Being stuck inside for the past month and the indefinite future I've been listening to an above average amount of music. There's only so much new stuff dropping, and in normal times I'm usually listening to older stuff more anyways, but what I've been wanting to do is do some revisiting of the last decade, starting with 2010. Just researching "best of" lists to put together 30ish albums reminded me of a few albums I hadn't listened to in years (some nearly a decade) and others I never gave a fair listen when it dropped.

Going to reply with a bunch of albums/EPs/mixtapes (feel free to add more obviously). Reply under each release with your general feelings and overall rating, how you feel the album aged, whether you still revisit it, and if you like it more/less/same as you did when it dropped.

I'll probably try to revisit one or two of these every day and come back with some thoughts.

How do you rate the year overall in comparison with the rest of the decade and all time? What albums would you call "classic" and what albums best define the year? What's your top 5-10 look like?

2010 was my last year of college and my transition between college and the "real world" was happening right before my ears. A lot of these albums represent my last summer before real adulthood and my first days in the working world.

The early 2010s in general are my last years of my prime music discovery years and it really shows when I look back at the top 5/10 lists I made at the end of each year. I'd put my favorite albums from this year above nearly any year in the rest of the decade, but that's probably a product of me becoming more and more an older, out of touch hip hop fan as the years went by.

MBDTF is a classic and definitely my favorite album fo the decade. The Big Boi, KRIT and Curren$y projects got a TON of play too. The rest of the albums on my top 10 list at the time were mostly 4 star albums to me with the exception of the last two, so overall I'd call this a great year in my books. A lot of these albums I've posted I haven't listened to since 2010, a few I never even listened to or listened once, didn't particular like it and never listened to again, so I'll practically be hearing them for the first time as I "re-listen".

I already know a few of these albums didn't age as well as I would have expected, and I like a bit less than I did 10 years ago. I'm hoping others (not on my top 10 list) have the opposite effect.

My Top 10 THEN:
1. Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
2. Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty
3. Big K.R.I.T. - K.R.I.T. Wuz Here
4. Curren$y - Pilot Talk
5. Freddie Gibbs - Str8 Killa
6. Freeway & Jake One – The Stimulus Package
7. Nas & Damien Marley – Distant Relatives
8. The Roots - How I Got Over
9. Drake - Thank Me Later
10. Kno – Death Is Silent

and there’s probably no way I’ll relisten to all of these, but I will get to some and see if my opinions change.

A few of these, I’ll listen to for the first time....Gibbs, for sure. Not sure I listened to that Bun B album either. Really don’t remember hearing that Ghost album either, but I’m sure I at least heard some of it.

thanks for this post. i tried doing this last year but i was going to work my way back starting with 17. i got through like april of 2017 before i stopped. im trying to stay current and found it hard to do both. at least blind.

i think ill go through 2010 with ya instead. i think in 2010 i was still mostly staying up on new stuff but definitely wasnt doing a deep dive. pretty much just artists i knew or big names that caught my attention.

Overall I thought it was a crappy year for hip hop.

The fact that we got like 7 Madlib albums in 2010 is nuts. Medicine Show No 7: High Jazz dropped the day before my birthday, so getting to buy that the day of was dope.

Joe Budden's Mood Musik 4 waa may favorite project that year. Joe took the anger and really crafted them into songs and not just barfests.

Exile's AM/FM was such an awesome album and concept. I don't think he made another solo after this one.

Both of Tanya Morgan's solo debuts were really good with Pea's Gotta Have It and Don Cusack In High Fidelity.

Ludacris' Battle of the Sexes got a bunch of spins from me. It's too bad Def Jam kicked Shawnna off the album as her and Luda always had really good chemistry.

phemom's the name, all-star writer/
searching 4 journalistic fame, mindframe igniter....www.twitter.com/hayabusaage

There’s people who think this is one of the best albums in rap history.

I got it at number 4 in Kanye’s discog.

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"Fuck aliens." © WarriorPoet415

I just never find myself going back to it.

It’s a bit of a choir to get through. The 9-13 stretch really runs off a cliff for me.

Devil thru Lost in the World (one of my fav Kanye songs) is just an amazing stretch of music, though the Chris Rock skit at the end of Blame Game got old after a few listen and Runaway drags on wayyyy too long, so I see your point about it being a bit of a choir. It's 13 tracks, but still nearly 70 minutes long, so not a short album in the least bit.

Runaway drags
Hell of a Life sucks
Chris Rock isn’t funny and drags the hell out of Blame Game
Lost In The World is aight but by then I just want the album to be over

I do actually like how it ends though.

at least he songs i kept from it are some of my favorites by him. definitely curious to see how much i like it on a full revisit.

by the contrast between what I perceived to be a progression in Kanye's actual rapping talent (and that of his ghostwriters I guess) while for the first time thinking that what he was actually saying was turning me off. I haven't listened to this in full since a few months after it came out.

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http://www.last.fm/user/dagu85

There is some legit dope stuff on it. I found some of the over-praise for it pretty dumb and insulting to hip-hop in general, like how it was a "real" album.

As said above, comfortably his fourth best album.

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www.albumism.com

Checkin' Our Style, Return To Zero:

https://www.mixcloud.com/returntozero/

The College Dropout is still my favorite Kanye album, and if I had to pick 2 albums of his to bring to a deserted island I'm probably packing Graduation with it.

And a couple songs taken out, one of my favorites from Ye...

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Everyone here hates pop music, but loves Michael Jackson... Okay Player...

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It’s a 4/5 all day. Can’t go wrong with it.

has some great songs. definitely enjoyed it.

Was a revelation that year. I wasn't sure he could pull it off on his own and he ended up dropping a real gem. Super enjoyable album, lot of really high highs, nothing I remember disliking.

This was in rotation for a long while back then. Haven't listened to it front to back in a long time but I should. I keep "Shine Blockas" in rotation. Also remember loving the 1-2 punch of "Hustle Blood" followed by "Be Still"

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"Fuck aliens." © WarriorPoet415

I fucking hate record companies.

If you take the two weakest songs off of this and add Lookin For Ya and Royal Flush...this shit certified.

>I fucking hate record companies.
>
>If you take the two weakest songs off of this and add Lookin
>For Ya and Royal Flush...this shit certified.

Or "Art of Storytellin' 4"

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"Fuck aliens." © WarriorPoet415

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"Fuck aliens." © WarriorPoet415

I thought Salaam laced that beat. I get the distaste for the hook I guess but I like it for what it is.

I actually don’t like Hustle Blood. I find that hook weird as hell. Likes he’s been messing with an underage girl and been waiting for her to turn 18 so they could get married?

Or has he not been messing with her and just waiting until he could?

Either way, the lyrics paired with how he sang it just came off *side eye* to me. Lol

Oh yeah...and I agree with You Ain’t No DJ because I fucking have Yelawolf

This is right there with Game Theory for their best 2000s album, to me.

With the exception of Web 20/20 I didn't dislike anything on here, but there weren't any tracks here that I couldn't live without. It's all just really solid, but rarely am I randomly like "oh shit I gotta go back and check out <insert song title>" with this album. I guess The Day and Now Or Never would be my favorites, but at the time it was mostly because Phonte and Blu were two of my favorite rappers to listen to. I was disappointed when this dropped because it was so short (only 10 actual songs) and there were features on almost all the tracks.

I've warmed up on this a ton though, and rather than focusing on the fact that there aren't any DEFINITIVE Roots tracks on here to me personally, it's commendable for being consistenly good, and perhaps this is due to me not feeling the two albums dropped since, but I definitely underrated this one when it dropped. Biggest change over the years is how much more I like the John Legend tracks. Their best album of the 2010s for me but middle of the road in their discography, which is a great place to be considering how strong their catalog is.


2010 rating: 7/10
2020 rating: 8/10

... give it quite as high a rating personally. It's like a 6.5 to me, maybe a 7. Both then and now.

Like you said, it's really consistent but there just aren't many highs. But I like the overall vibe and flow of the album.

And, like you, my favorites were songs w/Blu & Phonte involved (Radio Daze & Now or Never, namely).

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"Fuck aliens." © WarriorPoet415

Really didn’t like this album. It’s cool and I probably would’ve liked it if it was a Roots and Friends album.

The hooks are tough to sit through for the most part.

But I like all of the foundations of the songs.

If it was the same beats with mostly Thought and different hooks...lol

i remember loving pretty much all of it and played it out back then.

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www.albumism.com

Checkin' Our Style, Return To Zero:

https://www.mixcloud.com/returntozero/

Gonna go revisit right now...

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Everyone here hates pop music, but loves Michael Jackson... Okay Player...

Didn't care fur Hustla, but all else was really solid. As mentioned, nothing of a stand out, but probably better than the sum of its parts.

<-- Dave Thomas knows what's up...
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Jay: Look here homie, any nigga can get a hit record. This here is about respect.
Game: Like Gladys Knight.
Jay: Aretha Franklin.
Game: Word, I like her too.
Jay: Nigga...

So glad I did. KRIT might be rapper of the decade. This one really kicked it off. Children of the World, Hometown Hero, Moon and Stars, Voices....so many joints here.

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Not on Section.80s level, but it’s good and you can hear the promise.

I think it's a classic in his catalog… Also, KL EP, OD, S.80, GKMC, TPAB, and DAMN… That's a tough catalog...

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Everyone here hates pop music, but loves Michael Jackson... Okay Player...

Never heard of this at the time, HiiiPower was my intro to Kendrick so I didn't check for this until after being blown away by Section.80. Obviously this pails in comparison to the albums that followed (which are all some of the best of the decade) but this is a nice little tape. Opposites Attract is one of my favorite Kendrick tracks period. Wish The Heart Pt. 2 was available on Spotify.

2010 rating: N/A
2020 rating: 6.5/10

Which is still better than most of what he’s done since.

Hardly listened to the actual version...

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Everyone here hates pop music, but loves Michael Jackson... Okay Player...

I LOVED So Far Gone so I had high expectations for this one. As a result I was a bit disappointed, but I still enjoyed it overall. Whereas I really enjoyed the singing on So Far Gone I thought the singing tracks on here were predominantly garbage. I love Find Your Love but hated Shut It Down and Cece's Interlude. Light Up, Fancy and Up All Night were played a ton that summer. Speaking of Up All Night, everyone always talks up Nicki's verse on Monster but she actually kills her verse here as well.

The only song on here I listen to regularly these days is The Resistance. I wish Drake would have put out an album full of tracks like The Resistance, The Calm, Fear, etc. Instead we get bloated messes to try and game the streaming plays system and his singing really hasn't gotten better at all while his rapping has fallen off for sure.

But this one brings me back for sure. Resistance thru Fancy is a great run of tracks, Light Up still goes, the track with Wayne is good, and Find Your Love is still a jam in my books. I don't know how to describe modern Drake, but his production is just so empty and missing oomph and he raps a certain way that I just can't get into for the most part. These early Drake albums (So Far Gone thru Nothing Was the Same) are the only ones I really enjoy, listening to this reminds me of how bullish I was on Drake and would defend him as a rapper and songwriter endlessly in The Lesson whenever people wanted to dismiss him as a trash lyricist and spotty singer.


2010 rating: 7/10
2020 rating: 7.5/10

Yes, I feel good.

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.. before I'm like, oh yea I know exactly what this is.

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"Fuck aliens." © WarriorPoet415

A whole lot of days that started with "The Resistance" and usually had "Light Up" played towards the end of the day because it always reminded me of golden hour sunsets for some reason.

Still laugh at Nicki saying

"wait..wait FIXATE/which bitch you know made a million off a mixtape?"

phemom's the name, all-star writer/
searching 4 journalistic fame, mindframe igniter....www.twitter.com/hayabusaage

Rest In Peace, Bad News Brown

Will revisit this one because I definitely haven’t heard it since back then.

when songs come on from it now im tempted to skip

freeway kind of brings it down. his voice can be too much at times.

the songs i had kept in rotation were throw your hands up, free people and stimulus outro. stimulus outro is still dope to me.

the beats on the album are great. listening to it again i should had kept She Makes Me Feel Alright, Sho' Nuff and Money in rotation as well. theres a few others that have great beats but the hooks or verses kinda bring them down for me.

overall i think its 4.5/5

Very good. Absolutely incredible production by Jake One. Freeway kills this, though I admittedly prefer Free in smaller doses due to his voice (can be grating over a long stretch) so while I haven't particularly given this any full spins in a long time up until now, I always considered this as one of the better releases of the decade, def in my top 50. Rhymesayers had been on fire these days. Atmosphere hadn't fallen off yet, Brother Ali, Evidence, etc. This is one of their best releases for sure, but I hate it for setting too high of expectations for Ali's first album with Jake One.

A bit spotty in the second half, but that first half is fire.

2010 rating: 8/10
2020 rating: 8/10

I listened to it for the first time on my honeymoon haha that's prolly why. Maybe it had just been added to Spotify at that time or something. Cuz something randomly hipped me to its existence and I checked it out and loved it.

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"Fuck aliens." © WarriorPoet415

But I like Brother Ali so much more than Freeway I prob prefer Mourning In America just due to personal taste.

This was one of the albums that kind of inspired me to go back and give a bunch of 2010 albums a re-listen. I was always pretty underwhelmed by Roc, this album especially since it got a lot of hype around here. He always bored me as an emcee. But that Stove God Cooks album really impressed me and got me thinking I should go back and give Roc another shot with older ears.

So what about this album was so influential (production? rap style?) and what artists/albums did it influence?

i feel like a lot of the hip hop i've been enjoying in the mid to latter part of the decade (griselda, mach hommy, earl, 38 spesh, billy woods) have either cited roc as a favorite mc of theirs or followed in his footsteps. not saying roc invented the wheel or anything, but production-wise (loops/minimal drums) and understated vocal approach (which i got get might be an acquired taste, it was for me too on my first couple of listens), Roc seemed to either directly or indirectly inspire alot of the past decade's "underground revival". I think Marcberg and the reception it got is responsible for a lot of it

Don’t know why. I just don’t really like the digipack format.

I like my classic to come packaged like they used to.

Lol

>Don’t know why. I just don’t really like the digipack
>format.
>
>I like my classic to come packaged like they used to.
>
>Lol

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the digi pak are just flimsy on the shelf with all the other cd's

Favorite release that year. 'Pop' was my shit.

"When I'm on the mic, a nigga throw down his blunt just to hear what we say...up in this bitch..."-Baatin

And that’s mostly because Tronic was that great. This wasn’t on that level but it was a good album with a few great songs. Deadly Medley was a monster.

i remember liking "how dare you' but i just threw it on and it sounds a bit outdated/forgettable.

overall not even close to TRONIX

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And yea - Dedley Medley is superb. I am still able to hear the song in my head just by reading the title. Love that beat, love Royce's verse per usual.


>And that’s mostly because Tronic was that great. This
>wasn’t on that level but it was a good album with a few
>great songs. Deadly Medley was a monster.

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"Fuck aliens." © WarriorPoet415

i remember this being good to really good with some great songs.

Basically just gonna reiterate what everyone else is saying, a letdown. It was inevitable anything less than greatness following Tronic was going to be underwhelming. Deadly Medley was a banger, but Distortion was, and still is, my SHIT.

It's weird this came AFTER Tronic. If you gave me Popular Demand, Tronic and Album of the Year with virgin ears and I listened to them in random order I would have guess this album would have came between PD and Tronic.

It's a fine album. Not bad at all, a few tracks worthy of a playlist, but otherwise just underwhelming after an amazing release a few years prior. Also feel like there's too much going on drum-wise.

Side note: I never liked the album cover, and much preferred the original/earlier leaked art: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_KDvzKXcML4E/S_tYvHYkGJI/AAAAAAAADTU/rVhZAe0_KDk/s1600/BlackMilkAlbumOfTheYear.jpg

2010 rating: 6/10
2020 rating: 6/10

>Also feel like there's too much
>going on drum-wise.

When this came out I was carpooling to work with a kid around my age with similar music tastes just to save on gas. And I'll never forget he had the same exact gripe as we listened to it for the first time on our 1.5 hours back and forth to work that day. Pretty sure he used basically your exact verbiage too "there's too much going on with the drums"

I guess I agree although I've never independently come up with that same complaint.

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"Fuck aliens." © WarriorPoet415