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A Half-Decade of Albums I Love
Closing in on today: 2010–2015
It’s remarkable how time passes, and surely I’m the first person to ever realize this essential truth. I was remarking to my students the other day how Grimes’ “Oblivion” was released ten years ago. No, really? Of course these students were only five when that occurred, yet they knew the song well, and even a song from ten years or so earlier: Gorillaz “Feel Good, Inc.”
But the past is the past, and the past we’re concerned with today is the era from 2010 to 2015, as I’m breaking this decade in part in order to cope with years before some personal tragedy, which I just can’t revisit today, struck. And before we get there, is it possible that Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black was released sixteen years ago? Help me deal, please.
Memory remembers what knowing forgets. I’m approximating Faulkner from Absalom, Absalom! here, just to keep you and me honest about our histories, meaning that if I omit or forget something essential in this list, forgiveness is golden, or silver, because the yellower hues bug me.
So on with the half-decade of blues, or records I love.
2010: Many albums of independence in this year, like Beach House’s Teen Dream, The National’s High Violet (“Conversation 16” is worth anything you’d want to pay for this), Gorillaz’…