You have been clamoring for my Best of 2010 list (though judging by the traffic to my blog, when I say "you," I mean "me.") This year was lackluster in terms of albums I want to listen to all the way through, multiple times, but there were some good ones. By far, the best were the free mixes by Tiger Shark. But I'm biased.
Because your (my) time is valuable, I'll kick the best-of-other-people's-music list off by starting with the best first. Without further ado:
The Top 10 Albums of 2010
(click on album titles or images to listen to/buy the tunes on Amazon)
Rules were made to be broken. So I'm going to break the rules for best-of-year lists, and make my #1 of 2010 an album that was released late in 2009. You probably haven't discovered it, either. With its consistent bass rumble and washes of gentle effects and low-key drums, "Waiting For You..." is the kind of thing I would listen to if I was Godzilla, planning my next move a mile beneath the surface of the ocean, lamenting the fact that humans simply don't understand me. Kevin Martin's production is driving music for a rainy, lonely night - but only if your car's speakers offer substantial low end to rumble your rump while your brain relaxes.
I wanted to dislike this album. Since the beginning, I've thought the Gorillaz concept was a bit annoying: cartoon characters playing music with a cast of guest stars on albums that vary tremendously in their songs' styles. Sounds like a formula for disaster, and each time I buy a new Gorillaz album, I expect it to be the one that ends the franchise with a mangled wreck of music. But "Plastic Beach" tops all the others - sublime in places, flat out funky in others, and enjoyable from start to finish. Listen to it twice and I guarantee that pleasurable fragments will float through your head for days.
If you like Major Lazer, La Roux, hip hop, electronic, reggae, dubstep, and/or mashups (I just threw up in my mouth a little bit when I typed that word), you gotta get this mix. And while you're at it, subscribe to the Mad Decent podcast and get whatever else Diplo has put out lately.
The resurgence of 80's pop culture in the youth of today is quite disgusting. (See "New Kids on the Block," fluorescent clothing, and Ray-Bans.) But we who are actually children of the 80's have finally digested all of the toxic day-glo that coke-addled Hollywood types forced into our young, impressionable minds - and we've survived, albeit in some strange mental forms. Judging by Yeasayer's music, it's possible to sound like you're from the 80's (in a good way), while living in the 10's, and having plenty of fans born in the 90's. Or something like that.
Like King Midas Sound's "Waiting For You...", this is driving music. But these are tunes for burning asphalt in the middle of the day, when the sun's bright and singeing your skin as you're driving away from civilization, to hike in the hills, relax on the beach, or to run out of gas in the middle of the desert and pray that one of the circling vultures comes close enough so you can yank it from the sky and wring whatever moisture its body holds into your parched mouth. (Tobacco albums sound like that last option.)
Do you despise Wasilla, Alaska because of whatever it did to unleash Sarah Palin upon this planet? Despise it no longer: it also produced Portugal. The Man. "American Ghetto" is heavy on drum machines and slow, funky beats - quite the departure from their previous music, much of which is reminiscent of Led Zeppelin. This album is Portugal. The Man's "Kid A." I'm running out of lofty comparisons - just get the album, already. And catch their live show.
This album could have been released 40 years ago. 25 years ago, I would have been sitting in the family room, my parents' fancy turntable in front of me, and I'd be admiring the cover of this album for the duration of the LP. Its songs feature acoustic guitars, gentle singing, flutes, nature, rulers (not the kind that measure), and courage. Bilbo Baggins would fit easily into the world of "The Courage of Others."
So simple, so catchy, so hip: I hate to love it. At least it's not Black Eyed Peas, whom I love to hate. (On a different note, if you're looking for distorted drum-machine beats, heavy guitars, and female vocalists, check out Atari Teenage Riot. They did the whole "We're on the bleeding edge of hip and we love to make noise with electronics and guitars and hip-hop beats" thing awhile ago - albeit at a much, much faster tempo.)
This is a solo album, but we may as well just call this the Knife. "Fever Ray" sounds like a long-lost second disc to the Knife's hypnotizing "Silent Shout" album. But I'll go ahead and play Fever Ray's game and pretend it's not a Knife album.
"Fever Ray" is the kind of stuff played in purgatory to give souls glimpses of hell and, at the same time, glimmers of hope for what lies beyond.
They keep getting better and better. This time they're mostly without Danger Mouse, and it doesn't hurt a bit.
The Rest of the Best Albums of 2010
11. Band of Horses - "Infinite Arms"
More uptempo and upbeat than their other albums, they toured for this album with a terrific live show to boot.
12. Massive Attack - "Heligoland"
I could lament the fact that this isn't "Mezzanine." But nothing will ever be "Mezzanine" again. So I'll settle for "Heligoland," with King Midas Sound filling in the gaps.
13. RJD2 - "Colossus"
Yeah, I know: Mad Men's theme song is an RJD2 track. You know that, but did you know the Deeter, as I like to call him, has been around for awhile, producing mostly hip hop, and now stuff like this, where he plays the instruments, sings, and does a rather fine job? And he was raised in the magnificent Midwest - Columbus, OH, to be exact. So close to Indianapolis, we're practically brothers.
14. M.I.A. - "Maya"
Sure, her sense of fashion resembles the pile of clothes at Goodwill after the employees take all the good stuff. But then again, so does Yeasayer's. At any rate, this album has some delicious bass and beats (much of it courtesy of Rusko, who also released a good album this year, and Diplo, one half of the aforementioned Major Lazer). And "Maya" also has the prerequisite amount of socio-political commentary we've come to expect and love from M.I.A. Even if we don't know what she's ranting about, it still makes us want to throw molotovs at the Man.
15. Deftones - "Diamond Eyes"
Go ahead, roll your eyes. "Music for meatheads," you say. "Music for the guy who can't get the girl so he goes to an expensive steakhouse to stuff his face and cry in his cocktail," I say. Seriously, though: Deftones are one of the most reliable (minus "B-Sides and Rarities," which doesn't count) head-banging bands around.
16. Big Boi - "Sir Lucious Left Foot..."
I put ellipses in the King Midas Sound album title because it had them. I put ellipses in Big Boi's album title because it was too long. Thankfully the album isn't that way, and gives us enough fuel to keep bouncing our badonkadonks until the next Outkast album comes out.
17. John Mellencamp - "No Better Than This"
"Pink Houses," these songs ain't. Rather, they represent the Midwest with a nice chunk o' mid-century Americana. And they're recorded with one mic in some cool places. So there.
18. The New Pornographers - "Together"
Like the Deftones, the New Pornographers are an impressively reliable band. Unlike the Deftones, the New Pornographers have red-headed chanteuse Neko Case and a bevy of singable, memorable pop songs.
19. Noisia - "Split the Atom"
I'd call this drum and bass. But then it also has dance. And dubstep. And ambient. And IDM. So overall, it's "electronic." It's time to coin a better term than that, Hipsters. How about "foliage step"?
20. Antibalas - "Who Is This America?"
That's a great question, Antibalas - thank you for asking! This "America" you keep hearing about has repeatedly lured your children to the drugs, the premarital sex, the curse words, and the gays. If this America takes take our freedoms, you won't be able to defend yourself the next time someone tries to break into your house to steal all that money you saved from the tax cuts, now, will you? (P.S. Fela's dead. Long live Fela!)
21. Minus the Bear - "Omni"
It would be impossible for Minus the Bear to follow up the stellar "Planet of Ice" with another "Planet of Ice." After all, "Planet of Ice" was Minus the Bear's "Kid A." So instead, they followed it up with the soundtrack to every girl-gazing high school boy's summer. In a good way.
22. Uffie - "Sex Dreams and Denim Jeans"
She admits she kinda fell into this whole music thing. As long as Black Eyed Peas exist in this world, I will vote for Uffie every time - someone must vanquish those tasteless legumes.
23. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - "Mojo"
Wow, wasn't expecting this at all. Petty has released many great tunes throughout the years, but I was never sure about his albums as a whole. With "Mojo," I am.
24. How to Destroy Angels - "How to Destroy Angels"
Trent Reznor. 'Nuff said.
25. Flying Lotus - "Cosmogramma"
A nice companion piece to Tobacco's "Maniac Meat." Listen to this in the hospital as you're recovering from the wounds sustained when you tried to catch that big vulture (see #5 above), but instead that vulture caught a big piece of you.
The Others
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Kanye West, Chromeo, Lil' Wayne, and probably a few we've forgotten also put out respectable albums in 2010.
The pretty bird looks beautiful until it rips your eyes out - kind of like the women Deftones seem to sing about.
Underworld: "We're calling the album 'Barking.' Can you design something, say, noisy?"
Artist: "Indeed! I shall give 20 toddlers 20 Mountain Dews. After they drink, I shall then put them all into a 20'x20' room containing only a box of markers and a blank white canvas as a floor."
Underworld: "Splendid!"
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