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defrogObviously.
All up, 2010 was a mixed bag for new music. I generally tend to like new bands more than a lot of people my age, but it’s notable that my top six albums were recorded by bands/artists/musicians who have been around a minimum of 20 years. And they were absolute stunners. After that, it kind of drop off a bit.
Which isn’t to say this year’s Top 20 albums are six really great albums and 14 duds (after all, if I didn't like it, I wouldn't buy it). But as usual, most of them rely on plundering past sounds and ideas from my youth, which is good, and at the same time kind of redundant. Which is why probably the biggest “discovery” for me in 2010 was Captain Beefheart.
And he’s dead now.
So let’s do this. And like last year, I’ll break this into three parts for yr convenience.
DISCLAIMER: Based on music I actually bought between December 2009 and November 2010, and therefore a useless metric for everyone else. Also, I spent enough time on this without having to get all the links for these albums, so for more information, just Google whatever interests you, cos that's what I would have done.
TOP 20 DEF LPs/EPs/DOWNLOADS OF 2010 (#11-20)
11. The Fabulous Penetrators, With Love (Stag-o-Lee)
12. 22-20s, Shake/Shiver/Moan (tbd records)
13. Neil Young, Le Noise (Reprise)
14. New Young Pony Club, The Optimist (The Numbers/Pias Entertainment)
15. The Thermals, Personal Life (Kill Rock Stars)
16. M.I.A., /\/\ /\ Y /\ (XL Recordings)
17. Dan Sartain, Lives (One Little Indian)
18. Love Psychedelico, Abbot Kinney (What's Music)
19. Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs, Medicine County (Transdreamer Records)
20. Blonde Redhead, Penny Sparkle (4AD)
TOP 20 DEF LPs/EPs/DOWNLOADS OF 2010 (#11-20): EXTENDED PLAY
11. The Fabulous Penetrators
With Love (Stag-o-Lee) Debut album from a British garage-rock band that I’d love to have play my next birthday party. Nothing original here, but the Penetrators seem to understand the basic tenet of revivalist garage rock: if yr going to steal, steal smartly. And they do – almost every hook is a winner, and the Penetrators make the most of them.
12. 22-20s
Shake/Shiver/Moan (tbd records) Second album from a British band that started off as garage-rock revivalists, made an album (that I liked but didn’t buy because it had copy-control software on it), broke up, then reformed. Their sound has evolved from blues-rock formula to something more jangly, and for the most part the songs hold up well, though not always. The downside is that the more I listen to it, the more it occurs to me they’re maybe two albums away from becoming a Britpop band, which I could do without.
13. Neil Young
Le Noise (Reprise) Young returns with an interesting premise – just him, an electric guitar and Daniel Lanois mixing the whole thing in echo and reverb. So in that sense alone it doesn’t really sound like anything Young’s ever done before. And while that may sound gimmicky (which in a way it is), it wouldn’t work unless the songs were strong enough to stand on their own merit – which they mostly do, if only because some of them are old songs Young has been playing live for ages but never recorded. In a word: mesmerizing.
14. New Young Pony Club
The Optimist (The Numbers/Pias Entertainment) Another sophomore album from another British band, this one more focused on new-wave indie-dance rock revivalism. Their first album impressed me, and this one is more polished – which might work against it, but they make up for it with nice bass hooks and a willingness to take some chances into quirkier territory.
15. The Thermals
Personal Life (Kill Rock Stars) I love The Thermals’ brand of earnest power-pop, but they may always live in the shadow of their best album, 2006’s The Body The Blood The Machine. This album, which as the title suggests is more about love and relationships, underwhelmed me at first, but once I got over the fact that it wasn’t another TBTBTM, it’s been growing on me.
16. M.I.A.
/\/\ /\ Y /\ (XL Recordings) M.I.A.’s third album (pronounced “Maya”, incidentally) and the first to convince me to take her seriously. Her first two records were aimed at a more conventional hip-hop audience. This time she goes for a concept album about the digital “noise” of Web 2.0, with plenty of heavy industrial power tools and echo. Musically it’s daring and in-yr-face, and lyrically it’s intriguing if not exactly the Third World Voice or political manifesto MIA and her critics might like to think. Anyway, points for nerve and presentation, but definitely not for everyone.
17. Dan Sartain
Lives (One Little Indian) Third album from Alabama singer-songwriter obsessed with Southern gothic rockabilly. Sartain is an underrated songwriter, for my money, but where his previous album offered a little more musical variety, Lives has a more consistent musical approach – which is good, but one problem is Sartain’s tendency to take a good hook and milk it through the whole song, which makes repeated listens a problem for a few songs here. Still, there’s a lot of good stuff here, and it’s better than most mainstream singer-songwriter dudes I could name.
18. Love Psychedelico
Abbot Kinney (What's Music) Fifth album from Japanese duo still in love with the 60s/70s California rock (the album is named after a street in Santa Monica). The previous two albums suggested they’d milked that love about as far as it could go, but Love Psychedelico seem recharged this time, even though their basic MO (psychedelic pop with blended Japanese-English lyrics) hasn’t changed all that much. It really is about having more decent songs this time.
19. Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs
Medicine County (Transdreamer Records) Holly Golightly has been recording various brands of American Gothic blues and rockabilly since the mid-90s, but most people only know her from her appearance on a White Stripes album (and I confess, I wouldn’t know who she was if she hadn’t also guested on Rocket From The Crypt’s R.F.T.C. album). This is her 18th album, and her fourth with backing band The Brokeoffs, and it’s pretty good, though her take on Americana veers a little too close to pastiche sometimes.
20. Blonde Redhead
Penny Sparkle (4AD) Eighth album that sees Blonde Redhead drift off in a more electronica direction. Which isn’t a bad thing for a band that normally plays dreamy, melancholy music, but on first pass, many of the songs don’t really imprint onto the brain compared to their more recent albums. But when they do spark, they do so brilliantly, and a few of the songs I didn’t quite get at first have grown on me a little since then.
Up next: the technical awards!
Fast and bulbous,
This is dF
All up, 2010 was a mixed bag for new music. I generally tend to like new bands more than a lot of people my age, but it’s notable that my top six albums were recorded by bands/artists/musicians who have been around a minimum of 20 years. And they were absolute stunners. After that, it kind of drop off a bit.
Which isn’t to say this year’s Top 20 albums are six really great albums and 14 duds (after all, if I didn't like it, I wouldn't buy it). But as usual, most of them rely on plundering past sounds and ideas from my youth, which is good, and at the same time kind of redundant. Which is why probably the biggest “discovery” for me in 2010 was Captain Beefheart.
And he’s dead now.
So let’s do this. And like last year, I’ll break this into three parts for yr convenience.
DISCLAIMER: Based on music I actually bought between December 2009 and November 2010, and therefore a useless metric for everyone else. Also, I spent enough time on this without having to get all the links for these albums, so for more information, just Google whatever interests you, cos that's what I would have done.
TOP 20 DEF LPs/EPs/DOWNLOADS OF 2010 (#11-20)
11. The Fabulous Penetrators, With Love (Stag-o-Lee)
12. 22-20s, Shake/Shiver/Moan (tbd records)
13. Neil Young, Le Noise (Reprise)
14. New Young Pony Club, The Optimist (The Numbers/Pias Entertainment)
15. The Thermals, Personal Life (Kill Rock Stars)
16. M.I.A., /\/\ /\ Y /\ (XL Recordings)
17. Dan Sartain, Lives (One Little Indian)
18. Love Psychedelico, Abbot Kinney (What's Music)
19. Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs, Medicine County (Transdreamer Records)
20. Blonde Redhead, Penny Sparkle (4AD)
TOP 20 DEF LPs/EPs/DOWNLOADS OF 2010 (#11-20): EXTENDED PLAY
11. The Fabulous Penetrators
With Love (Stag-o-Lee) Debut album from a British garage-rock band that I’d love to have play my next birthday party. Nothing original here, but the Penetrators seem to understand the basic tenet of revivalist garage rock: if yr going to steal, steal smartly. And they do – almost every hook is a winner, and the Penetrators make the most of them.
12. 22-20s
Shake/Shiver/Moan (tbd records) Second album from a British band that started off as garage-rock revivalists, made an album (that I liked but didn’t buy because it had copy-control software on it), broke up, then reformed. Their sound has evolved from blues-rock formula to something more jangly, and for the most part the songs hold up well, though not always. The downside is that the more I listen to it, the more it occurs to me they’re maybe two albums away from becoming a Britpop band, which I could do without.
13. Neil Young
Le Noise (Reprise) Young returns with an interesting premise – just him, an electric guitar and Daniel Lanois mixing the whole thing in echo and reverb. So in that sense alone it doesn’t really sound like anything Young’s ever done before. And while that may sound gimmicky (which in a way it is), it wouldn’t work unless the songs were strong enough to stand on their own merit – which they mostly do, if only because some of them are old songs Young has been playing live for ages but never recorded. In a word: mesmerizing.
14. New Young Pony Club
The Optimist (The Numbers/Pias Entertainment) Another sophomore album from another British band, this one more focused on new-wave indie-dance rock revivalism. Their first album impressed me, and this one is more polished – which might work against it, but they make up for it with nice bass hooks and a willingness to take some chances into quirkier territory.
15. The Thermals
Personal Life (Kill Rock Stars) I love The Thermals’ brand of earnest power-pop, but they may always live in the shadow of their best album, 2006’s The Body The Blood The Machine. This album, which as the title suggests is more about love and relationships, underwhelmed me at first, but once I got over the fact that it wasn’t another TBTBTM, it’s been growing on me.
16. M.I.A.
/\/\ /\ Y /\ (XL Recordings) M.I.A.’s third album (pronounced “Maya”, incidentally) and the first to convince me to take her seriously. Her first two records were aimed at a more conventional hip-hop audience. This time she goes for a concept album about the digital “noise” of Web 2.0, with plenty of heavy industrial power tools and echo. Musically it’s daring and in-yr-face, and lyrically it’s intriguing if not exactly the Third World Voice or political manifesto MIA and her critics might like to think. Anyway, points for nerve and presentation, but definitely not for everyone.
17. Dan Sartain
Lives (One Little Indian) Third album from Alabama singer-songwriter obsessed with Southern gothic rockabilly. Sartain is an underrated songwriter, for my money, but where his previous album offered a little more musical variety, Lives has a more consistent musical approach – which is good, but one problem is Sartain’s tendency to take a good hook and milk it through the whole song, which makes repeated listens a problem for a few songs here. Still, there’s a lot of good stuff here, and it’s better than most mainstream singer-songwriter dudes I could name.
18. Love Psychedelico
Abbot Kinney (What's Music) Fifth album from Japanese duo still in love with the 60s/70s California rock (the album is named after a street in Santa Monica). The previous two albums suggested they’d milked that love about as far as it could go, but Love Psychedelico seem recharged this time, even though their basic MO (psychedelic pop with blended Japanese-English lyrics) hasn’t changed all that much. It really is about having more decent songs this time.
19. Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs
Medicine County (Transdreamer Records) Holly Golightly has been recording various brands of American Gothic blues and rockabilly since the mid-90s, but most people only know her from her appearance on a White Stripes album (and I confess, I wouldn’t know who she was if she hadn’t also guested on Rocket From The Crypt’s R.F.T.C. album). This is her 18th album, and her fourth with backing band The Brokeoffs, and it’s pretty good, though her take on Americana veers a little too close to pastiche sometimes.
20. Blonde Redhead
Penny Sparkle (4AD) Eighth album that sees Blonde Redhead drift off in a more electronica direction. Which isn’t a bad thing for a band that normally plays dreamy, melancholy music, but on first pass, many of the songs don’t really imprint onto the brain compared to their more recent albums. But when they do spark, they do so brilliantly, and a few of the songs I didn’t quite get at first have grown on me a little since then.
Up next: the technical awards!
Fast and bulbous,
This is dF
