Ranking the Album of the Year Winners of the Decade
From August: This is usually the time of the year that I spend talking about the best-received Couch pieces of the last year. But COVID-19 has made our 4th blogaversary considerably more muted, for as you might have noticed, there has been a whole lot less to write about with the world under lockdown.
This is also the time of year where I’d start peppering with you some of the best film, music, sports and television of the first half of the year. But with COVID-19 greatly lessening the presence of new sports and music, and essentially halting new movies and television, we have had very little of that to write about. Instead, what I’m hoping to do over the next several weeks is do what many publications and TV channels alike have been doing over the last 5 months: retrospectives!
More specifically, I’m going to be looking back at the last decade in major awards show decisions. The Grammys and the Oscars— but really the Hollywood awards circuit in general —have become annual viewing experiences and emotional investments for me. They’re my favorite thing outside of actual sporting events to get needlessly worked up and competitive about, and it’s over the last decade that those annual loud and unsolicited opinions of mine really began.
Previously, we've talked about the Grammy for Best New Artist, for Record of the Year, and for Song of the Year. We've also discussed the Oscar for Best Director, for Best Actor, and for Best Actress.
This week, we go back to the Grammys for their top award, Album of the Year. Note that the years listed in the rankings denote the year of music that they were nominated for, not the year of the ceremony itself.
The Grammy for Album of the Year might be my single-favorite entertainment award to follow. That’s a somewhat crazy thing for me to say, because the Grammys aren’t nearly as enjoyable or important to me as the Oscars are, and increasingly, even the Emmys are. But while the drumroll moments before a Best Picture announcement never gets old, thanks to the extensive awards circuit, there’s hardly ever any real suspense before even the most major announcements at those shows, because people can surmise the frontrunner by looking at who has been cleaning up all the other Hollywood awards.
There’s no ‘awards circuit’ equivalent for the world of music. Sure, there are the AMAs, and the CMAs, and the VMAs, and the Billboard Music Awards. But those are more festival than they are award show; the fan vote element makes it no more than a series of performances with a popularity contest sprinkled in. The cynical amongst you might argue that’s true of the Grammys, too, and fair, sometimes it is. But sometimes it isn’t; sometimes the Grammys eschew popularity and see a lesser-known artist, song, or album taking home the major awards. It’s what makes this ceremony, and on a smaller scale, this very award— the Grammy equivalent to Best Picture —equal parts entertaining and aggravating. There’s no ‘Grammy formula,’ other than, unfortunately, black artists largely being left out of the major award victories. That very unpredictability is what inspires me to annually release a primer for this award before nominees are officially announced, and what made Michael Rondello and I offer a little redo to the Recording Academy for their decade’s worth of Grammy winners a couple years ago.
Now that you’re fully up to speed on how seriously I take this award, here are my rankings of the decade’s winners for Album of the Year:
10. Babel, Mumford and Sons (2012)
There’s plenty of albums on this list that I’ll gripe about to varying degrees, but if I’m being honest there aren’t any bad ones. Babel being the lowest-ranked winner exemplifies that- it’s not a bad album...it’s just not very good. Awarded at the tail-end of the nu-folk revival and Mumford & Sons’ popularity, it’s a full album of Mumford doing what Mumford does: boisterous banjos, dramatic crescendos, uplifting and vaguely religious lyrics. It would be seen as a disappointing Album of the Year winner anyhow, but when you factor in some of the albums, nominated (channel ORANGE, El Camino, Some Nights, and non-nominated (Ceremonials, Mylo Xyloto, The Carpenter) that it beat out, it becomes downright appalling.
9. 24K Magic, Bruno Mars (2017)
I guess I should give Bruno Mars a little credit for being the only winner this decade that wasn't a white female pop star or a white male indie artist/band. And to be fair, this is a fun listen. It’s classic Bruno: there’s little to no lyrical depth, there’s nothing particularly original musically, but damn if it isn’t entertaining. Unfortunately, that formula doesn’t really make for an exciting winner when the fellow nominees are some of the greatest musical artists of today. 24K Magic, more of a loose collection of radio singles than a cohesive album, beat out magnificent works by Kendrick Lamar and Jay-Z, two of the greatest rappers of all time, Lorde, widely considered pop music’s most prodigious young songwriter, and Childish Gambino, one of the most talented human beings in the western world. So yeah, this one was a little tough to swallow.
8. 1989, Taylor Swift (2015)
If you've known my music taste (or just followed my social media accounts) for years, you're surprised 1989 wasn't my last-placed pick. If you're just tuning in in the wake of my newfound appreciation of Taylor Swift, you're stunned that it is this low. Look- though this album was released in the days of my peak hatred for T-Swift, I can objectively recognize why this won. It was huge, easily the biggest album of the year with multiple tracks that reached #1 in the charts. And some of those songs were even pretty good! "Wildest Dreams" and "Style" come to mind. All of that being said, let's not kid ourselves. This was a bubble gum pop record, and 2015 saw some of the finest music released all decade. Sufjan Stevens' Carrie And Lowell and Florence + The Machine's How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful weren't nominated for the award, but were so achingly wonderful in different ways. Alabama Shakes' Sound & Colour and Chris Stapleton's Traveller WERE nominated for the award, and would have been deserving winners. And then there was the case of To Pimp A Butterfly; we've already discussed an instance of Kendrick Lamar snubbery in this article (spoiler: this won't be the last!), but this one takes the cake. The magnum opus from the best rapper in the game today, To Pimp A Butterfly is still one of the best-reviewed major releases in history and has since been inducted into the Library of Congress. But evidently that still wasn't enough to make the Recording Academy give Album of the Year to a rapper.
7. 25, Adele (2016)
It's no secret the Grammys love Adele. Her Grammy recognition even preceded her immense popularity, as she scored Best New Artist (as well as nominations for Record and Song of the Year) in 2009, a full three years before she would go on to clean up all the major awards. But knowing that precedent, and knowing how huge Adele's comeback with 25 was, didn't make it any less painful when she beat out Beyoncé's brilliant Lemonade for this award. Adele is a marvelous singer and songwriter, one of the best there is out there. But 25, good as it may have been (and it was good!) showed that three albums in, she was going to keep doing what she'd always been doing. Lemonade, meanwhile, was a genre-bending, soul-baring explication of race, gender, and heartbreak from one of the World's biggest stars. It was a crime for 25 to beat it out, and to Adele's credit, that's a fact she gracefully acknowledged.
6. Morning Phase, Beck (2014)
Did someone say...robbing Beyoncé of her deserved award? Yes, two years before Adele, there was Beck, whose Album of the Year victory made less waves than Kanye West's momentary stage-rushing and ensuing post-ceremony angry tweets did. And in fairness to Kanye-- and the masses --he was right. Beyoncé's album self-titled album should have won. Not only was it far and away the biggest release of the nominees, it was also the best, receiving a Metacritic score of 86, and being universally lauded as her strongest work to date. That said, outside of Beyoncé, this was a quite weak year of music, so that makes this win a little more palatable. Furthermore, Morning Phase is a very good, atmospheric album, one that is stylistically so different from most Album of the Year winners, and some originality in the Grammys is always welcomed.
5. 21, Adele (2011)
I don't mean to keep reducing Adele to the deserving artists she beat out, because it isn't her fault, and it's not like she's not a brilliant talent herself. But if we're just being objective, the story of these Grammys is the outrageous snub of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The Recording Academy were likely gunshy about placing too much laud and honor on Kanye West in the peak years of his Taylor Swift awards show spat and increasing public antics. But that's still no excuse to not even offer an Album of the Year nomination to an album that still is considered perhaps the best of the entire decade, and arguably one of the best rap albums of all time. However! Of the albums that did get nominated, a who's-who of mediocre pop releases, 21 was an undoubtedly deserving winner. It was by far the biggest album of them all, for one, but more importantly, this was Adele at her full-throated, heart-aching best. There's no denying 21 is a firing squad of hit after hit: "Rolling In The Deep," "Rumour Has It," "Set Fire To The Rain," "Turning Tables," "Someone Like You"...come on.
4. Random Access Memories, Daft Punk (2013)
The fact that both at the time, and in retrospect, I'm not mad about this album winning Album of the Year should tell you how great Random Access Memories. Because here are just some other albums (some nominated, some not) that were released in 2013, an absolutely insane year for good music: Justin Timberlake's 20/20 Experience, Vampire Weekend's Modern Vampires of the City, Lorde's Pure Heroine, Arctic Monkeys' AM, John Legend's Love In The Future, Kanye West's Yeezus, The National's Trouble Will Find Me, and oh yeah, some guy named Kendrick Lamar with good kid, m.A.A.d city. And yet, Daft Punk were a win that was hard to dispute. Lest you think this was just some career achievement award for the techno pioneers, do yourself a favor and give Random Access Memories a listen some time. From the opening chords of "Give Life Back To Music," to the undeniable funk of "Get Lucky," to the swelling crescendos of "Giorgio by Moroder," there isn't a weak track on its list.
3. When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, Billie Eilish (2019)
Plenty of last year’s nominees for Album of the Year would have a legitimate claim to the crown. Between Lizzo, Vampire Weekend, Bon Iver, Lana del Rey and Ariana Grande, the high-quality music of 2019 was thoroughly represented. But amidst them all, 18-year old Billie Eilish was crowned the winner, and nobody really could be surprised or upset. Billie took the world by storm last year, breaking all sorts of sales and chart records with a wildly different kind of pop than anything we’d heard. When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? starts with the sort of distortion and heavy beats that made lead single “bad guy” such a megahit. It’s catchy track upon catchy track, but then about halfway through, the tone shifts completely, giving way to a slow, hauntingly beautiful stretch of introspective songs about love and loss. It’s can’t-miss material, and it was borne out of the mind of a teenager in her bedroom.
2. Golden Hour, Kacey Musgraves (2018)
It takes a whole lot for me to admit I like a Country album. It takes even more to openly cheer for it to win Grammys over the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Janelle Monáe, Travis Scott, Brandi Carlile and H.E.R.. And now that I've rated Golden Hour the 2nd best Album of the Year winner of the decade, surely there can be no doubt about how highly I think of this album. From the psychedelic opening chords of "Slow Burn," the entire album is a slow, delightful journey through what falling in love sounds like. Not every song is an instant classic, but, honestly, most of them are.
1. The Suburbs, Arcade Fire (2010)
In my estimation, the decade began with the finest Album of the Year winner it would ultimately see. We've mentioned Kanye West probably a bit too much in this article already, but even the famously disgruntled rapper tweeted in the wake of Arcade Fire's upset victory “#Arcade fire!!!!!!!!!! There is hope!!! I feel like we all won when something like this happens! FUCKING AWESOME!” Beating out stars like Eminem, Katy Perry, and Lady Gaga, The Suburbs' triumph at the Grammys was an indie fan's dream. In retrospect, it was also one of the rare instances of an objectively brilliant album winning this top award. The Suburbs elevated Arcade Fire's stadium rock capabilities with songs like "Ready To Start," "City With No Children," "Month Of May" and "Sprawl II," all while telling a story of childhood in the suburbs of America. Arcade Fire's win saw mixed reactions at the time, but now it's a reminder of how every now and then, the Academy really does get it right.
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