No decade in music has seen quite as much fundamental change as the one we just survived—the kind you can hear. The 2010s were post-genre, post-language-barrier, post-album, post-band, Post Malone—a time period that saw sounds and ideas from all eras and corners of the planet become one, often in the space of a single song, usually with some help from Drake or Beyoncé. From the cultural transcendence of “Despacito” to the 21st-century R&B of FKA twigs’ “cellophane” to the sociopolitical urgency of Kendrick’s “Alright” and the constant shape-shifting of Rihanna, Taylor Swift, and Ed Sheeran—these are the songs that defined the decade.