10. Beyoncé
Queen Bey had the universe of commercial singles locked down before morphing into an outstanding album artist with “Beyoncé” (2013) and the epochal pop album “Lemonade” (2016). Despite that, her 2018 Coachella-headline show and the accompanying all-time great concert movie “Homecoming” are merely her most recent volcanic apogee. We just welcomed her back into active public consciousness with the rocket-powered Juneteenth smash “Black Parade”.
Most recent: “Lemonade” (2016)
You’ll also need to hear this: “Beyoncé” (2013)
9. Frank Ocean
A one-album superstar after “Channel Orange”, Frank outdid himself with 2016’s spectacular bedroom RnB fantasia “Blonde”. Nobody charts the mountain ranges of Millennial relationships with such devastating, surgical insight, across a gold rush of sublimely crafted pop, soul and rhythm and blues songs with a decisive indie flair. An utterly elusive live act who seems currently settled on an evolving puzzlebox of single releases, Frank continues to be a beautiful phenom.
Most recent: “Blonde” (2016)
You’ll also need to hear this: “Channel Orange” (2012)
8. Deftones
The dream-weaving Sacramento alt-metallers peacock their myriad influences and are poster boys for the tentative critical reassessment of nu-metal currently gathering steam, but ejected from the genre’s orbit way back with their 2000 classic “White Pony”. The 2010s saw them release three albums comprising their finest work to date. No other metal band can quite match the aerodynamics of Stephen Carpenter’s guitar playing or Chino Moreno’s impassioned vocals.
Most recent: “Gore” (2016)
You’ll also need to hear this: “White Pony” (2000)
7. Bon Iver
Justin Vernon has well-established pedigree for melding the sacred with the supposedly tasteless, seamlessly marrying Autotune and yacht rock to the unlikely realms of indie folk and art rock before anyone else dared. It doesn’t hurt that he is a once-in-a-generation songwriter with an inimitable ability to bend the very contours of what constitutes a melody or a song and is on an increasingly expressionistic streak of album writing most recently extended by the jigsaw-esque “i,i”.
Most recent: “i,i” (2019)
You’ll also need to hear this: “22, A Million” (2016)
6. Death Grips
Nobody else has sounded like the first truly futuristic band of the 21st Century since they blasted out of Sacramento in the early 2010s as the most profound cultural response to the nightmare of late capitalism. Providing vital reworkings of punk and hip hop simultaneously, with a trenchantly electronic focus, and the source of a veritable production line of music lore memes replicating like grey goo, Death Grips are the leaders of a Transatlantic collective of acts proving that angry men need not be regressive.
Most recent: “Year Of The Snitch” (2018)
You’ll also need to hear this: “The Money Store” (2012)
5. Lana Del Rey
The critically deified “Norman Fucking Rockwell!” is the culmination of a decade of work from Del Rey flavoured with literary aspiration and interrogating the exceptionally dark side lurking behind chocolate box Americana. Del Rey’s magnum opus, marking her out as the nation’s finest songwriter, is a fascinating, multi-storey character study which delves into a national psychology and finds a dysfunctional America which is perpetually 33 years old.
Most recent: “Lust For Life” (2017)
You’ll also need to hear this: “Norman Fucking Rockwell!” (2019)
4. The Hotelier
At the vanguard of the 2010s emo revival, these Worcester, Massachusetts upstarts exclusively craft life-affirming, emotionally turbulent rock music. In an era where guitars have been largely eschewed in popular music, “Home, Like Noplace Is There” (2014) and “Goodness” (2016) are rare gemstones of a contemporary folk mythology constellating across white suburbia. The Hotelier are the finest band in the United States of America.
Most recent: “Goodness” (2016)
You’ll also need to hear this: “Home, Like Noplace Is There” (2014)
3. The Weeknd
Since emerging with a store-ready mystique on 2011’s “House of Balloons”, Scarborough, Ontario’s Dark Knight has elevated the fusion of musicality and aesthetics to unrivalled heights, remunerated with a dominant chart presence. The ever-woozy, cinema-indebted “After Hours”, the international smash hit album of the Covid-19 pandemic, is his best work yet, finally locating a slippery sweet spot between 80s pop nostalgia and the multi-suite darkwave RnB which minted his name.
Most recent: “After Hours” (2020)
You’ll also need to hear this: “House Of Balloons” (2011)
2. The 1975
More than any other act, The 1975 have articulated the way digital culture has influenced reality and vice versa; the unspeakable synthesis. As if harnessing a sonic singularity, the band seems kitted out to plug into genres at will without ever losing fidelity. Their supercharged fourth album “Notes On A Conditional Form” deeply explores the crossover between underground electronic music and pop while charting the band’s evolution into the world’s best. All three of their previous records are dyed-in-the-wool future classics.
Most recent: “Notes On A Conditional Form” (2020)
You’ll also need to hear this: “A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships” (2018)
1. Kendrick Lamar
The world’s foremost musical artist, having released the 2010s’ most acclaimed album in “To Pimp A Butterfly” in 2015, before becoming the first non-jazz or classical artist to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music with 2017’s follow-up, “DAMN.” Lamar then curated the soundtrack for Marvel’s ground-breaking “Black Panther” movie. To say we eagerly await the next step of a performer so expertly chronicling an era of such dizzying tumult from his lofty pinnacle would be some understatement.
Most recent: “DAMN.” (2017)
You’ll also need to hear this: “To Pimp A Butterfly” (2015)
Roads To The North 