After four straight years of new album releases, Rihanna went silent in 2012 before emerging four years later with one of her best albums, Anti.
While I’m a Rihanna stan going back a ways, and still consider Good Girl Gone Bad and Rated R her crowning achievements, it’s hard to deny the groundbreaking qualities of this album.
Today is the second day of the final month of the decade. How fast the 2010s flew by! I clearly remember compiling my ‘Best of the 00s’ album list, which went live on New Year’s Day 2010.
Looking back on that list now, I see a lot of the same artists who will appear on this one. Makes sense. I also see some albums I haven’t revisited as often as their rankings suggest, and some that would be much higher or lower if I were to revisit that decade’s music today. For one example, I now consider Josh Rouse’s Nashville one of my favorite albums of all-time, yet it came it at #8 on that list.
Tomorrow I will start a countdown of my favorite albums of the decade. If this were 20 years ago — 1999 instead of 2019 — that list would include Lauryn Hill’s ’97 classic The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill somewhere near the top.
This blend of hip hop, soul and R&B sounds as bold and vital today as it did when it made such a splash 22 years ago. It is even more special for remaining the only solo studio recording Hill ever released (her one follow-up record was a live recording of an MTV Unplugged appearance).
Today’s radom track come from R.E.M.’s 1987 collection of B-sides and rare tracks titled Dead Letter Office.
Often, albums like this can be a bit of a drag — a simple cash grab or an easy way to satisfy a contract. That may well have been the purpose of this one, too, but it’s a great collection of songs nonetheless, providing a glimpse into the band’s burgeoning creativity as well as their playful side.
We close out the latest installment of ‘What the Kids Are Listening To’ with a mellow love song by the country duo Dan + Shay, featuring Justin Bieber. ‘10,000 Hours’ is a good fit for #10 this week, as pretty much the whole Top Ten has been low-key and positive.
Maybe it’s the time of year? Or have musical tastes mellowed after the hip-hop domination of the past few years? Is this a phase or a lasting trend? Guess we’ll check back in early 2020 to learn the answer.
Meet Me In Montauk 