Needless to say, the 2010s have come a long and winding way. Over the past 10 years, the decade has come to be defined by too-big-to-fail pop blockbusters and surprise indie rock breakthroughs, by sprawling hip-hop masterworks and personal R&B statements, by throwback classic country records and genre-less, shape-shifting hybrid LPs, by endless rollouts for long-anticipated comeback albums, and by surprise game-changing sets that dropped out of the sky on a Thursday night.
At the beginning of the 2010s, many predicted the slow death of the album -- but at the decade's end, the format still seems absolutely vital, if forever changed. Here are the Billboard staff's 100 favorite albums from the decade that was.
