Codetta: So, Who's the Artist of the Decade?

From left to right: Lil Wayne, Takeoff, Quavo, Justin Bieber, Offset, DJ Khaled, and Chance the Rapper in "I'm the One."

It's December 3rd. In 28 days the decade will end. Obviously, for those of you reading this that have been following my Coda series, I will not have finished my thorough analysis of this decade's music by the end of the year. However, to celebrate the last month of the 2010s I figured I would hop on the train and crown an artist of the decade in the meantime. That's what this little Codetta is. Enjoy. 


They may not have influenced the most people. They may not have changed music forever. They may not even be your cup of tea. But these are the artists that defined the last ten years of music. This was their decade, from ten to one. These are your artists of the decade.

10. Adele

Any list that doesn't include Adele is wrong. Sure, she only released two albums this decade, but look at them. 25 is delightful. 21 is divine. It's a modern masterpiece. It has eleven songs on it. Five of them charted on the Billboard 100. Three of them went #1. 

Then she had "Skyfall." Then she had "Hello." 

*stares blankly into the distance*

Yeah. Holy shit, right. Thank God for Adele. This decade would be soul-less without her.

9. Ariana Grande

I'm not saying that I'm happy that Ariana is one of the nine biggest artists of the last decade, but uhhh... she is.

(I'm also not saying that Ariana killed Mac Miller, but uhhh...)

In all seriousness though, Ari is the most successful Disney Channel pop-star, and it's not even close (sorry Miley). You know how many Top 10 songs she's had since 2013? Fourteen. She also put 36 more songs on Billboard's Top 100. That's a grand total of 50 songs in just about eight years.

Over the last few years she's only grown in popularity. She had two #1 hits within three months of each other, and she followed those up with a #2 a few weeks later. Instead of diminishing like most grown-up child stars, she's embraced the glitz and the glamour. She's popularized the problematic blackfishing that so many celebrity women do now (when a white woman tans themselves to appear black). She's figuratively survived two extremely public relationships and break-ups, and she's literally survived a terrorist attack at one of her concerts. 

*insert her Twitter battle with Kanye that ended with Mr. West telling her, "you get people hurt at concerts"*

Ariana Grande is a mainstay in today's music culture, and honestly, she's in position to be higher than #9 next decade. Be on the look out.

8. Bruno Mars

It's been almost ten years since Bruno Mars released Doo-Wops & Hooligans, his pop classic with such hits as "Grenade," "Just the Way You Are," and "The Lazy Song." 

Since then he's gone on to release what the Grammys consider the Best Album of the Year with 24K Magic. Spoiler alert: it wasn't the best album of the year. He's released eleven Top 10 songs. Spoiler alert: those aren't including the three Top 10 songs off Doo-Wops & Hooligans. And he released what could be considered the song of the decade with "Uptown Funk!" Spoiler alert: I don't have anything for this. That song really defined this decade.

Oh, and it warrants mentioning: Doo-Wops & Hooligans has aged like a fine wine or a finer cheese. It's fucking fantastic. The wave that album created could have carried Bruno for the rest of the decade, but he didn't let it. He moved past it. He just kept creating hits. 

He channeled Michael. He channeled The Police. He channeled the Sugarhill Gang. (And he got sued for it, ha.) But in channeling those icons, Bruno Mars turned himself into an icon with at least one all-time classic record.

7. Kanye West

Did you seriously think for even a second I wasn't about to include Yeezus himself? Did you really think that? No? Were you actually more appropriately afraid that I would make him #1, name him the artist of the decade? I'm crazy, but I'm not that crazy. I'm not Kanye-level crazy.

Has any musician ever held the public spotlight with such grip for so long? When Kanye has his Twitter activated and his phone in his hand, the whole world waits with baited breath for the next notification. It's all the news talks about. Kanye the (unmedicated and bipolar) Man has grown almost as large as Kanye the (greatest of all time) Musician. 

Kanye started off this decade with one of the greatest albums of all time, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. (If you know anything by now, it's that I mean and can substantiate this claim.) He followed it up with one of the biggest collab albums of all time, Watch the Throne (with Jay-Z). A few years later, he released the monumentally influential industrial rap album Yeezus. Then he got married to Kim Kardashian. Two years later, he brought every artist in the world onto one evolving album, The Life of Pablo. The next year, he had a mental breakdown, spent some time in a hospital recovering, and then secluded himself in Wyoming. The next summer, in the midst of a Twitter deluge supporting Donald Trump, he released five produced albums in five weeks, two of which were his own, ye and KIDS SEE GHOSTS (with Kid Cudi). Then, Kanye dressed up like a Roblox character with Lil Pump and rapped, "Imma sick fuck, I like a quick fuck." Now, twelve months later, he's a born again Christian who just a few weeks ago released an actually-pretty-good gospel album without any cursing (save for one "damn"). 

If that isn't the most tumultuous decade in music, I don't know what is. It's been one hell of a ride, and whether we like it or not, he's taken every one of us along for the ride.

6. Ed Sheeran

Goddammit. Finding a picture of Ed Sheeran where he doesn't look like the biggest dork in the history of the world is infuriatingly impossible. He is the least photogenic person, maybe ever. 

And yet, he's the number one artist in the world. Like actually. By the numbers, he sells more records, gets more streams, and is booked for more Game of Thrones appearances than any other artist. "Shape of You," his 2017 hit that spent three months at #1, has been listened to on Spotify alone approximately 2,353,592,621 times. That's one goddamn song! ONE! If you combined every redhead nerd with glasses and a guitar into one musician, all of their listeners combined still wouldn't top this one particular song by this one particular redhead nerd with glasses and a guitar, who just happens to have the particular name Ed.

Besides what I've already said, there's not much more I can say about Ed. He's British. That's still cool apparently. Most of his albums are based on math symbols (+, x, etc.). Nerd. He's not particularly cute. He's not particularly good at singing or songwriting. It's really like we chose the most normal person we could find and made him ultra-famous. But that's alright. 

I mean, how could anyone not like Ed Sheeran? He's the human equivalent of a mouse. Everyone loves mice. A mouse is the sixth biggest artist of the decade. There I said it.

5. Kendrick Lamar

When I was making this list with my roommate Jess last night, it took us probably half an hour before either of us even thought of Kendrick Lamar. We thought of controversial artists like Kanye and Ariana right off the bat. That took no time at all. But the low-key artists, the ones who just do their job, don't make a splash, sometimes we forget about them.

And yet, it's impossible to really forget about Kendrick Lamar. He has redefined hip-hop.

Kung-fu Kenny has cemented himself among the all-time greats. More than that, he may be one of the best four or five musicians to ever grace his genre. His debut album, Section.80, is his weakest piece of work, and it's still really, really good. His sophomore album, good kid, m.A.A.d city, was nearly the best album of 2012. (I give the edge to Frank Ocean's channel ORANGE, but really it's a toss-up.) His third album, To Pimp a Butterfly, eclipses the word "masterpiece." It's not only one of the best albums of the decade, it's one of the best albums of all time. It became a cultural touchstone. It's already archived in Harvard's Library. Soon it will be vaulted in the Library of Congress. After that, I can only assume we'll send a copy to the moon in case every copy on Earth is destroyed in a nuclear fallout. I reckon we'll do the same with his latest albums, untitled unmastered., DAMN., and the Black Panther soundtrack.

K.Dot is the closest thing to Shakespeare the 21st century has seen. His music videos are ingenious. His lyrics are masterful. His storytelling, unprecedented. History will remember this decade in hip-hop as the decade of Kendrick Lamar. Period.

4. Beyoncé

Our Queen doesn't make music. She makes art that changes the very concept of culture as we know it. When she releases an album the Earth tilts on its axis. She carries royalty in the form of a walking, breathing, living legend.

Need I say more?

Honorable Mentions

There are really so many artists that deserve to be in the top ten, but unfortunately the rules of a top ten are that there can only be, well, ten. So, here are some artists who were up for consideration but didn't quite make the cut:

• One Direction
• Chance the Rapper
• The Weeknd
• Rihanna
• Lady Gaga
• Lil Wayne
• Lana del Rey
• Future
• Arcade Fire
• Katy Perry

I'm sure there are many others that I'm forgetting about as well. But those jump straight to the front of my mind. All of those artists could have a rightful spot in the top ten, they just didn't. Not on this list at least.

3. Justin Bieber

Oh, look a good picture of Ed Sheeran. I knew I'd find one eventually. Still a dork though.

Anyway, Justin Bieber. God, how do I justify putting Justin at #3? More like, how could I justify putting him lower?! In so, so many ways this has been his decade. When he broke onto the scene in 2010 with "Baby" it was all anyone could talk about. He broke every record basically ever set with that one song. Within six months of its release, it was the most watched video ever. 

Since then, Justin's grown up, like a lot. He's tatted his whole body. He's had entire relationships start and crumble. He's had other songs gross over a billion listens on different individual music platforms (much like his buddy Ed in the background up there). Bieber really showed us how long a decade really is. He released "Baby" in January of 2010. That feels like an eternity ago. And yet, he's been around for every second of that eternity. 

While the music world was going through growing pains in the first few years of the decade, teenage Bieber put R&B on his back and basically carried the genre. Luckily he doesn't have to do that anymore. Those years were rough. (Looking at you 2011.) But since then, Justin has had a really mellow public career for someone who rocketed into the stratosphere at like twelve years old. Justin just does Justin. 

He makes catchy pop songs. He does features. He turns normal songs into global sensations, even when he doesn't speak the language of the song he's singing. He puts songs on the Billboard Top 100. That's his home. In the last decade he's put 73 songs on it. 

No matter what he does, that's untouchable.

2. Drake

I'm going to go back to my roots and do this one debate style. 

Here are all the reasons Drake doesn't deserve to be artist of the decade:

• He's corny.
• He grooms young women.
• He's corny.
• Like he actually grooms young women. This isn't even a joke anymore. We need to cancel Drake. Millie Bobby Brown, Billie Eilish, Bella Harris. These aren't coincidences. These are teenage girls that he is courting until they are/were above age. 
• He's a neglectful father.
• It was revealed that he was a neglectful father when he lost a rap battle to Pusha T, who was himself, a 40 year old man whose proudest accomplishment was selling cocaine in Virginia.
• He's still corny.

Here are all the reasons Drake does deserve to be artist of the decade:

• "Forever."
• He had six #1 hits in the last decade.
• He had 33 top 10 hits in the last decade.
• He had over 200 songs in the Billboard Top 100 in the last decade.
• He made the "Hotline Bling" video.
• He made the "God's Plan" video.
• "She say, 'Do you love me?' I tell her, 'Only partly, I only love my bed and my mama. I'm sorry.'"
• He won an NBA Championship (kind of). 
• Rappers are singers now. If you don't believe me, believe the New York Times.
• Somewhere along the way he discovered an immunity idol for cancel culture. 

We simply can't get rid of Drake. He's everywhere. I can't believe he's not the artist of the decade. More than that, I can't fucking believe who is.

1. Taylor Swift

Yeah, I know. You can't believe I'm writing this either.

Why is Taylor above Drake??

Has she had more #1s than Drake? No. She's only had five. 

Has she had more top 10 hits than Drake? Nope. Just twenty.

Has she placed more songs in the Billboard Top 100 than Drake? Not even close. Not even half, actually.

So why is she here? Well, I'm gonna swallow all of my pride and confess something.

Here we go...

I really fucking love Taylor Swift. Like a lot. 

Red (2012) and 1989 (2014) are two of my favorite albums this century, and 1989 is, no joke, one of the best thirty albums of the last decade. Tay-Tay has amassed a following that would kill for her. She has been anywhere and everywhere over the last decade. She's the ideal, made-for-the-masses, media product. And you know what? It works. We buy it. We gobble that shit up.

When she does a stadium tour, we buy stadium seats. When she stands up to the big companies paying musicians fractions of pennies, we buy her CDs. When she finally voices her support of the LGBTQ+ community, we pretend she was never silent. We say she saved country, while simultaneously being the best pop star of the last ten years. We say these things because that's what she says.

Taylor Swift is nothing more than a media darling, but goddammit, she's our media darling. 

And, if we're being perfectly honest, she's a pretty damn good musician too. 𝄌