LISTY THING REPRESENTING MUSIC I LIKED IN 2010. GRRR ARRRG.: suedeheadspike

suedeheadspike

LISTY THING REPRESENTING MUSIC I LIKED IN 2010. GRRR ARRRG.

Dec 29, 2010 18:11

Every year I do a list of favorites. Of course, none of my selections are generally regarded in any given year as being very good, and I am confident that this tradition will continue, as this year is no different.

Except that it is. My Top 10 music list this year isn't overtaken by instant-inclusions like Fall Out Boy, Marilyn Manson, Placebo or Morrissey.

Honestly though? It wouldn't have mattered as much as you might expect. I think that The Archandroid is probably my favorite record of all time, and a listen of Cold War informs why quite quickly, I'd expect. The soul, the beats, the guitars.... she's everything I've always wanted to hear in music and a bunch of other things that I didn't know I wanted to hear until I heard it. Now everything else pales a bit.

Contra was a big surprise, too. On their previous (self-titled) record, Vampire Weekend more-or-less offended my tastes outright. Contra, however, really surprised me with their musicianship on songs like White Sky and Cousins.

Copy/Pasta that on Arcade Fire's The Suburbs, actually. While I could list on one hand the songs from their first couple of records that I enjoyed, The Suburbs was one of two or three records that I listened to in it's entirety on it's first play through in 2010 without any urge or inclination to stop and switch to something else for a bit.

Danger Days really is a weird and lovely album that might have ranked higher (or lower, I suppose) if I had longer to ruminate on the the songs. I'm also surpised that MCR had the wit to write a song on this, a concept record, about their refusal last year to write a song for the second Twilight movie except from the perspective of a corporate-run clone copy of the band (again, concept record) that did take that cash-in opprotunity, appropriately called Vampire Money. It takes place in the fiction of the record after the band is killed by the authoritarian media/government (who in the music videos is represented by Grant Morrisson, btw,) and replaced by said clones to be yet another mouthpiece for their agenda.

I don't know if I'd love The Secret History as much as I do if their previous incarnation (y2k NYC indie-darlings My Favorite,) didn't hint at a gigantic resiviour of potential albeit currently-untapped. But then, considering this is singer Lisa Ronson's (Mick's daughter, btw) first professional outing I can look past her occassional flatness and let myself be charmed by her warmth and their tounge-in-cheek faux-angsty delightful little ode to all our shared heroes of the 80's.

SPIKE'S TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2010

10 The Secret History - The World That Never Was
9 My Chemical Romance - Danger Days
8 Scissor Sisters - Night Work
7 Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz
6 Robyn - Body Talk (EPs Vol 1, 2 & 3)
5 MGMT - Congratulations
4 The Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
3 Jonsi - Go
2 Vampire Weekend - Contra
1 Janelle Monae - Archandroid

Honorable Mention

The Honorable Mentions are such because frankly, these records are just worth hearing, even once- despite the fact that they're not all exactly great.

And because if I included Ke$ha on my actual Top 10, I'd be dismissed as a troll, depiste the fact that it's EASILY the most-listened pair of records on my ipod.

Further, I for one thought it was really cute and even somewhat touching to watch Courtney Love try and turn her collection of dusty but beautiful piano-filled singer-songwriter demos recorded with Linda Perry into a grunge rock revival centerpiece, with the "mixed" results obviously unavoidable from such a conceit. Ditto that to Smashing Pumpkins, except that I actually LOVE what they've put together so far and I think Teargarden, when the 40-odd song LP is done, might just be a truly amazing thing- I just don't know if it'll matter anymore.

Plus, M.I.A. and Cradle both tried some new tricks on their 2010 releases that were inspired and... terrible, in nearly equal measure. FYI, that Sia record could have been #11 on my Top 10. That Big Boi record is nuts, btw.

1 Ke$ha - Annimal+Cannibal
2 Sia - We Are Born
3 Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot
4 Yeasayer - Odd Blood
5 Punch Brothers - Antifogmatic
6 Smashing Pumpkins - Teargarden by Kaleidyscope EPs Vol 1 & 2
7 Charlie the Horse - When U Gonna Luv Somebody? EP
8 Cradle of Filth - Darkly Darkly Venus Aversa
9 M.I.A. - MAYA
10 Hole - Nobody's Daughter

Here are some youtubes of key tracks off both lists for the curious.

Janelle Monae - Tightrope