a 6-10 that feels pretty good. Unfortunately, I skew toward the beginning of the decade, which I think mostly reflects that I’ve had more time with those albums and less that more recent music isn’t as good – because it is, check the honorable mentions in each section. It also doesn’t help that I’ve never been very confident in defending my own taste in music, and it’s only slightly comforting that I had a full decade of top 10 lists on this blog to fall back on for references as I wrote this. I guess what I’m saying is take it easy and please don’t be mean. I’m trying my best.

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John’s Top Ten Albums of the 2010s

I don’t like doing “End of the Decade” lists. There’s such a finality to it. How can I claim to have found the ten best albums for me when there’s still so much to discover? The fact that I struggled to find ten albums I could call my favorites just goes to show the journey isn’t over.

That being said I do love these ten albums… for the time being. We’ll see how these selections settle in the next ten years. I like to take my time with albums. Spend several years with them and let ‘em stew. This is why I have no albums from 2019. Not enough time has passed. Which means these tens albums I have picked are special. They have stood the test of time. Now let’s open up the capsule.

P.S. I decided to include YouTube videos instead of pics so you can listen to some of my favorite jams. Enjoy!

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John’s Top Ten Albums of 2019

Welcome to the first post of 2020! So let’s start this year off wrong! I mean right. Shit.

So, a whole top ten? I don’t know. I didn’t listen to much this year. Maybe because I need to fix my car stereo? Yeah, that’s right, I listen to music on the radio. Like a neanderthal. Which means this list is a weird mishmash of mainstream stuff you could (and probably did) hear everywhere and then one or two deep cuts that are the result of me actually trying. But whatever. Go music!

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Sean’s Top 10 Albums of 2019

The year that was 2019 felt excruciatingly long and full of terrors. Yet, somehow, the end of the year really snuck up on me. Usually, as the year goes on, I keep a list of albums I’ve liked and need to revisit, then actually do that starting around November. Unfortunately, some real life distractions and my own focus on getting my best of the decade lists in order resulted in me never getting around to a proper list-making process this year. So this is about as far from a “best of 2019” list as I’ve ever done, really it’s just the 10 albums I’ve listened to the most. I’m even going to forgo honorable mentions, because my list of those right now is about 40 albums.

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Colin’s Top Ten Albums of 2019

It seems that the route most internet publications took this year was posting their top ten lists of the decade, and then their top tens of 2019. We’re taking the opposite approach here at Mildly Pleased, seeing as we’ll be doing our top tens of 2019 over the next few weeks, and then switching gears to our top tens of the decade. Which is fine, since we’re in no hurry. We still need to catch up with things this time of year since we’re not professional culture critics, and January and February are such nothing months that we might as well spend them looking back on the decade. But first, let’s take a look back at the year we’re currently in (barely). Continue reading →

2010s Music Rediscovered: After Laughter

Paramore – After Laughter (2017)

If you’ve been a music fan for long enough, and you’ve allowed yourself to stay open-minded about what music you listen to, there’s a good chance at some point you’ll end up embracing an artist you once regarded as stupid. This was probably even more likely in a decade like the 2010s, where it became more and more acceptable to like artists that weren’t preoccupied with creating anything other than shameless pop music. So here I stand at the end of the decade admitting that I like a Paramore album that I was turned onto earlier this year, while at the beginning of the decade I’m sure I scoffed at the idea of even having to play a Paramore song in Rock Band.

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