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TRACK: Exile Vilifymatt + the D&D brothers composed this track special for the new ‘portal 2’ video game. (if you’ve watched hulu at all in the last month, you know which game i’m talking about. it’s the ad with what appear to be the retarded little brothers of the sexy bjork robots.) and the song is good. very nationaly. and it did it’s job. i thought the game looked dumb. now i’m kind of intrigued. -d
*thanks to MelMo for sharing. you should check out the other music blog she guests on.
such a great time of year. everybody pouring over hundreds of albums and thousands of tracks (5827 to be exact) to find the cream. the stuff that, for one reason or another, mattered. and like every list i make, this one comes pre-burdened with addendums and conditional statements, some of which will be addressed, but most of which will go unspoken. so, for better or worse, here it is. the best albums of 2010.
THE GIMMES
the dead giveaways. the albums that will be on everybody’s top tens because there is no denying them. they are game changers and everybody knows it. these are albums so obvious in their wonder that it seems like a waste of 4 spaces to even put them on the list.
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Brothers by The Black Keys. i knew this was the best album of the year the first time i listened to it all the way through. i only pray the swan song rumors aren’t true. |
 | High Violet by The National. fter falling head over heels in love with Boxer, i was sure this one was gonna break my heart. being wrong never felt so right. and what a show! |
 | The Suburbs by Arcade Fire. whether they are punking out, tripping on synths or just bemoaning the future of america’s youth, these guys are the Pixar of indie rock. |
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My Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West. i don’t love this entire album the way i love the others. in fact there are tracks i hate. but “monster”, “runaway”, “power”, “all of the lights” and “lost in the world” are so mind-blowing that nothing else matters. |
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Mines by Menomena. i am usually very wary of experimental music. i like my songs to sound good, and experimental musicians tend to put melody pretty low on the priorities list. not menomena. i don’t know how to describe what they do. it is most certainly not mainstream music. but man, it should be. |
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I See the Sign by Sam Amidon. a 28-year-old new york-born son of sacred harp-singing hippies who kind of looks like mark zuckerberg. hardly seems like a resume for someone who is, in my mind, the preeminent modern purveyor of american folk music. and while ‘i see the sign’ is no ‘all is well’, it’s pretty damn close. |
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Sea of Cowards by The Dead Weather. jack white’s insistance on dragging his effortless knack for melody into even the roughest, crunchiest rock has long had me listening to a genre of music that i thought i had written off back in middle school when i realized i didn’t like nirvana as much as everybody else did. this is not my kind of music. and yet, i sat in giddy awe for two hours as they blew my brains out at the mayan this past year. what’s a guy to do. |
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The Violent Blue by Electric President. when i first heard this album back in july, i had a tough time pinpointing exactly why it resonated the way it did. but i listened to it again as i was working on this list, and it’s still just so good. so inexplicably good. |
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Animal Feelings by Rafter. this album is a non-stop, start to finish powerhouse of pure pop enjoyment. they laugh, they cry, they swear, they get freaky, and you just sit back and listen. the most fun you’ll have in the car all year. |
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Goodness Gracious by The Heligoats. saw these guys at a tiny gallery in echo park earlier this year. the exhibit at the gallery had something to do with sex, and the images on the wall were, um, provocative, let’s say. does that explain why every time i hear this simple, mostly acoustic album i get all excited? you tell me. |
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The Social Network Soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. looking back, there’s something totally obvious about hiring trent reznor to use his dark techno skills to write the score for a dark movie about technology. but at the time, it was just unexpected and excellent. peer gynt never sounded so good. |
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Tron: Legacy Soundtrack by Daft Punk. by far the best part of a movie completely undeserving the music that accompanied it. |
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I Speak Fula by Bassekou Kouyate. the instrument this guy plucks to a boiling frenzy is a tiny little stringed thing called a ngoni, and apparently this guy is the earl scruggs of the ngoni. (afrograss anyone?) i’m not one of those world music people who goes crazy for anything sung in a different language. but if it all sounded like this, i would be. |
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Port Entropy by Shugo Tokumaru. technically i think this is considered experimental, but it’s really just bright piano pop with a brilliantly frayed edge. it’s strangely familiar in the way it just makes you feel good, but there’s more than enough originality and raw talent present to keep even the brats at pitchfork in awe. for a while anyway. |
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All We Grow by S. Carey. stunning debut from the Bon Iver drummer. and instead of declaring his independence by breaking away from the JV’s plaintive echos and harmonies, he just took the formula and made it his own. |
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There Is A Wind EP by The Album Leaf. i don’t claim to be a music maven. i’m never the first to discover new bands. in fact, i frequently find myself way behind the curve. example: i heard the album leaf for the first time this year. this was my point of entry. as such, i will never forget it. |
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Go by Jonsi. i almost grouped this in with the world music, but somehow that felt like a disservice to this icelandic mood master. from the first vocal squeak of “go do” to the last lingering, unresolved strings at the end of “hengilás”, i loved almost every single note, every single beat, every single silence of this insane piece of frenetic, aching brilliance. also happened to be the best concert of 2010. |
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Heartland & A Swedish Love Story by Owen Pallett. how to describe him. despite chamber pop being pretty hip right now, this guy still sounds like absolutely nobody else. and with little more than a violin, a computer and wicked ear for orchestration, he put on one of the best shows of the year. totally unique and wonderful. |
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Forgiveness Rock Record by Broken Social Scene. at times massive, at times modest, and always a bit fuzzy, i struggled from the start to pin this album down. but i also i left it on loop nonstop for the first week after i got it. all i know is, for a group that can kind of be hit or miss, this was a huge hit. |
sorry for the crappy droid shots. but you get the idea. -d
*sadly the owen pallett shots all came out way too dark.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
TRACK: A Little Faithstraight ditto from yesterday. an incredible piece of work, high violet. start to finish. you know, i can’t think of another voice that can carry a mood quite like matt berninger’s. regardless of tempo, theme or key, every song he sings somehow feels the same. i don’t know how to describe it. all i know is it allows for a stylistically broad range of tracks to somehow come together into a completely cohesive album. it’s unlike anything else. -d
*got a request from websheriff to remove the file, so it’s down. they said there are two tracks i’m allowed to post: bloodbuzz, ohio and, appropriately, afraid of everyone. but chances of me letting someone else choose which songs i post are about as good as the chances of me playing by someone’s rules other than my own: not good. because I play by my own rules. no one else’s.
