3 Albums That Defined Tumblr’s Music Era – VICE

The Tumblr era that I personally like to call the golden age occurred around 2011 to 2016, give or take. As someone who had an active blog within those years, I feel particularly qualified to speak on the familiar and recognizable music scene at that time. Of course, there were a lot of other artists and albums that made Tumblr what it was, so this is not a definitive list. But the following three albums always come to mind when thinking about Tumblr’s indie-coded music scene. Videos by VICE ‘Badlands’ by Halsey Tumblr may have accidentally left Halsey out of its post celebrating 19 years of iconic online moments, but there’s no denying her impact on the site circa 2015. When Halsey released her debut album, Badlands, the songs “Gasoline” and “Colors” quickly made a home on Tumblr. There were grungy lyric edits everywhere, all with a sort of grainy nostalgia mixed in with mid-2010s indie aesthetics. Bloggers posted Halsey’s visuals and lyrics, which often focused on doomed love, toxic relationships, and romanticized delusion. Tumblr users ate that up. Halsey was the natural Tumblr successor to Lana Del Rey, whom we’ll discuss further down, of course. ‘AM’ by Arctic Monkeys
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