4 Underrated Albums That Defined Music in the 2010s

So many more albums than these four below have influenced popular music and music trends in the 2010s. However, I’m quite partial to this underrated bunch of solid, memorable, and replay-friendly albums. Maybe you’ll become partial to them, too.

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‘All Mirrors’ by Angel Olsen

Angel Olsen isn’t entirely underrated as a musician. She has a pretty massive fanbase. And her art pop works since the tail-end of the 2000s have been consistently critically-acclaimed. 

However, when we talk about the great albums of the 2010s, I feel as though All Mirrors from 2019 rarely gets brought up. I can’t imagine why. Upon its release, this album got almost unanimous praise from critics, fans, and new listeners. Olsen really mastered reinvention on this one, and I wish All Mirrors got more love for how influential it was.

‘Dogrel’ by Fontaines D.C.

In recent years, Irish indie rock act Fontaines D.C. have definitely started to get their flowers. But their debut album, Dogrel, still deserves even more mainstream praise for how much that 2019 album reinvented a new era of indie and alternative rock. The whole album is a refreshing take on rock music in a new century. And that was very much sorely needed at the time of its release. Out of many of the rock albums released at the time, this one is just a bit too underrated for me.

‘A Deeper Understanding’ by The War On Drugs

Out of many of the albums that made waves in the 2010s, The War On Drugs’ A Deeper Understanding from 2017 has to have one of the most unique personas. There’s no other album quite like it. It’s uniquely of The War On Drugs, but it has its own sort of set of characteristics that make it heartland rock, but different. 

There are synth elements definitely not typically found in that genre, as well as a psychedelic edge that makes this record insanely unique. It’s one of those albums that is hard to explain; you really need to just experience it yourself.

‘Titanic Rising’ by Weyes Blood

Most would know this glittering entry on our list of underrated albums by the song “Andromeda” or maybe even “Movies”, especially if you had a Tumblr account back in 2019. Trendiness aside, the whole of this album is so beautiful. Natalie Mering’s voice set a trend with other vocalists that followed, and chamber pop enjoyed a new rise in popularity in the space between the 2010s and 2020s because of this beautiful, dreamlike record.

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