These are my 25 favorite albums, from this strange decade that never got a name. These are the albums I played most, the ones I never burned out on. For most of these, I went back to what I wrote about them at the time on my year-end lists, to preserve that time-capsule quality. They’re all over the map musically — some are by mega-stars, some by upstarts, one by a Nobel Prize-winning poet. The only thing they have in common is they remind me to keep looking forward to the future. Bring on the Twenties!

Related: The Rolling Stone complete ranking of the 100 Best Albums of the 2010s