As this year and decade comes to a close, I’m sure that all of us have been following the evolution of music over the decade through countless Spotify Wrapped stories and Pitchfork’s top 200, and we can all agree that the music at the beginning of this decade sounds nothing like the music we are listening to right now.
In the early 2010’s, loud and colorful sounds of pop music filled clubs and were blasted on the radio on the 24/7. Songs like TikTok, Bad Romance and my personal favourite, Baby by Justin Bieber were played on a loop. In the 2010 Grammy awards, Taylor Swift’s Fearless won album of the year and best record went to Kings of Leon for Use Somebody.
The mid 2010’s saw the breakout of younger artists such as Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus and Ariana Grande. Most artists at this time had their big break on Disney channel and then went on to make Billboard topping hits, such as Sorry Not Sorry by Demi Lovato and Sucker by the Jonas Brothers.
The late 2010’s however, saw the emergence of SoundCloud rap and breakout artists such as Billie Eilish, Lizzo and Lil Nas X. Rap music became the most popular genre superseding pop and rock music in over four decades with artists such as Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, Drake and many others leading the charge. In fact, Lamar became the became the first non-classical and non-jazz artist to win the Pulitzer prize in music. Furthermore, Gucci Gang by Lil Pump, at two minutes and four seconds, became the shortest song ever to hit the top 10 in 42 years.
Even EDM saw an exponential expansion over this decade as a club culture craze ensued around the world. Artists such as David Guetta, Avicii and Martin Garrix got countless hits in the top 100. The live music industry began to piggyback on this growth with a new live music event cropping up every week. Let’s face it, everyone had an EDM phase that they are no longer proud of but it was inevitable; electronic music was hard to avoid as it had taken over the world for a short but memorable time. In 2015, just as it seemed like EDM couldn’t get any bigger, the bubble seemed to burst as only the largest players managed to survive.
This decade also opened up the doors of mainstream music to the entire world, as Gangnam Style gave everyone a glimpse into the Korean music pop scene in 2012. Despacito swept the globe without a word of English in 2017, even before the Justin Bieber version came out. It became the most streamed track around the world, but perhaps its most honorable achievement is breaking the language barrier for pop hits everywhere and led to the ever-increasing inclusion of Latin music in the mainstream.
The way we listened to music was revolutionized and streaming took over our lives. In 2010, you were probably debating which CD’s to throw out after ripping off the music from a shady German site. But Spotify came out in the US in 2011, and soon after, so did Apple Music in 2015. Apps in India such as Hungama, Gaana and Saavn began to replicate the same model of streaming. Even the Grammys’ began to evolve with the times by allowing streaming-only albums to also be eligible for nomination in 2016, making Chance the Rapper’s album, Colouring Book, the first Grammy winning record to have not sold physical copies.
As fans, we’ve never been closer to the music we love and never been so overwhelmed by the many choices that are offered to us. Our next favourite songs feel like they’re always right around the corner and as if we’re always jumping from one artist to another. This past decade revolutionised the way we listen to and think about music; it broke down language barriers, moved out of the boundaries created by production companies and by the crushing weight of following a certain genre or sound.
The 2010’s will forever be known as the decade that music consumption was transformed, but for us, they are wrapped in a warm blanket of nostalgia; full of songs we only listen to now so that we can scream the lyrics with friends for when we realise that we still know them all by heart.
For more information on music of the decade, follow the sites below.
The 200 Best Albums of the 2010’s
The 200 Best Songs of the 2010’s
The 50 Most Important Music Moments of the Decade
Listen to the Last Decade of Pop Music in 3 Minutes Flat
Informative and interesting. I could totally relate...