It was also a perfect example of one of the things that made Lamar the decade’s most compelling rap lyricist: his ability to simultaneously embrace and subvert musical clichés. ‘Swimming Pools (Drank)’ was the breakout hit that first brought Kendrick Lamar to mainstream attention, giving the Compton rapper his biggest US hit to date and marking his first appearance on the UK charts. Words: Dhruva Balram, Jordan Bassett, Leonie Cooper, Rhian Daly, Alex Flood, El Hunt, Charlotte Krol, Sam Moore, Hannah Mylrea, Kevin EG Perry, Zoya Raza-Sheikh, Nick Reilly, Thomas Smith, Dan Stubbs, Andrew Trendell, Kyann-Sian Williams This list is chockablock with artists unafraid to stand apart, and if these songs are threaded through with an overarching, era-defining message, that’s perhaps it.
We’ve come a long way, baby, and while some things haven’t changed – the planet’s still fucked, if you haven’t noticed – the biggest trend of the 2010s was doing things off your own back, giving yourself permission to be brilliant. And the most recent? This year’s ‘Bad Guy’ from Billie Eilish, an eccentric alt-pop masterwork from a talented teenager with an internet connection. It’s worth noting that the earliest track from this list of the best songs of the 2010s happens to be ‘Stylo’ by Gorillaz, a political funk banger that, released in the first month of the first year of the decade, warned about the harm that humanity is wreaking upon the environment.
Some songs grow with you, and I hope you’ll find that’s the case with some of our 100 picks below. And I danced to it, drunk, a little less lost but probably equally badly dressed, at a house party with friends I made just last year. I danced, drunk and lost and badly dressed, to our Number One track as a student in my early twenties. Can you sum up a decade in one track? Can you distil 10 years into, like, four minutes? In a way, you can.
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