Kanye West’s 2010 My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy holds a 94 Metascore for maximalist production on songs like Runaway and Power.
Best albums of the 2010s (and their bookends)
Seven of our Top 21 albums were released in the 2010s. Here they are in release order with their Metacritic Metascores (the 21words score is the Metascore), followed by three bookend albums from just before and after the decade.
The 2010s, in release order
7 picks; highest score here: To Pimp a Butterfly (96).
Frank Ocean’s 2012 debut studio album, featuring Thinkin Bout You and Pyramids, scores 91 on Metacritic and won a Grammy Award.
Kendrick Lamar’s acclaimed 2012 major-label debut plays like a film about growing up in Compton, and it scores 91 on Metacritic.
To Pimp a Butterfly, Kendrick Lamar’s 2015 fusion of jazz, funk and political rap, scores 96, the highest 2010s album here.
Beyoncé’s 2016 visual album Lemonade scores 92 on Metacritic, moving through infidelity, Black Southern identity and reconciliation across its twelve songs.
Frank Ocean’s 2016 album Blonde, released after a four-year wait, scores 87 for sparse, shape-shifting songs such as Nights and Ivy.
Lana Del Rey’s 2019 album Norman Fucking Rockwell!, co-produced with Jack Antonoff, scores 87 and closed the decade on a high.
Bookends: 2006, 2007 and 2020
3 picks; highest score here: Fetch the Bolt Cutters (98).
Amy Winehouse’s 2006 album Back to Black, produced with Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi, scores 81 and led to five Grammys.
Radiohead first released In Rainbows in 2007 as a famous pay-what-you-want download, and critics awarded the album a strong 88 Metascore.
Fiona Apple’s 2020 album Fetch the Bolt Cutters, recorded largely at home, scores 98, the highest Metascore on our music list.
How these scores work
Every card line is exactly 21 words, written for this guide from facts in our data and public records (founding dates, prizes, episode counts); each pick’s full verdict sits on its category Top 21. Scores (1–100) are mapped from named public aggregates, last checked 2026-11-02:
- Music: see category page
Links go to each subject’s official site. Disclaimer.