1. Sufjan Stevens - Age of Adz
I think time will eventually vindicate Age of Adz for a lot of fans and critics. It's not that the album necessarily got bad reviews or fans hate it completely, but after waiting so long for a follow up to Stevens' 2005 epic album, Illinois, a lot were expecting an album much different than the hip hop electro-folk fusion prog rock that Age of Adz is. Regardless of the dressing, though, all of the key elements of a Sufjan Stevens album are still there, including his amazing ear for melody and songcraft. While the 25 minute epic "Impossible Soul," with its auto-tune breakdown section, was probably too much for people to handle from the singer of "Chicago" - this album will grow on a lot more people in the years to come and will one day be regarded as the classic it is.
2. Gorillaz - Plastic Beach
Gorillaz are probably the best example of an internationally successful band. No other group genre hops better and as seamless than the Gorillaz do, and no other group combines such a wide array of cultural influences into its music. Damon Albarn has never put out a bad album, and Plastic Beach is another example of that. If there's one downside to this release, though, it's that it didn't get enough radio airplay or it wasn't as popular as it should have been. When the concept of Gorillaz relies of a perfect fusion of audio and visual elements, a lack of funding due to an absence of faith from the record company can really put a dent in that.
3. Miami Horror - Illumination
The catchiest album released all year. It's impossible to listen to this record and not have at least one song from it stuck in your head for a week. Disco beats mixed with chillwave synths makes for a very good combination.
4. Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record
After Broken Social Scene's last self-titled 2005 release, many people questioned whether the band would carry on especially when half of the its members went onto successful solo careers. When Forgiveness Rock Record came out, the world was once again reminded that Broken Social Scene are the purveyors and the embodiment of everything that's good about indie rock. If in 20 years radio still exists and people care enough about it to actually support and listen to it much less to a classic indie rock station-Broken Social Scene will be that radio station's Led Zeppelin, and Forgiveness Rock Record will be the band's Houses of the Holy.
5. Anoraak - Wherever the Sun Sets
Eighties synth sounds drenched in sun soaked melodies. No album that came out this year was more fun to cruise around in a car with.
6. Gonjasufi - A Sufi and A Killer
Gonjasufi's album is #6 on this list, but #1 on the list of the "top ten psychedelic eastern hip hop electrofunk records of 2010."
7. Best Coast - Crazy For You
Some of the greatest pop songs ever written have some of the most cursory lyrics. Regardless, lyrics don't matter in a pop song if the melody is strong enough to drive an infectious tune straight into the core of your brain. Best Coast's first album, Crazy for You, does nothing more than muse on boyfriends and theorize ways to talk to cats, but the punk pop group has made an album so catchy and fun to listen to that it doesn't matter.
8. Ariel Pink - Before Today
The Lo-Fi movement can yield some pretty annoying results, especially when the music sounds like a demo tape getting raped by a transistor radio. Ariel Pink's record, Before Today, wisely cleans up the scratchier sound of their earlier records, while still maintaining the aesthetic that makes Lo-Fi so appealing. The result is a great sounding album that mashes up the band's retro-minded focus towards 80's cheesiness and 60's psychedelia.
9. Tallest Man on Earth - The Wild Hunt
As one AV Club critic said, "some of the best and worst music ever written has come from just one guy and an acoustic guitar." It's a fine line between success and failure, but the Tallest Man On Earth's second album doesn't even come close to showing you the other side as he makes some of the most affecting music of the year.
10. Beach House - Teen Dream
Beach House have always been good at making dreamy music to get lost in, but never have they done it with so much focus and beauty.
Honorable Mentions
Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma
Free Energy - Stuck on Nothing
Jamaica - No Problem
LCD Soundsystem - This is Happening
MGMT - Congratulations
Doug Paisley - Constant Companion
Sonny and the Sunsets - Tomorrow is Alright
Toro y Moi - Causers of This
Wavves - King of the Beach
Weezer - Hurley (yes, really)
Top 5 Favorite EP's
1. Sufjan Stevens - All Delighted People
2. Real Estate - Reality
3. Oberhofer - self titled
4. Flying Lotus - Pattern + Grid World
5. The Tallest Man on Earth - Sometimes the Blues Is Just a Passing Bird
Top 10 Favorite Songs
1. Sufjan Stevens - Impossible Soul [from "Age of Adz"]
2. Gorillaz - Empire Ants [from "Plastic Beach"]
3. Japandroids - Younger Us [from "Younger Us" 7" single]
4. Sufjan Stevens - All Delighted People [from "All Delighted People EP"]
5. Miami Horror - Holidays [from "Illumination"]
6. Broken Social Scene - All to All [from "Forgiveness Rock Record"]
7. Curren$y - Seat Change (feat. Snoop Dogg) [from Pilot Talk]
8. Beach House - Walk in the Park [from "Teen Dream"]
9. Best Coast - Boyfriend [from Crazy For You]
10. Weezer - Blowin' My Stack [from "Death to False Metal"]
Biggest Disappointments
1. Broken Bells - s/t
DangerMouse is one of my favorite producers, and I eagerly hunt down anything he does. I'm not really big on The Shins or James Mercer. Regardless, I figured the DangerMouse half of this duo would be enough for me to like this album, but it was not. This is a very mediocre and uninspiring record.
2. Cee-Lo Green - The Lady Killer
I think at some point, I'll take this one off this list...maybe. It's not that there's a bad moment during it, but it just didn't rock me as much as I thought it would. Especially after how promising the singles were.
3. Daft Punk - The Tron Soundtrack
Ok, to be fair this is a soundtrack and it's meant to accompany a film, not overcome it, and I haven't seen the movie yet so I can't really judge how well it works in the context of the film. Regardless, this soundtrack had a lot of hype behind it, and the quiet Hans Zimmeresque orchestral moments that make up a very large bulk of the soundtrack were far from the electronic assaults so many, including me, were waiting for.
Albums That (Surprisingly) Did Not Suck
1. M.I.A. - MAYA
M.I.A.'s music is deliberately annoying and her political views are contradicting, hypocritical, and absolutely insane (just check out what she thinks about the internet)...But sometimes she can put together some interesting stuff. For an artist that had the world by the balls when "Paper Planes" and Slumdog Millionaire dominated everything to intentionally put a song out like "Teqkilla" that most people will hate on the first listen is just really funny and awesome. A lot of this album is like that.
2. Brandon Boyd - The Wild Trapeze
Incubus was the first band I was every really obsessed with. Sometime around Junior year in high school, though, I lost interest in them as I got into more diverse music. I still think they're much better than most people give them credit for and much better than any other band they're usually associated with (Hoobastank, P.O.D., etc), but they're still not that great. Regardless, Incubus' lead singer Brandon Boyd put together a solo album that wasn't all that bad. Maybe it's because this was a low-key release and Boyd was free from trying to woo alternative radio or maybe it's because it was produced by Dave Fridmann (of Flaming Lips* & MGMT fame) who made the album much rawer sounding than any other producer probably would have, but this album is much more enjoyable than I ever thought it would be.
*It's bizarre that there is now a direct link between my favorite band of now and my ex-favorite band of those (much more) awkward early teenage years.
3. Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Kanye West has good artistic intentions, but his pretentiousness, ego, self-indulgent behavior, and coattail sampling (building a beat with nothing but the most memorable section of a classic song)* outdid his good will. Regardless, the fact that Kanye was still able to make an awesome album by embracing the hell out of these weaknesses instead of trying to transcend them is impressive in its own right. Whether the strong result is due to pure luck or absolute talent is insignificant. This is a good record.
*Yeah, I'm aware a ton of hip hop producers do this, but Kanye actually samples good songs which makes it all the more frustrating when he does nothing else with them.
4. Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty
It's not that I thought this album would be a bomb, but I always thought the biggest driving force creatively for Outkast was Andre 3000 and that any solo album by Big Boi would be nothing more than a handful of half-interesting songs. I was wrong.
The Best Music Video of 2010
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