100 Greatest 10s: The Best Songs of Last Decade

Neo-synthpop is a 21st‑century revival of 1980s synth‑driven pop that blends vintage analog timbres with modern pop songwriting and contemporary production polish. It retains the genre’s hallmark qualities—catchy hooks, prominent synthesizer leads, arpeggiators, and drum‑machine grooves—while adopting today’s mixing standards, wider stereo imaging, and louder, cleaner masters. Artists in neo-synthpop typically draw on shimmering pads, propulsive eighth‑note basslines, and glossy, reverb‑kissed snares. Lyrically, it often balances youthful romanticism and introspection with a subtly wistful, nostalgic tone, evoking neon‑lit nights, urban melancholia, and bittersweet euphoria. The result feels both retro and new: the immediacy of classic synthpop reframed for modern streaming and live festival contexts.

Indietronica is a hybrid of indie rock/pop songwriting and electronic music production. It blends guitars, bass, and live vocals with drum machines, samplers, soft-synths, and laptop-based sequencing, often favoring intimate, breathy vocal deliveries and hooky melodic lines. The sound typically features crisp programmed beats, warm analog-style synths, glitchy micro-edits, and dreamy pads, with arrangements that move between reflective verses and euphoric, danceable choruses. Lyrics lean toward introspection and romance, while production aesthetics range from lo‑fi bedroom textures to polished, club‑ready gloss.

Alternative dance blends the textures and songwriting of alternative rock and post‑punk with club‑oriented rhythms and production. Born in the UK at the cusp of the late 1980s “Second Summer of Love,” it embraced house/acid house grooves, sequenced bass lines, and sampling while keeping indie sensibilities, guitars, and song structures. The result is music that works on a dancefloor but still reads like an alternative single. Typical hallmarks include four‑on‑the‑floor or breakbeat drums, jangly or funky guitars, prominent bass (often synth), euphoric pads, and hook‑forward vocals. Landmark albums like New Order’s Technique and Primal Scream’s Screamadelica helped define its palette and ethos.

Pop is a broad, hook-driven style of popular music designed for wide appeal. It emphasizes memorable melodies, concise song structures, polished vocals, and production intended for radio, charts, and mass media. While pop continually absorbs elements from other styles, its core remains singable choruses, accessible harmonies, and rhythmic clarity. Typical forms include verse–pre-chorus–chorus, frequent use of bridges and middle-eights, and ear-catching intros and outros. Pop is not defined by a single instrumentation. It flexibly incorporates acoustic and electric instruments, drum machines, synthesizers, and increasingly digital production techniques, always in service of the song and the hook.