Let me start out by saying that this year was an exceedingly exceptional year in music, and that limiting my choices to a top ten with a few Honorable Mentions was not an easy task. I am happy that independent music is gaining a more recognizable voice in the music world today, and that some of these artists are finally getting the acclaim that they’ve deserved for years as they’ve toiled around the underground. And while some media sites/magazines/bloggers decided to bask in the lukewarm pretentiousness of Kanye West, I decided to take a different path.
That being said, I present to you, oh loyal reader(s)(?), my top album picks for 2010.
Honorable Mention: Belle & Sebastian – Write About Love: Belle and Sebastian’s eighth studio album featured the softer side of the Scottish pop-collective, returning to the more stripped-down styles of the earlier albums like Tigermilk and The Boy With The Arab Strap, with just a peppering of the bubbly pop songs they have been known for in more recent years. It glides along pleasantly like a summer drive through the country, and boasts guest vocals from Academy Award-nominated actress Carey Mulligan on the title track, as well as the velvety voice of jazz great Norah Jones on the track “Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John”. Still, the most memorable tracks on the album are those performed by Stuart Murdoch, who sounds fresh as ever, with his rag-tag band of musicians doing what they do best: write, and sing, about love.
I Didn’t See It Coming – Belle and Sebastian
Honorable Mention: Waaves – King of the Beach: 2010 brought with it the rise of the raw lo-fi style of music, including Nathan Williams and his San Diego noise-pop group Wavves and the release of their third full-length LP, King of the Beach. Wavves brings fun back to music when so much, especially in the independent/underground realm, is so very melancholy. In the opening/title track, he almost yells in protest by saying ‘you’re never gonna stop me: king of the beach!’ In the track “Post-Acid” he has similar mentality, asking ‘would you understand that I’m just having fun with you?’ Yes, I understand, and I’m having a blast listening to this record.
Honorable Mention: Broken Bells – Broken Bells: Broken Bells features two of today’s best artists — DJ Danger Mouse and The Shins’ James Mercer — combining their talents and producing something truly original. The album feels like an indie-rock space journey, with Mercer’s dreamy vocals floating atop the his own instrumentation mixed with creative digital arrangements of Danger Mouse. The opening track, “The High Road”, opens with an array of bleeps and bloops reminiscent of the popular 90s musical toy SIMON and then gently expands with percussion and Mercer’s flawless vocal contribution. The most surprising track, “The Ghost Inside”, features Mercer singing in high falsetto over heavily digitized orchestration, and is perhaps the most aurally abrasive song on the album (though it is still very good), while the rest of the album retains the illusion of a gentle and pleasant ride amongst the cosmos.
And now, the countdown.
10. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs: It’s hard to hate Arcade Fire. Their first album, Funeral, was the best of 2004, and it remains one of the most beautiful albums ever recorded, while their sophomore effort, 2007′s Neon Bible, is almost its equal in excellence. Their third full-length album, The Suburbs, still features Arcade Fire’s knack for orchestral instrumentation and impeccable lyricism, except something sounds different: they actually sound kind of…happy. The album features the same element of melancholy beauty that Arcade Fire is known for, except there’s a dash of hope, even joy. There is a feeling of resilience and determination especially in the songs “Ready to Start” (‘my mind is open wide, and now I’m ready to start’), and the nostalgia of “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” (‘We rode our bikes to the nearest park/Sat under the swings and kissed in the dark/We shield our eyes from the police lights/We run away but we don’t know why’). The Suburbs is a semi-satirical salute to Americana, and it is executed beautifully. How odd that such an honest portrait of America would come from Canadians.
Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) – Arcade Fire
9. OK Go – Of the Blue Colour of the Sky: OK Go’s third LP is their most electronic and, at the same time, perhaps their most melancholy album. Leaving behind the days of garage-rock anthems like “Get Over It” and “Invincible”, the Chicago-based quartet focused on more serious subject matter in their latest release, tackling existential crises and the pain of unrequited love. The musical range of the album is quite broad, from the heavily arranged second track “This Too Shall Pass” to the soft, bare acoustics of the gorgeous ballad “Last Leaf”, and the almost completely electronic “Before the Earth Was Round”, a song that has a digitized Damian Kulash moaning playfully about the beginning of existence. The most impressive song is the startling “Needing/Getting”, which boasts soaring guitar riffs and lyrics drenched in sorrow and self-loathing (‘There ain’t much that’s dumber/than pinning your hopes on the change in another/And I, yeah I still need you/but what good’s that gonna do?/Needing is one thing/and getting, getting’s another’). Of the Blue Colour of the Sky shows a more mature, heartfelt OK Go, one that is more relatable and who radiates a real sense of humanity.
8. Caribou – Swim: This album is weird as hell. At the same time, it’s also incredible. The follow-up to 2008′s Andorra is a wild, wacky journey through what almost feels like an enchanted forest of sound that must exist in Toronto-native Dan Snaith’s crazy musical mind. The album begins with the incredible “Odessa”, which is a musical odyssey all its own, with dancing synthesized zips and zaps over a constant tribal-sounding howling matched with equally aboriginal percussion, all woven around Snaith’s soft, fluid voice. Swim is an extremely playful album, and as we the listener venture through we find a freedom in Caribou’s music that so few these days are willing to take advantage of. In the third track “Kaili” Snaith begins with a basic electric structure of beats and sounds that quickly evolves into an orchestra of brass, flutes, vocals and digital sound that tumble along like two bear cubs playing by a river. The powerful percussion of “Bowls” is littered with swooping harp-strokes, giving the piece a sense of majesty and a somewhat cacophonous harmony that is at the same time beautiful and disconcerting. Swim demonstrates a new level of experimentation that pushes the boundaries of conventional composition and shines light on new opportunities in the realm of electronic music.
7. Broken Social Scene – Forgiveness Rock Record: Broken Social Scene’s 4th album, Forgiveness Rock Record, is their first in five years, after taking a few years off from recording as a band to do some touring and to do solo work, and they return with a bang. The ever-changing collective of Canadian musicians helmed by Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning presents with this album a mix of joy and sadness, and with songs like “World Sick” and “Forced to Love”, they turn a rather cynical and satirical eye at the world today, taking on the oil industry, disease, and social “norms” that are accepted in today’s society, yet it is paired with the kind of ecstatic large-scale instrumentation that only BSS can create. This joy of playing music is often strongest in the instrumental pieces, such as the infectious “Meet Me in the Basement”. The album’s message is summed up in the hauntingly hopeful “All to All”, and that message is a call of forgiveness, of love, and of the celebration of life.
World Sick – Broken Social Scene
Meet Me In The Basement – Broken Social Scene
6. Sufjan Stevens – All Delighted People EP/The Age of Adz: After giving the impression that he wasn’t going to be recording/releasing any more music, Sufjan Stevens surprised us all by releasing not one, but two albums this year. Days after revealing his All Delighted People EP to the unsuspecting public, he announced he would be releasing, in October, his first song-based full-length album in five years, the heavily electronic The Age of Adz. I decided to put both these albums at number six, as a collective effort from Sufjan Stevens this year, as I feel they both deserve recognition. Stevens’s All Delighted People EP includes an odd array of music, ranging from the quiet simplicity of the bare-bones ballad “Heirloom” to the seventeen-minute closing track “Djohariah”, with a touching mix of ballads and oddities in between, including the two versions of the title track. Most of the songs on the album were written many years ago and have only just been recorded and released. This EP acted somewhat as a prelude to The Age of Adz, as it illustrates a sort of transition from the folksy, quirky tunes of Stevens’s Michigan and Illinois and into a much stranger, foreign realm of music where most of the music of Adz resides. Most of Adz is electronically driven, as evident in tracks like “Too Much” and “I Walked”, though there are a few tracks with hints of Sufjan’s softer and more basic roots, as in “Vesuvius” and the gorgeous opening track “Futile Devices”, the only difference being a more matured voice, both lyrically and in the physical tone and timbre of Stevens’s vocals; and a certain new flair for reverb. Still, Sufjan adapts to his new musical environment beautifully, and it inspires confidence in the listener that Stevens will continue to exhibit such graceful evolution in the years to come.
5. Sleigh Bells – Treats: This is the future of music. Right here, in this album. Brooklyn-based duo Sleigh Bells released their debut LP, Treats, back in May, and it exploded onto the scene with a vengeance. Hailed as groundbreaking and original, this album quickly became a favorite of mine. The opening track, “Tell ‘Em” sets up the 32-minute album perfectly, assaulting you with screeching guitar and relentless percussion mashed with the cleverly sing-song yet completely badass vocals provided by Alexis Krauss. The album roars on with tracks like “Kids”, “Riot Rhythm”, “Infinity Guitars” and “Crown on the Ground”, all perfectly balancing thrashworthy guitar and booming percussion with Krauss’s simple yet arresting screaming and la-laing. The only track that lets up a little on the thick and heavy instrumentation is “Rill Rill”, which is a peek into the band’s softer side. Treats is an incredibly exciting album, and Sleigh Bells is an incredibly exciting new band with very promising potential.
4. LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening: If there’s anything I can say about James Murphy and his LCD Soundsystem, it is that they know how to rock the fuck out. Their first, self-titled album introduced this talent in the collection of funky, catchy tunes it featured, and on their second album, 2007′s Sound of Silver, this ability was solidified within a more personal and meaningful realm. Their third album, This Is Happening, was promised to be their last, and if that’s true, they are going out with one hell of a bang. The format of the album is similar to that of Sound of Silver, as the album only includes nine songs, but all but two of them are over six minutes long (one of the two that isn’t is 5:54), and within these mini opuses ringleader Murphy jam packs all of his emotions and insight into the fantastic electronic landscape he paints instrumentally and into the honesty of the wailing and screaming of his vocals. In the 9-minute opening track, “Dance Yrself Clean” (no, that’s not a typo), he begs us to just that: dance our pain and worries away, forget about all the bullshit that’s happening around us, and have a good time with what we’ve got. There is nary a slow-moment on This Is Happening, from the satirical “Drunk Girls”, to the sexual anthem “One Touch”, to the heartfelt electro-ballad “I Can Change”. In the fantastic “Pow Pow”, Murphy channels David Byrne, with lyrical and vocal stylings similar to that in Talking Heads’ “Once In A Lifetime”. The album culminates with the final track “Home”, mirroring the message of the opening track of saying ‘fuck it all’ and making every moment count, because that release is what we all really need. If this is true, then hopefully Murphy will abandon his plans of musical hiatus and join us once more on the dance floor, to guide us through these tough times again with songs of hope and unadulterated bliss.
I Can Change – LCD Soundsystem
3. Beach House – Teen Dream: Ok, so this album came out in January, right? And I bought the week it came out, right? So why am I still listening to it all the time? Simply because it is one of the most beautiful albums I’ve ever heard. It’s almost like a slice of cheesecake…smooth, sweet, and full of flavor. Baltimore’s dream-pop duo surprised us all with this extraordinarily poignant piece of music. Even from the first notes of the incomparable opening track “Zebra”, you are hooked, drawn in by the elegant riptide of Victoria Legrand’s delicate vocals and Alex Scally’s dreamy guitar riffs. After that, you just can’t turn it off. You glide along through the songs like a ride down a lazy river. The second track “Silver Soul” sounds what you might expect a ‘silver soul’ to sound like, with droopy synthesizers and hazy vocals. The lyrics of the single “10 Mile Stereo” are some of the best I’ve heard, with lines like ‘the heart is a stone/and this is a stone that we throw/put your hand on this stone/it’s the stone of a home you know’ and ‘limbs parallel/we stood so long we fell/love’s like a pantheon/it carries on forever.’ Some of the album almost sounds like it’s on an old cassette, like in “Norway”, with the droning digitized pitches being bent slightly, almost like it would on wilting cassette tape. But it works. It all works, even the playful re-working of their 2008 single “Used to Be”, the original of which I thought was perfect…until I heard this version. I really don’t know what else to say about it. This album is just so fucking beautiful. Just trust me, and go buy it. You will not be disappointed.
2. Janelle Monáe – The ArchAndroid: When I first saw Janelle Monáe back in 2008, she was opening for of Montreal in New York City, and honestly I did not know what to expect. What I got was something far stranger and more fascinating than I could have imagined. This woman had spunk, and she exhibited it fearlessly, donned in a tuxedo with an over-sized bow-tie and a rather ambitious hairdo, prancing around onstage screaming, dancing, twisting, twirling, and singing about robot love. She even painted a picture onstage during a song. I immediately bought her first EP after the show, but learned that her first full-length LP wasn’t being released for another two years. So I waited with bated breath until the release date of The ArchAndroid (during that time I saw her two more times in concert, further exacerbating my thirst for her album), and when I got it I listened to immediately. And then a second time. And a third, and a fourth. It was after the fourth time that I sat back and said to myself, ‘damn.’ Janelle Monáe had re-invented the concept album, a style that has been somewhat neglected since the time of The Wall and Quadrophenia.
She even has overtures.
The ArchAndroid makes up the second and third suites of a four-suite series called “Metropolis”, with Monáe’s first, seven-track EP, The Chase Suite, making up the first suite. ”Metropolis” tells the story of Cindi Mayweather, a cyborg who falls in love with a human, a crime punishable by death (or the robot equivalent, dismantlement). In The ArchAndroid, Cindi takes on a more messianic role, helping to free the android community from an evil organization that suppresses love and emotion. Though the story is interesting, Monáe’s creative voice and musical talent are what really shine on this album. Following the opening overture, the first three tracks, “Dance or Die”, “Faster” and “Locked Inside” flow seamlessly into one another, affirming the opera-like qualities of the album, and feature Monáe rapping and singing with seemingly effortless ease and beauty. The following song, “Sir Greendown” is a ballad to her beloved, and is followed by two of the most exciting songs on the album (and coincidentally her two singles thus far), “Cold War” and “Tightrope”, both of which deal with depravity and the need for strength in desperate times. Then comes “Oh, Maker”, perhaps the most poignant track on the album, in which Mayweather/Monáe struggles with self-identity and the ability to love (‘Oh Maker have you ever loved/or known just what it was?/or imagined the bitter end/of all the beauty that we’re living in?’). Suite II ends with “Mushrooms and Roses”, an acid-tinged, Hendrix-esque homage to free love.
Suite III begins immediately after, featuring a song penned by Monáe and performed by glam-funk gods of Montreal, and also an electro-happy confusion-ridden tune called “Wondaland”. The ending track, “BaBopByeYa”, is an epic ballad in closing, as she desperately searches for her love in lieu of inevitable escape. Monáe, drawing from a plethora of classical and modern sources, delivers delicious dance beats and startling evocativeness with this masterpiece. The ArchAndroid will not be soon forgotten in the realm of contemporary music.
Mushrooms & Roses – Janelle Monáe
1. The National – High Violet: I hadn’t heard a whole lot of The National’s music before this year. In years past I listened to a few tracks from earlier albums like Alligator and Boxer, and undoubtedly I enjoyed it, but it was missing something for me. Don’t get me wrong, I listen to older National tracks all the time now, but there was something about High Violet that quite literally struck the right chord with me at the time. It probably had something to do with the place I was in physically and emotionally when I started listening to High Violet. I had just moved to New Orleans, summer was upon us, and I felt a little stifled by the relentless heat and humidity that go hand in hand with New Orleans summers. Bonnaroo had just ended and my friends had gone home, I was feeling a little lovelorn; it was a weird time for me.
By some stroke of fate (maybe it was heat stroke), I ran into a record store to escape the heat one day, and I saw High Violet perched upon one of those shelves that run along the sides of record stores that have headphones to listen to the album. I figured I could kill a little time listening to some music while I was waiting for the heat of the day to pass (a few other people seemed to have the same idea). I sat in the corner and pressed play. Right away, it clicked with me. Matt Berninger’s low and mournful voice spoke clearly and fully to what I was feeling. The first song that really spoke to me was “Anyone’s Ghost”, as I had felt almost like I had been forgotten after moving here. However, this was followed by “Little Faith” which talked about being stuck in New York, which is exactly how I had felt before I moved to New Orleans. I thought to myself, is this album reading my mind right now?
I’ve definitely had times in my life where I felt there was one album that spoke absolute truth to me at that point in time; it was almost eerie. As summer waned away, I found myself listening to The National more frequently, as my summer depression seemed to drip away with the sweat from my forehead. I found a certain comfort in High Violet, almost like they were telling me it was OK to feel sad right now.
Aside from the personal connection, I found a great deal of beauty in the music and lyrics themselves. The haunting “Afraid of Everyone”, a sweeping manifesto of agoraphobia in modern society, is among the best songs on the album, along with the catchy hometown anthem “Bloodbuzz Ohio”. You know how there are some albums that tend to sag towards the middle and end? Well this is not one of them, as the last four tracks are perhaps the most beautiful the band has ever composed. ”Runaway” is a quiet tale of strength and resilience in a time of pain, while “Conversation 16″, a bewitching song about “marriage, and eating brains” as guitarist Aaron Dessner said at a concert in San Francisco I attended, is staggeringly poetic. The last two songs, “England” and “Vanderlye Crybaby Geeks” are equally majestic, especially the former, painting a vivid picture of the emotions felt when you miss someone you dearly and truly love, as I did when I moved here to start my life over. The National have a fierce talent for reaching down and pulling out savage levels of emotion in their composition, and it is executed brilliantly in their latest effort. There isn’t one note sung, one piano key struck, one guitar string picked without slow and almost maddening precision, and it’s glorious. Simply glorious.
Conversation 16 – The National
What were your favorites of the year? Comment below!
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LOVE LOVE LOVE!
Good list, but The National in 1th and Broken Bells in 11th are inverted. For me Yeasayer´s One is the best song of the year, followed by The High Road.
Good work