Best.Of.2010 # 1,2&3

#1

#2

#3


Yeah, this was just getting out of hand. If I didn't do something quick like this, it was never gonna get finished and this blog prolly would have ground to a halt. Still can't write anything coherent about my favorite album of the year. For those wanting insight into what it is, please read this fantastic series of essays on it. As for why its the best, simply it had more ambition than anything else this year and pulled it off, like an Olympic diver doing something with the highest degree of difficulty and landing it with minimal splash.

The other two albums here are simply awesome. I love them and have given them ample burn in the car, ipod and laptop this year. One is a bands promising debut, the other is a bands apparent farewell. One is the fresh sound of of NY, the other is the local boys making good. Both are examples of awesome songwriting and staggering prodcution. 2010 was a brilliant year for music. Can't wait to see what 2011 has to offer.

Best.of.2010 #4 - The Suburbs

Following the release of this album, I tried to write something about it a few times. The album really captivated me and I wanted to do it justice when writing about it. Originally I was sucked in by the fact that they’d traded in some of their grandiose for catchier riffs and it was a pretty cool album to listen to as a result. Plus I’m a sucker for any sort of concept and the lose one about suburban life is one I can relate to.

Is it white people problems? Maybe, but the album isn’t a bitch and whinge thing, it’s more of an exposition. For me, my city is one that is essentially entirely suburbs. The city is a huge sprawl, isolated from not only the rest of the world but also the rest of the country. A veritable sea of houses that clings to the coast for a glimpse of water. It’s a fairly boring city, one that has the hits of the 70’s and 80’s blasting out of car stereo’s and a number one radio station that sticks to its promises of no rap and no hard rock. It’s a city that a lot of people my age plan on leaving as soon as they graduate university. Its not a bad place to live by any means, but having seen the rest of the world, coming back to it seems like being stuck in purgatory.

The Suburbs works because it captures this idea of the sprawl through its extended tracklist and evoking the artists and music that echoes through its streets and living rooms, from classic rock, to folkier fare, to punk, to 80’s pop. Using these genres as templates, they’ve made some of the best songs of their career, while still being Arcade Fire. As such, between the songs themselves and the overarching concern of the disc, we have of on the best albums of the year.

Arcade Fire - Ready To Start - LINK REMOVED

Best.of.2010 #5 - K.R.I.T. Wuz Here

I’ve already written at length about this album, so I’ll spare you the thesis that Krit is the southern Kanye and how soulful he is. This wound up as my 5th favorite album (mixtape?) on the list because it was the one time this year I’ve put on something new and been blown away by it on first listen. I got that super happy, giddy expression on my face, like an extended ‘oh shit’ moment. There were albums on the honourable mentions list that were probably better, more polished or more funky (read, Big Boi), but it was this project that stuck with me. A raw blueprint of an artist, expressing himself fully to the world and succeeding. I wish him nothing but the best in the future. May he not get left on Def Jam’s shelf.

Big K.R.I.T. - Country Shit

Best.Of.2010 Honorable Mention - Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty

"Another battle won
Another story to tell
Listen to the angelic plucking of the puppet strings
As Sir Lucious puts his left foot forward
And rides of into the horizon of infinite regression...victorious
Undefeated on the battle field against the means of ignorance, greed, and hatred
All contenders to the throne are left naked
Because the truth is the only thing you could never be stripped from
And if you commit to that truth, then you could end the vicious cycle
That's affecting our youth today...
If we just stop lying...
If we just stop lying...
Stop lying...
Lying..."

PS. This album is more fun and has more funk than the rest of 2010 combined. True Story

Big Boi - You Ain't No DJ (Feat. Yelawolf) - LINK REMOVED

Best.Of.2010 Honorable Mention - Plastic Beach

Damon Albarn claimed in an interview that Plastic Beach was the most pop Gorillaz album to date. This seemed a strange claim for an album that had no obvious powerhouse single, no Clint Eastwood, no DARE, no Feel Good Inc., no 19/2000. Yet on the other hand, gone were the more dubbed out, noodling tracks of the original, nothing as jarring as White Light, no huge choir outro. What’s left is a streamlined album, a trim commentary on the melancholy of consumer culture and the waste left behind.

And that’s all I’ve got really. I’ve been trying to write something intelligent about this album for a while now and I really can’t shed any more light on it that what’s already been written. While yes this is a lazy cop out, I don’t really feel like repeating anyone else.

At the end of the day, I’m a big Gorillaz fan and to me this album, the music and the multimedia around has been just as awesome and engrossing as the others. I really can’t recommend it highly enough to those who may have dismissed it as it lacked the huge singles of days gone past. It is simply one of the finest collections of songs for the year.

P.S. And seriously what is up with the whole cyborg Noodle thing? Mysterious stuff indeed.

Gorillaz - Sweepstakes (Ft. Mos Def & The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble) - LINK REMOVED

Best.Of.2010 Honorable Mention - I'm New Here

Before I heard this album, I really only knew Gil Scott-Heron by name. He kind of held some sort of space as this shadowy figure, an icon, to be mentioned in origins of hip-hop essays and shouted out by James Murphy. However when the promotional cycle for I’m New Here started up, the videos and the pieces written started to draw me in.

My curiosity got the better of me and one overcast Vancouver morning I turned on a stream of the album and was immediately sucked into the poet’s world. His voice came out with clarity usually unheard on my crappy dorm room speakers, with an age and authority that is pretty rare in a world of music that is dominated by what is new and youthful. This voice, whether old and doddering, singing or speaking with the utmost gravitas was complimented with a soundscape that was as compelling and contradictory as the man himself. Bristol trip hop next to Kanye’s glossy strings next to skittering beats and bass next to simple guitar plucking.

Ultimately though, what makes this album stand out to me in a year of amazing music, was the fact it offered a different perspective. Instead of hearing from other youths about the seemingly fucked up times we live in, here is this man who’s seen and been through more shit than many of us could imagine. And here he is, while scarred, giving us an album, which suggests after all his tumultuous years, he’s found at least a little solace.

Gil Scott-Heron - Me and The Devil

BONUS
Gil Scott-Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Best.Of.2010 Honorable Mention - Brothers

When writing about Black Keys, its usually mandatory to mention whether or not they’re switching up styles, expanding their range and whether or not they’re working with Dangermouse this time around. Such emphasis is placed on sound and style these days, ideas over execution.

However I’ve always had the opinion that when approaching a new project, artists have two (not mutually exclusive) options. You can either change your sound a bit, or do what you’re already doing, but do it better. Brothers is the product of taking option number two. Its clear from the opening stomp of Everlasting Light, Brothers is the work of a band at the peak of their abilities.

While I’ve always enjoyed the Black Keys, their albums have been non-starters for me. I usually get bored about halfway through. However, Brothers is a highly diverse, fresh and interesting album despite not departing from their sound, a testament to both loosening up and having fun, despite the frequently depressing subject matter. The album knocks, like few other modern rock ones do these days. And as was said by the Weiss, “A vote for the Black Keys is a vote against the Kings of Leon”.

The Black Keys - Everlasting Light

Best.Of.2010 Honorable Mention - Illumination

While the songs from this album have found a permanent home on the high rotation list on Triple J, it seems like the rest of the world has really slept on this fantastic release from Australia’s Miami Horror. What started as a started as a solo producer in the blog house craze of a few years ago (his Music Sounds Better With You remix is a classic) has transformed into a full live band, making dreamy disco pop in the same vein as genre heavyweights Cut Copy. And while they haven’t made a classic straight of the bat like the Cutters did with Bright Like Neon Love, Miami Horror’s debut Illumination is an album that is choc-full of pop gems and one of the best of the year for me.

Utilizing vocals from both band members and guests (Neon Indian’s Alan Palomo and Kimbra are highlights), the album is a psychedelic pop odyssey through an Australian summer. While Tame Impala used classic and psychedelic rock, and Muscles (on Guns, Babes and Lemonade) used electro to make their versions of Australia, Miami Horror instead uses disco and chillwave instead to great effect. Despite Palomo’s presence on the record, he is most definitely not responsible for the chillwave influence, his tracks being more reminiscent of his work as the electro tinged VEGA. Yet for those who find the genre to be a total drag, don’t worry, the disco and pop keeps it from ever slowing the pace of the album.

Ultimately this is an absolute cracker of a record, which was unfairly slept on by the rest of the world. Its one of those albums which sneaks up on you, it will play through before you realized you never felt the need to skip a track. If you’re currently residing in a northern hemisphere winter, do yourself a favor and cop this album. It will melt a hole through that snow for you to escape to a killer summer.

Miami Horror - I Look To You (Feat. Kimbra)

BONUS
Holidays - Miami Horror and Cassian Remix by cassian88

Best.Of.2010 Honorable Mention - The Stimulus Package

“It’s the reason why we named the album the stimulus pack,
all the fans giving us love and now we giving it back”

This project is pure love. You can feel it in every kick and snare, every pad press by Jake One, every guest verse, every sample, every exclamation of “Throw your hands up!”, and every line spat by Freeway himself. The sheer enthusiasm espoused here for hip hop is a rare commodity in a release these days. Too often we are given records that are hip hop in name only, with a cold detachment to the genre, or records that treat hip hop as something fragile, that needs to be saved, preserved. Freeway and Jake One get over these hangups by essentially ignoring them, making great music and have your head nodding constantly as a result.

This year there were more adventurous and forward thinking records, stuff that was crazier or cleverer, but there was nothing that was done so enthusiastically, with as much love for the art form. A true hip-hop album in a decade where true hip-hop albums don’t come along very often anymore. All of this done without a holier-than-thou attitude or vintage throwbacks, it’s an album that is undeniably 2010.

Freeway & Jake One - Throw Your Hands Up

Best.Of.2010 Honorable Mention - Lazerproof

I find La Roux to be really boring. True story. All their electro-pop ditties sound exactly the same to me. However like another big name indie group (The Gossip), they coast by because they have a female lead singer with an amazing set of pipes on her and as a result can sing the house down.

Enter the Major Lazer boys, Switch and Diplo. Hated on (mostly Diplo here, Switch seems to not to have received the same treatment) for cultural appropriation, apparent douchebaggery and seemingly just having too much fun, they defied the haters and created one of the most strikingly different and charismatic dance music albums of 2009, Guns Don’t Kill People, Lazers Do. The debate on Diplo and the rest of his Mad Decent crew can wait for another time, but lets cut to the chase and say in my eyes they keep club music fresh and fun by promoting and using elements of dance music from around the world and in this case the focus was on dancehall and reggae.

Love or hate it, their diverse production and selections for the remix tape Lazerproof, they show just how striking a singer Elly Jackson really is. With a constantly shifting sonic background that ranges from reggae to dancehall, dubstep, top 40 rap and beyond, the songs come into their own, no two sounding quite alike, yet all intrinsically linked. Switch and Diplo’s pop experience also play a roll, with catchy samples that will get stuck in your head for days. (Seriously, there was a two-week period where I couldn’t get their dubplated “Mad Decent big up all di fallen soldiers” hook out of my head.)

The end product is a fun, catchy, not super serious mixtape that’s displays the full talents of both Major Lazer and La Roux. It’s not a slap dash cash grab, but rather something that defies the expectations of the listener for how good said collaboration would be on paper. And I’m willing to bet like other Diplo tapes Piracy Funds Terrorism and Top Ranking, it will still be getting many spins long after the blog hype is gone.

Major Lazer & La Roux - Lazerproof
BONUS
Major Lazer - Cash Flow (Classixx Glass Bottom Dub Mix)

Best.Of.2010 Honorable Mention - Lisbon

This one surprised me. Usually I don’t like The Walkmen. Apart from the blistering ball of awesome rage that is The Rat, I’ve always found them kind of boring and their lead singer annoying. Perhaps this record just found me at the right time.

I’ve been trying to work out what it is exactly about this record that makes me like it so much. Here are the top contenders so far:

• It’s Little Joy’s belligerent, drunken cousin.
• It’s like waking up on a beach at sunrise with a wicked hangover yet having the most beautiful view in the world.
• It’s a well-made and refreshing guitar pop album at a time when I’d been listening to nothing but hip-hop.
• Its got this strange blend of restlessness and contentment and maybe that contradiction is what makes it so engaging.
• Hamilton Leithauser finally chilled the fuck out
  

So if any of those things appeal to you, then maybe, just maybe, Lisbon is the album for you.

The Walkmen - Stranded

Best.Of.2010 Honorable Mention - New Amerykah Pt.2

There was no way this was not going to end up somewhere on this list for me. Listened to it far too many times for it not to have a place at least somewhere. It’s not perfect, not by far. Some tracks go on for way too long, some tracks are boring, some are unnecessary. The Rick Ross version of Window Seat should have a place here. Jump Up In The Air should have been on here. What happened to the 12 different versions of Jump Up In The Air? But it is irrelevant because towering beyond all that is the fact that this is simply one of the weirdest records of the year and I love it for that.

One of the original appeals hip hop had for me back when I picked up my first De La Soul album on a whim all those years ago, was its unabashed strangeness, its off the wall tendencies that were missing from other genres. New Amerykah pt. 2 has that in spades. Biggie lyrics sung on loop in a maniacal manner, Madlib having a duet with harpist Kirsten Agnesta, 9th Wonder contributing a beatless beat. And at the centre of it all like a ringmaster at a circus, this wondrous, complex, enigma of a woman, Erykah Badu

Course it wouldn’t mean much if it didn’t absolutely knock, which it most certainly does. Rolling funk, Dilla boom-bap, and the cruising vibe of a track like Window Seat make a fantastic soundscape for Badu’s psyche. At the end of the day, this is one of the best albums of the year; it’s a journey into the mind of a soulful woman who has hip-hop pumping through her veins. It’s a beautiful thing.

Erykah Badu - Fall In Love (Your Funeral)
BONUS!
Erykah Badu - Jump Up In The Air (Ft. Lil Wayne)

Best of 2010 Introduction/The Money

We’re approaching the end of 2010, so it’s time for anyone who writes about music to list what he or she liked best from this year. Despite the fact that it’s a heavily political and arbitrary exercise, the chance to use it as both a writing challenge and a way to wrap my head around the past year of music as I saw it, was too good an opportunity to pass up on.

So here’s how it’s going to work. Regular posts here will continue as per usual. However on top of that, the focus of the month, or at least pre Christmas is going to be in build up to my top 5 albums of the year. Ranking anymore than that seemed like a fairly arbitrary and pointless activity, so the rest of the years standouts shall be very honorable mentions, as they more than deserve to have something written about them. Plus there’ll be a few more random accolades along the way.

So enjoy, I hope the pieces aren’t too pretentious and would love to hear any feedback or opinions so comment away
Regards,
Cale (Sleepyhead/72)

BONUS - Total jam for you all. One of my favorites from this year.
62 Mile High Club - The Money (Original Mix)