10 Perfect Music Albums That Defined The 2010's

3. A Thousand Suns - Linkin Park

Throughout most of the 2010's, rock has definitely been going through a bit of a transition phase. Though we haven't seen a ton of new genres out in the wild, most of the stuff that reached the top of the charts were either going to the throwbacks of the '70s or albums that claimed to be rock but were masquerading as a pop record instead. In the era of Imagine Dragons though, Linkin Park kept their credibility on A Thousand Suns.

Looking to move past the alt rock tendencies of Minutes to Midnight, this is where the band really reached for the stars, settling on an electronic rock album centered around the idea of nuclear annihilation. From the sounds of songs like Burning in the Skies and Robot Boy, you can really hear the band settling into that groove, with Chester Bennington sounding too weary to go on.

This is still a rock album though, and there is definitely some genuine anger on songs like Wretches and Kings and the Catalyst, which each could serve as a bit of a warning sign for where we might be headed if that nuclear fallout ever does come to pass. Before the electronics really started to overcome the entire rock scene, this was Linkin Park ascending to the level of rock gods and making their Dark Side of the Moon. Though the descendants of them may have tried to copy this a little too much, this is the lightning in a bottle that you only get once.