Lists, lists and damned lists: it’s that time of year again, when everyone gets a bit dewy-eyed and stat-crazy over the last year. Music-wise you might say that 2010 wasn’t exactly a vintage year – but this would be to disregard a lot of fine new music which no-one but a particularly rabid Pitchfork follower might have heard of before the turn of 2010.
I won’t bother saying what I think is the best album of the year full-stop, taking in all the myriad styles and variants which have set this year alight (or not). Instead, I’m just going to select the ten albums which have impressed me and that I’ve enjoyed the most over the last year. This list is dedicated to Captain Beefheart, the grouchy old visionary bastard who died on Friday. To commemorate Don Van Vliet, let’s all have a listen to this. Anyway, on with the list hey?
10. ABE VIGODA – CRUSH
Everyone keeps saying that what with the austere times, everyone’s falling back on nostalgia to keep them comforted. Although channelling the 80s isn’t anything new, I doubt Abe Vigoda’s particular brand of retrospectiveness is what people are referring to by ‘comfort music’. That Echo and the Bunnymen, New Order, Joy Division and Bauhaus, among many, are so clearly referenced does not mean that the album is an empty and indulgent tribute act. Frenetic, combustible and with a continuous dark undercurrent, Crush shows that referencing goth doesn’t have to be overly gloomy, camp or The Editors.
9. TAME IMPALA – INNERSPEAKER
One of the most arresting debuts of the year, Aussies Tame Impala’s first outing wears its psychedelic influences on its tie-dyed sleeve. While it could quite easily have been an over-indulgent morass of noodling and wailing, Innerspeaker marries its blissful 60s nods with hints to latterday heroes Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear to compelling effect. If one album invites you to turn on, tune in and drop out, and have the best time doing it, this is it.
8. ARCADE FIRE – THE SUBURBS
Perennial list-botherers Arcade Fire may be filling critic’s best-of lists across the world, but they’re not on this countdown because of the weight of critical opinion, just because yet again they’ve created an utterly enthralling album. Managing to make everyday suburbian themes into sweeping, orchestral masterpieces, this album has finally launched them into the stratospheric realms of stadium filling, even if they have received the dreaded nod of approval from Bono along the way.
7. VAMPIRE WEEKEND – CONTRA
After their surprisingly uber-successful debut album, you felt it was do-or-die time for the afrobeat loving New Yorkers. But Contra cast aside those second album doubts and moved onto a whole new palette of sounds. Although the band’s collegiate sound might not be to everyone’s tastes, their cosmopolitan range of different sounds is truly brought out to play on an album that lacks the indie club-bothering likes of ‘A Punk’, and is all the better for it.
6. HOLY FUCK – LATIN
On their second full-length outing, the fellas with a rude name (snigger) have added a more balanced, melodic approach to their earlier, jarring approach. Juxtaposing rhythms, styles and arrangements with consummate ease, Latin is an album which combines elements of modern dance music with a more ambient wash, with just a little hint of drama, reminiscent at times of the Chemical Brothers. Plus, with an album-closer as ear-drum shatteringly good as ‘P.I.G.S.’, what’s there not to like?
5. FOALS – TOTAL LIFE FOREVER
Similar in a way to Vampire Weekend’s progressive leap from first to second album, Foals firmly left behind their polyglot first album to come up with something altogether more polished. Whereas their first album seemed desperate to cram as many styles and influences into each song as possible, every note on Total Life Forever sounds like it’s fought its way onto the album, not a single sound is wasted. ‘Spanish Sahara’ hits the yearning note right on the head, while ‘Miami’ is a flagship single with a palpable sense of melancholy. Proof that even albums with worthy ambitions can be both expansive and exciting.
4. DELOREAN – SUBIZA
If ever an album fitted a certain state of mind, it’s Subiza. Listening to this at the height of a balmy June, it’s sun-drenched tones washing over you, seems to define summer. Much like the titular car, the album travels back to a bygone era by unashamedly counting 90s Balearic beats and dance as its main influences, and then splashing a contemporary indie sheen over the whole mix. The Spanish four-piece’s full-length debut is dizzyingly refreshing, and sure to cure any bout of the blues this winter.
3. CARIBOU – SWIM
Swim is an apt title – for much of the album sounds so liquid that you’d think you were doing breaststroke through it as opposed to merely listening. Caribou (aka Dan Smith), have created an electro album that truly sounds like no other. From uncategorisable, fluid opener ‘Odessa’ to the slow-burning euphoria of ‘Jamelia’, not one of the immaculately-produced songs ever outstays its welcome. In an already-saturated world of electro, Swim is a standout, eclectic record which houses a smorgasbord (pretension alert!) of different tones and sounds.
2. CRYSTAL CASTLES – CRYSTAL CASTLES
Riding on the back of Skins-created hype and their own, idiosyncratic bubble in the market, the Toronto duo could easily have sunk back into the abyss following their first album. Thankfully, their second self-titled album was just as fucking awesome as the first. An uncompromising assault on the senses (and believe me, live it’s all of the senses), it’s still less savage than its predecessor, showing the band moving into new uncharted ‘poppier’ territory. But despite managing somehow to tame Alice Glass on the spine-tingling ‘Celestica’, it’s those trademark glitchy howls into the night that you yearn for, and in the likes of ‘Doe Deer’ and ‘Baptism’ you have them. After four turbulent years, Crystal Castles’ dark, beating heart is still pumping ferociously, and long may that continue.
1. LCD SOUNDSYSTEM – THIS IS HAPPENING
Despite an album cover which looks like it’s from the latest Michael Buble record, This Is Happening proved to be a fantastic, entrancing album from beginning to end. James Murphy, for so long seen as some kind of electro geek extraordinaire, now has an album which is a yardstick by anyone’s standards, not constrained by genre. In ‘All I Want’, he has crafted possibly the song of the year, and although ‘Drunk Girls’ nods back to the disco-friendly early days, this is a fearless exploration of new and ambitious sounds. Although the trademark bleeps and beeps still abound, there’s now the propensity for epic grandeur that makes it all the more sad that this will probably be LCD’s last album. So enjoy every bloody second.
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