Happy Birthday to my lovely wife!
It’s a Random Weekend, so you know the drill. I spin the wheel and see what song shall forever be associated with her special day. Here we go…
Well, OK. ‘Love/Hate’ is a deep cut from Liz Phair’s 2003 self-titled album, which itself was something of a love/hate affair (probably tilting a bit more toward hate).
It should come as no surprise that the greatest album by my favorite artist would end up as my #1 album of the decade.
I spent a lot of time thinking about the makeup and order of this list, but Miranda Lambert’s The Weight of These Wings was cemented in place before I even began.
Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell is the newest album on this list, having come out only a few months ago. I suppose that opens it up to potential recency bias, but its greatness is so undeniable I couldn’t stop myself from placing it this high.
Del Rey truly belongs to the past decade. Her hard-to-find self-titled debut dropped in 2010, and she’s released five brilliant albums about every other year since then, culminating in her finest work to date with Rockwell.
Merry Christmas, everyone! My best to you and yours this holiday season.
Now, back to the music.
Yesterday I mentioned the “best of the 2010s so far” list I compiled five years ago. On that lineup, Tift Merritt’s 2010 See You On the Moon showed up at #9.
It’s a great illustration of how time can enhance (or diminish) the power of a piece of work that the same album now sits at #3.
When I listed my top albums of the decade so far back at the end of 2014, The Shins’ Port of Morrow claimed the top spot. Five years later, it’s lost none of its lustre.
Frontman James Mercer parted ways with his band’s original lineup prior to writing and recording this album, and kept the Shins name despite tackling the project as essentially a one-man band.
Meet Me In Montauk 