My Decade in Music So Far: Stephen M. Deusner

This week, Pitchfork shared lists featuring the best albums and tracks of the decade so far. We asked Pitchfork writers and editors to share a favorite song and album that didn't make the list, along with a music highlight and their personal Top 10s or 20s. Check back for more installments of My Decade in Music So Far.

Shovels & Rope: O' Be Joyful [Dualtone Music Group]

This wife-and-husband duo from South Carolina crafted some of the decade’s feistiest and wiliest roots music on their 2012 album, which is crammed with heady songwriting and get-a-room harmonies.

Mavis Staples: "You Are Not Alone" [Anti-]

At the start of the decade, I spent a hard year living far away from everything in New York, traipsing around a cavelike apartment whose windows all looked out onto brick walls. Fortunately, this song—and, by extension, the album of the same title—was there to remind me of an essential truth and get me through. 

Musical Highlight of the Last Five Years: In 2012 I found an old record of my grandfather singing a hymn called “Pearly White City” and heard his voice for the first time in 30 years.

Favorite Albums of 2010-2014:

1. Destroyer: Kaputt
2. Lambchop: Mr. M
3. Shovels & Rope: O Be Joyful
4. Daft Punk: Random Access Memories
5. Hiss Golden Messenger: Haw
6. Phosphorescent: Muchacho
7. Hurray for the Riff Raff: Small Town Heroes
8. Ashley Monroe: Like a Rose
9. Janelle Monáe: The ArchAndroid
10. Kendrick Lamar: good kid, m.A.A.d city
11. Todd Snider: Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables
12. Eleanor Friedberger: Last Summer
13. Robyn: Body Talk
14. The National: Trouble Will Find Me
15. Tig Notaro: Live
16. Kanye West: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
17. St. Vincent: Strange Mercy
18. Beach House: Bloom
19. Chvrches: The Bones of What You Believe
20. Deerhunter: Halcyon Digest

Favorite Tracks of 2010-2014:

1. Robyn: "Call Your Girlfriend"
2. Carly Rae Jepsen: "Call Me Maybe"
3. Daft Punk: "Get Lucky" [ft. Pharrell]
4. Chvrches: "The Mother We Share"
5. Janelle Monáe: "Tightrope" [ft. Big Boi]
6. Phosphorescent: "Song for Zula"
7. Azealia Banks: "212"
8. M83: "Midnight City"
9. Nicki Minaj: "Super Bass" [ft. Ester Dean]
10. Future Islands: Seasons (Waiting on You)
11. Mystikal: "Hit Me"
12. The Magnetic Fields: "Andrew in Drag"
13. Gorillaz: "On Melancholy Hill"
14. Taylor Swift: "Safe & Sound"
15. Mavis Staples: You Are Not Alone
16. Anna von Hausswolff: "Mountains Crave"
17. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: "Higgs Boson Blues"
18. Mount Moriah: "Lament"
19. Beach House: "Myth"
20. Eleanor Friedberger: "My Mistakes"