2010-2012 Playlist Series: Overview

I’m a terribly nostalgic person. I also believe the world during my childhood was distinctly special. My mother, for instance, truly believes life will never be better than it was in the 1980s.

One of my favorite developments of the current social media landscape is the inclusion of my generation’s childhood being the subject of conversation, mockery, and appreciation.

Think iCarly reboots, Tik Toks reenacting late 2000’s TV movies, and Twitter making fun of whatever it is Demi Lovato used to do with her knees when she performed.

I love it all. I just turned 20 and I never would have guessed how weird it would feel for my youth to not only be completely over but injected into social discourse as recursive -- like people talk about the ’80s. It’s wild.

However, I have also found it extremely hard for me to defend my generation against 80’s and 90’s babies, especially this past decade of the 2010s. So a few weeks ago I started a modest enough (and certainly unoriginal) effort to make a playlist of songs from each year of the 2010s to highlight each year’s depth of quality and nostalgic value to me. Music has been by far the most frequent aspect of today's culture I have had to defend to my parents, older siblings, and even peers. I hear people saying they wish they would have been born in the ’60s or ’90s because ‘everything’ was so much better then. I completely disagree, and for other than the obvious societal reasons. The 2010s were just too diverse and dense with quality. Here, we'll dive into my first three playlists of the series, 2010-2012.

First, my method to curate these playlists.

At the beginning of the year, my girlfriend and I watched the Hulu show High Fidelity based on the 20-year-old film of the same name (which I watched on my own a month later without knowing of the relation). It was fascinating to see how the main character, Rob, expressed her feelings not through making her own music, but by making playlists with her favorite songs to portray those emotions to make her own collective sound.

I obviously don’t remember the mindset I was in as a 9-year-old as much as I do my 19-year-old mindset, but these songs bring back memories that put me right back in the backseat of my mom’s SUV as a third-grader in the midst of moving to a new town.

2010

I remember a lot from 2010. Luckily, this was a year of change for me as my family and I moved to the town we’ve lived in since that year and so the memories of that year are enclosed by the same walls and streets I often travel these days.

When I think back to that time, the first song I think about is Justin Bieber’s “Somebody to Love”. At this, JB’s height of super-duper-stardom, his target audience was the females my age so, as childhood-politics constitutes, I had to hate him.

Except for the fact that he was awesome.

In 2021, he’s still awesome and, in my opinion, underrated and largely reduced to a corny child star turned has-been in many people’s view who never actually appreciated him in the first place.

This was before hip hop took over my world and everyone else’s. Yet, Drake was well on his way to being a catalyst for that imminent revolution. With three appearances on this list and countless other worthy cuts, Drake’s reign as hip hop’s most consistent maker of good songs began right around this time. Whether it was an album track like “Karaoke” that captured my imagination that summer or a smooth feature on Rick Ross’s “Aston Martin Music” that persists in masterclass-hook-excellence to this day, Billboard’s Artist of the Decade had his eyes on that title from the onset.

Along with Drake, other newcomers like Nicki Minaj, Bruno Mars, and Miguel set the tone for wild success throughout the decade with powerful 2010 debut albums. Along with late 00’s mainstays Katy Perry, Maroon 5, and the incomparable Kanye West, 2010 was deep. These were not necessarily songs that are my favorite from that year as they are tracks that instantly take me back to that time.

Favorite Songs during that year: “Rhythm of Love” - Plain White T’s, “Hold my Hand” - Michael Jackson

Favorite Songs now from that year: “Hold Yuh” - Gyptian, “Sure Thing” - Miguel

2011

When I think of 2011, I think of a sort of seismic, life-altering pivot of attention from entertainment (tv, movies, music) to sports. What brought this on? Many things; Cam Newton drafted to my home state’s Panthers, my first taste of pee wee rec football -- and the spectacle that was the Miami Heat. Much like Justin Bieber, everyone who was not an avid supporter of the team before the summer Lebron James and Chris Bosh joined Dwyane Wade in South Beach was now summoned into a collective chorus of arena boo’s and likewise couch-hating and internet vitriol from a distance. I was and am a Kobe/Laker guy so I joined that group… when I wasn’t watching them play some of the most exciting basketball I’ve ever seen with my older brother who was always a D-Wade guy.

What was the song that scored the Heat’s first championship season? None other than the hype anthem of another giant collaboration in Jay Z and Kanye West’s “Ni**as in Paris” from their 2011 work Watch The Throne, to this day probably the most important and emulated album of its kind. Hip hop’s momentum was building to a potential climax in 2011. Everyone who would spell the hip hop landscape for the decade was very active and collaborations like Watch The Throne and DJ Khaled’s smash “I’m On One” promised the revolution would be a group effort.

However, I was 10 at the time so I would not feel the gravity of the rap game’s 2011 until long after. I was much more interested in the pop/rock stylings of One Republic, Neon Trees, and Hot Chelle Rae, groups that are all but irrelevant today but filled the hallways of my grade school and didn’t put too much pressure on Kids Bop writers to find alternatives for curse words. The subtle emergence of Ed Sheeran, the quiet avalanche that was Adele’s 21, and Gotye’s enigmatic “Somebody That I Used to Know” filled that year with songs that intrigued my parents and entertained me and my brother who didn’t know what half of the gut-wrenching lyrics meant.

But if 2011 did anything, it reminded me of the atomic bomb of talent that was and is Chris Brown. His album F.A.M.E. restored his damaged image as much as possible while cutting out a totally different -- edgier, rebellious -- persona that he has stuck with since. Full of some of his best work, this is Chris Brown’s Bad and is represented well on the playlist.

Favorite Songs during that year: “Party Rock Anthem” - LMFAO, “Ass Back Home” - Gym Class Heroes

Favorite Songs now from that year: “We Found Love” - Rihanna, “Crew Love” - Drake, The Weeknd

2012

For me, as I’m sure is common for most, middle school changes everything for a kid. From puberty to priorities, from interests to imaginations, the sixth grade is a whirlwind of change and growth that I can clearly express through this compilation of records.

We’ll describe this playlist the same way many of these songs were introduced to me: the Friday night middle school dance. Not a formal; just a snakepit of sweaty jeans, ill-advised nutritional decisions, and unsupervised French kissing.

Maroon 5’s “Payphone” and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’s “Thrift Shop” phenomenon are enough to get only the most fearless adolescent girls to peel themselves off the auditorium wall and dance with their best friends.

Then, about 35-45 minutes into this 6 pm-9 pm affair, the 8th graders' requests start to give way, and 2 Chainz “No Lie” and Kanye West’s “Mercy” lure a different type of crowd from the snack stand, orange Fanta in hand, no doubt.

Somehow, the supervising faculty are so disconnected that the inappropriate waft of vulgarity is relieved by the heaven-sent clean versions of Juicy J’s “Bandz A Make Her Dance” and Chief Keef’s “Love Sosa”.

What a time.

2012 also makes me think of two of the most successful and enigmatic figures in music making large footprinted debuts; Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid Maad City and Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange, exploded onto iPod screens and Grammy stages alike as two of my favorite artists released what would have been most anyone else in their field’s magnum opus, only to be outdone by each of their sophomore efforts (Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly in 2015 and Ocean’s Blonde in 2016).

The short-lived, yet fondly remembered, 15 minutes of groups Fun. and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis along with the continued brilliance of Usher, Rihanna, and Pink colors 2012 with a similar brush as 2010 and 2011. A few new wrinkles and a fever pitch of young stars ready to make their mark on the decade make what would come in the mid-2010s widely predictable.

Favorite Songs during that year: "Cashin' Out" - Ca$h Out, "Mercy" - Kanye West

Favorite Songs now from that year: "Danza Kuduro" - Don Omar, "Tonight (Best You Ever Had)" - John Legend

Obama’s second term included the best music of the decade and a blistering consciousness that allowed me to fully experience all of it.

Most Appearances in 2010-2012

Drake: 6

Lil Wayne: 5

Usher, Chris Brown: 4

By Billy Listyl

June 12, 2021