The songs and shows and beef and overdue cancellations and heartbreaking losses and so much more.
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A decade is a long time.
Ten years ago,Ariana Grande was a Nickelodeon teen.
Taylor Swift was acountry star.Billie EilishandLil Nas Xwere children.
Drip was something drops did.
Lit was something lamps did.
Most people didnt have Twitter.
The speed of that shift sent shockwaves through the music industry that were still trying to process.
Prestige awards had to restructure categories and voting pools to address matters of race.
The music industry is a lot like the Wild West again.
Glory is up for grabs for anyone resourceful enough to claim it.
The old rules dont apply anymore.
The new ones are pliable.
Drake became a superstar in part by weaponizing the hilarity of being Drake.
Taylor Swift dominated through relatable songwriting andmaintained power in open warfare with her business rivals.
Kanye West and Rihanna became multimedia moguls, each to radically different results.
These days, everyone paves their own path, and we all run ourselves ragged trying to keep up.
The story of the decade in music is bigger than the records that turned our heads.
It was songs and shows and beef and overdue cancellations and heartbreaking losses and so much more.
The move meant that two of the biggest pillars in the live music business were now in bed together.
Its a song that makes everyone on the dancefloor break out into a sweat and a smile.
Not god …. YOU.
50K for a verse, no album out!
Monster debuted during this series; severalMBDTFtracks did.
2020 Kanye is a whole different beast.
If it was ever unclear, this is the old Kanye he was talking about onThe Life of Pablo.D.L.
A lot of them.
As in, halcyon days of the CD-era numbers.
Shes the last true four-quadrant, mass-market artist.
The only other album that came close to doing21numbers in the 20-teens?
Also Adele, with 2015s25, whichclaimed the biggest single-week salesfor an album in chart history at 3.38 million.
(The previous record holder?
NSYNCsNo Strings Attached.)
(For more grim evidence, take a glance atthe very Imagine Dragons-heavy listof the decades top-performing rock songs.
Ciara said something to the effect of you dont want to catch me on or off the stage.
That stage u speak of!
That the tweet remains live on her account to this day is the kicker.
Cher once called it an elephant graveyard where talent goes to die.
In the 10s, however, something shifted, and suddenly, the residency was relevant, again.
Then Britney Spears became the must-see attraction at Planet Hollywood, with Jennifer Lopez following suit.
June 14, 2011: Kreayshawn, Gucci Gucci
Thats right,Kreayshawnhappenedthisdecade.
The song wouldve totally been all over TikTok if it happened now.
Gucci Gucciahead of its time?Hmmm.D.L.
There were a few options: Use the service for free on your gear, but with ads.
Or pay $4.99 for an unlimited plan that removes the ads.
But thered be no point in trying to recreate the magic anyway.D.L.
Cut to Jay-Z and Kanye in the audience looking possibly the most overjoyed weve ever seen them.
Which is to say, she wasnt really known at all.
And every other rap banger on SoundCloud and RapCaviar right this second sounds just like it.D.L.
To basically singlehandedly revitalize the C-word as an obscenity of choice?
Its better than astrology.R.A.
put her at odds with the scenes conventional notions of authenticity.
(In 2018, the ban was lifted.)R.A.
In the middle of all this, though, she reentered rehab.
Some say Lil B, others SpaceGhostPurrp.
Its tough, matter-of-fact street rap that wouldnt have found its way into the mainstream in previous decades.
Meanwhile, everyone fromAriana GrandetoPop Smokestill sounds like Dont Like.D.L.
No one couldve after the way the first majorly publicized venture was received.
(In person, judging from old videos, it looked even stranger.)
With hologram tours from Whitney Houston and Selena on the way, its not feeling any less icky.D.L.
Then all hell broke loose.
); evenTony Parker caught a stray shardin the eye.
We were barely meant to know their faces, let alone their stories.
Oceans Tumblr letter changed his course.
It was a dance craze that had everyone fake-riding a horse and spinning a lasso.
It was the song that had a bunch of very white people singing Korean.
It was K-Pops first big hit.
It remains the seventh-most viewed video ever, topping over 3 billion views.
K-Pop hasnt looked back since.D.L.
Soon the song and videos were everywhere.
Around the same time, Billboard changed its rules to count YouTube streams on its charts.
The 23-year-old New Zealander was only 16 when Royals became a Billboard No.
1, thanks, in part, to other 16-year-olds.
Its deliberately postured against everything radio play, sales, promotion, listenability right down to the packaging.
(Some might call what she did a twerk; I …
The moment was dead on arrival when it first occurred and has only aged worse.D.L.
But too much of a good thing is a bad thing.
A very bad thing.
Happy took over airwaves with a vengeance no one could have predicted.
Then, a few months later, Pharrell wore a statement hat that quickly became his signature.
Pharrell without the hat is like Pharrell without a four-count beat at the beginning of a song.
Its iconic for a reason.Z.H.
Where where you when you found outBeyonce had dropped an entire album with zero warning?
This wasnt an album.
This wasa surprise visual album,a term that didnt exist in our cultural lexicon until Beyonce invented it.
(Seriously, Google visual album right now; onlyBEYONCEandLemonadecomes up.)
But a pop star successfully pulling off both with one album?
(Adorable that the thinking here was that just anyone can do it.
)BEYONCEgave artists permission to shred the rulebook by upending old ideas about release cycles.
For the first in her career, the discourse around Beyonce considered her as more than just a performer.
Its a transition that weve seen truly flourish in herLemonadeand Beychella eras and it all began withBEYONCE.D.L.
Azalea rapped in a blaccent and used hip-hop cultural signifiers as a gimmick to contrast with her appearance.
The music video parodied Clueless, mining iconic blonde Valley Girl aesthetics for further contrast.
The photos have become memes, legendary relics in the Beyonce canon, and symbols for sisterhood.
For that, we are eternally grateful that Solange threw hands in a custom 3.1 Philip Lim dress.Z.H.
Less than a year earlier, Ziegler had starred in Sias Chandelier, which earned over 2 billion views.
The Sia x Ziegler collaboration phase was an odd one.
A singer who wont even show her face hanging with a reality TV show darling?
But thats what makes the combo so dynamic.
Their videos captured the popular imagination for years, helping Sia maintain a brand from behind her closed bangs.Z.H.
In the 2010s, your music collection was not yours the way it used to be.N.J.
Sony called her legal moves a transparent and misguided attempt to renegotiate her contracts.
Kesha was unable to get out of her contract the entire time.
Taylor Swift even gave the singer $250,000 to help with legal expenses.
She hasnt looked back since.R.A.
Miranda has gone on to write, produce, direct, or star in seemingly everything.
But in commercial theater, things moves slowly.
DespiteHamiltons inclusive casting, for instance, Broadway remains overwhelmingly white.
Picture a less flashy, more sensitive James Franco cosplaying as Riff-Raff in Spring Breakers.
His music was depressing, charismatic, and deeply popular for both reasons.
To Posty and a lot of other 24-year-olds, genre-mixing comes natural.
The Blurred Lines team lost, and mainstream music changed almost over night to try and avoid future litigation.
Songwriting credits were handed out to writers who didnt necessarily have anything to do with the music.
The message was clear: This was a service by and for artists.
Before Fun Home, the few lesbian characters on Broadway had been relegated to secondary roles and stereotypes.
In a way, Ring of Keys became Broadways root, too.
The moment the industry finally recognized queer women in a real, sincere way.M.M.K.
Joan Baez and Julia Roberts one night.
The U.S. Womens soccer team and … also Heidi Klum.
Sure, why not!
Their wacky feud peaked around Bad Blood, whose friend-filled video took girl-fighting to literal extremes.
That, folks, is calledgrowth.D.L.
(She never took issue with Tidal.
The most important rap song of the 2010s was its mission statement, Alright.
Alright become an anthem of the Black Lives Matter movement at its peak mid-decade.
This is the most timeless song to come out of the 2010s.D.L.
It won a Grammy.
Members of the cast won Emmys for televised performances.
(Theres a DEH movie in the works.
)Equally everywherethese days is the musicals titular Evan, originated by Ben Platt.M.M.K.
Shelton went on to date hisVoiceco-star Gwen Stefani and Lambert found herself a Staten Island cop.
Meanwhile, country musics throne remains wide open for succession.D.L.
When the song came on, you probably pulled out your best awkward-dad dance moves.
August 23, 2015: Nicki Minaj vs. Miley Cyrus / Miley, whats good?
Someone had to ask her.
When Minaj called out that hypocrisy, Miley took it personally.
(As did Taylor Swift, out of nowhere.)
They opened fire, took hostages, and eventually detonated their vests, killing 90 people.
The band escaped, but their merchandise manager, Nick Alexander, was killed.
Let It Go was so ubiquitous theres no one way to explain it.
Same Ol Mistakes deserves to be a Bond villain theme.
I still think often of its botched rollout, leaking on Tidal two days before its official release.
Not just an I havent really listened to her music.
Not even a great gowns, beautiful gowns.
But surely, by then, Mariah would have to acknowledge knowing J.Lo, yes?
Then, in the spring,Prince died suddenlyat his famed Paisley Park of an accidental drug overdose.
But Prince in death remains as he was in life: a challenge to the status quo.
April23,2016:Beyonce,Lemonade
Youre just gonna cheat on Beyonce.
Suddenly, it made sense how shit could go down with a billion dollars in the Met Gala elevator.
The thesis ofLemonade,in a phrase, is You fucked up!
Its so much more than that, though.
The Carters played a different game in this decade.
You knew only what they wanted you to know.
You saw where theyd been when a photo shoot turned up on Beys Instagram.
New music hit like humanitarian aid airdropped in wartime, unannounced but timely and nourishing.
Beyonce and Jay-Zs careers are, each in their own way, monuments to control.
His entrepreneurial instincts are his calling card.
Ceaseless perfectionon record, in interviews, and in the public eyeis hers.
In the elevator, that broke.
For the first time in a long time, the Carters lost control of the narrative.
They poured their troubles into the music.
Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend scored a co-write.
But in the latter half, as it was prophesied, the meek inherited the earth.
Taylor watched his speech buddied up with Kim Kardashian West, unbothered.
Kanye claimed he got Swifts approval; she called B.S.
Wait it’s legit National Snake Day?!?!
?They have holidays for everybody, I mean everything these days!
ButEDM has certainly peaked.D.L.
Def Jam never earned a penny from it.
Beyonce discovered personal strength onLemonade; Solange identified her sound and purpose onA Seat at the Table.
It is extremely difficult, impossible even, to process trauma in real time.
(EvenLemonadedoesnt use all the first drafts.
to pull up a chair beside her.D.L.
Even while the band was intact, Cabello was always the loudest voice in the room.
Theyve all followed their own paths since.
With the success of Normanis single Motivation, it looks like now its her turn to make some noise.Z.H.
Spanish music is popular music now.
When we say god is a woman, this is what we mean.D.L.
1 with two different albums for two consecutive weekswithFUTUREandHENDRXX.Streaminghas shifted consumption habits across creative fields.
It earned widespread praise and ultimately won Best Rap Album at the 2017 Grammys.
Thats called changing the game.Z.H.
Its damn near impossible that a black woman is able to do that.
for capturing the complexity of modern African-American life.
is the one that history will call his opus.
No boy band has since the Beatles.
If they make it through that, BTS will make it through the next decade no problem.Z.H.
Push took the namedrop to mean all bets were off, so whatd he do?
It wasa character assassination for the ages.
Sure, SoundCloud was an easier, more affordable way to make and release music.
This month, the rapperJuice Wrlddied of an apparent overdose during a federal search of his plane.
He had just turned 21.
Anentire rap classcame of age this decade;half of them wont see the next decade.D.L.
Its ease of use plays no small part in its popularity.
On the watcher side, the app is addictive.
It glitters with the desperate urgency of an affecting love story.
Thats the text of the movie, and its plenty good.
But its everything inA Star Is Borns orbit, its context, that made it a phenomenon.
There was the are-they-or-arent-they chatter around Cooper and Gagas fawning press tour.
His impact on history is set in stone.
But since were here, lets tally up all the other things that made Lil Nas Xs ascent influential.
The rapper used social media to spread his SoundCloud song, capitalizing on TikToks capacity for memeing.
This decade told another story.
All year long, it was Billie Eilish.
Its dark, layered, and anxious, thanks in part to close collaborations with her producer-brother Finneas.
Its a clash of industry titans that Swift has inadvertently steeled herself for over the past 10 years.
Taylor went from media darling (ingenue singer-songwriter phenom!)
tomedia target(shes just a disingenuous construct!)
to media critic (snubbing the press during theReputationcycle!)
And yet, it always felt like she was fighting uphill.
But after the Kim/Kanye affair, Swift emerged to start waging heavyweight battles.
My moneys on the latter, for the foreseeable future at least.
No one was safe, least of all Tekashi.
