You’ve heard from Pitchfork critics and readers about their favorite albums of the 2010s. Now let’s hear from musicians themselves about the records that defined, inspired, and reshaped their decade. We asked 22 artists—many of whom released standout LPs themselves—for their top picks. From Yaeji and Courtney Barnett’s adoration for Solange to Slowthai’s deep respect for Playboi Carti, here are their answers.

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Carly Rae Jepsen

Lykke Li’s so sad so sexy (2018)

It’s so beautifully real and melancholy; I just go back to it, night and day. I’m late to the game for enjoying all of her past work but now I’m a solid fan, in for life. The way the whole album plays together is exactly what I love about albums. She shares a perfect window into a season of her life, and you get to feel intimately close to her headspace at that time.

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Christine and the Queens

Kanye West’s Yeezus (2013)

It’s not an album; it’s a mountain. It’s an immense, granite form aggressively rising from volcanic soil. It questions everything: sound, elegance, bluntness, how far one can go. It’s pure hubris, mixing politics with extreme intimacy, braggadocio with immense vulnerability. I always come back to it whenever I want to know what courage is.

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Slowthai

Playboi Carti’s Die Lit (2018)

Carti doesn’t compromise his sound. He took mumble rap and made a cohesive body of work, and not many other artists in his lane have managed to do the same. He has bangers but also has a sonic narrative from start to end. This is our generation’s hardcore music.

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Amber Mark

Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d. city (2012)

I have a special place in my heart for concept albums that take you on a journey, and Kendrick did that in such a beautiful way. He tells his struggle to get out of the gang life he was raised around, and he expresses it in a very vulnerable way.

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Jay Som

Toro y Moi’s Causers of This (2010)

This record, along with other chillwave-era albums, was the soundtrack to my high school experience. The transitions from “Talamak” to “You Hid” to “Low Shoulders” are incredible sequences.

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ANOHNI

Yoko Ono’s WARZONE (2018)

Almost everything I have tried to say, Yoko Ono was saying over 30 years ago. For half a century, she has been a prophet in our midst. On WARZONE, producer Thomas Bartlett sets her sage voice amid the barest of arrangements, shining a light once and for all on the essence of Ono’s legacy.

A recent Netflix film revealed that Yoko cowrote the words for “Imagine,” one of the songs for which John Lennon was deified. It is pure Yoko that she would sit silently next to John as he sang it, knowing the world would listen to her message if it seemed to be from the perspective of her partner, a white, male English megastar. Yoko Ono has given and given to us. She is one of the most brilliant and generous artists of the 20th century, and the public record now reflects this.

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Courtney Barnett

Solange’s A Seat at the Table (2016)

It’s easily the best album of this decade. It’s musically and lyrically ahead of the times, and aesthetically, my mind was blown and rewired by her accompanying performance pieces.

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Clairo

Erykah Badu’s New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh (2010)

There is so much positivity oozing from it, so much love and happiness, that it brings me back to that place with every listen. Everything, from the production to the melodies to the song order, is perfect.

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Amen Dunes

Xander Duell’s Experimental Tape 2 (Vol. 1) (2011)

Experimental Tape 2 (Vol. 1) is the purest, most potent of bedroom [production] madness and beauty, but basically no one heard it when it came out. It's like a combo of Bowie, Al Green, late-period Scott Walker, and R&B, but done on GarageBand in a small room with mass amounts of painkillers and Adderall. It’s so fucked and heartfelt and rhythmic and playful. "Emma Baby" is one of the most cosmic melodic climaxes I’ve heard in a very long time.

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Weyes Blood

Connan Mockasin’s Caramel (2013)

This record is a gift that keeps on giving. I listened to the CD on a loop for months in my car. It’s unsuspecting: On first listen, it just sounded like one long song, but upon closer inspection, there’s a whole universe of small, strange moments, peaks and valleys. It’s a progressive concept album—both extremely heavy and lighthearted—with some beautiful sadness sprinkled in between.

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Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs)

Savages’ Silence Yourself (2013)

I went to their show supporting this record at Webster Hall in New York, and Yoko Ono was there. Enough said. I couldn’t help but wonder if, had this record come out 10 years earlier, it would have given us a run for our money. It’s a whopper and hella refined.

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Japanese Breakfast

Frank Ocean’s Blonde (2016)

I think Blonde is easily the most iconic album of the 2010s and Frank Ocean is one of the most fascinating geniuses of our time. You can hear his influence on almost everything in popular music now. Every track on Blonde is executed with the utmost intention: It manages to feel homespun and intimate yet impeccably hi-fi and detailed.

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Disclosure

Jamie Woon’s Mirrorwriting (2011)

This album contains four of the most-played songs on our iTunes, so we definitely have gotten a lot out of it! It’s a beautifully crafted album that bridges the gap between electronic music and songwriting so perfectly.

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Kelly Moran

Krallice’s Years Past Matter (2012)

This record is a hallmark of contemporary metal that fuses second-wave black metal with compositional techniques borrowed from modern classical music, including atonality and post-minimalist repetition. There’s also a unique sense of atmosphere and space in the production that harkens to post-rock and post-metal bands.

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Denzel Curry

Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly (2015)

The concept and subject matter is great, and the album is very cohesive. Hearing it for the first time, it felt like I was watching a Spike Lee film on wax.

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Eva Hendricks (Charly Bliss)

Lorde’s Melodrama (2017)

I think I’m destined to spend the rest of my life screaming from every rooftop that Melodrama is the best album of all time. Lyrically, Lorde is fearless, and every song explores the dark-ass depths of a breakup and the ensuing back-and-forth of feeling everything in extremes. She’s nostalgic, furious, desperate, disoriented, and curious about what the future could look like. Every time I listen to the record, I feel so excited about what pop music might be like in the next decade.

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Kevin Morby

Deerhunter’s Halcyon Digest (2010)

Ten years later, I’m still inspired by this record’s production, performances, and songwriting. The album closer, “He Would Have Laughed,” is an all-timer and the best example of all three.

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Ari Lennox

Hiatus Kaiyote’s Tawk Tomahawk (2013)

Their shit was incredibly unique. The album is angelic yet a warp of gorgeous fuck-assness.

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Harmony Tividad (Girlpool)

Roberto Musci’s Tower of Silence (2016, reissue)

This is angel music from a realm beyond. It is so evocative and gentle. I listen to the songs “Lullabies...Mother Sings...Father Plays...” and “Claudia Wilhelm R and Me” repeatedly, and I feel and learn something new each time. It is rare to find something that speaks such volumes but also leaves room for you to hear your own inner world.

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Yaeji

Solange’s A Seat at the Table (2016)

From the day it dropped, this record is one that I’ve listened to repeatedly, in moments when I feel lonely and moments when I feel loved.

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Ali Koehler (Vivian Girls)

Courtney Barnett’s Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit (2015)

This album represents all the best things in music: It’s simple and melodic, and it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Plus, there aren’t nearly enough three-piece bands anymore.

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Vagabon

Nine of Swords’ I Can’t Stand My Own Face (2014)

Honestly, this slaps and will always slap. Love this band and their live show.