Your top 10 of the '10s

Well, I just heard another 4.5/5 album that I'd add to my list: Big Big Train's English Electric (Full Power Version). It's a 2-disc retro-prog album, but damn is it just ravishingly gorgeous; think Genesis and Yes meets the pop and tonal sensibilities of The Kinks. So much of it is full of beautiful, wistful melancholy. I'd probably put it somewhere in my top 10, but I need to give it more listens. Here's some tracks:

I pretty strongly disagree about either having a lot of filler, as even the lesser songs have some interesting stuff going on. I'd even say E.Mo.Tion is one of the most consistently excellent pop albums of this century. 

Well, it's kinda meant to be "cloying" given that it's a pastiche of 80s bubblegum pop. What engages me is precisely how authentically 80s it sounds. I guarantee you if I gave that album to people who didn't know what it was and said "this is a great, lost 80s albums," people would never guess it was contemporary. It's similar to why I love XTC's Dukes of Stratosphear project, as it's very rare (and very difficult!) to be that authentically retro. So, eg, one thing I find engaging about "I Really Like You" is how she goes from that steady eight-note melody of the chorus that's constantly moving to that 5-note "did I say too much" bit that rocks back and forth. That's a really cool contrast and something you rarely hear pop songwriters these days do once they already have one strong/distinctive melody for their choruses. 

I'll definitely check out Mena. Please feel free to recommend any other great pop albums you'd recommend. Earlier this year I basically made a playlist exploring the last ~20 years of pop, but mostly just "big names" so I missed a ton of smaller stuff. 

Edit: Only place I can find Javiera Mena's stuff seems to be on Spotify, which I don't use. Any idea of where I might can get some FLACs? 

Unfortunately I gotta run in 15, but I'll try making a top 10 of the '10s "pop" list when I head back.

I'll download that version for now and do some more digging to see if I can find something better. At worst I could always just probably buy it for not much on Discogs. 

I guess our disagreement just comes down to how differently we listen. For me, when I think of juvenile and grating I think of bands/artists, especially many in punk and black metal, who put attitude before music, or who thought the best way to express that "I don't give a fuck, fuck you and fuck the world" attitude was by not learning how to play their instruments and just making as much sonic chaos as possible. The best of those bands--The Replacements and Immortal would be my two ideals--evolved into good songwriters later on. Beyond that, I see banality as just those artists that are following the trends in any given genre, often without finding individual voice, vision or intention. This is something that plagues a singer like Ariana Grande--too many cooks in the kitchen, and she just sounds like whomever is writing for her, despite her vocal talents. Even her best songs just sound like a random collage of styles/genres.  

So when artists/bands display a combination of some kind of technical ability and/or some kind of vision and intent, that's when I'm no longer able to call them juvenile. I think that vision and intent is easy to tell in artists who aren't just following trends, especially if they're taking from genres, sounds, or styles from the past like Carly is. This is why I don't consider most metal juvenile, because the time when metal bands could be all about attitude, with no talent, and was just able to copy mainstream trends has been over since nu-metal ended. These days, if you're a band that wants to go into metal, you're going to have to learn how to play, and you're going to have to learn how to write for whatever sub-genre(s) you're pursuing. Of course, this doesn't prevent a lot of metal from being banal, but it also means that there are still metal bands out there innovating and being rather original. What a band like Ulcerate is doing with dissonance, or what a band like Meshuggah is doing with rhythm, are things you simply don't see in any other popular music genres, and even if you don't like them I think it's possible to appreciate that what they're doing is quite musically sophisticated (again, by pop music standards--not talking jazz or classical). 

Saccharine/Cloying is different. To me, about the only way to express this in musical terms is through techniques like lush string arrangements, or perhaps grandiose emotional displays, and even with these I suspect that I think of these as saccharine/cloying mostly because of their association with films, especially melodramas and other romances. I tend to not believe that music, on its own, can communicate extremely specific emotions. I think it can do broad/general emotions like happiness, sadness, playfulness, anxiety, etc., but to think of music as "sweet" I think there has to be some kind of association between that music and something that's sweet. That's probably why I don't hear much saccharineness when I listen to Carly, because I don't associate that synth-pop sound with anything that I would consider cloying. If anything, I find much of her music kinda chill, even slightly distanced; not nearly the emotional proximity or surface as even someone like Tayor Swift. So pretty much what I end up hearing/appreciating about her is the melodies and hooks and occasionally the vibe/aesthetic/feeling of the music (this is especially true of a song like Julien, but also just the general 80s aesthetic of E.Mo.Tion is much the same). 

While I somewhat agree with your last paragraph, I also think it's natural that certain genres tend to possess certain strengths/weaknesses in large part because of whatever standards they're pursing. In pop, the main focus is always on hooks, followed by sound/tone, because this is how you get people to listen and remember a song in the span of a few minutes, and since hooks are mostly about the combination of simple rhythms that compliment typically simple melodies, there's no need to emphasis lyrics, or production/musical nuances. That doesn't mean pop can't possess those things or that none doesn't, merely that the genres tendencies create certain expectations and standards and anything beyond that is typically just a bonus. 

Was also thinking of making those lists by year myself. I'll get around to it soon, to post here.