The Best of 2010

16. Expo 86 - Wolf Parade
15. Eyelid Movies - Phantogram
14. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy - Kanye West
13. Total Life Forever - Foals
12. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest

11. The Hundred in the Hands - The Hundred in the Hands (buy)


Interestingly the band's sound changed substantially since "Dressed in Dresden" was recorded in 2008. The hybrid electro-dance-rock-guitar has grown up well, aided by great mixing and production that makes early leaks sound incomplete. The weaknesses though are in the songwriting; a lot of the tracks have great melodies and hooks, but the structure of songs like "Last City" and "Dead Ending" don't seem to go anywhere. Furthermore "Gold Blood" is a decidedly uncomfortable listen. The ideas were good, but it doesn't work perfectly as a whole. The singles though are good enough to carry the whole album.

10. Warpaint - Warpaint (buy)


The best new sound of the year came from the Los Angeles natives, Warpaint. Their choice of textural elements develops a strong sense of atmosphere. The layered vocals, warm guitar tones and slow-burning pace are enough to make this an important recording in a time of growing synth ubiquity. However, the lack of discernible or memorable melody makes Warpaint difficult to focus fully on. Unfortunately, it too easily becomes background music.

9. Congratulations - MGMT (buy)


The most admirable move in music this year might go largely ignored. That plain and unsurprising result would be a shame, since it doesn't often happen that a band bursting with the success of its debut follows up with a dense and unmarketable sophomore record and an absurd cover. Ignore the dissimilarity of back story, marketing, and major-label selling-out for a second and think about The Killer's sophomore album, Sam's Town. If you weren't sure that they sold out with Hot Fuss' bombast and their top 40-ready image, they brought you Sam's Town for good measure, an album with more of the same press photos and blatantly borrowed-styles The idea was the same for The Killers on both albums; sell a shitload of easily marketed pop derivative and quote a lead singer named Flowers. MGMT could have done the same, hell you probably wished that they did too; who didn't hope for "Electric Feel II" this year?

The first song to appear off the album, "Flash Delirium," proportionately described the work's modest hooks, dense layering, and psychadelic sounds. The track list though is enough to tell you there are no singles. How many fans of "Kids" know who Brian Eno is? Furthermore, the album does not always clearly break between songs, making for a listen that is intentionally holistic--an attribute that major labels despise (and yet they wonder why no one buys albums anymore). Doing more to complicate the beginnings and endings is the complex and at-times stunning "Siberian Breaks." The 12-minute song plays like an opus in four movements. Listening to it while doing something else makes it impossible to focus--our brains are probably designed to ignore a soundscape this dense and seemingly directionless. You practically need a music professor to identify the four parts it switches in and out of, mostly seamlessly changing singers, tempos and instrumentation. There is no chorus, just a sequence that looks something like this: I, II, III, II, I, IV. So if you can't remember the last time a group upheld its artistic integrity and told all that mainstream money to go to hell, Congratulations.

8. High Violet - The National (buy)


By far the most atmospheric album of the year, it was the best score to summer evenings and mutual break-ups. Melancholy but not forlorn is the tone from start to finish, and in that way it is slightly monotonous. The buried climaxes are perhaps what make it such an effective emotional soundtrack; the album's continuity makes the small peaks feel more like dramatic counterpoint. Ironically "Afraid of Everyone" brings the albums first big moment in its repetition: "You're the voices swallowing my soul, soul, soul." Matt Berninger's baritone glides above locomotive drumming on most songs, but none so evident as "Little Faith" and "Bloodbuzz Ohio." Name-dropped cities and venues are littered throughout, giving many a point to call their own, but also creating a distracting and ambiguous geography. And for the third time, Berninger's limited vocal range does not limit the group's evocative power.

7. Sir Lucious Left Foot - Big Boi (buy)

Big Boi - "Daddy Fat Sax"


6. Swim - Caribou (buy)



5. Crystal Castles (II) - Crystal Castles (buy)


Like a Schwarznegger movie, you like it as you listen through, zone out a few times and in the end can't remember the details but are sure that you enjoyed it. Crystal Castles' sophomore album has almost as many great hooks and single-ready tracks as the first, but it comes up just a bit shorter for not having a moment as memorable as "Untrust Us" or "Vanished."

The lack of discernible lyrics makes it difficult to communicate a theme, unless you count its 8-bit textures and glitchy beeps. Fist-pumping songs like "Doe Deer" surely appeal to the meat head fan base, but many moments exist for the indie fans, especially in the ethereal "Empathy" and "Celestica." The album also lays the base for a couple of the best mashup/remixes of the year; Outkast on "Skewed Empathy" and Robert Smith on "Not In Love." It is a strangely easy album to allow to disapear in the background, but it rewards its focused listeners.

4. Have One On Me - Joanna Newsom (buy)


Newsom is the kind of polarizing singer that you either like or dislike instantly. Have One On Me is her intimidating triple LP that runs longer than most movies. The heavy use of the harp, along with her album covers would make you expect the baroque Christmas music your mother listens to. Similar to This Is Happening, the album has few radio-ready tracks and its best are the songs that take more than a couple of minutes to develop. With all of those things going against it, its appeal only grows with each listen.

Newsom's lyrical performances are what makes Have One On Me so powerful. The stirring honesty of songs like "Go Long" and "Autumn" express uncommon degrees of sincerity. Newsom sings about common emotions in such detail that many of her lyrics read like love letters. She's not rambling here, it's just that those things can't be said in fewer words. On "Good Intentions Paving Company" she sings:

This is blindness beyond all conceiving,
while behind us, the road is leaving
and leaving, and falling back
like a rope gone slack.
...
But it can make you feel over and old
lord, you know it's a shame
when I only want for you to pull over and hold me
till I can't remember my own name.

3. The Suburbs - Arcade Fire (buy)


It only takes one listen to fall in love with The Suburbs thanks to the memorable melodies and single-ready hooks. Usually an album this easy to appreciate doesn't age well, the hooks that stick in your head are the kind that often become irritating, but somehow that doesn't happen here. The album starts out with four of the most radio-ready songs of their discography and similarly ends with a couple of its most lasting. On repeated listens this strange sequencing feels more apparent and unlike earlier albums.

Arcade Fire have received criticism for their onstage enthusiasm (albeit from a band who abandoned their fans for the opportunity to play arenas and date Victoria's Secret models) as if caring (or pretending to care) is somehow bad. The reality however is that honest or not, we believe Win Butler cares about the things he sings. This is The Suburbs' great success where Neon Bible and Funeral failed relatively, the themes are lighthearted in comparison yet still universally relatable. The nostalgia that the album elicits is immediately personal to the idiosyncrasy of the listener's youth. The themes are uncommon in popular music but they are omnipresent in daily life. From the way technology has changed the anticipation we feel for letters in the mail ("We Used to Wait") to the false cultural rebellion of emo kids, punks and hipsters ("Rococo"), Arcade Fire again has made a popular music record about things we don't sing about. The Suburbs speaks to our time and an entire generation of twenty- and thirty-somethings--which is probably why it sold so damn well.

2. Teen Dream - Beach House (buy)


The most perfect album of the year. Victoria Legrande's androgynous voice rarely reaches a shrill but it conveys a depth of emotion that is perfectly complemented by Alex Scally's economical guitar lines and the basic drum rhythms. Teen Dream defies season, time and mood; think of it as music's Green Eggs and Ham. The moments of epiphany of "Zebra" and "10 Mile Stereo" along with the simple, heartfelt moments of "Take Care" and "Real Love" feel good everywhere.

1. This Is Happening - LCD Soundsystem (buy)


The best five minutes of music in 2010 were the slow build of This Is Happening's opening track. "Dance Yrself Clean" is a song I want to hear for the first time every time. The pattering drumsticks and sparse bass line of the introduction create empty space that pulls you inside, and because it's uncharacteristically long, even when you know it's coming, the drop is still mind blowing. The explosion is simultaneously consuming and euphoric so that it is impossible to stand still for.

LCD Soundsystem's third album is the group's least cynical work. James Murphy expresses nostalgia for good times rather than distaste for snobby kids or a "billionaire mayor." In that way it's more "All My Friends" and less "Losing My Edge," which makes a little more sense considering that this is still dance music. The material is lighter at times, singing about drunk girls and vague "advantages, advantages!" but also more personal on other tracks like "I Can Change" and "All I Want." Maybe it's lighter because it was supposed to LCD's last. Here's hoping it isn't.