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m posted in General moans, Music on February 5th, 2011
Here’s my top 50 of 2010. Click on the album titles to listen to the album on Spotify where available, providing you’ve installed it.
Some pretty good albums fell outside the top 50, mainly because they’d got a handful of good tracks mixed amongst mainly filler. That’ll be why the Walkmen album was at 65 and Maximum Balloon (with the best single track of the year) was at 54. Brandon Flowers came last, by the way.
You can also click here for a Spotify playlist of my favourite tracks of 2010.
 1 - Miles Kurosky The Desert of Shallow Effects |
2 - Allo Darlin’ |
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This has been an incredibly rewarding album to live with since its release in the Spring of 2010. But it requires some patience and, perhaps, some concentration. Miles Kurosky has had a terrible run of luck with illness since he and his Beulah bandmates went their separate ways. But it’s clear that during his extended period of incapacitation, he was thinking of all sorts of musical ideas. The problem for many people, I expect, is that he put all those ideas into one album. But after a couple of listens, this is probably the reason it’s so impressive. It’s incredibly richly textured, with layer upon layer of instrumentation, vocals and sound effects. It has humour, tragedy and the occasional disco escape ladder. It’s worthy of studying as well as just listening, and I’m overjoyed that Kurosky still exists. |
Enormously twee, but sometimes it’s worth lowering the defences. Some outstanding tunes (admittedly “reminiscent” of tunes by other people, occasionally), and some absolutely brilliant and beautiful lyrics. If you can’t stomach the following lines, you’d best stay away;
Sometimes it’s just nice to experience a sugar rush. |
 3 - Spoon Transference |
 =4 - Apples In Stereo Travellers in Space and Time It took a while for me to get over all the ELO thievery, but there are some fun, energetic and memorable songs on this record. |
 =4 - Of Montreal False Priest Of Montreal move closer to the mainstream with a funky Princey album of frequent brilliance. Ludicrous stage show too. Also love the borderline Bowie impression in “Girl Named Hello.” |
 6 - Belle & Sebastian Write about love More of the same from B&S. This is a very good thing. |
 7 - LCD Soundsystem This is happening All about the groove, brother. All about the groove. (Also ripping off Velvet Underground and Eurythmics to great effect.) |
 =8 - The Futureheads The Chaos Chorus after chorus after chorus. |
 =8 - My Chemical Romance Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys Ridiculous often joyful pop with two of the best songs of 2010. |
 10 - Titus Andronicus The Monitor Celtic prog-punk from New Jersey. Fantastic. |
 =11 - The Jim Jones Revue Burning your house down An explosive reimagining of Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. |
 =11 - The Bees Every step’s a yes Crept up on me, this one. Don’t want to like them, but they have the tunes. |
 13 - The National High Violet Can be drab, if you’re in the wrong mood. But quite fulfilling. |
 =14 - Janelle Monáe The Archandroid An awesome talent, with some utterly brilliant songs. Too many fillers on the album, though. |
 =14 - Lightspeed Champion Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You More contemplative than his debut, but plenty of interesting lyrics and meandering movements. |
 16 - Broken Bells Broken Bells A Shin and a Mouse making lovely, summery music destined for bedding sports broadcasts. |
 17 - Race Horses Goodbye Falkenberg Gorky’s with more tunes and a better sense of humour. Best Welsh album of 2010! |
 18 - Nada Surf If I had a hi-fi Excellent covers album, largely improving each original song. Yes, even Enjoy The Silence. |
 19 - Admiral Radley I heart California Grandaddy + Earlimart. Often more energetic than both, though. |
 20 - Jónsi Go Sigur Rós singer goes upbeat and sings in English. Often huge. |
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=21 - Plan B - The Defamation Of Strickland Banks =21 - Manic Street Preachers - Postcards From A Young Man 23 - I Am Kloot - Sky At Night 24 - Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz 25 - Robyn - Body Talk 26 - Tunng - And then we saw land =27 - School Of Seven Bells - Disconnect From Desire =27 - Sleigh Bells - Treats =27 - Arcade Fire - The Suburbs 30 - Polysics - Bestoisu!!!! 31 - Mates of State - Crushes 32 - The Hoosiers - The Illusion Of Safety 33 - Fang Island - Fang Island 34 - Operator Please – Gloves 35 - Tropico Q - Hard Rock Pafe |
36 - Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Let It Sway 37 - Weezer - Hurley 38 - Ida Maria - Katla 39 - White Noise Sound - White Noise Sound 40 - Owen Pallett - Heartland 41 - The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night 42 - Wintersleep - New Inheritor 43 - Shout Out Louds - Work 44 - Surfer Blood - Astrocoast 45 - MGMT - Congratulations 46 - The New Pornographers - Together 47 - Woodpigeon - Die Stadt Muzikanten 48 - Crystal Castles - II 49 - Stars - The Five Ghosts 50 - Avi Buffalo - Avi Buffalo |
