Evolution of my taste in music: 2010s through music releases that shaped my life

Opening thoughts

Now that we have entered a new decade, I wanted to reconstruct my last ten years using the music I discovered in this period. What I really wanted to do with this is understand how my taste in music evolved.

I heard a lot of music over the last decade, but only some of it shaped my world and followed me as I (apparently) became an adult in different corners of the world: Mostar, Boston, Berlin, and San Francisco.

So, here’s what my life—and evolution of taste in music—looked like over the last ten years, told through the albums, extended plays, and singles that I will cherish forever.

Early 2010s

Starting with the year 2010, my first discovery of the decade was Janelle Monáe’s The ArchAndroid (2010) album. I was a high school junior at the time and, naturally, had nothing to do but to listen to this record. It was a piece of work that was unquestionably a fantastic prelude to the year. Not only was it the first time that I was hearing a concept album, but it was also the first time I was listening to so many genres at once, from hip-hop and R&B to rock and classical. Through just those 18 tracks, the album expanded my music taste faster than years of listening to other records ever did. “Suite II Overture”, “Dance or Die”, “Faster”, “Suite III Overture”, and “BaBopByeYa” to this day remain some of my favorite pieces of contemporary music.

Then came the season of taking SATs and applying to colleges, which meant I spent very little time paying attention to music. When that unnerving period was finally over, I found out that Adele re-emerged with a new single “Rolling in the Deep” (2010) and that Hercules & Love Affair came out with a new album, which had a fantastic track called “My House” (2011). I listened to both tracks incessantly. Although the songs now remind me of anxiously waiting for college decisions, they hold a special place in my heart. Adele’s song was reminiscent of Amy Winehouse’s writing, and Hercules & Love Affair’s track was, looking back, probably my first independent discovery of house music. I would only learn later — after moving to the US and watching Paris is Burning — what “My House” was about, so I like to see this discovery as my prescient cultural enlightenment.

Then, in the spring of 2011, my life turned upside down when I found that I was actually moving to United States to attend MIT. Overwhelmed with both excitement and utter fear, I buried myself in music to cope with these conflicting feelings. Thankfully, many artists that year timed their album releases to be on schedule with my emotional turmoil, so I had plenty of material.

Planningtorock’s W (2011) album was the first on the list. I discovered the predecessor Have It All (2007) in 2009 and thought it was one of the most ridiculous and spectacular records I’ve ever heard. I expected the same type of loony production on the new album, but W subverted all my expectations. It took me a few weeks to get used to it, and once I did, I fell in love with the haunting yet funky musical arrangements of songs like “The One”, “The Breaks”, “Jam”, and “9”. The lyrics in the last one, “9”, for some reason left a strong impression on me and became an emblem of this period in my life.

On the same day of W’s release in May, GusGus came out with their album Arabian Horse (2011). The eponymous song from this record amazed me. It was a hypnotic dance track that immediately sent me to a place of deep introspection upon first hearing it. The chorus line “too bright to even the sun, more and more sand in my eyes” felt like the perfect description of my afternoons that summer: spent daydreaming and in thoughts of what my life would look like from now on.

In June, I discovered PJ Harvey’s songs “The Glorious Land” (2011) and “The Words That Maketh Murder” (2011). M.I.A. was the only artist in my arsenal at that point whose lyrics I could label as political, so hearing PJ Harvey tackle topics of militarism through folk music felt like an enhancement of my taste. Her songwriting was particularly impressive; I admired how vividly she portrayed the futility and malevolence of war through piercingly detached lyrics. Listening to her interviews about the parent album Let England Shake also helped me realize that writing music with political connotations required maturity and tact.

At the end of August, I left Europe and moved to Boston. The following year was a time of emotional growth, rapid cultural assimilation, and new friendships, all of which were accompanied by changes in my music taste as well. It was hard to discern this at the time, but it’s a causality that I can clearly see only a decade later, which is that the new environment and people had a profound impact on what type of music I was drawn to.

I was listening to a lot of Florence and the Machine’s Ceremonials (2011), Grimes’ Visions (2012), and Yelle’s Safari Disco Club (2011), which all differed in genre, but had one common denominator: nostalgic undertones, either through plaintive lyrics or downtempo production. My guess is that I was drawn to these as a result of my own bewilderment while I was trying to wrangle who I was in a new culture, far away from everything I used to know.

The one album that I distinctly associate with this period is Kelis’ Flesh Tone (2010). I remember first hearing “Intro”, “Home”, and “Emancipate” during a cold January afternoon and thinking how unusual it was to hear dance music that sounded so wintry and futuristic. Kelis did a great job of creating a cohesive concept album⁠ — the record was largely about motherhood⁠ — that reaffirmed how important it was for me to see a personalized and crystallized narrative in the music.

As I settled into my new life in Boston, there was an extended period of time in 2012 during which I drifted away from music. Like every college student, I learned that I didn’t know how to study and that I had to unlearn all my fruitless high-school habits. That process took almost a year. During this arduous time, the only two new songs that got on my radar were Jessie Ware’s “Running” (2012) and Róisín Murphy & David Morales’ “Golden Era” (2012). Together with Kelis’ and Grimes’ albums, these songs were starting to push my taste toward electronic music. And, although they now evoke memories of exam-driven anguish, they were all instrumental in preparing me for more energetic music that would come my way in the following years.

It was really 2013 when I started to feel truly settled in Boston. I was a college junior at that point and had started writing for the campus newspaper, which meant I was going to concerts with friends, interviewing artists, and listening to music on a more regular basis. I loved all of it. This exhilarating period was marked by Julia Holter’s “Horns Surrounding Me” (2013), Nils Frahm’s “Went Missing” (2013), Janelle Monáe’s The Electric Lady (2013) album, and MØ’s Bikini Daze EP. At the time, I thought these choices were undeniably sporadic and disconnected; Holter’s highly-experimental “Horns Surrounding Me” and Frahm’s classical “Went Missing” had no similarity to Monáe’s and Ørsted’s upbeat R&B and pop albums. In what seemed to be a typical pattern in my life, I would only learn later how a Berlin-based artist, affinity toward experimental production, and uptempo music would come together in a very formative period ahead of me.

Mid 2010s

2014 was probably the most important year in shaping my music taste after 2009. In the spring, I saw St. Vincent perform at The House of Blues in Boston, and fell in love with her eponymous St. Vincent (2014)album. Rock music was never really my go-to choice, but this record had enough eccentric crossover into other genres, making it easy for me to rediscover my appreciation for more vigorous music after living in mellower genres for much of the early 2010s.

Right around that time, tUnE yArDs’ Nikki Nack (2014) album came out as well, and it was the perfect complement to the euphoric St. Vincent’s album. I felt experimental overtones in each track, and the more I listened to the record, the more fascinated I became with songs that eschewed typical pop structures, such as “Left Behind” and “Real Thing”. To this day, listening to these two tracks along with St. Vincent’s “Huey Newton” and “Psychopath” remains my remedy for any sluggishness.

Looking back, discovering these two albums that year was paramount because they pushed me to embrace more energetic music. Over the summer, while doing an internship in Berlin and naturally discovering the city’s incredible nightlife, I got completely captivated by such genre: techno. It was, ironically, during one afternoon in July that I remembered seeing Holly Herndon perform as opener for St. Vincent earlier that year in Boston and then thinking “Maybe I’d actually enjoy listening to her music now that I am in Berlin?”

Her track “Chorus” (2014) suddenly became so magical and led me to discover her track “Fade” (2013), which then led me to discover Paula Temple’s track “Colonized” (2013), which then somehow led to enjoying Hercules and Love Affair’s The Feast of the Broken Heart (2014) album, which led to discovering John Grant’s “Pale Green Ghosts” (2013) track, eventually leading to Röyksopp and Robyn’s Do It Again (2014) EP. These releases marked my summer and were pivotal in expanding my taste.

I spent the rest of my time in Berlin riding the U-Bahn for three to four hours each weekend, listening to nothing but electronic music, particularly to techno and house. I knew I always enjoyed some flavors of electronic music, especially by being a fan of artists and bands like M.I.A. and Moloko, but that was the first time I was loving club-oriented electronic music: instrumental and repetitive, something I thought I would never enjoy.

The penchant for electronic music continued throughout the year. In October, while back in Boston and once again enduring the city’s dreadful winter, I discovered Róisín Murphy’s Mi Senti (2014) EP. It was the first semblance of any real work from her after Overpowered, and I was nothing short of impressed. Soft vocals and lyrics half-spoken over hypnotic production certainly reminded me of Grace Jones, but there was something uniquely magical about this EP. It felt sparse and magical, one could even say otherworldly. I ended up so deeply embedded in this type of music that I kept longing for new releases without any rich sounds. This was paradoxical given that the year started with two albums that were anything but minimalist in production.

It wasn’t until the summer of 2016 — which meant finishing my undergraduate program and getting through the first year of my graduate program — that I came across two monumental releases that would pull me out of this reflective vortex: Annie’s Endless Vacation (2015) EP and Christine and the Queens’ eponymous (2015) debut album. Annie’s EP served as the perfect transition from the Berlin-driven obsession with electronic music to a much-needed rediscovery of pop music. This shift allowed me to appreciate every layer of Christine and the Queens’ album, a record that showed me how equally energizing and heartbreaking dance-pop music can be. It was after listening to this album on repeat for almost three months that I realized why that was the case. Because of the lyrics. Not just any lyrics, but well-thought-out and personal lyrics.

So much of the decade up until that point was marked by appreciation for music with refreshing production, but I suddenly found myself looking for novelty in the artists’ songwriting. It took two years from that moment to find a release that would completely floor me with lyrical content.

Late 2010s

In 2017, I moved to San Francisco from Boston for my first full-time job. St. Vincent’s “Los Ageless” came out that fall and was very quickly followed by her album Masseduction. Needless to say, the record quickly became the soundtrack to California, my new-found home. I was still, however, subconsciously looking for an album or EP that would elevate the bar of high-quality songwriting.

Just as I settled into my new routine in San Francisco and stopped yearning for such discovery, Lorde’s Melodrama (2017) somehow found its way to my Spotify library in the spring of 2018. It really didn’t take long to notice the depth of the songwriting on this album. “Sober” and “Sober II (Melodrama)” were immediate standouts, and I particularly enjoyed the visceral portrayal of love, loneliness, and friendship in her Greek theater-inspired, hyperbolized songwriting. The lyrics were personal and direct yet so relatable and sophisticated.

With the exception of Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black album, this was really the only record that convinced me songwriting could indeed be a form of poetry. Even beyond that, Lorde’s work felt synesthetic: melodies would conjure up colors, the artwork would conjure up sounds, and the lyrics would conjure up my own memories, packed with scents of previous springs and falls. It was undoubtedly a modern-pop masterpiece and I will forever associate it with my first year in San Francisco.

After that ensued an album-burnout period during which I couldn’t listen to full-length records anymore. I nonetheless fell in love with a few singles that molded my taste, this time away from songwriting as the focus. I discovered Nipplepeople’s “Frka” (2017), an outstanding cover of Zdenka Kovačiček’s eponymous single from 1984. Their electropop rendition was by far one of the most unique productions I’ve seen arise from the Croatian music scene, and it led me to revisit many of the excellent Croatian bands that I didn’t listen to in a while, from E.T. to Yammat.

Few months afterwards, Nicki Minaj’s “Queen” dropped and I instantaneously registered “Ganja Burn,” “LLC,” and “Good Form” as tracks that would end up on my playlists. This was a surprising transition in my taste that year given that I haven’t listened to much hip-hop in 2010s at all. The low-key and evocative production coupled with Nicki’s poised flow somehow suited my mood that summer, making Queen a pleasant discovery of 2018. I didn’t know it at the time, but this particular record made me more open toward trap music, which would resurface in my playlists next year.

I quit my job that fall and was left with a lot of time to listen to music. Luckily for me, Robyn’s Honey (2018) came out at the end of October and the timing couldn’t have been better. “Send to Robin Immediately” really moved me; the meticulous build-up and softness of the production were unlike anything I’ve heard before. I could definitely feel influences of mellower house music, like DJ Koze’s “XTC”, in her songs, but there was something so vulnerable about Robyn’s approach toward these tracks that made the record truly original.

My mood was heavily shaped by Honey in late 2018, leading me to soon enjoy Emina Jahović’s Dalje (2018) album. This was also an unexpected gem: I am typically not in touch with Serbian music scene, but the Balkan-esque pop-house production and despondent lyrical themes were just the right sequel to Robyn’s album. Interlaced with these two releases, Soap&Skin’s “Italy” and “(This is) Water” (2018) were two tracks that left a mark on this period as well. Both albums and both songs were united by a pronounced sense of artists’ vulnerability and wistful introspection. Looking back, they reflected my state of my mind that fall as well, which would probably explain why I was drawn to all of them.

In January 2019, I started a new job. It took me a while before I had a new routine figured out, one in which I had enough time to listen to music. Once I did, Senidah’s “Aman” (2019) came as the first major discovery, and for me, it was a genuine shift in taste⁠ — I never thought I’d be obsessed with a Slovenian trap and R&B track. It was Nicki Minaj’s Queen from 2018 that made me more appreciative of this music. I’m glad that it did because “Aman” has now become a quintessential summer track, often reminding me of slow and reflective Croatian summers.

That August, I was working on a demanding project at work and ended up on Resident Advisor’s playlists in search of techno music that would help me focus. At some point, a catchy track started playing featuring a repetitive “Work, work it, work to be a winner” chant, which halted all my efforts to concentrate. The song ended up being the gateway track to Marie Davidson’s Working Class Woman (2018) album.

If the album had come out while I was still a student, I wouldn’t have fully understood the highly personal and relatable undertones of this layered techno record. It left an imprint on the rest of 2019, and I spent much of the fall and winter listening to “La chambre intérieure”, “Burn Me”, and “Work It” (as well as her unbeatable standalone single “Chasing the Light”). These tracks reinvigorated my love for techno and reminded me how introspective electronic music can be. Plus, I felt the entire album was the perfect soundtrack to my 9-to-5 routine.

Inspired by Davidson’s record, I dedicated the entirety of September, October, November, and December to electronic music. This meant I was — similar to my phase in Berlin — spending a large chunk of my free time researching and obsessing over new songs. Some of those incredible discoveries were Kelly Lee Owens’ “More Than A Woman” (2017), Klein’s “Claim It” (2019), Hiver’s “Pert” (2019), Asa Moto’s “Syriacid” (2017), and East of Ocean’s “Neverlasting Love” (2019). This time, however, to make myself feel more than just a consumer, I would also stay up late on work days and make music mixes using these new tracks.

At the turn of the new decade, as I unwinded from the monolithic stretch of electronic music, I then somehow stumbled upon Ariana Grande’s thank u, next (2019) album. I never paid attention to her as an artist, but this piece of work completely changed my opinion of her and made for a great last discovery of the 2010s. I was so impressed by the album’s cohesiveness despite it veering off into multiple genres, including pop, R&B, and trap. The most outstanding element of this record was its lyrical content, and I found myself analyzing other artists’ songs in greater detail after this album in hopes of finding equally personal writing.

Perhaps even more importantly, this uplifting album came into my life just before the COVID-19 pandemic, giving me a much-needed mental preparation for the omnipresent anxiety that would soon perturb the world.

Closing thoughts

From the bittersweet years of cramming for exams to the harsh era of a global pandemic, music was clearly an indispensable piece of my life at each moment of the last decade.

Writing this helped me realize that, despite new discoveries and many taste-breakers, my listening does seem to follow a consistent pattern—oscillating between introspection and extrospection across pop, R&B, electronic, and experimental genres. As I finished writing this, I also wondered: what music will the next ten years bring and how different will my taste be by 2030? Which memories will I associate that music with?

I guess there’s only one way to find out.