Top 30 Best Albums of 2010.
2010 was a weird year. The twin life manglers of buying our first home and starting my own business from said home (and not exactly as planned…) has meant my listening to more music, more often, and with more diversity than I have since Napster was first released and I got a job as a lab monitor on campus. I got to download music all day, and listen to it loudly! On speakers! And I didn’t have to keep looking over my shoulder while I read music blogs or label sites looking for new albums, to boot.
So I agonized over this list. What normally took a lazy afternoon at work took weeks. Some albums I just couldn’t compare. Some albums I felt like maybe I’d only scratched the surface of. Some albums I think are great, but frankly, I’m just sick to death of, but hope I’ll enjoy them again next year (I’m looking at you, Vampire Weekend). But I’m stopped making any progress on it and I’m tired of avoiding every other Best Of list like trying not to hear the score of a Phillies game you DVR’d, so here it is. The Top 30 Best Albums of 2010 — or at least My Favorite — and it’s a list I’ll likely disagree with mere seconds after posting.
And by all means, everyone should be posting his or her lists, too. I know I’m not the only opinionated jerk around here and I don’t buy this “I didn’t listen to any new music this year” crap I keep hearing. Yes you did, and somewhere in the back of your brain, you’ve ranked them. So out with it.
- Owen Pallett – Heartland – A true album from start to finish. “Ambitious” is an overused word when describing albums, but my god. It’s like a modern-day Marriage of Figaro if Figaro became self-aware and cursed Mozart for writing him.
- Marnie Stern – Marnie Stern – From the first note to the last, it’s a blast of hyperactive, noisy joy. And while there’s only one name on the album title, Zach Hill’s drumming makes this album a classic.
- Steve Reich – Double Sextet/2×5 – my favorite composer releases some of his best work since the 70’s. Intense, minimalist, and gorgeous.
- Emeralds – Does It Look Like I’m Here – the sound of a digital god moving over the face of electronic water. Or something.
- Four Tet – There Is Love In You – Really organic sounding techno, with lots of real sounds, voices, and instruments, being tweaked and sampled to create some really awesome, dancey soundscapes.
- Vampire Weekend – Contra – If you’re rip someone off, Paul Simon isn’t a bad target. And while the album strayed a little too close to Graceland on more than one occasion, it’s incredibly fun from start to finish. That said, I’ve listened to and been played this thing so much, I wouldn’t mind never hearing it again.
- Kanye West – My Beautiful, Dark, Twisted Fantasy – I really wanted to dislike this album. And with such occasionally appalling stupid lyrics, I almost thought I could. But no, the beats were too good, the music was too fun, and even the stupid lyrics got endearing. God damn you, Kanye.
- Crystal Castles – Crystal Castles – Not that these guys have much in common with The Knife, aside from being electronic, but they did have the same effect on me that The Knife did when I first heard Silent Shout: “this sounds completely different from everything else.” They’ve got this 8-bit/digital violence/sludgey mess thing going on over 4-to-the-floor house beats that I can’t get enough of.
- LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening – what can I say, it’s LCD Soundsystem. There’s nothing really new here; just more great disco beats with a wry sense of humor.
- Matthew Dear – Black City – take the second half of Talking Heads’ Remain in Light and mash it up with a gay nightclub. It’s really something else and the beat and sound design here is extraordinary.
- Victoire – Cathedral City – Neo-classical has a formula: moody chamber music + electronic glitches and samples == brilliant little soundtrack to an unmade indie movie. But so far, the formula keeps working and this album is no exception.
- Oval – O and Oh – Glitch/IDM producer throws away his drum machine and gets a real drum set. This is actually two albums, an EP (Oh) and a double LP (O), but they’re both showcase some really incredible sound design and the live drums keep reminding you that it really is humans making this noise.
- The Arcade Fire – The Suburbs – Proof that even the greats can falter. But a disappointing Arcade Fire album is still and Arcade Fire album, and while the middle of the album gets completely forced, boring, and repetitive, the moments it shines make it worth listening to.
- Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me – Joanna grows up. Well, I guess technically Ys was the album where she grew up, but where Ys was overdone and inaccessible, Have One On Me stays listenable, occasionally even poppy, with some absolutely incredible song-writing throughout.
- The Chemical Brothers – Further – I know, right? The Chemical Brothers? Relevant in 2010? Who’d’ve figured? But it seems the Brothers picked up a few pointers from their French House counterparts and made a pretty great little dance album that’s the best they’ve made since their first two breakout albums.
- The Walkmen – Lisbon
- Baths – Cerulean
- Deftones – Diamond Eyes
- Madlib – The Medicine Shows
- High on Fire – Snakes for the Divine
- Fear Factory – Mechanize
- Hiromi Uehara – Place To Be
- Punch Brothers – Antifogmatic
- Dirty Projectors + Bjork – Mount Wittenberg Orca
- Flying Lotus – Cosmogramma
- Plants and Animals – La La Land
- Liars – Sisterworld
- Wavves – King of the Beach
- Bonobo – Black Sands
- Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – The Brutalist Bricks
I don’t have time to give short reviews for each, but I’ll add those sometime tomorrow.
Honorable Mentions
This is why I hate that everyone posts these lists in December. The year’s not over! So here’s a few albums on only just recently got and really enjoyed, but I don’t know well enough to rank.
- Dosh – Tommy
- Deathspell Omega – Paracletus
- RJD2 – The Collosus
- The Tallest Man on Earth – Wild Hunt
- Returnal – Oneohtrix Point Never
- Aloha – Home Acres
- Alva Noto & Blixa Bargeld – Mimikry
- Janus – Janus: I Am Not
Comments
Not “best” and in no particular order, but records I listened to a bunch of times this year and liked:
- Yeasayer “Odd Blood”
- Sleigh Bells “Treats”
- Thou “Summit”
- The National “High Violet”
- Black Breath “Heavy Breathing”
- High On Fire “Snakes For The Divine”
- Holy Fuck “Latin”
- Titus Andronicus “The Monitor”
- Broken Social Scene “Forgiveness Rock Record”
- Shearwater “The Golden Archipelago”
i didn’t listen to any new music this year.
Wow, Kev, I only liked one of those albums!
christina said:i didn’t listen to any new music this year.
I’m sure you’re just saying this to tweak John, but honestly the past 2 years have been really uninspiring. Even the 2010 releases that I did listen to I had to actively work to find and try and get into and enjoy. But honestly who wants to have to work at it.
The way my year went resulted in me barely listening to any new music or seeing any new movies or any of that.
Still, Heartland and The Suburbs and The Brutalist Bricks were all pretty great.
i really didn’t listen to anything new this year. I looked at my itunes on 2010 and there’s like 5 albums. So I’ll just list those.
Admiral Radley-I heart California.
Starflyer 59-The Changing of the Guard
Deftones-Diamond Eyes
Liars-Sisterwold
Murder by Death-Good Morning Magpie
Of those, I really only liked Liars and Starflyer. the rest i rocked for a while, but haven’t listened to in a while.
Oh yeah, and that new “No Age” record. I listened to that too.
I’ll maybe post my full list later, but my top album/artist/song is clear…
Pomplamoose – From their post-modern take on materialism during the holiday season in their Hyundai commercial to their cathartic re-imagining of contemporary pop standards, i think it goes without saying that this brilliant Brooklyn duo is going to define their generation.
Everything they produce has had tremendous philosophical and sociological impacts on our society, right down to their magnificent name, Pomplamoose. A dissection reveals that the “pomp” of La Mousse" — a traditional and decadent French delicacy — or “The Moose” a majestic creature found in North America is a clear commentary over the arrogance of American and French policy makers. The arrogance has led to sourness and tension between the countries, in this case signified by the juice of the grapefruit — or “pamplemousse” in French. Simply awe-inspiring stuff.
They are a Godly sandwich of Miles Davis-The Beatles-Elvis-and others that my mortal mind is just glad to witness, let alone consume.
Plus the chick is almost cute.
i lol’ed
Kevin said:christina said:i didn’t listen to any new music this year.
I’m sure you’re just saying this to tweak John
i’m not. i’m very disappointed in myself. the only albums i heard that came out this year was the arcade fire. not even kidding. shit. this will all change in one week. i have a brand new computer. there will be downloading.
I’ve heard a lot of records from this year but the only two I listened to repeatedly (obsessively) were Have One on Me and The Monitor. Wah wah.
okay i just downloaded pitchfork’s top albums of the year. i’m sure that encompasses the top 10 of every other list i care about. i’m on it. i got a week left.
christina said:okay i just downloaded pitchfork’s top albums of the year. i’m sure that encompasses the top 10 of every other list i care about. i’m on it. i got a week left.
I tried to avoid other top 10 lists until I finished mine. Now I get to have fun and check all the other ones and listened to what I missed.
Okay so I did listen to about 40 albums of music this year (and maybe a few track samples here and there). I liked plenty of albums this year.
The hardest part for me is ranking them, especially concerning what to put at the #1 slot. A lot of my criteria had to do with simply how often I thought to put that album on, instead of anything new.
But I just had to decide because I like putting this annual list in a significant order, so I picked some out, and started at the bottom first . So here it is, top 15 albums of 2010:
- Matthew Dear Black City
- Joanna Newsom Have One On Me
- Tame Impala Innerspeaker
- The Drums The Drums
- Dosh Tommy
- LCD Soundsystem This Is Happening
- Arcade Fire Suburbs
- Vampire Weekend Contra
- The Silent League But You’ve Always Been The Caretaker
- Yeasayer Odd Blood
- Caribou Swim
- Hiromi Place To Be
- Antony & The Johnsons Swan Light
- Crystal Castles Crystal Castles
- Beach House Teen Dream
I’m glad someone else can get into that Yeasayer album.
I’m really surprised you like that Caribou album. It has two really cool songs on it that sound out of place here (but would fit right in on the Four Tet album) and everything else is just…. blah. He’s singing more than he used to, and it doesn’t suit him, but mostly the song-writing has just gone downhill.
Another note: what’s interesting about that Arcade Fire album is that being lower in the top 10 on both our lists is, essentially, a sign of failure on their part. That album takes such a shit halfway through and doesn’t recover till that last batch of good songs. But they’re Arcade Fire and even their failures are pretty good and the great songs on that album elevate it to top10 status.
Kevin said:I’m glad someone else can get into that Yeasayer album.
I was into it as well.
I’m not very good at making lists like these, all I know is that Heartland was easily my favorite album of the year. I also really enjoyed The Monitor. I thought The Suburbs was pretty disappointing, and I liked a bunch of other albums scattered around the lists you guys have already made but none of them really left too much of an impression.
I’m afraid that the ease of access to all of this digital content is giving me music ADD.
Music ADD is definitely something I’m terrified of and so I make conscious efforts to avoid it. Headphone time in bed before going to sleep, for example. Insisting on listening to albums in the car, instead of the playlists and mixes that Gos prefers. Never downloading an entire artist’s discography in one shot (instead going one album at a time). Things like that.
okay i did a top 3. and there’s nothing wrong with that.
3. Owen Pallett “Heartland”
2. Mumford & Sons “Sigh No More”
and way out on top…
1. Joanna Newsom “Have One On Me”
So I knew I did that list in haste, and I’d want to change things around after looking at it, but it’s still oooookay.
I would just shift Vampire Weekend up, and shift The Drums down. And shift Beach House up a bit.
Mumford & Sons was 2009.
no it was not, John. It actually made a lot of this years charts, including #1 on XPN.
Maybe you downloaded it in ’09, but it was released last year
^ what he said
The album came out in October 2009. Everyone else is wrong.
their website says it was released in the UK in october of 2009. and released here officially in february of 2010. you are wrong.
How am I wrong? This is the fucking internet. What difference does it make that it came out in the US at a different time than the UK? I and the rest of the goddam internet had the album in October cause that’s when teh blogs starts writing about them and I’m pretty sure that’s when they were first posted here on the scrab, too.
Since we’re in the US, Christina is right. I’m sure the NME or other UK publications listed it on their 2009 lists, but the reason most US ones didn’t is because it didn’t get released here until 2010 so therefore it is on US 2010 lists.
yeah I was like “THIS IS A 2009 ALBUM WHY IS IT EVERYWHERE” and then I saw that the US release wasn’t until 2010. It counts. Sorry.
(Also the list of reviews on the sidebar of the album’s wikipedia page is hilarious because ALL OF THEM ARE NEGATIVE)
IT’S ALREADY ON MY 2009 LIST. I WIN.
is this that important to you? i’m saying, it was on US lists cos it was released in the US in 2010. we all now know it was released elsewhere in 2009 but it’s on my list of 2010 goddammit. because i don’t download illegal music so there’s no way i could have heard it before 2010!!!!!!!!!!!
lol sike.
Winning is important, Christina. It’s very important.
“Little Lion Man” is so fucking overplayed on the radio it makes me want to stab my eye. I probably hear it at least 3 times a day during my commute (I am too lazy to plug in the ipod daily and I don’t have satellite in the car).
I was disappointed (but not surprised) that it was the #1 voted song on XPN and 104.5.
That’s why I listen to NPR. Unless Prairie Home Companion is on. Then I’ll just drive in silence.
do your cars, like, not have CD players?
All of my CDs are in boxes. I have no real reason to unpack them.
but don’t you have BLANK CDS and A CD BURNER SOMEWHERE IN YOUR HOUSE.
My blank CDs are also in a box. I have an iPhone, but Gosia yells at me when less than 75% of the skin on my palms aren’t firmly affixed to the steering wheel. Even when she’s not in the car with me, she knows.
Arcade Fire’s Suburbs is getting better with every listen. Same with LCD Soundsystem actually.
Wavves is getting better. And speaking of the beach sound, Best Coast is getting worse.
I’m getting into that Marnie Stern album more and more, so maybe it would have made the list if I could time travel.
Tried Titus Andronicus and it’s okaaaaay. They have a great sound to them; a sound that makes me think of barroom chanting.
I can’t believe M.I.A.‘s shitty album is getting mentioned on some lists I’ve read on the Internet.
I just went through my first 2011 album, the new Decemberists, and was thoroughly bored and disappointed.
Paris said:Tried Titus Andronicus and it’s okaaaaay. They have a great sound to them; a sound that makes me think of barroom chanting.
I’ve been giving this album some serious re-listening time over the past week or so and by golly, it’s just awesome. I love how the longer songs have all of the weird up and down meanderings. It makes the straight up punk parts, which are awesome on their own, ridiculously satisfying.
“I AM COVERED IN URINE AND EXCREMENT BUT I’M ALIIIIIIVE!”
So good.
Paris said:I just went through my first 2011 album, the new Decemberists, and was thoroughly bored and disappointed.
I’ve been bored and disappointed by this band for years now. Everything sounds the same because of his vocals; I can’t see them emerging from that trap.
Jay, that’s exactly how I’ve felt about The Monitor. The first couple listens I just could not keep up with it or get what the deal was. Normally I give up on things like that pretty quickly. But for some reason I didn’t with that album and goddamn it really paid off.
I started following their guitarist’s blog before I even listened to them. Then I was like, “It would probably be a good idea.” And then they played in Philly two weeks later and I wished I’d had more time to learn all the words because it was fun.
The description of them/The Monitor on the Pitchfork list is NOT AT ALL APPEALING to me because I really don’t like the Hold Steady at all, so I would’ve skipped them from that. I always describe the record as a concept album about the confessions of some asshole told in parallel with Civil War events. or whatever. obviously woo.
I understand the Hold Steady comparison based solely on the similarities/influence of both bands to/by Springsteen.
If I was forced to describe Titus Andronicus to someone, I would tell them they sound like Conor Oberst doing punk rock interpretations of Springsteen songs. Am I the only one who hears the similarity to Bright Eyes/Desaparecidos?
Jay, I thought that too! That singer sounds sooo much like Desaparecidos-era Oberst.
I can see that Bright Eyes comparison but definitely not the Hold Steady. I despise the Hold Steady, so yeah I would have skipped them based on that.
So I listened to the album several months ago, thought it was good, and then apparently never listened to it again. Perhaps I should change that.
I played it for you a few game nights ago and you and Jess seemed to really dig it.
Was listening to Bach while working today and something caught my ear:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cSaqK6w5Fk&feature=related
Recognize it? Or the first eight seconds, at least? In case you want to guess, I’ll hide the answer and link to the song in some fun spoiler-code:
Caribou – Lalibela http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AENY-vg55Q