From Taylor Swift to Kendrick Lamar, all the artists who owned the 2010s with their musical mastery
It has been quite a decade for music, to put it lightly.
The 2010s saw a monumental shift in how people consumed their favorite songs, with CDs making way for the digital age where YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal Music, Soundcloud, and a host of other streaming services reigned supreme. But just when you thought the algorithms would take over, turntables and vinyl records crept back into the mix due to a combination of their superior sound quality and a heavy dose of nostalgia.
It's also the decade that finally saw, much to the so-called purist's chagrin, rap overtake rock to become the biggest music genre in the US, while also simultaneously being the one where psychedelic rock exploded back into the mainstream consciousness for arguably the first time since the Summer of Love and the heydays of the 70s.
Pop music is thriving like never before, aided by the digital age where short, catchy numbers are all the rage, while EDM isn't too far behind either. Country is probably the one genre that has remained relatively unaffected, though, it too has seen the rise of a few upstarts hellbent on shaking up the game.
All that being said, compiling a list of the top artists for the decade, as you can imagine, isn't the easiest task. So we've parceled it out to those who we feel proved the most influential for each genre, though the list is by no means exhaustive.
EDM: Calvin Harris
The Chainsmokers, Kygo, Marshmello, Major Lazer, DJ Snake, Martin Garrix, Zedd, Tiësto, Flume, David Guetta, deadmau5, Armin van Buuren, Clean Bandit, Axwell Ingrosso. These are just a few of the many, many artists who would be well within their rights to claim the 2010s as their own. But we'll go with Calvin Harris, who began laying the groundwork in the latter part of the last decade but well and truly established himself as the top dog in an extremely competitive and cutthroat genre as this one.
Yes, his second studio album, 2009's 'Ready for the Weekend,' did debut at number one in the UK Albums Chart, but it was beginning 2011 when he started gaining international prominence. It was that year that he toured as a support act for Rihanna's 'Loud Tour,' following which he produced 'We Found Love' and 'Where Have You Been' for the singer, the first of which topped charts in 27 countries worldwide, topped the Billboard Hot 100, and was the Fenty Beauty star's longest-running number one for the year.
