Coda 2010: So, An Overture to a Runaway Decade.

A still from Kanye West's 2010 film "Runaway."

On February 12th, 2010, a small electronic buzz filled the speakers of televisions and computers around the globe, and above that soft buzz came these words:

"Hi, I'm Jamie Foxx. Twenty-five years ago Quincy Jones gathered an amazing group of artists and musicians to create "We Are the World," written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie. I'm so proud to be able to share a new version of that song..."

And thus the world was introduced to "We Are the World 25 for Haiti." 

Although "We Are the World 25" was a commercial success globally, musically it was a strange memorial to a powerful moment from 1985 that was now long gone. Michael Jackson, who appears in the video through archival footage, had died just months earlier. It imitated the musical style of the original "We Are the World," but it lacked the original heart. In its updated form artists such as Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen had been replaced by the Jonas Brothers and Justin Bieber. The closest thing to Ray Charles in "We Are the World 25" was Jamie Foxx's Oscar-winning version. Oh, and there's that weird sideline rap part where artists like Snoop Dogg, LL Cool J, Iyaz, and will.i.am struggle to rap together with lyrics in hand. It's a half-baked attempt to remember the world's largest supergroup and come together for a devastated Haiti.

And yet, about five minutes into the video it's hard to deny this as a turning point in musical history. Backed by an 80 piece chorus and a Carlos Santana guitar rift, Lil Wayne sings into a heavily autotuned mic, "There's a choice we're making. We're saving our own lives. It's true we make a better day, just you and me!" It's a line first sung 25 years earlier by Diana Ross. Now, in 2010, the New Orleans born hip-hop innovator with face tats and a diamond grill sings the line. In a music video with plenty of startling moments, Lil Wayne's small part may be overlooked, but nonetheless it is indicative of the road that music would sprint down in the decade to come.

Critics hated "We Are the World 25" because it failed to capture the magic of its original 1985 form. But what critics failed to see in the moment is that "We Are the World 25" was less about the past and more about the future. It was not just another piece in the long history of contemporary music. It was a group of artists turning on their heels and running away from convention, dragging the next decade of music along as they ran. The 2010s would be their decade, and this was just the starting line.

Lil Wayne in "We Are the World 25 for Haiti."

Despite what the odd hip-hop aside in "We Are the World 25" might lead you to believe, 2010 was very much a rock n' roll year. It seems like every group of three or more white folks around the world decided it was time to release a rock album, and the funny thing is - so many of them actually rocked. Arcade Fire, Wild Nothing, The National, The Black Keys, Broken Bells, Vampire Weekend, The Dead Weather, and tons of other rock bands put out great albums in 2010. Hell, even Robert Plant put out an album. (It was eh.)

This isn't to say that other music genres didn't excel in 2010. They just didn't quite dominate the way rock somehow did. Arcade Fire's The Suburbs captured a level of musical excellence that the Canadian band hadn't been able to attain for over half a decade. And despite the online outrage sparking the iconic "Who is Arcade Fire?," the band would go on to win Best Album of the Year at the Grammy's. Its Grammy win begs the question, "Did it deserve it?" The answer to which is, "No. Not at all." The Grammy's rarely give out awards to the deserving though, so that's nothing new. 

(Because I can't resist myself, can we just quickly look at who won the Grammy for Best New Artist of 2010, cause it's practically hysterical. There were five people nominated for Best New Artist. The four losers are Justin Bieber, Drake, Florence + the Machine, and Mumford & Sons. The winner - Esperanza Spalding. I know what you're thinking. I don't know who she is either. Literally all four losers deserve that award more. But, that's just the way it goes. Okay, I digress.)

The fact remains, there are at least a dozen rock albums that could be titled the best rock album of 2010. And yet, none of them have that classic rock sound. Few even have a discernible lineage to the rock n' roll of the 1990s. Nearly all of the killer rock albums from 2010 can be categorized as "indie rock." Arcade Fire, The National, Broken Bells, they didn't keep rock alive. They changed it. 

The genre became moodier. In some places it became more baroque; in others, more electronic; and still in others, somehow just noisier. I can draw a rough line from The Talking Heads through to Radiohead to Coldplay to The Black Keys, but by the Keys' critically acclaimed 2010 album, Brothers, that line begins to seriously fade. Of course, as music runs its course, this is bound to happen. But by 2010, the indie rock change became tidal and swept away whatever was left of the pioneering generation of rock n' roll. 

My ten picks of album "deep cuts" from 2010.

Don't get me wrong: almost none of these indie rock albums got significant radio play. In 2010, the radio was still wildly dominated by pop hits. In fact, in the last decade this is one thing that really hasn't changed all that much. Sure, indie rock has moved its way onto the charts (especially with groups such as Imagine Dragons and The Chainsmokers), but in 2010 this wasn't really the case. Rock on the radio was still very clean and about as classic as you could get in the 21st century, dominated by bands like The Fray, Kings of Leon, and Train. Even then however, it was pop that reigned supreme on the radio. So let's talk about that reign, cause damn, 2010 was a great year to have a radio.

First of all, it should be mentioned that 2010 had a great deal of radio holdover from 2009, and I could easily write a blog on the brilliance of radio hits from 2009. We're talking the rise of Kid Cudi, Ke$ha, Lady Gaga, Drake; the second coming of the Black Eyed Peas, Katy Perry, and Jay-Z; and probably the greatest song of the 2000s: "Fireflies" by Owl City. All of these artists were still getting wild radio play in 2010. The most played song of 2010, in fact, was "Tik Tok," Ke$ha's iconic 2009 hit. So, if you wanted a reason to buy a radio in January of 2010, a celebration of the last twelve months was already a good enough reason.

But then, in the midst of 2009's chart dominance, 2010 found a way to carve out its place in Billboard history. And the story of radio in 2010, unfortunately, begins with a 15 year old Canadian kid who turned into a global sensation overnight. 

On January 18th, 2010, with a little help from some friends in Atlanta (namely Usher and Ludacris), Justin Bieber released his first single, "Baby." Heard of it? The single, featuring Luda, would go on to debut at #5 on Billboard's Hot 100, and within six months the music video would become the most watched video in the history of the world. Now, almost a decade later, the song has gone platinum twelve times and the music video has been viewed over 2 billion times. In the blink of an eye, a generational icon was born.

Bieber was just one of many culturally questionable artists who made 2010 one of the all-time great years for pop radio. Katy Perry would release multiple smash hits that year, as would Bruno Mars, B.o.B., and Eminem. I mean we really let Eminem spit, "If she ever tries to fuckin' leave again, imma tie her to the bed and set this house on fire," because we were all like, "Damn, Rihanna kills this chorus though..." So it goes in the world of radio, I suppose.

There were also plenty of hits from non-problematic artists in 2010 too though, like Rihanna, Jason Derulo, and CeeLo Green. And to be very fair, we didn't realize B.o.B. was a wild flat-earther quite yet, nor that Bruno Mars would go on to commit arguable musical plagiarism. We were also a few years away from Katy Perry's iconic fumbling of race issues with her cornrows and "geisha performance." Back in 2010 these were all just fun artists filling the radio with bops and bangers. It was a simpler time, when one could sit back and just jam to the radio.

My ten picks of radio hits released in 2010.

But that's enough history, let's talk competition. While the music industry churned out hits, and rock bands the world over made their best efforts to cement themselves in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, there was a quiet tug of war going on in one of music's loudest subgenres. Welcome to Noise Bowl 2010.

Every year artists compete to make the best music in their genre, even if they don't want to admit it. Music genres become annual battlefields. Sometimes it's easy to discern a winner. For example, the best country album of 2010 did not, in fact, belong to Taylor Swift; instead, the honor goes to Jamey Johnson, who put out a pretty spectacular double album. Nor did the best electronica album belong to the Gorillaz, despite popular appeal. In underrated fashion, Flying Lotus claims that title with Cosmogramma. Of course these "wins" are completely subjective, but so is the basis of musical taste. Artists constantly compete for our ear drums, and often people can point to a clear winner. But every now and then you get a muddled battlefield. There is no clear winner. Thus is the inspiration for Noise Bowl 2010 - an in-depth(ish) look at the battle for best noise band of 2010.

I'll lay everything out there up front - I don't often listen to noise music. I find the whole genre a little too chaotic for my taste. I'm certainly no expert in its history or in the defining artists of its culture. That being said, I have listened to more than my fair share of noise albums from 2010 and enjoyed far too many of them. So, let's just go ahead and narrow down the field.

I'm eliminating Rangda, Zach Hill, and Male Bonding's albums from competition simply because, while good, they are easily not the best of 2010. This is just one of those things that I can do with immunity because I'm the author of this piece and I've listened to these albums (and I don't think anyone is going to argue the point with me). With those off the table, I've narrowed it down to four albums with a shot at the belt.

I'm gonna jump straight to Daughters by Daughters. I'm only including this album as a shot at the belt because it was literally thrown together while the band was breaking up, and I generally find that really impressive. Despite the short and sweet tracks, you can almost hear the band falling apart as you listen. But, also all noise albums kind of sound like that, so maybe it's an unfair characterization? I don't know. It gets a mention. It does not win.

This leaves three contenders: Crystal Castles, No Age, and Sleigh Bells. All three of them put out critically acclaimed noise albums in 2010. All of them are fantastic, honestly. But only one put out the best. Let's eliminate another. No Age, I hate to say it, but your tribe has spoken. Everything in Between, while strong, is just too repetitive (even for a noise album) to take the crown.

And then there were two. Literally. (II), otherwise known as Crystal Castles II, is a stellar noise-pop album. Though it's the longest of all the contenders, it doesn't feel like it is. Somehow Crystal Castles was able to keep noise music fresh for nearly an hour. That's an awfully hard feat. But unfortunately it's just not quite enough to win Noise Bowl 2010.

I'm giving the belt for best noise band to Sleigh Bells for Treats. Unlike pretty much any other noise album I've ever heard Treats has a strangely addictive quality to it. It's eleven songs and only half an hour long, and yeah every song sounds damn near the same, but holy hell - there's something intoxicating about the album. It's just so much goddamn fun. It gnaws its way into your head and does not leave. Gotta fucking love that. Congratulations Sleigh Bells. You win Noise Bowl 2010.

Treats by Sleigh Bells.

Okay back to the history. For about five months in 2010 LCD Soundsystem had the best nine-minute song of the year. I know that's not a very real honor, but it really should be. You know how hard it is to make a good nine-minute song? It's pretty hard. You have to keep audiences engaged for nine minutes, which is more than twice the average length of the radio-cuts our ears are used to. Sure, Joanna Newsom released a godly triple album in 2010 with what felt like nothing but nine-minute songs (or longer), but for every other artist it's extremely difficult to keep listeners around for nine minutes. 

However, "Dance Yrself Clean," the first track on LCD Soundsystem's This is Happening, is able to do just that. It has the ultra-rare quality of combining worldly observations with an infectious dance beat. And it's nine minutes long, so ya know. That's pretty fucking rare, and it pushes the song into the conversation for best track of the year. 

It's too bad that conversation is over before it even begins.

The many covers of Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

With a single piano note Kanye West ended the conversation for best song of the year, not to mention best nine-minute song of the year. "Runaway," the heart and soul of his critically acclaimed My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, is not only the best song of 2010, there is a very easy argument to be made that it's the best song of the last decade. My love for the song and the album as a whole (one of, in my opinion, only ten perfect albums ever created) is not undocumented. If anything, I have already talked too much about the importance of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy on this blog.

But not to mention it would be a travesty. There is no musical history of 2010 that doesn't include Kanye West at its center. Hell, there's no musical history of the last decade without Kanye West in some capacity. 

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy changed hip-hop. It proved that even the most egotistical, self-loathing, glorious of bastards could take a music genre and turn it into the highest form of art. The masterful orchestration of voices, from Bon Iver to Chris Rock to Kanye's very own voice manipulated into the "Runaway" guitar, was (and still very much is) unprecedented. It is by far the most well produced album of all time. The thousands of hours that nearly killed the man creating it shine through with every beat, every bounce, every breath. 

There is a good reason My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy has never left the musical canon of the last decade. In every possible way it set the bar for the years to come. It has, in many people's opinions including my own, yet to be surpassed. I very much doubt it ever will be. Say what you will about Kanye West as a person, but with a single album he was able to steal a decade and run with it. 

Even now nine years later, when those piano notes ring out there's no denying that he is still running. 𝄌

Brothers by The Black Keys, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West, & The Suburbs by Arcade Fire.

Author's note: You can find my 20 essential tracks of 2010 on Spotify if you search for Coda 2010. They are in a playlist in the order listed.