Songs that personally define each year of the 2010s

2010:


This song was an incredibly big deal when it came out, and it resembled little that had preceded it, so more than any other hit single, "Tik Tok" marked the beginning of the 2010s in music from my perspective.

2011:


I listened to a lot of hip hop during the latter half of 2011. I was still reeling in over being rejected by my high school crush, and I wanted something provocative and which made me think. I already really liked Nas in the first place because of some of his hit songs from the early 2000s (definitely not "Oochie Wally", but "Made You Look", "I Can", and his guest appearance on the remix of J.Lo's "I'm Gonna Be Alright" were all great), and since I had heard a lot about Illmatic being one of the greatest hip hop albums of all time, it ultimately led me here.

2012:


I discovered E.G. Daily's little-known music career after going thru a Powerpuff Girls phase in my second semester of freshmen year in college, and I found myself listening to her stuff a lot, especially her debut album Wild Child in particular. This was the biggest highlight of that record to me, personally. Ultimately, I disowned all of my E.G. Daily music because she blocked me on Facebook when I tried to friend her there (I attempted because there was another person from San Diego I had met who was friends with her...), smearing her image as what Rachel Stevens is for me now and instead putting her on the same uncomfortable level as two of my high school crushes, who had also blocked me on Facebook. Regardless, because I listened to her music so much in 2012, it only seems obvious to have her represent that year in my personal life.

2013:


2013 was the last full year that I listened primarily to eurobeat as opposed to other styles of music. This track here was probably the one I had most in rotation. I loved that it was both catchily hyperkinetic, yet subdued simultaneously. It sort of represents the imagery I'm most nostalgic for from 2013, that being finding time to relax while also still having a lot on my mind.

2014:


Around the middle of 2014, my obsession with eurobeat finally dried up. Instead, I found myself turning to retro pop. Billy Joel, in particular, became my favourite singer during this year.

2015:


This was when I started compiling my own Now albums and, in the process, discovering the history of popular music, albeit primarily in the US at this point in time. But of course, it was also an utter turd of a year, especially for the first three quarters. This song may not have been the one I listened to the very most, but it pretty much sums up how I felt that year quite perfectly.

2016:


This year was sort of hard to decide on, since my taste in music was kind of all over the place this year, but as a whole, it did start to get more UK-centric, as well as more concretely pop-oriented than the previous few years. This song represents both the pop songs I was into at the time that did well in America during the mid-'90s, as well as British music acts who I only started to really discover around this time.

2017:


I had already been a fan of Rachel Stevens for over a year by the time this year rolled around, but 2017 was when I not only started to fully embrace my love of S Club 7 and other bubblegummy pop, it was also when I truly started to bring it all back to myself after the world seemed to get too tough for such a long time. I listened to this song in particular a ton throughout 2017 and still play it a fair amount now.

2018:


For the time-being, this is still the first thing that pops into my head whenever I think of 2018, probably because not only was it the first truly memorable new song I came across this year alongside "Filthy", its new jack swing production is such a refreshing antidote to all the miserable trap beats that dominate music today.

I imagine she assumed I was a stalker, since I actually sent her a second request and accompanied my requests with notes telling her I was a fan of her work. Either way, blocking me just completely nullified the value of my appreciation for her before and turned it all from comfort music to an awkward reminder of exactly the worst type of insecurity I had been struggling with at that time (being seen as a creepy loser rather than a kind-hearted person worth listening to).For one, they're a source of nostalgia. My mum bought the American Now 8 back when I was in 3rd grade, and that was a major gateway towards me listening to popular music in general. What I loved about these compilations was not only their gorgeous 3D artwork, but also the way they would congregate the most popular music of a specific stretch of months into a single album, which flowed seamlessly despite including all sorts of different genres at once. The series only arrived in the US in 1998, though, so by studying the history of the Billboard charts, I put together all of my own theoretical Now albums in my iTunes library based on what I think could have come out back then, had the series existed for a longer time. I've also compiled custom UK Now albums as well, primarily for pre-1983 years, as well as a few gaps during the '80s and early '90s.