The 2010s was a decade full of innovative music in a changing landscape. At the beginning of the decade, listeners were using their iPhone 4s to download “Tik Tok” by Kesha on iTunes. However, over the next ten years, the music industry would see artists like Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, and Cardi B emerge to dominate the charts. Also, streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music became the standard of how people consumed music. Each year in the 2010s made significant contributions to make this decade a historic time for music. But, which year was the single greatest year for music in the 2010s? In this article, I will look at the critical and commercial success of music for each year to determine the best year for music in the last decade.
When 2019 came to an end, every music publication published its lists for the best albums of the 2010s. The top spots typically went to Blonde (2016) by Frank Ocean, To Pimp A Butterfly (2015) by Kendrick Lamar, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010) by Kanye West, and Beyoncé (2013) or Lemonade (2016) by Beyoncé.
While looking at these articles, I wondered what was the best year overall for music. I began to research to see if any media outlets had covered this topic and found very few sources. It seemed that one would be able to objectively determine what was the best year for music during the 2010s by looking at the critical and financial success of music each year. So, I took it upon myself to attempt to determine the best year for music during the previous decade.
My first thought, when faced with the task of determining the best year for music in the 2010s, was to look at Metacritic. Metacritic is an online publication that gathers all of the reviews from major publications, such as Rolling Stone and Pitchfork, and averages them together to one score. I found that Metacritic ranks the top 40 best albums based on its scores at the end of every year. So, I calculated the average rating of Metacritic’s top 40 albums for each year. The following chart is the result of that process.
According to the average Metacritic scores, 2019 was the best year for music in the 2010s. With the albums Ghosteen by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Titanic Rising by Weyes Blood, and Grey Area by Little Simz taking the top three spots of the year. 2019 was a popular year for rock, rap, and R&B among critics with almost every album in Metacritic’s top 40 albums of 2019 fitting in these genres.
However, the data shows a trend that possibly discredits the data. Over the decade, the average score gradually became higher. This trend potentially means that critics gave better scores as time went by. In other words, it was easier for an album to receive a high in the latter half of the decade. Perhaps, the rise of clickbait was the cause of this trend as high scores are more likely to be viewed than average scores. Or, maybe music did improve every year. To investigate the trustworthiness of Metacritic’s numbers, I decided to look at a respected music publication individually. So, I researched Pitchfork’s top 100 albums of the 2010s. Pitchfork is often regarded as the most respected music website. I tallied all of the publication’s top 100 albums by release year and created the following graphic to document the results.
My analysis of Pitchfork revealed a more even spread across the decade than Metacritic. According to Pitchfork, 2015 was the best year for music, followed by 2018, then 2011. The year that Metacritic determined was the best year for music, 2019, tallied the least amount of albums on Pitchfork’s top 100 albums of the decade list. However, one can not determine their results from one single publication. So, if I average the Metacritic rankings and the Pitchfork rankings, then 2018 is determined to be the best year for music of the 2010s, followed by 2016 and 2010.
Despite 2018 having the most albums in Pitchfork’s top 100 albums of the 2010s, the highest-ranked album from the year is 23 with Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour. Meanwhile, multiple years including 2010, 2012, 2015, and 2016 have 3–4 albums in the top 25. The year 2016 holding the number 1, 6, and 12 spots with Blonde by Frank Ocean, A Seat at the Table by Solange, and ANTI by Rhianna.
But, my job was not done because critical success is not the only determinant of success in music. Commercial success is arguably just as essential, if not even more important. To see how each year faired commercially, I looked at Nielsen’s end of year reports of the music industry. Nielsen reported the physical and digital sales of music every year from 2010 to 2019. Unfortunately, the company did not gather information on streaming until around halfway through the decade because Spotify did not gain popularity until 2013, and Apple Music did not launch until 2015. I also did not look at overall music consumption because the consumption of music only grew every year.
As the chart shows, there is a clear sign in 2013 that streaming had grown in popularity, as music sales began to head down. So, for the following years, I analyze less if sales shrunk and more the size of the difference between each year. But again, there are influences beyond the music that make Nielsen’s reporting a somewhat misleading source. Even though, it is interesting that 2012 proved to be an outstandingly popular year for music. The previously determined most critically acclaimed years of 2018 and 2016 are in the bottom half of Nielsen’s reporting, while 2010 sits around the middle.
I then began to wonder how else I could determine the popularity of music that is not influenced by changing technology. I concluded that the Grammys would be a worthy subject to research because they are the biggest music awards. Even though television streaming networks like Netflix have grown in popularity over the last decade, major television events still garner a significant amount of views. Additionally, many people might consider the Grammys the ultimate judge of music. The nominated music for the Grammys is often a mix of critically acclaimed and commercially successful artists. So I research the number of views the Oscars received every year, and it resulted in the following chart.
The ratings of the Grammys demonstrated to be a more fair determination of the best year for music of the decade than Nielsen’s sales reporting. The year 2012, like the album sales, was the highest-rated year for the Grammys. 2012 was followed by 2013 and 2011. Again, 2010 is in the middle of the pack.
There are a few reasons why the 2012 Grammy Award may have been significantly more popular than other years. First, the awards had lots of controversy leading up. Kanye West was nominated in every major category except for Album of the Year. Many viewers anticipated a stunt by West, as he has acted out during award shows in the past. Secondly, many popular artists performed during this year’s Grammys, including Bruno Mars, Bruce Springsteen, and Katy Perry. Lastly, history was made during the 2012 Grammys when Adele became the second person ever to win all four of the general field (Album of the Year, Best New Artist, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year).
So, I determined that 2012 was the most commercially successful year for music in the 2010s and 2018 was the most critically acclaimed year. But, I then decided to average all of my research to combine critically and commercially acclaimed determinants, as both factors are essential. The following chart above shows the rankings from my previous research.
From this chart, I awarded each year points based on where they ranked for each source. For example, the year 2019 was ranked number one by Metacritic, so I awarded it one point. But then, 2019 placed tenth in the Pitchfork and Sales ranking and 9th by the Grammys. I added 1 + 10 + 10 + 9 and came out to a total score of 30 for the year 2019. The lower the score, the better. I then repeated this process for all the other years and created the following chart to show the results.
From considering both critical and commercial sources, I determined that 2013 was overall the best year for music in the 2010s. After my research, this answer made complete sense to me. 2013 was the turning point for music during the 2010s. It was when streaming started to gain major popularity. Also, Beyoncé, Drake, and Kanye West, who are arguably the three most important artists of the decade, all released albums during the year. 2013 defined what music was going to be for the decade.
In conclusion, what I learned more than the best year for music in the 2010s, is what factors determine a good year for music. For individuals, it could be the year where most of their favorite music came out. For the music industry, it could be what year produced the most sales. I look forward to the next decade of music and wonder how the industry will change, as well as what will be the best year for music in the 2020s.
