2010 IN REVIEW: The Blurt Top 50
Dec 23, 2010
Arcade Fire is artist/album of the year; among our other top picks are Justin Townes Earle, Deerhunter, Kanye West, Flying Lotus and Joanna Newsom.
BY FRED MILLS
It was the best of years, it was the... er, well... yeah. It was the best of years. Please feel free to slap that person standing next to you who is griping about not hearing anything good in 2010. And ask us sometime about trying to pare down a list of some 200-odd worthy new releases from this year into a manageable Top 50 (okay, we cheated; Top 51). We might even let you know who the runners-up were. Seriously.
But in the end, we don't take it all that seriously, because we've been doing this year-end stuff long enough to know that (a) our list is prone to change within five minutes of publishing it; and (b) the only folks who read these lists are the ones who write them! The artists themselves are too busy thinking about their next projects, their upcoming tours... how to pay the rent. Important stuff. So no navel gazing here; no what everything means, maaan...from us. Here's our list - let's do this. (Honorable Mentions follow the main list.)
[See also: Revenge of the Writers, wherein the BLURT staffers and contributors submit their individual lists of 2010 picks ‘n' pans. Go here for Part 1, and here for Part 2.]
***
ARTIST & ALBUM OF THE YEAR: ARCADE FIRE - THE SUBURBS (MERGE)
Really, we were expecting this... no, no, no. No one was expecting this. The steady, step-by-step progression of the Canadian band from their early self-titled EP to 2004's breakthrough Funeral to 2007's complex Neon Bible has been anything but inscrutable; it was inevitable, not to mention downright inspiring, particularly in light of the band's determination to stick with great indie label Merge. Yet still... a couple of years spent touring and solidifying even further as group; a year or so devoted to writing songs and recording; then suddenly this past August a re-emergence with The Suburbs, an album about, well... the suburbs.
Uh-oh, concept album alert! But right from the get-go, with the tuneful, deeply wistful title track, the record announces its intentions to be anything but grandiose. Sure, there are moments of densely-arranged grandeur (the almost baroque "Rococo," for example), but here, hubris takes a distant back seat to humanism, with rockers (the propulsive, anthemic "Ready to Start") and ballads (the darkly brooding "Suburban War") alike maintaining a crucial sonic and psychic balance. Point of fact, you don't even have to ponder the so-called concept to enjoy the album, which in a weird way makes the brief final song - titled "The Suburbs (Continued)" and serving as a kind of coda to both the opening track and the entire record - one of the most delightful musical surprises of the whole year. (Try this little trick of sequencing: Next time you start to play The Suburbs, cue it up with that last cut positioned as the first one and then followed by "The Suburbs" as the second one. You'll feel a tingle, I promise.)
Much ado has been made of how The Suburbs did gangbusters its first week, topping the Billboard charts and temporarily bumping Eminem, not to mention the fact that the album earned a Grammy nod for Best Album and is also up for two additional Grammys. Which is as it should be; it's a fantastic, timeless-in-feel record with a broad appeal.
Yet in the independent label world, this doesn't happen that often. Actually, it never happens. So it's as much a vindication for indies - bands and labels - as it is for those fans who have stuck with the band all this time even as A.F. got bigger and, inevitably, outgrew the "they're our band" status that helped fuel the buzz in the first place. With all the turmoil and transition these days in the music industry, only a fool would attempt a prediction as to the overall and lasting significance of A.F.'s success - but you have to admit, it did feel at times like a "Yay! We won!" moment.
But you can't read too much into all this. Simply put, Arcade Fire has worked as hard as any combo out there, while at the same time not allowing its musical imagination to stagnate or grow complacent, remaining artistically hungry and unwilling to compromise. Those are qualities that should be celebrated beyond matters of record sales, chart placings and awards ceremonies.
To just add a personal note: when an "important" and much-talked-about album such as this can also become the hands-down favorite of a certain nine-year-old child (er, that would be mine) - a kid who won't be worrying about what everything means, maaan... for at least a few more years and for now simply revels in how immediate and how engaging the music itself is - well, somehow that seems, to me, what's actually significant. It means that a torch is being passed, and in rock ‘n' roll, there is no greater gift. Thank you, Arcade Fire.
---------------ALL THE REST:
1. Justin Townes Earle - Harlem River Blues (Bloodshot)
WE SAID: Not only is Harlem River Blues the third album in three years for Justin Townes Earle, it's his third winner in a row. That's a prolific streak that should be the envy of his contemporaries. Earle and co-producer Skylar Wilson maintain consistency through clean, dry production that keeps the focus squarely on the tunesmith's plainspoken voice and bullshit-free songwriting.
2. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest (4AD)
WE SAID: Halcyon Digest blends new elements into Deerhunter's already lush template while emphasizing its pop inclinations. Psych-pop vibes insinuate into the sunny thrum of bells and jangly guitars... processed beats [and] glam pop plus epic guitar fuzz equals some of the most weirdly arresting songs you'll hear all year.
3. Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (Roc-A-Fella)
WE SAID: He's no Prince. But once you get past the ridiculous flights of ego disingenuously (sometimes) cloaked in self-deprecation (this is, after all, a record where a dude talks about sending photos of his dick to ladies), you encounter a genuinely dizzying array of soundscapes, as thickly layered as early Public Enemy in places, yet unerringly tuneful. Songs, even. Orchestral flourishes complete the picture - a 3-D one at that, and not just a snapshot.
4. Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma (Warp)
WE SAID: Through the utilization of live instruments threaded into the mix of this 45-minute "space opera", FlyLo maps out a sonic genealogy directly inspired by the genius of his aunt, the late Alice Coltrane. While many multigenerational artists tend to shy away from the shadows of their elders, it is nothing short of incredible to hear this immensely talented figure in the brave, new world of West Coast hip-hop embrace his legacy.
5. Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me (Drag City)
WE SAID: Harp-led epics with turns of phrase and melody, but with less of a wildhorse quality about the structure than Ys. These songs are both instantly hummable and enduring. "Kindness prevails": If these 124 minutes can be reduced to one sentiment, which they ostensibly cannot, really - let that be it. That's the feeling you can't deny when you're bonechilled and gasping after the wave.
6. Best Coast - Crazy for You (Mexican Summer)
WE SAID: Girl-group, garage-rock, shoegaze and just unabashed tingly pop all collide in this janglysexycool wall o' sound that is Best Coast, aka Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno. Cosentino's torn-from-her-diary lyrics may at times seem too intimate, but ultimately the sumptious sounds give ‘em the prolonged heft they deserve.
7. Drive-By Truckers - The Big To-Do (ATO)
WE SAID: Frankly it's the band's strongest collection of songs since the mid 2000s heyday of Decoration Day and the Dirty South. Patterson Hood and main songwriting counterpart Mike Cooley are front porch scribes who both know how to unearth the down and dirty of Dixie's underbelly without cliché.
8. Mavis Staples - You Are Not Alone (Anti-)
WE SAID: 55 years into her recording career, Mavis Staples is making music that ranks with the best she's ever done. She returns with her fellow Chicagoan, Wilco's Jeff Tweedy at the helm [and] fills each song with the breath and breadth of life itself.
9. Darkstar - North (Hyperdub)
WE SAID: Darkstar developed an authentically enigmatic atmosphere for North, steering from the potential black hole of overusing computer vocals... rather than exploring a nuanced brand of the dubstep that the producers had already established, they built a Mars-red epic [and a] hybrid of techno and science fiction film score fanaticism. This record is beaming, even as every measure is taken to keep out the light.
10. Sharon Van Etten - Epic (Ba Da Bing!)
WE SAID: Van Etten has moved from the hushed ethereality of her first album towards a warmer, more propulsive aesthetic, and in the process, created some of her most compelling songs to date. Her voice is stronger, duskier, surer, easily able to crest over rough-edged guitar strumming. There's something elemental about her performance.
11. Alejandro Escovedo - Street Songs of Love (Fantasy)
WE SAID: As visceral and uncompromising as his early solo outings were cerebral and widescreen, Street Songs of Love makes a strong case for Escovedo being one of our pre-eminent rock ‘n' roll artists now operating well outside the parameters of the so-called Americana realm. To hear him exploding out the gate with material that recalls classic raveups from the Stones, Mott the Hoople and the Clash is to bear witness to the eternal fountain of (mental) youth that rock ‘n' roll has always represented.
12. LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening (DFA)
WE SAID: LCD Soundsystem can do no wrong sonically. James Murphy has the knack and talent for creating bodaciously catchy tracks that range from ‘80s new wave to dance-punk to hypnotic trance. And again Murphy contemplates sizeable subjects such as love, life, and hypocrisy, all behind the upbeat veil of electronics.
13. Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - I Learned the Hard Way (Daptone)
WE SAID: There are any number of soul and funk revivalists working these days, many of them very good, but Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings are right now the finest at sounding both old and fresh at the same time... They know the secret to great soul music is allowing it to breathe naturally and expressively, while absolutely nailing down the tightly syncopated rhythmic elements provided by every instrument.
14. Robert Plant - Band of Joy (Rounder)
WE SAID: Band of Joy, which features Patty Griffin and Buddy Miller as key collaborators, explores the American songbook with strong results. Plant sounds inspired throughout, acting as a curator of songs by artists like Townes Van Zandt, Los Lobos and indie rockers Low.
15. Of Montreal - False Priest (Polyvinyl)
WE SAID: A doggedly, desperately upbeat album, undertaken with the determined notion that sex and psychedelia will prevent a slide into Morrissey-style miserablism. Ultimately, this potent mix of effervescent pop and melancholy self-exposure has done more than any flame demon or horny porcine to vault Of Montreal so far past its peers.
16. Steve Wynn & the Miracle 3 - Northern Aggression (Yep Roc)
WE SAID: The sonics are sumptuous from the get-go, feedback-laced thrumming rockers gradually turning widescreen in the grand psychedelic tradition, equal parts MC5, Spacemen 3 and Echo & the Bunnymen, but filtered through a thoroughly contemporary cranium-crunching sieve. The first new studio album from Wynn and the M3 in five years finds the songwriter at his most vital, both songwriting- and performance-wise, since the very first M3 release.
17. Janelle Monae - The ArchAndroid (Bad Boy)
WE SAID: She's equal parts futuristic new wave and sweat-inducing funk. Her songs are robotic without being cold. Her vocals are endearingly romantic and passionate with an elegant operatic howl, clarion clear diction and a soul-sonic scream that'd break James Brown's car windshield. And somehow, Monáe's oddly sci-fi detailed, character-driven songs are up close and intimately personal
18. Fresh & Onlys - Play It Strange (In The Red)
WE SAID: The attention bestowed upon these folks should not come as a surprise once you catch wind of the band's killer sound - a perfect storm of Gun Club-style goth-punk twang, Seeds-esque freakbeat and Chronic Town-era R.E.M.-style jangle stuffed within the echo-laden confines of a homegrown "Wall of Sound"... In a music landscape cramped with a baby boom of derivative revivalist garage acts, this sets an immensely talented group apart from the pack.
19. Four Tet - There Is Love In You (Domino)
WE SAID: Not unlike his rapidly accelerating eleven-year career, Kieran Hebden's output as Four Tet has splintered across the horizon in a dizzying multitude of musical directions. Crackling atmospherics, unrelenting locked grooves, and layers of immaculately organized, cascading accompaniment - There Is Love In You stirs and sweeps, its loop-centric tapestries as lively and as affecting as its uncoiling electronic flourishes.
20. Roky Erickson w/Okkervil River - True Love Cast Out All Evil (Anti-)
WE SAID: After 45 years, the third shoe has finally dropped. Roky Erickson's first new album since Bill Clinton moved into the White House puts an exclamation point to a tale of personal redemption. Now backed by Austin-based indie-rock hotshots Okkervil River, his latest is a total mindblower.
21. Swans - My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky (Young God)
WE SAID: Michael Gira and Co. don't solely go for the raw powered pummel or the broad strokes of art-damage. There is clever nuance and cool tension throughout - to say nothing of blame, idolatry, confinement and adoration. This Swan-y moment is all Gira's and a testament to his dramatically dire yet rapturously passionate aesthetic.
22. Caribou - Swim (Merge)
WE SAID: For Swim, Dan Snaith seems to be moving inside his own head, inside the clubs. This is the first Caribou record that would sound completely at home being spun from the booth over the dance floor - it's trancier, dancier, more solidly rooted in loop and repetition than any previous Caribou release.
23. Gaslight Anthem - American Slang (SideOneDummy)
WE SAID: In three years, The Gaslight Anthem has gone from being just another tattooed punk band from Jersey to the closest thing this generation may have to The Clash thanks to brilliantly memorable songs and lyrics that read like working class poetry. Their best record to date and one of the great rock albums of 2010 (punk or otherwise).
24. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - The Brutalist Bricks (Matador)
WE SAID: This taut, tight collection of 13 songs that make up the DNA of The Brutalist Bricks find Leo's trademark indie punk sound getting the major kick in the ass it so desperately needed. It sounds as though Teddy boy is out to take over what's left of the rock radio airwaves.
25. Wavves - Wavves (Fat Possum)
WE SAID: The beauty and appeal of this new record is how it manages to make slightly off-kilter, avant-garde rock music entirely accessible. Of course, it could be argued that this makes that classification null and void. It doesn't really matter anyway, because when the fuzzy noise blasts from your speakers, genres and labels become obsolete.
26. Beach House - Teen Dream (Sub Pop)
WE SAID: With Teen Dream, Beach House transplant the woozy pop haze of the vintage West Coast and transplant it beneath the shadows of the Shawangunk Mountains, crafting the masterpiece many of their fans knew they had in them all along.
27. Deadmau5 - 4 x 4 = 12 (Ultra)
WE SAID: Whether you like it or not, you're familiar with the oversized head and the big mouse ears of progressive house music maven Deadmau5... There are just enough happily dastardly surprises afoot at every turn here... lustrously spare and ripe with eerie yet sweetly catchy melodies that act as through lines through the album's weirdly pulsing heart.
28. Surfer Blood - Astro Coast (Kanine)
WE SAID: It's safe to assume the members of the band were raised on a steady diet of Weezer, The Pixies, Built To Spill. But they've managed to absorb all of this and more and regurgitate something all their own... Simple ideas made interesting through excellent recording and production - no shitgaze, this - and executed by an effusive bunch of rock musicians more concerned with quality than scoring scene points.
29. Crocodiles - Sleep Forever (Fat Possum)
WE SAID: Sleep Forever, cut in an isolated Joshua Tree studio with Simian Mobile Disco's James Ford, elaborates upon all that but is a leaner, meaner affair [than 2009's Summer of Hate], equal parts fuzzed-out glam slam, Krautrock boogie and latterday disco-punk... [An] astonishing record that serves up pop's head on a platter and makes for one bloody good buffet.
30. Superchunk - Majesty Shredding (Merge)
WE SAID: Unlike some outfits that draw on an insurgent attitude, Superchunk doesn't succeed through intimidation. Rather, they exhort their listeners to share in their celebratory revelry, so that in a real sense, the new album exudes at least as much modesty as majesty.
31. Tyvek - Nothing Fits (In The Red)
WE SAID: Cranked, cracked, bashed and frantic, Tyvek's second full-length pogos on a tightrope. There's an abyss dropping away on either side, an endless bottom one missed mortgage payment or judicial crack-up away. And yet a sense of manic joy permeates, too... A quick hit of adrenaline, a battering, disorienting blast of surplus energy that channels, occasionally, unexpectedly, into tuneful pop. It's one of the best punk albums out there right now.
32. Megafaun - Heretofore (Hometapes)
WE SAID: Praised for its elastic take on Americana, this North Carolina trio flexes its know-rules/break-rules muscles on a mini-LP of roots-solid songwriting and experimental subversions, recalling the subtle roots-and-noise alchemy of bands like Califone and Akron/Family. [The band displays a] talent for making the old sound new again.
33. Rangda - False Flag (Drag City)
WE SAID: A jaw-dropping, landmark sort of record, False Flag documents the all-but unrehearsed collaboration of three exceptional musicians - Sir Richard Bishop of Sun City Girls, Ben Chasny of Six Organs of Admittance and Chris Corsano of multiple, much-admired free jazz outfits. It is alternatingly bruising and serene, harsh and liquidly beautiful - and so beautifully structured, overall, that it's hard to believe it came together so intuitively.
34. Massive Attack - Heligoland (Virgin)
WE SAID: They're so good at on Heligoland that they've made a lasting art object - their form-is-statement command of trip-hop is as masterly as is Pet Shop Boys' similar work with post-New Wave dance music. Using sound like a painter uses material to build up color and texture on a canvas, they use individual songs to create an album recognizable as theirs for its characteristic traits - an overall introspective, studio-processed swirl of sound.
35. Parting Gifts - Strychnine Dandelion (In The Red)
WE SAID: Together, these guys (members of The Ettes and Reigning Sound) kick up a dustcloud of Mekons-esque cow punk and what one may or may not hear as a post-Dolls David Johansen backed by Thee Headcoats within the confines of Phil Spector's Wall of Sound.
36. !!! - Strange Weather, Isn't It? (Warp)
WE SAID: !!! has long survived the dance-punk explosion of the early aughts. Credit its sustainability not to simply mating drum machine programming with stabbing guitars, but cleverly roping the sounds of disco, Sandinista-era Clash, '90s house, and dub into the mix.
37. Tony Joe White - The Shine (Swamp)
WE SAID: White's voice may have lost the very slightest touch of the deep swamp rumble that made ‘em shiver and swoon when "Polk Salad Annie" hit in 1969 but it's still a hell of a voice... Mystery haunted Southern Gothic landscapes that draw one into a world that exists somewhere between William Faulkner and Elmore Leonard, and where low ‘n' lazy gets the job done just fine every time.
38. Women - Public Strain (Jagjaguwar)
WE SAID: Women perfectly capture the industrial dissonance of the [Alberta, Canada] terrain, harboring a barren, disconnected sound that is equal parts Joy Division, Bastro and Cluster... further testament to the subtle sea change in the indie rock universe away from the precious and fey sounds of the last 10 years and back to the caustic nihilism of the good old days.
39. Giant Sand - Blurry Blue Mountain (Fire)
WE SAID: It's the strongest and most cohesive GS album since 2000's masterful Chore of Enchantment, and before that, 1992's blazing epic Center of the Universe. It features some of Howe Gelb's most directly affecting lyrics in years, plus wonderfully fleshed-out arrangements and a yin/yang balance of rockers and ballads, of guitar-centric numbers and piano-based ones.
40. Los Lobos - Tin Can Trust (Shout! Factory)
WE SAID: Los Lobos' creative wellspring is muy ridiculoso. It's because their collective heart is huge, and their eye sees all. As usual, the wolves couch these scenes and stories in lowrider rhythms, vox somnambulant and spirited, dirty guitars, skronking sax and techie touches.
41. Greg Laswell - Take A Bow (Vanguard)
WE SAID: Laswell has developed a signature sound that's served him well, one that emphasizes a hushed atmospheric ambiance that subtly drapes the music like an early morning mist but leaves an emphatic impression nevertheless. Self produced and performed almost entirely solo, Take A Bow furthers this motif, and yet, it finds a sharper focus than any of his previous outings.
42. Clogs - The Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton (Brassland)
WE SAID: The fifth full-length for classically-influenced quartet Clogs begins with two voices, at first staccato and spare, a little later lush with madrigal harmonies and finally oddly birdlike, the main melodic line twittering and fluttering over complicated counterpoints... the resulting songs are [as] disarmingly beautiful [as] the composing process was rigorous.
43. Posies - Blood/Candy (Rykodisc)
WE SAID: With Blood/Candy, they've one-upped their personal best. It's a feast of sweet, coppery power-pop that's at once familiarly spacey and more down-to-earth. B/C is ultimately fresh and diverse with hallmarks intact, and undoubtedly the Posies' finest work.
44. Mynabirds - What We Lost in the Fire We Gained in the Flood (Saddle Creek)
WE SAID: For all the so-called innovations, experimentation and genrefucking that suffuse the indie rock world, there's still nothing like a good old-fashioned song. Reflecting the ‘70s singer/songwriter tradition of margin walkers like Laura Nyro, Harry Nilsson or Allen Toussaint, Laura Burhenn (ex-Georgie James) forgoes oddball arrangements or deliberately jarring production tricks and just gets on with the business of performing ten soulful pop songs.
45. Bettye LaVette - Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook (Anti-)
WE SAID: Her song selection is so spot-on that it's tempting to lay them all out here, but suffice to say that on this album LaVette goes as far as anyone ever has to break down the forced and superfluous barriers between rock and roll and rhythm and blues. This album will break your heart at least half a dozen times and put you flat on your ass with your mouth wide open.
46. Neil Young - Le Noise (Reprise)
WE SAID: A series of atmospheric soundscapes featuring Young alone on guitar, directed through the ambitious agenda of producer Daniel Lanois. Loud, overdriven chunks of feedback and distortion blow raspberries at the slightly (just slightly) less unruly strummed segments, while Uncle Neil delivers - bizarrely, but welcome - reflective observations on love, hate, peace, war ‘n' stuff.
47. Bettie Serveert - Pharmacy of Love (Second Motion)
WE SAID: Scanning like a live set keyed to maximum dynamic impact (both sonic and emotional) and boasting a beefy sound, tuneful gems power past in rapid succession... the most adrenalin-pumping slice of New Wave garage since Blondie's "Hanging On the Telephone."
48. Eux Autres - Broken Bow (Bons Mots)
WE SAID: It's amazing how much the band has grown since the early days and this, their 3rd full-length is easily the best thing they have ever done with compact, focused pop songs that really move. If Broken Bow doesn't get the band more fans, well, then, it's obvious those pop fans need some more education.
49. Tony Allen - Secret Agent (World Circuit/Nonesuch)
WE SAID: With a subtly stormy style comprising sprightly jazz, R&B, traditional Nigerian and highlife rhythms, Allen's cross-cutting beats instantly propel each track. Secret Agent is a spaced-out spacious work too that benefits from dub and the electronic avant-garde... A party album with Allen proving to be a most amiable host.
50. Susan Cowsill - Lighthouse (Threadhead)
WE SAID: The songs on Lighthouse are guided by two themes - loss and hope. Both have been a part of music since the beginning, but Susan Cowsill (formerly of the family band the Cowsills) taps into some pretty weighty experiences for inspiration. Cowsill and her band have the power to their conviction and they pull it off.
*****
15 HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Jónsi - Go (XL); Oval - O (Thrill Jockey); Titus Andronicus - The Monitor (XL); Marnie Stern - Marnie Stern (Kill Rock Stars); Spoon - Transference (Merge); Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Mojo (Reprise); The Sword - Warp Riders (Kemado); Kings Go Forth - The Outsiders Are Back (Luaka Bop); Antony and the Johnsons - Swanlights (Secretly Canadian); Budos Band - III (Daptone); Holly Golightly & the Brokeoffs - Medicine County (Transdreamer); Grinderman - Grinderman 2 (Anti-); Jon Langford & Skull Orchard - Old Devils (Bloodshot); Ryan Bingham & the Dead Horses - Junky Star (Lost Highway); Black Angels - Phosphene Dream (Blue Horizon)
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