Since I doubt anything mind-blowing is going to come out either today or tomorrow, I present to you:
the Best and Biggest of 2010
This is a list of the best and biggest of 2010. How did I come up with this list? Very simply actually. Instead of thinking about buzz and hype and/or a load of aesthetic criteria to evaluate each album on some sort of numerical system and then rank them in some sort of order, I went with two very simple processes:
1. For the 10 best albums, I simply picked the 10 albums from this year that I listened to on repeat on my iPod, that is as a whole album, the most times. High replay value. That's it.
2. For the 10 best songs, I simply selected tracks from this year (that don't appear on my Top 10 album choices and) that immediately stuck in my head and/or hypnotized me into listening to them over and over the first time I heard them. Instant re-playability. That's it.
Those two systems left me with the following list(s):
Best Albums of 2010
2. Clinging To A Scheme by the Radio Dept. - http://www.mediafire.com/?mzgqkmztniz
4. Instant Coffee Baby / If You Leave It Alone by the Wave Pictures - http://www.mediafire.com/?addhw7fbcm3hvfv & http://www.mediafire.com/?gzmyk5wyzy5
5. Avi Buffalo by Avi Buffalo - http://www.mediafire.com/?lnzedt1hqmn
7. Sir Luscious Left Foot: the Son of Chico Dusty by Big Boi - http://www.mediafire.com/?v1onmzki4oc
Best Songs of 2010
1. "The Polaroid Song" by Allo Darlin'
2. "Say No To Love" by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
3. "Best Friend" by The Drums
4. "Go Outside" by Cults
5. "Goth-Star" by Pictureplane
6. "The Blues" by Primary 1 feat. Nina Persson
3. "Best Friend" by The Drums
4. "Go Outside" by Cults
5. "Goth-Star" by Pictureplane
6. "The Blues" by Primary 1 feat. Nina Persson
7. "Sundriped" by Com Truise
8. "Broken Dreams Club" by Girls
9. "A More Perfect Union" by Titus Andronicus
10. "Mien" by MillionYoung
In Conclusion:
As much as it pains me to admit it since I want to let things exist be narrative-less, there is a narrative here. It's a narrative running through these seemingly different-sounding artists, albums, and songs. It's the narrative of the entire decade and that is finally culminating in 2010.
2010 has been a year in which the most interesting music to emerge and jump leaps and bounds ahead of its musical peers is music that synthesizes a song format from the recent past and plays around with and within it in a novel and fun way.
It means that the best artists of 2010 have pinned down the mechanics and patterns of a recording technique or recording aesthetic from the recent past and have not only recreated the technique or aesthetic in a convincing pastiche that could stand-in or substitute or (perhaps most-importantly) sound right on a playlist next to "real" recordings from that era, but the artist has also had fun playing around within the format and pushing it to its structural and compositional limits and constantly reminding the listener that it isn't from a recently-bygone era because something about it will be so jarringly different.
Be that Ariel Pink's simultaneous homage to and destruction/reconstruction of 1970s AM radio pop in Before Today or The Pains of Being Pure At Heart's seemingly contradictory synthesis of Sarah Records introverted, anti-stardom with a post-Strokes, effortlessly efficient, big rock sound overloaded with hooks and riffs that Sarah Records never would've touched in the song "Say Not To Love," 2010 is characterized by that simultaneous fan-boy embrace and playful rejection of the sound of the recent past.
(Note: Incredibad doesn't exactly fall into that narrative entirely--it's fun, but not exactly pastiche--but it's undeniably one of the most re-playable releases of the year for other reasons probably.)
And that brings us to the biggest of 2010. Biggest disappointment, that is.
Biggest Disappointment of 2010
Sufjan Stevens and/or Age of Adz
If anyone seemed oblivious to what made 2010 work it was Sufjan Stevens. Which is sad, because he seems like a smart guy from what he occasionally writes in the Asthmatic Kitty blog--and also, y'know, his music.
I know that it probably wasn't easy for him to follow up Come On! Feel the Illinoise in any way that could come close to satisfying the public and his audience, but even I could see that he had two obvious, easy options for achieving at least moderate satisfaction from the public and audiences:
1. He could've made a totally stripped-down, simple cycle of folk songs with no elaborate orchestration and emphasizing a back-to-basics approach. Imagine album of a bunch of songs like "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." and "Casimir Pulaski Day." (This would've been my preferred option)
or
2. He could've tried to "fit in" and make an album of 2010, in which he tries to play in the style-of-the-day but putting some sort of Sufjan stamp on it. Imagine Sufjan's trying to make a track ala Toro y Moi or Washed Out or Neon Indian.
From the sound of Age of Adz (and from the concert I experienced first-hand back in November at the Beacon Theater), it seemed like he tried (and failed) to do option 2.
Age of Adz was indeed electronic, but it didn't exactly sound like any particular electronic style that came before it, except for maybe a recent Of Montreal album drained of any fun and wit. Still, it's way too soon to be re-viving Of Montreal--and especially in such a half-assed way.
Instead, the album was overwhelmingly Sufjan-ey: hyper-clean electronic pop with elaborate, IDM-influenced, yet completely un-fun and funk-less beat programing mashed together with the occasional harmonic dissonance or tonal departure--y'know, for street cred among the academics.
But unlike the Illinois and Michigan albums, Age of Adz's was low (confusing, even) on concepts, great folk songs, and post-Philip-Glass orchestration. It sounded as if, in the years since Illinoise, Sufjan surrounded himself by yes-men that failed to give him honest feedback on all the bad ideas that went into this album as he was working on it.
And so without even going into the mess that was the Beacon Theater live show, Age of Adz and its creator stand as the biggest disappointment of 2010, if only for the wasted potential, unmet expectations, untimeliness and complete irrelevance upon release. Maybe time will be kind to it and, years from now, some musicologists will find some sort of use for the album. Perhaps they'll discover that this particular CD makes an unusually great frisbee or that the mp3s make really great... hard drive space wasters?
But I digress...
In (real) conclusion, 2010 was a swell year. Apart from Sufjan, everyone else did amazing work, including a ton of artists that I failed to mention here but deserve some major nods. 2011 is gonna have a hard time following up 2010.
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