Here I go again, talking about music for the umpteenth time. But to be honest, what else would I talk about? During this article, I want to discuss the albums that have defined my 2010s and why I will always choose to listen to a full album over the top 100 radio hits.
I think the first album I ever truly fell in love with was Platinum by Miranda Lambert. It’s an album full of bitter one-liners and a message about how life can just suck sometimes. It has clever and witty lyrics accompanied by a plucky guitar and classic country sounds. It was the first album I ever bought on CD. This album came out a year before Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton got divorced, and you can tell when listening to this album that the divorce had been coming for a while. Songs like “Priscilla,” which laments how women married to famous men always feel secondary to their fame, “Little Red Wagon,” a song chock full of southern bluster, and my favorite, “Bathroom Sink,” which compares a relationship falling apart to the cleanliness of her sink. Other songs, like “Automatic and Smokin” and “Drinkin,” reflect on the past, wishing for something that can never be again. Simple music with clever lyrics makes this album one of my favorites even now, 11 years later. Standout Songs: “Platinum,” “Bathroom Sink,” “Old Sh!t,” and “Gravity is a B*tch.”
To keep with the country theme, the next album I want to talk about is Traveller by Chris Stapleton. It’s a pretty well-known album, containing “Tennessee Whiskey,” an extremely popular song, especially at weddings. And for good reason, too. It’s a beautiful country ballad about love; it’s as classic as it gets. But I think that because of the song’s popularity, people tend to overlook the rest of the album. “Traveller” makes me want to grab a suitcase and never come home. The “Stars Come Out” makes me want to go settle on a ranch in the middle of the Hill Country. Even edgier songs like “Daddy Doesn’t Pray Anymore, Might as Well Get Stoned” and “The Devil Named Music” are accompanied by such vulnerability, which makes me feel as though I’ve experienced everything he’s singing about. Even though it’s his debut album, it doesn’t feel like it. Let’s just say there’s a reason I have this song on vinyl. Sometimes, albums are made to be listened to on a turntable. Standout Songs: “Fire Away,” “Traveller,” “Nobody to Blame.”
Although I’ve mostly been sticking to country, I want to now minutely pivot to folk/singer/songwriter for the next album, Barton Hollow by the Civil Wars. This album is full of haunting melodies; the two singer’s voices intertwine yet also stand alone. In songs like “Falling,” the lyrics are pleading and begging. In “Poison & Wine,” the biggest song on the album, the almost worship-like music contrasts with the lyrics, making a discordant but stunning ballad. It’s hard to express my love for this album, the fun I have trying to harmonize in the car, and the feelings the music makes me experience. It’s also hard to think about the fact that this fantastic debut album and the equally fantastic album that followed it are the only ones we’ll get, as the duo broke up in 2014. At least we still have their creations. Standout Songs: “Barton Hollow,” “Forget Me Not,” “20 Years,” “I’ve Got This Friend.”
I would be remiss if I didn’t have a Taylor Swift album in here, but picking the album has proved a more difficult task than I thought. Reputation is my personal favorite, but I can also recognize that she has better-produced and better-written albums in her repertoire. 1989 is amazing, it is true pop perfection, but when it comes down to it, I believe that Red is her best album of the 2010s. In terms of lyrics, it’s spectacular. Production-wise, it also holds its own. Songs like “State of Grace” and “Holy Ground” have such an early-2010s acoustic sound, but in a timeless way. Songs like “The Lucky One” show how fame is a double-edged sword. Her duet with Gary Lightbody in “Last Time” is never far from my mind. Red is the ultimate fall album, and every time I listen to it, I want to wear flannel and a scarf and drink heinous pumpkin drinks and live in Boston. Standout Songs: “State of Grace,” “I Almost Do,” “The Moment I Knew,” “Holy Ground.”
My last essential album of the 2010s is only the best album to ever be created in the history of music. That is to say, Melodrama by Lorde, a massive, anthemic, and transformative album that redefined my definition of pop music. Since Lorde released a snippet of a new song in the year of our Lorde, 2025, I have felt that I must fully explain how much this album means to me. It is heartbreaking and beautiful, telling a story of such heartache, self-hatred, anger, and new life. Even though it is only comprised of 11 songs, I believe everyone should be able to listen to this album for the first time after a period of struggle while driving through the city at night, blasting these songs as loud as the speakers can go. Though I don’t look forward to the heartbreak that life will inevitably bring, I do look forward to healing through this album. I think people underestimate how much Lorde has influenced pop music. Pure Heroine changed pop music forever, and Melodrama only continued to push the envelope. My standout songs for this album are all of them. This album is one that has to be listened to (at least the first time) in order; you must listen to the story as it unfolds. If you listen to just one of the albums that I’ve mentioned today, let it be this one.
I’ll always be an album girl because albums give enough room for artists to tell a story, an overarching message or theme, or a life lesson that can’t be fully realized in one song. Albums are pieces of art that require study and careful attention, but once you understand them, you can fully appreciate the beauty of the storytelling. If I were only looking at the hits for this album, I would miss the gold that resides hidden deeper behind the singles. And that’s why I will always be an album girl.