The Top 25 Albums of 2010 | honorablementionythingies

it was the best of times...it was the end of the naughts of times

Year-end list time! Let me be straight-forward here: I guess I only listened to about 40 full albums this year. While that’s a little less than one per week, I still don’t feel like it’s all that many, especially when Pitchfork lists their “top” 50. I know I can’t really compare myself to a daily music reviewing site, but I still like to aspire to that kind of level, at least taste- and writing-wise. Anyways, they do five reviews a day. 25 a week. For argument’s sake, holidays accounted for and re-issues discounted, that’s about 1000 reviews a year. That’s a shitload of new music. So now, I think you can see how my mere 40 albums pale in comparison.

I’m just telling you straight-up that these are the 40 albums I listened to, ranked in an order based on how much I liked them, how good the music itself was, and the amount of time I’ve had to be exposed to it. Albums I’ve only listened to a little bit are probably ranked lower than they should be. Albums I like more than other people might are ranked higher than they should be (much more so in some cases). Either way, the list has its flaws, and I’m making those clear from the start.

Before we get to those rankings though (my top 25 by the way), there’s 12 other albums that didn’t quite make the cut, for a variety of reasons – most of which I’ll expand on below. They’re arranged by categories, and not in any way by preference or quality. How about we just go alphabetically:

Avant-Pop:

Robyn – Body Talk: I’m lumping in Body Talk Pt. 1 and Body Talk Pt. 2 here, much the same way the artist herself did by releasing the aptly named Body Talk. I gave both parts a few listens, and Robyn has her pop downpat obviously. In some ways, she’s light years ahead of pop here in North America – probably owing to years of honing her skills in the vastly different pop climate of Europe. In other ways, she bangs out tunes with Pharrell and Snoop Dogg much like Katy Perry and other American pop contemporaries. Either way, the girl is good. Not whole-album good though, which is why she didn’t crack my Top 25. There’s absolute gems like “Dancing On My Own”, but there were too many songs that sounded like filler to me. Maybe to a pop aficionado they come off a little more meaningful, but to an appreciator like myself (Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” kills me – in all the good ways – simply because I can recognize it’s amazing pop music) they don’t mean much, and they didn’t earn many spins because of that.

Yeasayer – Odd Blood: Oh yea Yeasayer, I cannot say much. There are neat tunes like “ONE”, “Ambling Alp”, and “Madder Red” on here, but they kinda lend this category its name – it’s pop music that’s too forward-thinking for my tastes. Like, I can see these guys appealing to pop radio listeners in 2030 – with their 2010 album. I guess I just don’t get it. But keep it up guys. The future still needs music.

Autre Ne Veut – Autre Ne Veut: A late contender emerges! I guess this was released in August, but I only picked up on it after a warm Pitchfork review the other week, and a very enjoyable mp3 of “Two Days Of Rain” off the internets. Couldn’t find the album anywhere though, so I bought it off iTunes (!), and it’s had a few (mainly falling-asleep) spins over the last week. It’s solid, I love the singer’s audacious range, and he rivetingly straddles the line between avant-pop and retro stylings recalling the 80’s in all their gaudiness. Maybe if I’d discovered Autre Ne Veut earlier in the year, he’d have cracked the Top 25. For now though, he’s hanging with Yeasayer and Robyn. I’m thinking there’s a lot of makeup tips and weird song ideas being thrown around there too.

Black Sheep:

Frightened Rabbit – The Winter Of Mixed Drinks: These guys got kind of unlucky. They’re good. The album’s pretty good. I listened to it. I kinda liked it. But my God are they pretty depressing when it comes down to it. Between the tone of the songs, the album title, and the moods you can get in to while listening to them, I’d swear all the songs are about crumbling relationships, forlorn love, drinking yourself into a stupor, and speaking in the most indiscernible Scottish accent possible. Really, I think that’s what it’s about. Poor bastards.

Droners:

Tame Impala – Innerspeaker: I want to get this one out of the way first for this category. I can’t take it off my iTunes library. And you know why? I think it has to do with the album cover. Seriously: I can’t get enough of that thing when it comes up on my iPod. The music though? Literally just a drone of undifferentiated Australian stoner-rock songs. Imagine a range of 1-10, just a simple thought exercise where 1 is one end of the spectrum, and 10 is the other. These guys are constantly locked in between 3-5. That’s to say, there’s really isn’t a difference between most of the songs on here. It’s boring. Well, the songs are at least.

Pink Skull – Endless Bummer: Punks Kill? Get it! If Tame Impala is stoner-rock, this is electronic music on acid. I don’t mean that in a bad or trippy way; the music is pretty rudimentary in a lot of ways. I just mean the song titles are nuts, the album covers (it’s a two-sider) are bright pink and neon green, and the songs just kind of ebb and flow. I remember writing a few essays and generally chilling out to this album, and it has a really good vibe (no bad trips here), but I just couldn’t bring myself to name it to my Top 25 for the year. I’d still definitely get their next album though.

Emeralds – Does It Look Like I’m Here?: Alright, you want trippy and droning? This album. I swear to God this gave me sleep paralysis one afternoon when I was home sick from work and threw this on while napping and wearing my headphones. That memory still makes me queasy (I think you’d understand if you’ve ever experienced sleep paralysis), and kind of turned me off of this otherwise great electronic/drone record. The songs are epic, varied, and quite interesting. It’s a masterful effort by Emeralds even, who I only knew before this album as crafting one particularly great, autumn-like electronic tune called “Side A”. But waking up with my body asleep, my eyes awake, and the most unsettling visceral buzzing in my ears did a lot to get me away from listening to this for the rest of the year. It would probably do the same for you.

Enjoyable Rockers:

Sleigh Bells – Treats: I don’t get it. I really don’t. It’s a good album. It has some great songs. But it’s one dude tearing away at his guitar, and a girl with some cute and sometimes poignant lyrics about school, summer, and boys and girls. I have nothing against that kind of thing, but it doesn’t exactly lend itself to epic music, overarching themes, or an album rating better than my number one on my list (seriously, Pitchfork rated them like that – I told you I don’t get it). “Crown On The Ground” bangs like nothing of this world, and there’s at least four or five other solid tracks. It’s just not great music though. I think that’s what I’m getting at. Fits the category anyway: it’s enjoyable, it rocks…and it’s not in my Top 25.

Hawksley Workman – Meat: …aaaand, the award for worst album title goes to…! I kid. This isn’t a great album either – in fact, I deleted all but about five songs off it. Hawksley (that’s not his real name, as you can probably guess) has such a knack for easily relatable and heartfelt ballads that I couldn’t leave him off this list. One of my favourite tracks this year was his “We’ll Make Time (Even When There Ain’t No Time)” simply for his delivery and lyrics, spare instrumentation be damned. “The grass is always greener/but you’ve still gotta cut it”? Golden. Album title? Nooot so much.

Los Campesinos! – Romance Is Boring: …aaaand, so is this album! Only kinda though. I dunno, I was expecting a ton from these guys with their follow-up to one of my personal favourites, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed. There’s still some laugh-out-loud lyrics, elaborate and abstract song titles, and the same great instrumental breakdowns and oddities, but there’s a distinct lack of character compared to their previous efforts. I probably gave this thing like five listens, and I just didn't pick up on the real-life relationship re-tellings that made me fall in love with these guys in the first place. I couldn’t get enough of WAB,WAD. Swingandamiss on this one.

Letdowns:

Stars – The Five Ghosts: I’m pretty sure the title is foreshadowing what would happen to the five members of Stars' musical careers if they put out another album like this. Okay, that’s pretty harsh, but after absolutely stellar efforts on all their prior releases, Stars just went somewhere…else, and that didn’t go over well with me, nor most others I know who really love them. Gone are most of the heartstring-tugging ballads, replaced by synthy, fake-sadness, wannabe-tearjerkers. Alright, that was harsh, but deserved. I just don’t feel like they delivered with this one. I was so pumped for a new Stars album, and they gave me two, maybe three good tunes, and the rest was almost unlistenable. That’s not a Stars album to me. That’s the ghost of one.

Band Of Horses – Infinite Arms: Ohhh, it got bumped off the Top 25 by literally one spot, as I was sitting down watching the World Juniors and listening to the Strombo Show on CBC Radio2 count down their Top 100 of the year just about an hour ago. Really, they were at number 25 for each one of the four lists I did (more on that next time) until they got bumped. That’s more of a reflection of my less-than-40 album listens for the year than it is of the quality of this album. I thought I liked Band Of Horses before Infinite Arms; at least the songs “Is There A Ghost?” and “The Funeral”. That counts as liking, right?

Alright, I barely listened to them, but I was surprised by the panning most critics gave them for this effort. I gave it a bunch of plays and I thought it was pretty good, a few tunes aside. Only afterwards did I also grab some of their older albums, and only then did I realize album standout “Laredo” could be sung right along with earlier effort “Weed Party” – and not only that, but the words sounded better over the “Weed Party” track. It’s one thing to make a middling album; it’s another to rip your own songs off to do it. Oh, plus my ex would constantly make fun of me for liking these guys, and especially this album. This is kind of a “washing my hands clean” ranking, for that reason.

Anyways, that’s what I’ve got for now. Later on this week, I’ll do my Top 25 albums of 2010, and if I can squeeze them in before the New Year, my Top Singles of 2010 (the number of which is as of yet undetermined). In the meantime, try and think of your own; I’ve always liked to use lists like these as a kind of barometer for my own tastes, and I’d be glad if you used mine the same way.