Pete Adams' Top 5 Albums of the Decade
So, since this is MY list and nobody else’s, I’m going to do things a little differently. Don’t get me wrong, I love Deafheaven, Daughters, Kendrick Lamar, Orville Peck, Mitski, and all the other heavy hitters that all the other folks have written about, but I think my favorite part of this decade is how accessible music became for those who had some truly unique ideas. I don’t necessarily think that these are OBJECTIVELY the BEST albums of the decade. However, there are definitely some stories that need to be told about the current unsung heroes of the music world, and these are the bands/musicians that I’ve absolutely fallen head over heels for in the past 10 years. From parent’s basements in Ohio to garden apartments in suburban Tokyo, these musicians all brought a little something sexy and fresh to the table.
Pete currently lives in West Philadelphia and is one half of the pop-up restaurant series, Staff Meal.
The Coneheads - Selected Ringtones (2015)
In January 2015, The Coneheads released their first album titled L. P. 1, which stands for “14 Year Old High School PC-Fascist Hype Lords Rip Off Devo for the Sake of Extorting $$$ from Helpless Impressionable Midwestern Internet Peoplepunks L.P." Ambitious, I know. Well, fast forward a few months and The Coneheads put out another seriously freaky multi-track cassette titled “Selected Ringtones,” which starts with a noise-pop tune and ends with one of the most memorable covers of Nirvana’s “In Bloom” of all time. This album is outstandingly original, instrumentally tight, stylized, and just… fucking weird man. Nobody has made anything like this prior, to my knowledge, but plenty of fellow midwesterners have been hopping on the bandwagon since. There are some truly sick bands coming from this Devo-core-worship movement, such as; Uranium Club, Nick Normal, Erik Nervous, Bugg, and pretty much everyone else that’s got a writeup on the “Anti” Youtube channel. This album just so happens to be my favorite from the group, and notably one of my favorite overall records of the decade. Seriously, this band has one of the tightest rhythm sections to ever come out of a basement/bathroom/garage/bomb shelter, or wherever else they might have recorded this monstrosity. The vocals are unique, the performances are outstanding, and I give this album two very twitchy thumbs up.
Fav Track: “Smiling Beat of Life.” Honorary YouTube link because it’s not streaming on Spotify:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGqD9she1Ws
Shintaro Sakamoto - How to Live With a Phantom (2011)
Shintaro Sakamoto was one of the founding members of Yura Yura Teikoku, which was basically the Ween of Japan. Although, unlike Ween, Yura Yura Teikoku was pretty firmly rooted in psychedelic rock, punk, and new wave. From 1989 on, Sakamoto struggled to get Yura Yura Teikoku off the ground. Unfortunately, Sakamoto disbanded the group in 2010, and three years later, he released his first solo album titled “How to Live With a Phantom.” Sakamoto clearly boiled down every outlandish idea that shined through in Yura Yura Tekioku and refined them to make an extremely pleasant pop album. You can draw dozens of comparisons to other artists like the Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Haroumi Hosono, and Hiroshi Satoh, but when you’re done drawing sonic ties, you’ll realize that this album, at its base, is distinctly unique and personal to the man who made it. Shintaro Sakamoto boiled up a session-style album that you will CRAVE every single day after your first listen. His use of hand drums, slide guitar, saxophone, and some stupidly catchy melodies will leave you drooling for more (don’t worry, he has 2 other full-lengths and is still actively making music). This album is one of my favorites of the decade because it functioned as a jumping point for me to discover a ton of other stuff within the same vein, but at the end of the decade, this is the album I find myself coming back to again and again.
Fav Track: “Mask on Mask.”
Death Grips - The Money Store (2012)
Without Youtube, Hella would have probably been Zach Hill’s most successful band. When the music video for “Guillotine” started blowing up on the internet in 2011, people initially thought it was a joke. Chances are, some of your buddies from high school (or like, maybe at your job? I don’t know how old you are) probably caught this video on Reddit or Facebook and they shared it for the “what the fuck is this” factor just like everyone else. Suddenly, some bald dude made a video reviewing “Exmilitary,” the album that “Guillotine” was scooped off of, and Death Grips EXPLODED onto the scene. “Exmilitary” was one the most polarizing albums of this decade, and before the hype died down, Death Grips spit out The Money Store, which I think is one of the coolest albums ever made. Displacing their initial, outlandishly intense sound, “The Money Store” crafted a juxtaposition that highlighted a middle ground between Death Grips’ ability to create horrendously good music and their ability to create tolerably good music. This group isn’t for everyone, but I think it’s irresponsible for someone to consider themselves a blanket-term “music fan” without at least acknowledging that Death Grips exists. The Money Store is an incredibly ambitious and catchy album that blends hip hop, hardcore, punk, noise, industrial, math rock, and pushes that through a fine-mesh sieve into the gas tank of an 18 wheeler. That was a “this album is refined” analogy. IDK dude, I think this record is fucking sick and everything else they’ve done is really neat too. If you haven’t checked it out, please do asap.
Fav Track: “Hacker.”
Power Trip - Manifest Decimation (2013)
To piggyback off of the intensity of Death Grips, Power Trip’s “Manifest Decimation” was arguably the sickest thrash metal album to come out within the decade. You can smell a ton of influence from the greats on this one. Power Trip borrows tones from Slayer, Megadeath, Pantera, Testament, Nuclear Assault, and Toxic Holocaust, but that does not define them. They blend all these sounds in a way that is truly unique and exciting. Manifest Decimation showcases exactly what the modern thrash audience craves in a record, but stays true to the band’s progressive politics and doesn’t delude itself in the “glam trap” that some thrash metal bands can fall into. This album is raw, clean, confident, and definitive. If I had to describe what it’s like to listen to this album in your headphones while sitting in an office chair surrounded by people that DO NOT like any type of metal whatsoever, I’d say it’s like getting kicked in the chest by the guy who singlehandedly delivered your office all 20 of the heavy-ass desks that you and your fellow yuppie gentrifiers take for granted all day. I digress, listening to this album makes me want to throw a brick through the window of a Starbucks and wait around for the cops to show up so they can watch me throw a SECOND brick through the window of the Lululemon store that’s across the street. If you’re having a rough day and need to blow off some steam, go steal a metal trash can, toss Murderer’s Row on, and go to town on said trash can until you break the signed Louisville Slugger your uncle got you for your 12th birthday. I fucking love this album. I love this album so fucking much.
Fav Track: “Hammer of Doubt.”
Sirs - Vas Deferens (2010)
On May 4th, 2010, my self-proclaimed favorite album of all time came out on Bandcamp. Big shoutout to Conor Mulville for downloading Zach Tyndall’s entire 10GB iTunes onto several thumb drives and choosing to share that information with 14 (or 15 I don’t remember) year old me. Without this album, I wouldn’t be here writing this article. Vas Deferens is the platonic ideal of what an emo/post-emo album should be in my eyes. In the time of Snowing, Algernon, Girl Scouts, Best Witches, and Run, Walk!, Sirs offered just a little bit of everything with the added aggression that my teenage self craved more than anything else. I proudly wear my nostalgia blinders when I listen to this short, 6 track record, and I fondly remember the shows I missed because of swim meets and mandatory school functions. I can smell the marsh, Marlboro 27s, high school lunches, and all of the lifelong friends I made through falling in love with this style of music every time I put this record on. Trust me, this isn’t just childhood-tainted praise of a niche album because it was fun to be into something that other people didn’t know about, Vas Deferens has been the album that I turn to when there’s nothing left to listen to for my entire adult life. To this day, I have listened to this whole record probably 1,000 times, and it really does not get old. This is my absolute favorite album of the decade, and I think you might like it too.
Favorite Track: “You’re Gonna Be Great!” Honorary Bandcamp link here because it’s not streaming on Spotify: