the best of 2010

[Jack's Smirking Revenge]

what have been your best albums of the year then?

i've barely bought anything new this year. i think there've only been six albums...

contra by vampire weekend is definitely the best. they stuck with everything that made their debut album so good and the album feels like a continuation of that. it has a really summery sort of feel, and is just fun to listen to. giving up the gun, white sky, holiday and cousins are all incredibly good tracks.

the suburbs by arcade fire has been getting a lot of critical praise for being the best album of the year, and i can appreciate that. i've got into the suburbs kind of late (only over the last fortnight or so) so i've still got a lot more wear to come out of it, but i really like how they've adapted and tried something new again. it has a retro pop style about it, and it's really good to put on while you're working as background music, but also to sit down and relax to.

barbara by we are scientists was... good, and that's about it. it's about as good as brain thrust mastery, but they've still not managed to better with love & squalor sadly. there aren't really any tracks that stand out as headline ones, but there aren't any bad ones on it either.

i was quite disappointed by congratulations by mgmt. a lot of people say they matured a lot from oracular spectacular and made a more interesting album, but i found it quite boring. i've listened to it a couple of times and just tuned out while it was on and didn't realise what i was listening to. brian eno and siberian breaks were pretty good though.

romance is boring by los campesinos! was pretty interesting. i hadn't heard anything by them for a few years and i was really hoping they'd have stuck with their style from sticking fingers into sockets, because that was a fantastic and exciting ep. they've gone a lot darker over the years between though and tried to be more experimental, which i don't like. there are a handful of good ones on it, but a lot of the album feels like filler, and it's quite a long album.

then there was also time flies... by oasis. i was expecting an excellent album, since it's just a collection of all their singles, and they never released a bad one.

 

[StrungOut]

I haven't been up to date in terms of music in 2010. Most of the music I downloaded or bought was psytrance. I'll post my best album in that category:

D-Maniac - Obsessions
An excellent album. All the tracks are good, which is not usually the case when it come to psytrance albums. He is a very creative artist and his music is very unique. This album have stayed nearly a month in my car cd player. I was listening to it everyday.

D-Maniac is an underrated artist in a underrated genre.

In the punkrock category I really liked The Longest EP from NOFX. It a collection of 30 songs from previous EP, ad they added two new songs. I had already listened to some of the material on this album before its release, but I really enjoyed the album. It's a "must buy" for NOFX fans.


I would also mention the Tron soundtrack made by Daft Punk and The Suburbs by Arcade Fire. These are two really good album of 2010 in others musical genre but I've only been listening to them for a couple of days, so I can't really tell if the are in my favourites.

 

[charliepanayi]

My top 10 of this year:

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
Lifting the oppressive feel of Neon Bible (as good as that was), the band delivered an excellent third album, not least on the incredible 'Arcade Fire gone disco' song Sprawl II

Beach House - Teen Dream
Not to be confused with the album Teenage Dream by that talentless waste of space Katy Perry. This is dreampop at its finest, the music casting a hazy spell.

Big Boi - Sir Luscious Left Foot (The Son of Chico Dusty)
Terrible title apart, this is superlative hip-hop from the (unfairly) overlooked half of Outkast.

Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles II
Not the nicest duo in the world seemingly but their electronica with a high-class sheen makes for good listening, whether it's the euphoria of Baptism or the rather sweet Not in Love.

Jonsi - Go
It's almost like Sigur Ros gone pop, as the flourishes of the band are pared down for Jonsi's fantastic solo debut. It may not be Sigur Ros but it still soars.

The National - High Violet
Nobody does stately grandeur better than The National, and they continue their run of great albums. Matt Berninger's baritone is in fine form and the drumming is especially good.

Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me
Amazingly gorgeous. But enough about Joanna, what about the music? After her last album Ys, I wondered where she would go next. The answer was an incredible triple album, two hours of her wonderful voice and the pace never flags despite the runtime.

Sleigh Bells - Treats
Definitely a Marmite album (noise rock like this is not for everyone) but I loved it, it's like being bashed over the head for half an hour, but in a good way. Maybe the best debut of the year.

Titus Andronicus - The Monitor
I'm always a sucker for concept albums, and I loved the rough, raucous feel of this. Furious stuff.

Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Yes he has a planet sized ego and is prone to doing daft things, but his talent is prodigious, and few can match him for ideas (who else would think to sample King Crimson?). This album goes for the maxim 'more is more', and it all somehow works.

 

[Madaraki]

Hurley - Weezer
I've heard it said that the band needs to ratchet back a little and stop trying to release every single song they write (They've had what, four-five albums in the past three years alone?) but I can easily say that I enjoyed every track on Hurley, having picked it up over the summer at one of their concerts.

The Wicked Symphony - Avantasia
Fairly solid album, with an overall Ayreon-esque feel, and many of the tracks seem to carry their own odd musical influences. I'm really not wording this well at all. It was just one of the better albums I've heard this year

Twilight Dementia - Dragonforce
Every now and then when a band puts a live album out, it runs into any number of problems; the voices are muffled, the instruments are too loud, segments of audience participation are near-inaudible: That wasn't the case here. Everything came through clearly, sounded great, and it all brought back a lot of fun memories from last summer.


The sad thing is that of the bands I listen to; those are the only three albums I consider the best. Other stuff from Blind Guardian, Epica, Coheed & Cambria, Ozzy, Lordi, Rhapsody of Fire, Tarja, and Disturbed was fun, but didn't hugely stand out.

Gorillaz' "Plastic Beach" was woefully underwhelming.

 

[Martel]

The Wicked Symphony/Angel of Babylon (Avantasia) - Not one, but TWO albums. TWO. This almost makes up for the lack of a new Edguy album this year. The Metal Opera has the better story, but I think I prefer the songs on these albums, overall.

The Frozen Tears of Angels (Rhapsody of Fire) - I was beginning to wonder if they'd ever bring a new album out, due to that legal battle that seemed to last for an eternity...not as good as Power of the Dragonflame, but still pretty good.

Poetry for the Poisoned (Kamelot) - This gets a mention just for being better than Ghost Opera, which was absolutely diabolical. This album reminded me a lot of The Black Halo in places, and it has some nice songs on it. Definetely not their best, but a return to form nonetheless.

...and, of course, the NieR OST. Best soundtrack ever? Oh yes.