The 2010s were an explosive decade of music, both in terms of megastars whose careers didn't exist previously and in the proliferation of tiny micro-genres whose devoted fans are few in number. This is my second decennial top ten list, and there's a real chance that you might not be familiar with any of the songs on it. But the beauty of these past ten years is that even if our absolute favorites don't align, you will almost certainly find at least one of these songs to your liking.

10. Bad Bad Hats – It Hurts

from It Hurts (2013)

Well, ten years later I still love awkward Minnesota indie bands. Bad Bad Hats was one of the first things Discover Weekly served me when I signed up for Spotify, and I knew immediately that they got me. This song has a kazoo solo and a music video filmed on a hockey rink and is therefore extremely my shit.

9. OK Go – This Too Shall Pass

from Of the Blue Colour of the Sky (2010)

This decade, OK Go largely traded on their ability to create sequels to their famous treadmill video. But I still loved what they put out on their two albums, and This Too Shall Pass is definitely most singalong-worthy. Ten years after its release, it's a mantra we still need.

8. Partner – Ambassador to Ecstasy

from In Search of Lost Time (2017)

If someone told me "you're gonna love a stoner band" I would have strongly disagreed, but then Partner happened. Ambassador deserves a spot on this list for having the most deliciously addictive guitar lick I've heard in a long time. I kept this on repeat-one just to hear those couple bars play. Unfortunately, the band doesn't (won't?) play it or many of the other songs from their excellent debut album at their live shows.

7. Secret Someones – I Won’t Follow

from Secret Someones (2015)

This establishes a pattern: I fall for indie bands that don't make it. Secret Someones was a sort of indie super-group that formed mid-decade. Fortunately for me, their shining moment was while I lived in Ann Arbor, where lead Hannah Winkler grew up, so I got to see them twice in concert. I Won't Follow was their top single and has everything I want in indie pop: an awesome hook, solid guitar riffs, and (as a bonus) that one-beat-early hit towards the end.

6. Toby Fox – MEGALOVANIA

from Undertale (2015)

I'm pretty sure that, in 1989, nobody put the Super Mario Bros. overworld music on their top ten songs of the decade. Thirty years later, if you were making a list of top musical compositions of the 80s, it would deserve serious consideration. Megalovania, the musical climax of the excellent game Undertale, is the Mario theme of this decade. Thanks to chiptune's prevalence as a genre and its amazing online community, we get to appreciate this important yet catchy melody a hundred ways — literally, a Spotify search turns up dozens and dozens of Megalovaniae* for you to choose from, from the original game track to live jazz.

*Nobody can tell me this isn't the proper plural.

5. CVHRCHES – We Sink

from The Bones of What You Believe (2013)

If I were ranking bands, CHVRCHES would surely rank even higher; they managed to develop an immediately recognizable, never-heard-before sound that everyone seems to love. Pandora — a service which, believe it or not, existed this decade — first served me a CHVRCHES song before they even had a full-length album. When The Bones of What You Believe dropped, I binged it over and over, but of all the tracks, We Sink had me dancing in my kitchen the most.

4. Birdy – Skinny Love

from Birdy (2011)

Have you ever driven an hour to hear someone sing one note? That's what Birdy's Skinny Love made me do. I don't dare call it a cover — at the age of 14(!) she took Bon Iver's song and completely wrested away ownership of it. Anyway, back to that note. You know the one, near but not quite at the end of the song, the soul-piercing one, the one that Bon Iver didn't even dare attempt. The one that, when it was finally time for it, in the last song of the encore, three hours after driving to downtown Detroit just for those five seconds, hundreds of people in the concert hall did something I've never heard before: they all inhaled in expectation, a little gasp, as if to give Birdy a little more air — here, take mine. And then she sang it, and we exulted, and we went home happy.

3. HAIM – The Wire

from Days Are Gone (2013)

The complementary talents of the Haim sisters are incredible, as is the way they weave themselves in and out of songs both vocally and instrumentally. Extremely tight production makes their transitions almost seamless and the lyrics trip in waves over themselves, always leading back to the ultra-catchy "I know I know I know" chorus. All-around stellar pop.

2. The Regrettes – Juicebox Baby

from Feel Your Feelings Fool! (2017)

this is the perfect punk song, don’t at me

1. Lucy Dacus – Night Shift

from Historian (2018)

What can I say about this six-and-a-half-minute masterwork? Nearly two songs in one, Night Shift begins so quiet and earnest, a brutal confession simmering with resentment and lingering in poetry and spare guitar. Halfway through, there's a return to silence and the establishment of the title thesis. Then the dam breaks, the guitar kicks up to full distortion, and Lucy Dacus crescendoes to a full-throated scream. And finally, still full of anger and fuzz, there is a delightful tonic resolution — rage ending in beauty.