mid-decade check-in / the makings of “favorites” and “bests”
Unpacking Pitchfork’s “Best Songs/Albums of the 2020s So Far” lists, “Best Of” lists in general, and taste-as-habit.
“Best Of” lists tend to serve three main purposes: 1) to document a particular time period through the music that was considered the most relevant, important, or emblematic of its era in a positive or artful way, 2) to act as a snapshot of a particular publication’s house style and taste profile during said time period, and 3) to get people talking (and by “people” I specifically mean people who read/care about music criticism, which, if you’re subscribed to this newsletter I assume you are).
After years of reading these lists I’m far less likely to go full “Old Man Yells At Music Journalism” at a decision I disagree with or don’t understand. I’ve also gotten better at being able to tell when the placement of a certain song or album on a list is a deliberate, crowd-pleasing or crowd-pissing-off move—not to say that this automatically means it’s disingenuous, but that the curators know that extra engagement is a nice little bonus.
Pitchfork’s lists were pretty unsurprising. Their choices generally tracked with their coverage over the past four years. Not a lot to be shocked by (or pretend to be shocked by) if you’re someone who keeps up with that sort of thing.
I’ve seen a lot of people question the point of doing mid-decade lists or acting like they’re some new thing (I guess not ALL of us remember where we were when Pitchfork declared Grimes’ “Oblivion” the best song of the first half of the 2010s back in 2014). I think it’s nice to do a check-in, take the temperature as we near the halfway point of the 2020s. My main interest in these lists is as time capsules; I find that I usually don’t fully appreciate them until I look back years later and consider what’s actually passed the test of time.
I was inspired by a blog post from writer, podcaster, and friend Miranda Reinert to try and gauge what my own best of the decade (so far) lists might look like using my favorite social media platform, lastfm.
Here are my top 10 most-listened to songs and albums of the decade so far:
YES my most-listened to song of 2020 was Sufjan Stevens’ 25-minute 5-suite epic “Impossible Soul” and YES it is still my most listened-to song of the decade so far NO I was not doing well when I would go for walks where I’d listen to “Impossible Soul” like it was a podcast and then when it ended I’d turn around and listen to it again on the walk back home NO I don’t do this anymore but I maybe I should start again
These lists can’t be fully accurate predictors of my songs/albums of the decade rankings because most of the songs/albums on them came out before the 2020s. So, I scrolled through each of my lastfm lists and disregarded each pre-2020s release until I compiled lists of my top 10 most listened-to songs from January 2020 to October 2024 that have come out during that time frame (I don’t care how late in 2019 it came out, Magdalene by FKA twigs is NOT a 2020s album).
My most listened-to songs that have come out this decade:
100 gecs ft. Charli XCX, Rico Nasty, and Kero Kero Bonito, “ringtone (remix)” (2020)
Japanese Breakfast, “Savage Good Boy” (2021)
Sharon Van Etten, Angel Olsen, “Like I Used To” (2021)
gupi, fraxiom, “Thos Moser” (2020)
Perfume Genius, “On The Floor” (2020)
SZA, “Good Days” (2020)
Xiu Xiu, “A Bottle of Rum” (2021)
Samia, “Fit N Full” (2020)
Jeff Rosenstock, “***bnb” (2020)
Wednesday, “Handsome Man” (2021)
My most listened-to albums that have come out this decade:
Fiona Apple, Fetch The Bolt Cutters (2020)
Jeff Rosenstock, No Dream (2020)
Samia, The Baby (2020)
Alvvays, Blue Rev (2022)
Wednesday, Twin Plagues (2021)
Sudan Archives, Natural Brown Prom Queen (2023)
Momma, Household Name (2022)
MJ Lenderman, Boat Songs (2022)
Japanese Breakfast, Jubilee (2021)
Slaughter Beach Dog, At The Moonbase (2020)
All of the albums listed would probably be on my best of the decade long list, probably less than half would be in my top 10. In a blog post about MJ Lenderman, I talked about replay value, and how it does (or doesn’t) factor into whether or not I consider a record one of my favorites. I mentioned a couple of the albums on this list as examples of replayable favorites in that discussion, so I’m obviously not surprised to see them on here (I also mentioned the Fiona Apple album, which tops this list, as an example of a not-necessarily-replayable record, although when it first came out, there were a couple weeks where Fetch The Bolt Cutters was the only thing I wanted to listen to). I’d probably rank The Microphones In 2020 higher than most of these albums, but for obvious reasons I’m not gonna just throw it on while I’m cooking dinner.
For me, best songs list always feel harder to suss out than best albums, perhaps because I tend to be more of an albums listener. If I have a specific playlist in mind for an occasion or activity, I’ll listen to that, often in order. If I don’t know what to listen to, or if I’m trying to fill a relatively short span of time (i.e. my fifteenish minute walk from to work), I’ll probably just shuffle the big, un-themed and un-curated playlist of songs I’m into right now (I make a new one about every three months, corresponding with each season, and have since high school). The songs above tend to be the ones that I skip the least when they come up on the shuffle queues of these playlists. Most are songs from albums that I like, but I can listen to these individual songs without always feeling the need to listen to the whole album, which isn’t always the case with albums I love (see above with Bolt Cutters). Some of them I haven’t listened to in a while (I still love “Good Days” by SZA but cannot tell you when I last put it on), others are still in my regular rotation (I’ve had “Handsome Man” by Wednesday on repeat this week). I don’t know if I’d call any of these songs my favorite of the decade so far, but again, a lot of them would likely end up on my longlist.
I don’t necessarily think that my favorite album/song and the best album/song are the same. My personal favorites feel hard to pin down, as they’re always going to be deeply subjective and rooted in who and where I was when these albums came out (or when I listened to them most), and my “favorite” anything changes all the time. When I was a kid my mom used to tell me and my siblings, “Of course I have a favorite child, but who it is changes depending on the day.” Maybe it’s kind of like that.
Anyway, I think if I had to choose today—off the dome, first-thought-best-thought—I’d say that the best album of the 2020s so far is Blue Rev by Alvvays.