What has been the strongest year in music of the past decade

Credit: Far Out / Album Covers

What has been the strongest year in music during the past decade?

Mon 15 September 2025 21:30, UK

A decade may seem like an eternity in time to some, but in the music world, those years flash by in the blink of an eye. In some ways, it might not seem so long ago that Beatlemania was sweeping the globe, no sooner than we were surfing the new wave – but what do you mean this was half a century ago?

Of course, the diehard rock and indie heads will all have their favourite definitive eras within this timeframe, whether it be glam or grunge or sleaze. But a by-product is a slightly snobbish tendency to dismiss anything that came after, essentially saying, ‘If it came after 2010, we don’t want it.’ However, you can only chalk this up to being their loss, because the past decade has offered up more gems than many would care to admit.

In turning our attention to the truly contemporary musical efforts, and as such, the younger generation, it’s time we finally let the sonics do the talking and express what we’ve always known – that the era of 2015 to 2025 is just as good as all the rest. Sure, it may have had its ups and downs, its flaunts with fire, and skirmishes with the end of the world, but what’s a turbulent life without a good soundtrack?

In this spirit, some of the staff at Far Out all have one particular year over the past decade which they hold close to their hearts, and they have decided to battle it out to see which year of the past ten has provided the world with the best music.

Whether it’s pop, rap, rock, indie, or anything in between, the past decade has been a smorgasbord of delights – it’s your choice if you want to delve in.

What has been the best year for music in the past 10 years?

Lauren Hunter – 2018

What has been the strongest year in music during the past decade? - Lauren

For me, 2018 came at the height of my teenage years, and through hormones, exams, and opening my eyes to the world for the first time, certain sonic memories are visceral. In a year in which the indie canon was bursting with so much life and depth at the same time, it was the likes of Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life by The Wombats that felt like a time capsule of indie sleaze reinvented for the late 2010s.

But more than the personal rushes of hormones, exams, and opening my eyes to the world for the first time, it was also a year in which the genre laid its soul bare. First, there was High as Hope by Florence and the Machine, which is an underrated album, but without which we wouldn’t have Florence Welch as her searing self now. Then there was the self-titled debut EP from Boygenius as well as Lucy Dacus’ Historian, both of which set precedents in a moving industry that is so awash with female musicians today. They wouldn’t be here without them.

Yet if you asked me for one overriding musical memory that defined the heady and pivotal 12 months of my adolescence that was 2018, it would have to be A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships by The 1975. While I fully expect to be pelted with rotten tomatoes and receive a cacophony of boos for those of you who are more firmly set in your indie rock ways over this choice, I ask you to cast your minds back.

Remember that band that invigorated the souls of an entire generation back in your youth and made you feel invincible? For Gen Z, that just so happens to be The 1975. If you need any proof, just put a group of twentysomethings in a room together and play ‘Love It If We Made It’ – they might just still lose their minds.

Dale Maplethorpe – 2016

What has been the strongest year in music during the past decade? - Dale

There’s a huge theory in music called the To Pimp a Butterfly Effect, which directly relates to the 2015 jazz-rap masterpiece released by Kendrick Lamar. The theory states that Lamar’s album was such a game-changing piece of music that any other high-profile artists who planned on releasing music that year opted to push their albums back at risk of being overshadowed. It’s just a theory, but when you look at all the great music which came out in 2016, you have to admit, it has some weight to it.

If we’re just focusing on high-profile artists, you have the likes of Beyoncé, who surprise-dropped her tale of betrayal and forgiveness, Lemonade, which sparked conversations everywhere as she seemingly outed Jay-Z for cheating on her. You also had Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo, arguably the last great album that the rapper ever released, as well as Frank Ocean’s Blonde. All of these records are now considered classics of their time and genre, and they were all released within the same 12 month period.

As well as these large and commercially successful releases, the year also came with a great deal of underground success. For instance, rap group Clipping released their album Splendour & Misery, which is, in this writer’s opinion, the greatest concept album ever created. The whole thing tells the story of an intergalactic slave who falls in love with the AI system on board a spaceship. It’s a mind-altering listening experience, but also something that rises above all other concept albums of a similar ilk.

No matter what genre you consider, there was a moment of excellence reserved for it in 2016. In rap, Run The Jewels released their third album, which saw them perfect the craft of combining political nuance with humour. It was the year that grief was given a glorious soundtrack in the form of records like Blackstar, You Want It Darker and Skeleton Tree. Equally, soul and funk rose to prominence once again thanks to Childish Gambino’s Awaken, My Love. There has never been a year quite like it for music.

Tom Phelan – 2024

What has been the strongest year in music during the past decade? - Tom

Whatever was in the air during the year of our Lord 2024, its soundtrack practically vibrated with eclectic and intrepid energy, where the giddy heights of the mainstream to the edges of the music underground all flashed a captivating and colourful edge.

While arguably overstaying its welcome by this year’s Glastonbury headliner, Charli XCX had struck the pop sphere with a canny feat upon the drop of her sixth record, Brat, remarkably thrusting the LP into the world of social media ephemerality and TikTok curation while still with the coherency of the album intact. Smothered in hyperpop bounce and club strut, Brat had unleashed a minor cultural phenomenon that gleefully dwelled in the grit as much as the glitz.

Punk and garage rock were also reeling off bangers across 2024, Tommy Cossack & The Degenerators, Handcuff, and Billiam, just a dash of the litany of fantastic records and EPs that exploded across Bandcamp that year. Post-punk swarmed to new and gloriously misshapen forms via Leeds miscreants Thank, the celebrated return of Uranium Club delivered their inside-out progressive stylings, and Bristol’s Erotic Secrets of Pompeii dared to add a dash of vaudeville to their punk surrealism and not be annoying with it.

Most intriguing was the arcane mysticism unearthed. Charged with the deep human yearning for the Old World in an age of corporate uniformity, the sodden and buried splendour of Wales’ Tristwch Y Fenywod, woodland folk collective Shovel Dance Collective, or the slightly industrial-edged soul pop of Karl D’Silva gripped with their spectral brew of enchanted etherea.

2024 was the year that pop and punk collided like a chemical reaction, sparking and firing off into the DIY scene and the poppermost charts that hadn’t been seen in years. Also, the year that NOFX finally disbanded, truly planting a cherry on 2024’s celebratory cake.

Reuben Cross – 2015

What has been the strongest year in music during the past decade? - Reuben

While it might seem dismissive of all of the years that have come since to say that 2015 is the best year for music in the last ten years, the records that came out in that year felt like a true blessing; a bounty of diverse, forward-thinking and arguably timeless sounds that still hold up today.

There’s a case to be made that time allows us to reflect on things better than an impulsive decision at the time, and that you need to give an album time for it to truly register itself as a classic, but when we all collectively look back at these albums that we anointed as modern masterpieces upon release, the fact we’re still talking about them now kind of says we were right all along.

Of course, headline-making records from that year need little introduction. You have Kendrick Lamar’s jazz-rap opus in To Pimp A Butterfly, Sufjan Stevens’ heartbreaking ode to his family with Carrie & Lowell, Tame Impala’s psych-pop reinvention on Currents, and the true introduction of a sardonic indie king on Father John Misty’s I Love You, Honeybear. These records were beloved at the time, and a decade on, we haven’t forgotten about how masterful they are.

That’s not to mention all of the slightly less-celebrated wonders we had that year from the likes of Ought, Joanna Newsom, Julia Holter, Courtney Barnett or Neon Indian. I could go on, but you get the point. 2015 spoiled us something rotten, and we should be thankful for that.