favourite pop albums of the last 20 years

ameraal

la loi de murphy
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inspired by this i*con*ic post by @Suedey, i started thinking about the best pop albums of the past and revisiting my favourites some of which i had not in a long time... it's an ongoing process but i'll add/fill in the blanks as i progress and probably change rankings too.

i've tried to limit them to albums that have at least one big pop song (be it a ballad), * means i've relistened and strikethrough means they haven't aged well for me. omitted stuff i just don't care for but probably missed something obvious.

2001 fever - kylie* / runner-up: rock steady - no doubt* / aaliyah - aaliyah

2002 finalists: under rug swept - alanis morissette?

2003 black cherry - goldfrapp* / runners-up: folklore - nelly furtado* / revolution in me - siobhan donaghy* / life for rent - dido* / tasty - kelis*

2004 finalists: love angel music baby - gwen stefani / scissor sisters - scissor sisters*

2005 confessions on a dance floor - madonna* / supernature - goldfrapp* / the emancipation of mimi - mariah carey*

2006 b'day - beyonce* / kelis was here - kelis* / futuresex/lovesounds - justin timberlake*

2007 overpowered - roisin murphy* / runners-up: tangled up - girls aloud* / out of the woods - tracey thorn* / black out - britney spears* / good girl gone bad - rihanna / because i love it - amerie / robyn - robyn / trip the light fantastic - sophie ellis bextor*

2008 finalists: out of control - girls aloud / hercules and love affair - hercules and love affair* / x - kylie / i am... sasha fierce - beyonce / in ghost colours - cut copy*

2009 finalists: the fame monster ep - lady gaga / i look to you - whitney / rated r - rihanna / it's blitz - yeah yeah yeahs

2010 finalists: flesh tone - kelis* / family jewels - marina and the diamonds* / aphrodite - kylie / we are born - sia / night work - scissor sisters /body talk - robyn / high violet - the national

2011 finalists: you are all i see - active child / cults - cults / make a scene - sophie ellis bexter* / born this way - lady gaga / light after dark - claire maguire / zonoscope - cut copy / house of balloons - the weeknd / shapeshifting - young galaxy / arabian horse - gusgus / you and i - the pierces

2012 finalists: true ep - solange / paradise ep - lana del rey* / devotion - jessie ware / visions - grimes / electra heart - marina and the diamonds / armor on ep - dawn richard / kaleidoscope dream - miguel / lescop - lescop

2013 finalists: days are gone - haim / random access memories - daft punk / skyer - postiljonen / cupid deluxe - blood orange / samson and delilah - vv brown* / woman - rhye / pull my hair back - jessy lanza*

2014 i never learn - lykke li / lp1 - fka twigs / chaleur humaine - christine and the queens / little red - katy b

2015 e•mo•tion - carly rae jepsen* / runners-up: ten love songs - susanne sundfør / froot - marina and the diamonds* / currents - tame impala / reality show - jazmine sullivan / art angels - grimes / ratchet - shamir / i love you honeybear - father john misty / rose - abra

2016 nothing's real - shura / runners-up: dangerous woman - ariana grande / red flag - all saints / front row seat to earth - weyes blood / sept 5th - dvsn

2017 finalists: ralph ep - ralph* / cigarettes after sex - cigarettes after sex* / not even happiness - julie byrne* / melodrama - lorde / don't smile at me - billie eilish

2018 finalists: rebound - eleanor friedberger / be the cowboy - mitski / honey - robyn* / heaven's only wishful ep - mormor / so sad so sexy - lykke li / let's be wilderness - postdata

2019 finalists: dedicated - carly rae jepsen / pang - caroline polachek* / some place else ep - mormor / master ep - mariah the scientist

2020 future nostalgia - dua lipa* / la vita nuova ep - christine and the queens*
 
HANG ON though - Robyn was originally released in 2005 but I see what you did there, going with the UK reissue date I guess... Otherwise Ciccone may not have won 2005... :disco:
 
Albums I’d know I’d like (but would barely actively revisit apart from Music and Bicep).

Madonna - Music
Radiohead - Kid A
Aaliyah - Aaliyah
Radiohead - Amnesiac
Nelly Furtado - Whoa Nelly
Massive Attack - 100th Window
Justin Timberlake - Futuresex/Lovesound
Robyn - Bodytalk
Bicep - Bicep
 
It was... such a slow burner.
I went to Stockholm in 2005 for a long weekend with some friends (my only trip to Sweden in fact), and I picked up both Robyn and Det Gor Ont... on CD. Moopynspiration! :disco:
 
She released it in Sweden in 2005, then a slightly different edition was released internationally in 2007-2008.

Be Mine was a big hit here in 2005 and had a different video.
 
Oh yeah - I've got both editions. I tend to go back and forth over which versions I prefer... I think the original version has aged much better, particularly stuff like "Bum Like You"...
 
HANG ON though - Robyn was originally released in 2005 but I see what you did there, going with the UK reissue date I guess... Otherwise Ciccone may not have won 2005... :disco:

confessions is such a good album (only push bugs me these days) but then so are supernature and i was pleasantly surprised how well the emancipation of mimi has held up - it almost sounds like a greatest hits collection though some of it has dated (fatman scoop was never not shit).

that said confessions on a dance floor probably has the worst cover art of all the albums i've listed. how did that make the cut?
 
I hated the Confessions artwork at the time but I really like it now and I think it has 'aged' quite well if that makes sense.

I'd say it's my favourite out of those three from 2005 as well, even though I love both Supernature and Mimi.
 
The Confessions artwork is amazing and iconic. That Madonna logo was everything!
 
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confessions is such a good album (only push bugs me these days) but then so are supernature and i was pleasantly surprised how well the emancipation of mimi has held up - it almost sounds like a greatest hits collection though some of it has dated (fatman scoop was never not shit).

that said confessions on a dance floor probably has the worst cover art of all the albums i've listed. how did that make the cut?
I think I’m the only person alive who has always liked Push.
 
Well it’s my seventh favourite track on the album so maybe LOVE is a bit strong. REALLY RATHER LIKE
 
A few to add that aren't mentioned before I think. These are off the top of my head and more out and out pop albums rather than ones that maybe drift across a few genres. I can't think of 2 better pop albums necessarily than the top two, the others are more worthy listens if you're a pop fan.

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I see now that the successor was Fixin to Thrill which I listened to a lot too... duh
I think all their albums are worth listening to but really if you have the first two the others aren’t essential.
 
inspired by this i*con*ic post by @Suedey, i started thinking about the best pop albums of the past and revisiting my favourites some of which i had not in a long time... it's an ongoing process but i'll add/fill in the blanks as i progress and probably change rankings too.

2003 revolution in me - siobhan donaghy

No Ghosts?! I’d say that was a better album :o
 
No Ghosts?! I’d say that was a better album :o

i don't know why i have a stronger connection with the debut but you're right, ghosts was great too, i need to give it a relisten.
there's a place is definitely one of my favourite things she's done.
 
I have no idea what pop is I think - but all these albums are pretty poppy to me

(2000 MADONNA music)
2001 DAFT PUNK discovery
2002 SAINT ETIENNE finisterre
2003 BASEMENT JAXX kish kash
2004 THE KILLERS hot fuss
2005 THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS twin cinema
2006 THE KNIFE silent shout
2007 GIRLS ALOUD tangled up
2008 SÉBASTIEN TELLIER sexuality
2009 LADY GAGA the fame monster EP
2010 GROOVE ARMADA black light
2011 THE WEEKND house of balloons
2012 SAINT ETIENNE words and music by saint etienne (runner - up: LANA DEL REY paradise EP)
2013 PET SHOP BOYS electric
2014 RÖYKSOPP the inevitable end
2015 CARLY RAE JEPSEN e*mo*tion
2016 THE 1975 i like it when you sleep...
2017 GOLDFRAPP silver eye
2018 SOPHIE oil of every pearl's uninsides (runner-up: MGMT little dark age)
2019 FRIENDLY FIRES influorescent
2020 GRIMES miss anthropocene
 
I think the only "proper" pop album I bought that year was Nelly Furtado - which is not one of the finest albums of the past 20 years despite some killer singles
 
This was a bit of a TASK. Mainly to jog down memory lane and remember some of the albums I loved THEN that I wouldn't necessarily now. And also to see which years were absolutely CRACKING, and others not so much. Some of these PUSH the "pop" bracket though. :D

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2000: D'Angelo - Voodoo
2001: Amanda Marshall - Everybody's Got a Story, Björk - Vespertine, Röyksopp - Melody A.M., Kylie Minogue - Fever, Melissa Etheridge - Skin
2002: Céline Dion - A New Day Has Come, Frou Frou - Details
2003: Nelly Furtado - Folklore, Sarah McLachlan - Afterglow, The Postal Service - Give Up, Regina Spektor - Soviet Kitsch
2005: Usher - Confessions, Madonna - Confessions on a Dance Floor, Mariah Carey - The Emancipation of Mimi, Kate Bush - Aerial, City & Colour - Sometimes, Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
2006: Amy Winehouse - Back to Black, The Knife - Silent Shout
2007: Britney Spears - Blackout, Lykke Li - Youth Novels, Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Trip the Light Fantastic, Sara Bareilles - Little Voice, Radiohead - In Rainbows, St. Vincent - Marry Me
2008: Alanis Morissette - Flavours of Entanglement
2009: Rihanna - Rated R
2010: Robyn - Body Talk Pt. 2, Ellie Goulding - Lights
2011: M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, Kelly Rowland - Here I Am
2012: Solange - True
2013: Beyoncé - Beyoncé, Daft Punk - Random Access Memories, Avicii - True, Justin Timberlake - The 20/20 Experience Pt. 1, Stromae - Racine carrée, Rudimental - Home
2014: Kelis - Food, Hozier - Hozier, Röyksopp & Robyn - Do It Again
2015: Björk - Vulnicura, Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell, Troye Sivan - Blue Neighbourhood
2016: Anderson Paak - Malibu, Glass Animals - How to Be a Human Being, Frank Ocean - Blonde, DNCE - DNCE
2017: Superfruit - Future Friends, The xx - I See You, Lorde - Melodrama, St. Vincent - Masseduction, Jhené Aiko - Trip
2018: Years & Years - Palo Santo, Ariana Grande - Sweetener, Death Cab for Cutie - Thank You for Today, Robyn - Honey, Kacey Musgraves - Golden Hour, Christine and the Queens - Chris, Lykke Li - So Sad So Sexy
2019: Bon Iver - i,i, Maggie Rogers - Heard It in a Past Life
2020: Dua Lipa - Future Nostalgia
 
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I love a lot of the albums already mentioned but would add Christina Aguilera - Stripped, Holly Valance - State of Mind, Ellie Goulding - Delirium, Nelly Furtado - Loose, Britney Spears - In the Zone, Lana Del Rey - Ultraviolence / Norman Fucking Rockwell (although I'm stretching the "pop album" definition with those two)...
 
This is still one of my favourite albums of the last 20 years, and I mostly hate what they've done either side of it

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Now @vespertine, I love Carrie & Lowell but gtfo! (how about you do? Oh. @Loufoque ) That's not a POP album...

I DID take the piss with that one. :D But it becomes hard! "Death with Dignity" has more of a pop melody than most of Nelly Furtado's Folklore or Kate Bush's Aerial not to even mention some of the OUT THERE stuff Björk has put out since 2001. I don't know where to draw the line after shit like Burpney Spears.
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OK I'll give mine a go. I'm glad I made smart playlists for each year, with just songs from that year, so helpful for this!

I'm starting 2000 because I don't have any kind of lock on 2020 yet.

Also, JESUS, 2007 was a Sophie's choice

2000: Madonna - Music
2001: Kylie Minogue - Fever
2002: Jennifer Paige - Positively Somewhere
2003: Madonna - American Life
2004: Britney Spears - In the Zone
2005: Madonna - Confessions on a Dance Floor
2006: Ayumi Hamasaki - (miss)understood
2007: Girls Aloud - Tangled Up
2008: Girls Aloud - Out of Control
2009: Perfume - Triangle
2010: Robyn - Body Talk
2011: Lady Gaga - Born This Way
2012: Susanne Sundfør - The Silicone Veil
2013: Beyoncé - Beyoncé
2014: Röyksopp - The Inevitable End
2015: Susanne Sundfør - Ten Love Songs
2016: RADWIMPS - Kimi no na wa OST
2017: Steps -Tears on the dancefloor
2018: Perfume - Future Pop
2019: Generations from Exile Tribe - Shonen Chronicle

also some podium finishes for:
Nerina Pallot - Dear Frustrated Superstar (2001)
Ayumi Hamasaki - I am (2002)
Aurora - Aurora (2002)
Dido - Life for Rent (2003)
Hikaru Utada - Exodus (2004)
Ayumi Hamasaki - My Story (2004)
Kate Bush - Aerial (2005)
Hikaru Utada - Ultra Blue (2006)
Rachel Stevens - Come and get it (2005)
Britney Spears - Blackout (2007)
Madonna - Hard Candy (2008)
Lady Gaga - The Fame + Monster (2009)
Rihanna - Loud (2010)
Owl City - Ocean Eyes (2010)
Perfume - JPN (2011)
Nicola Roberts - Cinderella's Eyes (2011)
Agnes - Veritas (2012)
Rihanna - Unapologetic (2012)
Perfume - Level3 (2013)
Lady Gaga - ARTPOP (2013)
Kenshi Yonezu - Bootleg (2017)
Alexandros - Sleepless in Brooklyn (2018)
Madonna - Madame X (2019)
 
Thanks for the idea @ameraal . It turned into quite a deep experiment for me.
The first half is dominated by albums that sort of represented the place and time in my life, indelibly attached to periods of personal happiness or significance.

Then 2011 starts with BTW, but finishes with my failed attempt to move to Japan, taking a backstep from Moopy, the subsequent start of my blog and album deepdives, and suddenly it's like another person's ranking.

Nordic Noir (and dark Beyonce) for 4 years, including my actual move to Japan in 2014. 2016's soundtrack album is largely instrumental and still hits me emotionally, and then a return to pop in its pure positive forms with Perfume, Steps and Generations.
 
One thing I noticed using these smart playlists is that the amount of tracks decreases drastically, like music is becoming a smaller part of my life. That's not a surprise but it's right there in black and white now. I feel like I'm interacting with music more as a spectator than a consumer.

Also my deepdives into albums - prompted by my feeling that large iPods on shuffle were killing my concept of an album - forced me to listen to albums, but also turned me into someone who cherry-picks from them (ironically caused by my large iPod not being large enough to comfortably fit my library). I still do the deepdives now, maybe that was just my way of dealing with MY loss of the concept of albums.
 

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