Top of the 2010s

[Warbodog]

Looks like these lists are prematurely going up already, so what were some of your favourite things released in 2010-19, off the top of your heart?

Whatever self-imposed rules you like, to keep things from getting out of hand. I’ve gone top 5 by category, in chronological order.

Telly (ruthlessly narrowed down)

Doctor Who series 5-6 + 50th + Heaven Sent (2010-15)
Breaking Bad seasons 3-5 (2010-13)
Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle series 2-4 (2011-16)
Black Mirror series 1-2 + White Christmas (2011-14)
Inside No. 9 (2014-18)

Films (didn’t see many, I’ll catch up over time)

Melancholia (2011)
The Imposter (2012)
Predestination (2014)
Interstellar (2014)
Arrival (2016)

Books

China Miéville, Kraken (2010)
Umberto Eco, The Prague Cemetery (2010)
Alan Partridge, I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan (2011)
Robert Shearman, Remember Why You Fear Me: The Best Dark Fiction of Robert Shearman (2012)
Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows, Providence (2015-17)

Albums

Chromatics, Kill for Love (2012)
Dead Can Dance, Anastasis (2012)
Ghost, Infestissumam (2013)
2814, Birth of a New Day (2015)
Steven Wilson, Hand. Cannot. Erase. (2015)

G&T users

Jawscvmcdia
RamesesNiblickTheThird
Better Dead Than Smeg
Warbodog
Jawscvmcdia (2)

N.B. Please don’t spend longer working this out than it deserves.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

TOP 5 WANKS

16th March 2011 at 23:02
29th October 2013 07:34
01st August 2016 19:57
22nd August 2016 14:15
12th February 2018 21:41

[Warbodog]

There’s still time to beat it, don’t call the shots yet.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Think I can replace my top 5 in the next 6 weeks? Challenge accepted.

[Dave]

Top ten years:

2011
2013
2012
2019
2010
2018
2014
2015
2017
2016

(in no particular order)

[Warbodog]

I deserve this.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

TOP 5 QUICKLY DERAILED THREADS

THIS ONE
THIS ONE
THIS ONE
THIS ONE
IDEA FOR AN EPISODE

[Nick R]

To get it back onto the rails again:

TOP THREE RED DWARF SERIES:

XI
X
XII

[Warbodog]

TOP VI

V
IV
I
VI
III
II

Which can be remembered by the simple acronym: ‘viviviiiiii.’

[Warbodog]

Belatedly realised what Nick R was doing there. I can’t even follow my own rules when I get too excited by the prospect of putting things in order.

[MANI506]

I wish Brooker/Cunk/Shitpeas would come back and do a 2010swipe

[bloodteller]

Couldn’t think of a Top 5 for everything, so here’s my Top 1s.

TV

-Red Dwarf X

FILMS

-The Meg

BOOKS

-This one cookbook that has a great recipe for coconut rice

ALBUMS

– I didn’t listen to any (this isn’t an album title. i genuinely didn’t listen to any)

GAMES

-Undertale

G&T USERS

– Not sure I can pick a favorite, most of you are excellent

[Ben Saunders]

Favourite thing I found: A tenner down the back of an arcade machine
Favourite thing I lost: My virginity

[Dave]

I found a Twix in my coat pocket. That was a pretty amazing day.

[Warbodog]

Top 10 screwball conspiracy theories: 2010s edition

– Flat Earth (reprise)
– US weather control programs causing earthquakes and typhoons in Asia
– Stephen Moffat’s BDSM agenda
– My sister-in-law worries that I might be an international spy
– British comedy DVDs contain Illuminati symbolism if you draw triangles around the characters’ eyes
– The Mandela effect is parallel universes, not you having a fallible memory and being crap at geography
– Pizzagate before it stopped being funny
– Mesas are the stumps of giant trees from when there used to be giants knocking about
– Dinosaurs didn’t exist
– The Red Dwarf Special is about Cats

[Ben Saunders]

The entire Zeitgeist documentary opening with the claim that because the words SUN and SON are similar, Jesus is actually the SUN of God, meaning we all actually worship the sun, even though that connection only works in English and definitely does not work in Hebrew or any other ancient language that was in use at the time the texts were written, and……………………………………………………………………..

[Pete Part Three]

TV
Breaking Bad
Line of Duty
The Trip
The End of the F***ing World
Better Call Saul

(If we were doing single episodes, Give and Take would be in here)

FILMS
Whiplash
The Wolf of Wall Street
The Last Jedi
Skyfall
Interstellar

(I don’t actually think it’s been a banner decade for movies)

I got bored if listing stuff.

[Veni]

Television
– Red Dwarf X/XI/XII
– The Boys
– The Amazing World of Gumball (You read that correctly)
– Boardwalk Empire

Summary: Most TV programs from this decade were terrible.

Movies
– Kingsman: The Secret Service
– Joker
– The Wolf of Wall Street
– The Hateful Eight
– Guardians of the Galaxy/Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
– Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
– Blade Runner 2049

Summary: The first-half of the decade were god-awful for movies, but went out on a high note.

Worst Celebrity Deaths:
– Rik Mayall
– Alan Rickman
– Robin Williams
– Gary Coleman (My mom met him and had a lot of very nice things to say about him)
– Harold Ramis

Books:
– Pft

Video Games:
– Telltale’s The Walking Dead Seasons 1 & 2
– Fallout: New Vegas
– Red Dead Redemption 2
– The Stanley Parable

Summary: Best decade for gaming so far.

Overall: Early 2010s were mostly horrible, but got better and better.

[Warbodog]

Thanks for joining in.

I thought there was an abundance of good to great TV. I kept it brief, but could have added Sherlock series 1-2, Psychoville, Alan Partridge’s Mid Morning Matters + specials, An Idiot Abroad (I got bored of the K-man after though), Limmy’s Show, Community seasons 1-3, Red Dwarf (mainly X), Detectorists, The Leftovers, Broadchurch series 1 (series 2 abominable), True Detective season 1 (been struggling to get through season 2 all year), Better Call Saul, Taskmaster, Fleabag, Westworld (still not bothered to watch season 2 though), Stranger Things and The Handmaid’s Tale good if overrated, Killing Eve, Peep Show and Always Sunny even if their best was last decade, James Acaster’s Netflix specials, bits of Derren Brown, and documentaries from Louis Theroux, Planet Earth II and all that lot. Loads of stuff like Game of Thrones I didn’t get around to.

[MANI506]

I find it difficult to believe that anyone would think the second half of the 2010s was better than the first. 2012 had the queen and James Bond jumping out of a helicopter, Red Dwarf X and The Darkness Hot Cakes.

[Warbodog]

2012 also had Derek though.

[Pete Part Three]

2016 had Life on the Road. 2019 had After Life. Swings and roundabouts.

Mid-Morning Matters would have probably made my list, but I thought the first series was much better than the second. Dave Gorman’s Modern Life is Goodish made me laugh probably more than most shows.

I don’t really sample many videogames any more, but i tend to buy one which I’m sure I’ll love, and then play it for months. For that reason, my choices for this decade are incredibly narrow.

Breath of the Wild
Red Dead Redemption 2
Pikmin 3
Mario Kart 8
Super Mario Maker (Wii U version; much preferred being able to look at the TV while using the gamepad).

[Dave]

The Last Of Us and Portal 2 belong in any top-ten games list, and they both came out this decade.

Honestly though, there is just *so much* of everything these days – TV, movies, games etc. – that I struggle to put together a decent list for this year, let alone this decade.

[Ben Saunders]

In the first half of the 2010s, Steven Moffat still controlled Doctor Who and George Lucas still controlled Star Wars. Before the dark times. Before the Empire… before Chibnall. All was well in the world.

Portal 2, fuck yeah, one of my favourite games of all times.

Trouble with me is I don’t watch or play new things very often. Best shows I watched in recent memory were all of Classic Who, Star Trek TOS, TNG and DS9. Worst show I watched in recent memory was Star Trek Voyager.

Best games: Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed (2012), Golf With Your Friends (2016)
Worst games: Crash Bandicoot remake (2017), Spyro remake (2018)

[Warbodog]

I can see how games would keep getting objectively better every decade (I’m just not into games), but older TV and especially older films, books and music are still competitive or have the edge of originality, so it’s more worth your time seeking things out that you might like than just watching something that’s on. Contenders for my best film of 2019 are all from the 50s-70s so far.

I haven’t thought about worsts, I’ll usually quit and move on rather than suffer. Outcasts (2011) was one of the most boring things I’ve ever inexplicably sat through every week. BSG prequel Caprica didn’t go anywhere. Broadchurch series 2. Gervais’ Derek and Gervais/Merchant’s Life’s Too Short. New X-Files arc episodes and Jonathan Creek series 5. Timewave.

[Warbodog]

I suppose the very worst TV would be incoherent YouTube rants and late-night text-in channels where people lose the last of their dole money playing roulette.

[(deleted)]

The ten year decline in physical media being given some damn respect makes this decade a write off, particularly as within a few short years people will be screaming for it to come back.

[bloodteller]

Done my Top 1s, here’s my Bottom 1s.

TV

-Black Mirror

FILMS

-Toy Story 4

BOOKS

-Simon Pegg’s autobiography

GAMES

-Duke Nukem: Critical Mass

G&T USERS

– RamesesNiblickTheThird

[Veni]

Should’ve called the thread “Top of the Tens”

I’d like to hear your take on Black Mirror bt

[bloodteller]

Black Mirror, more like Crap Mirror

^my take on Black Mirror

[Warbodog]

Did you watch the early ones when it used to be good? It was especially funny if you’d already been following Charlie Brooker’s scathing take on the world from his earlier shows and columns and got to see a sarcastic sci-fi extrapolation of what he thought about us all. Jesse Armstrong’s one was a more serious take, but good too.

The well of ideas seemed to run dry after a while though, while I think Inside No 9’s stayed just as strong.

[Ben Saunders]

The only thing I’ve bought on physical media in the past five years is Red Dwarf XI, and I’ve watched it twice

[Ben Saunders]

So much more convenient to just have a folder on my D: drive named Star Trek

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Should name your D Drive ‘Enterprise’. Come on Ben, that’s staring you in the face

[International Debris]

Some TV shows I’ve enjoyed:

Red Dwarf
Doctor Who
Killjoys
Agents of SHIELD
Stranger Things
Orphan Black
Psychoville
Inside No. 9
Fleabag
Sherlock
Fringe
The Expanse
Years & Years
Would I Lie to You?
Alan Partridge Mid Morning Matters

Some films I’ve enjoyed:

2036 Origin Unknown
Cold Skin
Radius
The Endless
The Void
ARQ
Crimson Peak
Southbound
Equals
Synchronicity
Interstellar
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
The One I Love
Boyhood
Coherence
Under the Skin
The Borderlands
Only Lovers Left Alive
Upstream Colour
Skyfall
Frances Ha
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
Jeff, Who Lives at Home
Super 8
Kill List
Beyond the Black Rainbow
Troll Hunter
Most of the Marvel ones

Trying to condense my music list down from about 200 was hard:

The Divine Comedy – Office Politics
Desperate Journalist – In Search of the Miraculous
Underworld – Drift Series 1
Confluent Phase – Ad Astra
Wolf Alice – Visions of a Life
Max Richter – Three Worlds
Paul Draper – Spooky Action
Carbon Based Lifeforms – Derelicts
2814 – Birth of a New Day
HOLOVR – Trace Realm
Archive – The False Foundation
The Future Sound of London – Environments (vol 4, 5, 6 and 6.5)
The Angling Loser – Arena Of Apprehension
Susanne Sundfør – Ten Love Songs
Chvrches – Every Open Eye
Carly Rae Jepsen – E•MO•TION
Tangerine Dream – Mala Kunia
James – La Petite Mort
Foxes – Glorious
Manic Street Preachers – Futurology
Autumn of Communion – 1 & 4
Charli XCX – True Romance
David Bowie – The Next Day
Lorde – Pure Heroine
Pure Bathing Culture – Moon Tides
Karl Hyde – Edgeland
Wire – Change Becomes Us
Roddy Woomble – Listen To Keep
Therapy? – A Brief Crack Of Light
Jack Anderton – Vale
Nicola Roberts – Cinderella’s Eyes
A Winged Victory For The Sullen – A Winged Victory For The Sullen
The Glimmer Room – A Diary Of Occurrences

Some books I’ve enjoyed:

Kate Atkinson – Started Early, Took My Dog; Life After Life; A God in Ruins
James Goss – Doctor Who: City of Death; The Pirate Planet; The Krikkitmen
A.L. Kennedy – Doctor Who: The Drosten’s Curse
Alistair Reynolds – Doctor Who: Harvest of Time
Peter Ackroyd – The History of England (vol. 1-5)
Haruki Murakami – Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Tom Holt – Doughnut; When it’s a Jar; Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages
Bill Drummond – 100
Hilary Mantel – Wolf Hall; Bring Up the Bodies
Rachel Joyce – The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
Michelle Paver – Dark Matter
Elisabeth Tova Bailey – The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating
Emma Donoghue – Room
Patrick Barkham – The Butterfly Isles

G&T users I’ve enjoyed:

None of you, you bunch of bastards.

[Warbodog]

Snap on a lot of those films and books/authors, I’m sure the rest are good too. Other 2010s books I gave full marks to, since I keep a comprehensive reading record like some kind of Art Garfunkel:

– Juan Enriquez and Steve Gullans, Evolving Ourselves: How Unnatural Selection and Nonrandom Mutation are Changing Life on Earth
– Brian Greene, The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos
– Stewart Lee, How I Escaped My Certain Fate: The Life and Deaths of a Stand-Up Comedian
– Richard McGuire, Here
– Alan Moore, Jerusalem
– Ryan North, B^F: The Novelization of the Feature Film
– Nicholas Pegg, The Complete David Bowie: Expanded and Updated Sixth Edition (pre-mortem)
– J. F. Roberts, The True History of the Black Adder: The Unadulterated Tale of the Creation of a Comedy Legend
– Jon Ronson, The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry
– Mary Doria Russell, Doc

Loads more I enjoyed from this decade, I’m just overly picky with the elite ratings.

~~~~~

My best of the 2010s not from the 2010s! Because that’s useful!!!

Telly: Battlestar Galactica (2002-09 / watched 2010)
Film: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989 / 2011)
Book: Edgar Allen Poe, The Complete Stories (1832-49 / 2017)
Album: The Who, Who’s Next (1971 / 2010)
Game: Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf gamebooks (1984-85 / 2013-14)

[International Debris]

since I keep a comprehensive reading record like some kind of Art Garfunkel

Yes, my lists were created from a quick scour through my Goodreads, IMDB and Discogs collections. Sod actually remembering things.

[Ben Saunders]

Best musical releases:
Angels & Airwaves – Love (2010)
Angels & Airwaves – Love: Part Two (2011)
Angels & Airwaves – The Dream Walker (2014)
Angels & Airwaves – …Of Nightmares (2015)
Angels & Airwaves – Chasing Shadows (2016)
blink-182 – Neighborhoods (2011)
blink-182 – Dogs Eating Dogs (2012)
Avenged Sevenfold – Nightmare (2010)
Avenged Sevenfold – The Stage (2016)
Crywank – James Is Going to Die Soon (2010)
Editors – The Weight of Your Love (2013)
Editors – In Dream (2015)
Editors – Violence (2018)
From Indian Lakes – Everything Feels Better Now (2016)
The Front Bottoms – The Front Bottoms (2011)
The Front Bottoms -Talon of the Hawk (2013)
The Front Bottoms -Rose (2014)
The Front Bottoms -Liberty and Prosperity (2015)
The Front Bottoms -Needy When I’m Needy (2016)
The Front Bottoms -Back on Top (2015)
The Front Bottoms -Going Grey (2017)
Now, Now – Neighbors (2010)
Now, Now – Threads (2014)
Odi Acoustic – Time Is A Stranger (2011)
Reel Big Fish – Candy Coated Fury (2012)
Skellys – Graverobber (2019)
Smith & Burrows – Funny Looking Angels (2011)
Sombear – Love You In The Dark (2013)
Tancred – String & Twine (2011)
Tancred – Capes (2011)
Tancred (2013)
Tancred – Out of the Garden (2016)
Tancred – Nightstand (2018)
Toh Kay – Streetlight Lullabies (2011)
Toh Kay – The Hand That Thieves (2013)
Tom DeLonge – To the Stars… Demos, Odds and Ends (2015)
Beatles remasters if I had to cheat

Worst musical releases:
blink-182 – California (2016)
blink-182 – Nine (2019)
Green Day – ¡Dos! (2012)
Green Day – ¡Tré! (2012)
Green Day – Revolution Radio (2016)
Now, Now – Saved (2018)

I keep thinking of more before I go to hit Submit, but I think that’s about it.

[MANI506]

As an old misfit from the 90s I think the Manic Street Preachers have had a third glorious decade with three differently themed albums depending on how much you wanna puff out your chest. Great to see Paul Draper coming back strong too. Think I’ll have to check out some of these albums if I get spotify premium back anytime soon.

[Ben Saunders]

Editors supported Manic Street Preachers a couple years ago. I decided not to go because I couldn’t name a single Manic Street Preachers song and Editors were only going to do a 40 minute set.

[Warbodog]

Best podcasts and radio, back when I used to listen to those:

As It Occurs to Me series 2-3 (2010-11)
Adam and Joe on 6 Music (finished about 2012)
The Bugle: post-independence, pre-collapse (2012-14ish)
Good Omens radio adaptation (2014; don’t need to see the TV version after that)
The ParaPod (2015-17?)

Worst disgusting ‘foreign muck’ food not appreciated:

Fried pigeon in grotty Egyptian cafe that gave me food poisoning (2010)
Crispy duck tongue snack on a stick in Taiwan (2010)
Insect medley in Thailand (2011)
Meongge (sea squirt) sashimi in South Korea (2012)
Balut (egg with the partially developed embryo in it) in the Philippines (2013)

[MANI506]

When I found out it was the tenth anniversary of AIOTM I’ve been listening to them all again.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I’m not sure I can trust anyone that puts Neighborhoods above Nine (or any other blink album for that matter) and who can’t name a Manic’s song (you probably know more than you realise) – sorry Ben. You’re dead to me.

[(deleted)]

To be pedantic, very little of Adam & Joe on 6Music was broadcast this decade. 3 shows in 2010 and about a dozen in 2011 was all it was? Really I’d say the show was 2008-2009 and the rest was rigor mortis.

[Ben Saunders]

Nine is actually some of the worst shit I’ve ever heard, it’s really embarrassing to listen to mark hoppus working with outside songwriters and singing about xanax and shit, they might as well replace him with a robot at this point with the amount of effects they put on his voice. Neighborhoods has Wishing Well, After Midnight, Even If She Falls, Kaleidescope etc

[Warbodog]

I associate Adam and Joe most with doing a data entry job in 2008-09, but there was a brief golden period in 2011 – maybe even the same week – when A&J and AIOTM nearly made me lose it in public (Taffin + overlong sketch about Richard Herring being mistaken for the bloke who motorcycled around the world with Ewan McGregor).

Podcasts have quite a low bar for excellence anyway, especially now they all just seem to be interviews.

Oh…

…

I forgot about Dwarfcasts, didn’t I? Those belong on the list, I remember the X immersion being especially enjoyable.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Neighborhoods has Wishing Well, After Midnight, Even If She Falls, Kaleidescope etc

From that list only Even if She Falls is any good, the rest is shite!

[Ben Saunders]

I also forgot Fighting the Gravity as a standout. But tbh I like every track, some are weaker than others but none of them are anywhere near as bad as shite like Darkside or Blame It On My Youth. The stuff on Neighborhoods sound like, actual songs. With verses. And riffs. Something people sat down and wrote, not stuff a computer spat out. Hoppus has really forgotten how to write lyrics especially in recent years, Skiba at least keeps things interesting. But listening to blokes pushing 50 singing about being Teenage Satellites or Kings of the Weekend without a hint of irony or introspection just makes me feel uncomfortable. The video for Darkside makes Mark and especially Matt look like the kind of guys who shouldn’t be allowed within 100 feet of a primary school, let alone allowed to film at one and fraternise with the kids there.

[International Debris]

As an old misfit from the 90s I think the Manic Street Preachers have had a third glorious decade with three differently themed albums depending on how much you wanna puff out your chest.

I found the late ’00s ‘revisiting past eras’ approach a bit underwhelming (although Journal is a decent album in its own right), but the recent three albums have really reignited my love for them again. It’s not very often I feel I’ve lost one of my favourite bands only for them to jump back up in my estimation again.

Great to see Paul Draper coming back strong too.

So overdue, as well. Basically felt like the proper follow-up to Six, just 20 years later.

[Ben Saunders]

I sort of use Twitch streams in the place of podcasts, in that they’re generally just background stuff really, unless something really interesting is happening in them or I have nothing better to do at the time

[Author]

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