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User
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Album Ratings 247
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Last Active 01-01-70 12:00 am
Joined 01-01-70
Review Comments 32
| My 10 Favorite Albums Of 2010
2010 was another fantastic year in music, and these are my personal favorite albums of 2010. | | 10 |  | Joanna Newsom
Have One On Me
Some albums are long, others are epic. This album is 2 hours epic. An album so
dense with beautiful music it's generally hard for me to always just start at
track 1, cause I always feel I hear the last collection of songs so rarely. Joanna
Newsom's voice is what I would imagine an enchanted forest creature in an old
Disney film would sound like. That is if Disney would ever allow the more off-
kilter antics that appear throughout this album. The control she has over her
voice are remarkable, and provide the album with tons of memorable moments,
like the way she is at the cusp of screeching as she whispers through the middle
of "In California" and the way she delivers "baby" on one of the album
highlights for newcomers "Good Intentions Paving Company". The album is
extremely overwhelming at first (as absorbing 2 hours of music generally is) but
this album has so many highlights it becomes one of this years deepest musical
adventures for me. | | 9 |  | Arcade Fire
The Suburbs
Arcade Fire followed up their previous album "Neon Bible" which felt like a cold,
grim, bombastic blast in the face of orchestral rock with The Suburbs - a warm,
heartfelt, toned down account of the suburbs as they remember them. This
isn't necessarily a large departure from their overall sound, but it certainly feels
like a new side of the coin which is both refreshing and familiar. The sounds
explore some very interesting aspects of our current lives such as the standout
track "We Used To Wait" which talks about how instant by instant our lives
have become. We don't have to wait for the mail, it's in our inbox. The album
could be said to have a late 70's vibe to it, but I would argue it's very 2010. It's
2010 in the way that there are a large portion of young adults who yearn for
the past simplier times. Music trends have been reflecting that, and Arcade Fire
did it in one of the best examples of the year. Music may repeat itself, but it will
always be a direct reflection of the current generation. The album has serious
weight without ever becoming too epic for it's own shoes. It makes sense, I
mean after all do any of us think of dramatic orchestral music when recalling
the simpler life of growing up? At times, the record will have you scratching
your head that there is actually 7 people in this band (and more live), but the 7
of them are simply used more sparingly and effectively through the record. This
is another standout record from a standout band of the 00's (and now 10's). | | 8 |  | Deerhunter
Halcyon Digest
How do you follow up a solo album that is (arguably) better then your full band
material? You release an album with your full band that is just as good. Bradford
Cox's solo project Atlas Sound released an outstanding, challenging, and bold
album last year that set it apart from Deerhunter with it?s attention to texture
and the way sounds sound. Well Deerhunter is back in the game, and this
album is undoubtedly inflenced by Bradfords experiment. Album opener
"Earthquake" is perhaps one of my favorite opening tracks of all time, and sets
a whole new bar for the band. A stunning electronic-psychedelic track packed to
the brim with texture, feeling, and mood. The album isn't just Atlas Sound's
second album though. It feels like an evolution of Deerhunter. It still has a
garage feel to it all and is sprinkled with serious hooks among it?s unique
songwriting. The albums centerpiece "Desire Lines" starts out with a rolling
guitar strum that coupled with the oohs and ahhs distant in the background
sounds like a more psychedelic Arcade Fire. The song transfers over to a
spiraling out last-half that slowly builds up sound like a layercake to mark a
fascinating instrumental freakout. The album feels very introspective with it's
lyrics and finds a great balance in sound of noise, rock, and electronic. | | 7 | | Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti
Before Today
Perhaps the zaniest album (truly the best word to describe the album, I promise
you) I heard all year was "Before Today" from nutcase Ariel Pink and his backing
band he dubs "Haunted Graffiti". Opener "Hot Body Rub" starts with a plane
soar, is mostly instrumental, sounds like it was recorded in a bathroom, features
a sax, and ends with indecipherable lyrics punctuated with ooh's. Things do get
pretty melodic on this album though with songs like "Bright Lit Blue Skies"
which is like a psychedelic Ramones song (not the only Ramones reference I'll
make in this top 10 list) and album highlight "Round and Round" whose chorus
will, I repeat WILL get stuck in your head. The real aspect of the album that will
keep it on repeat is its sense of humor and nuttiness. Never afraid to completely
change the tempo, through in an off the wall sound effect that seamlessly
blends into the background, or an outburst vocal noise from Ariel Pink.
"Menopause Man" seemingly is about a man who is going through a sex
change, and a sound in "Lestat (Acc. To The Widow's Maid)" contains I sound I
can only really spell as "pop-geeeoorrrp!". Cracks me up every time. These
songs contain some excellent songwriting and crazy instrumentation. From the
freak-jazz moments, lo-fi electronics, and the hypnotizing acid-rock this is album
with variety, many times all in the same song. | | 6 |  | Honeycomb
Honeycomb EP
This wildly talented young SF orchestral-freak-folk group took me by surprise
and blew me away after seeing them live. I immediately had to approach them
and purchase a copy of anything they had to sell which was sadly only this EP. I
put it to good use. After obsessing over it's short length (and wishing there was
a full album) the verdict was clear, this was better then most full albums I
heard all year. Fronted by the extremely talented Emily Ritz (Vocals, Songwriter,
Ukulele) the band wanders through 6 tracks with some razor-sharp songwriting
like highlight "Flesh and Bone Machine" which wobbles between somber
restrained verses and lush flowing choruses and some other parts that I
suppose you could call bridges and such, but what's so remarkable is how many
intricate aspects there is to all these songs that still feel part of a very tightly-
woven collective. Emily's voice is remarkable and reminiscent of Billie Holiday,
and with a couple female backing vocalists the songs get really pushed to new
heights when they begin to erupt into harmonizing crescendos along with the
pulsing orchestral sounds of the backing instruments which include a
vibraphone, stand up bass, and chello. This band offers a unique sound that
keeps you coming back, and don't forget to check out their outstanding live
shows around SF and beyond. Here's to hoping a full album is coming soon. | | 5 |  | Junip
Fields
Many people (including myself) had no idea Junip was a band before this year. A
little known EP was released in 2005, and the band sorta ceased to be. Well
early this year Junip returned with a stellar EP titled "Rope and Summit" and
followed it up with a full album of new material in a matter of months. Needless
to say, the album is incredible. The album is mostly acoustic which is no suprise
if you follow frontman Jose Gonzalez?s solo acoustic work, but the sound of a full
band supporting him with restraint and percision compliments his folky voice
perfectly. The album feels timeless with it's quazi-60's sounding folk, yet with
the remarkable clarity of modern day. The few electronic instruments found in
this album have a very analog sound to them, and it?s really the
instrumentation with Jose's voice that catapults the album to be so memorable.
Songs lurch around, and sneak up on you with outstanding hooks and incredible
songwriting / lyrics. One album highlight "To The Grain" begins with a plucking
acoustic guitar riff that if given some distortion would basically be a Led Zeppelin
song. As the bongos, clicks, clanks, and other percussion come in so does a
subtle synth sound that opens things up to feel so much bigger then you would
expect from a mostly subdued song. The song fades out to give way for the
7min journey of an album closer "Tide". Ending with a full drum kit banging
way, some electric guitars mixed in perfectly with the acoustic sound that sends
off the album in a distorted acoustic realm. Don't miss this one. | | 4 |  | Surfer Blood
Astro Coast
This debut album from garage-surf group Surfer Blood is one of those rare
albums where every single track is a fantastic nugget of perfectly crafted
songwriting. No filler. The album is drenched in reverb, like lead single "Swim"
which has vocals so deep underwater it's hard to even make out the words. The
band seems to get some of its chops from bands like Vampire Weekend, The
Ramones, and (good) Weezer. Power chords abound, but so are tons of fun
sidetracks like how "Take it Easy" descends down into a percussion driven
hypnotizing dance bit for it's last couple minutes. The longest song of the album
"Anchorage" is another standout. Starting out with rung out power chords and
catchy vocals gets flipped on it's belly for a noise-surf extended outro with vocals
that ALWAYS remind me of Joey Ramone. This album will get stuck in your head
but it has a pulse and heart. Something so often missing from catchy singles. | | 3 |  | Caribou
Swim
Electronic dance albums tend to have the stigma of being fairly surface level and
lacking in any sort of innovation. Well this would be a dance album if it was
dragged through an orchestra and dosed with acid. While most the songs stay
at a slightly slower then danceable pace, there are certainly more upbeat songs
on this album like "Sun" and lead single "Odessa" which bounces around and
features a pitch shifted vocal saying who-knows-what. The real appeal of this
album comes from how the sounds SOUND. A soundscape is really created in all
9 of these songs, using everything from analog synth, vocals, live instruments,
and excellent use of the stereo field (listen to this one on headphones). There?s
just something about the way those bells mixed in with huge echoed out harp
strums in "Bowls" that will have you hypnotized. The outstanding closer
"Jamelia" is one of my favorite songs of the year. Starting out with drum clicks
and bleeps and bloops that seem on the verge of a mental breakdown as they
descend into a reverbed castle before a few sounds like a massive violin freakout
and gurgling noises propel this thing into the clouds. The last half entrenches
you in a chaotic sonic soundscape that is gonna make you wanna press play all
over again. One of the best surprises of the year. | | 2 |  | Tame Impala
Innerspeaker
Unfiltered Acid Rock. A unsubtle journey through psychedelia that sounds like if
The Beatles took even MORE drugs. The album captures a thick wall of sound
full of spacious echos, delayed out vocals, trance-inducing grooves that begs the
question, is this retro-rock or a whole new breed of modern psychedelia? This
album drips with space-rock, garage-psych, and flowing rhythms to create and
aural assault that is punctuated well by the more groovy slower songs. The final
three songs on the album are a 1-2-3 punch of perfection. Seriously. "Bold
Arrow of Time" is a riff-heavy dose of insanity with underwater like choruses,
"Runway, Houses, City, Clouds" is my favorite song of the year full of a
harmonic crunchy first half that blows up into a soaring instrumental final half
that will have you floored, and the album caps off with a psych-pop catchy,
crazy, and unpredictable song called "I Don't Really Mind". An un-missable
album. | | 1 |  | iamamiwhoami
To Whom It May Concern EP
There wasn't any musical project I was nearly as excited about as the musical
artist that is referred to as "iamamiwhoami". The whole project almost requires
a back story, but to sum it up: a mysterious youtube user began posted a short
series of abstract videos with music that appeared to be teasing a new artist
back in Jan-March. Shortly after, full songs presented strictly as a joined musical
and visual experience popped up throughout the year each with a single letter
title eventually spelling out "BOUNTY". Who knows if that's really what you call
this album, but that's what makes this so interesting. This project was about
making music an experience again in our ADD 30sec iTunes clips world by
creating mystery. Mystery is practically non-existent in the digital era where
anything can be "learned" by googling it. After all the songs were released, a fan
from youtube was selected and flown to Sweden (where the band is from) to
experience what is a one of a kind unique live concert experience that was
filmed and broadcast on the bands site for only about 4 hours . It is the single
coolest music experience I have ever seen in video form. Filmed in extremely
long takes out in the Swedish forest with elaborate set design, it will completely
blow you away for its hour-long duration. It remains to be seen whether that
was it, or there is more to come. Not a single official word has come from
anyone involved with the project, not even one to announce if the band is
indeed called "iamamiwhoami". That's just simply the youtube username the
videos are under.
The music itself sounds like a mix of The Knife, Fever Ray, and Trent Reznor's
latest projects. For all we know, some of them may be involved. It's electronic,
moody, sometimes dance-y, layered, trance-like, and haunting. Keen listeners /
viewers quickly picked up that this is the work of Swedish folk-pop artist Jonna
Lee, but this is far from the Jonna Lee you may know. The visuals, which I
insist are part of this musical / visual experience as much as the audio, are
dream-like, surreal, vignettes of tactile sets with an extremely high production
value with a vague, interpretive, experimental storyline. It's easy to dismiss this
as weird for weird's sake, but that viewpoint fails to see just how deep and
thought out this project really has been. This is the work of a group of people
trying to push the way music can be delivered by creating new rules. The
project was practically ignored by every major music publication and I struggle
to think this was more lucrative for Jonna then to just release another album
under her own relatively known name. This was done for a sincere purpose. This
is what Lady Gaga would sound like if she actually made music as weird as she
tries to make everyone think she is. Jonna has done this for Whomever It May
Concern, and has my upmost respect for it. | |
sonic3
01.16.11 | wow | KotoFtw
01.16.11 | 1 sounds really pretentious. But also cool. | Yotimi
01.16.11 | 1's like Fever Ray huh? K, getting now. | Kiran
01.16.11 | 1 sounds awesome | Rut8norm
01.16.11 | i really reccomend checking it out in the form it was meant to be which is the music videos released through the Youtube page. try to watch them in order B-O-U-N-T-Y. heres the profile. http://www.youtube.com/user/iamamiwhoami
hope you guys like it as much as i do! | Chrisjon89
01.16.11 | Interested in checking out 2, saw one of their clips on rage the other night. Love 9 and 10 too. | couldwinarabbit
01.16.11 | one of, if not the most, interesting 2010 lists I've seen. Nice to see 2 and 5 getting some love. I'll check out 1. | pmmets07
01.16.11 | 4 is overrateddddddddddddd | Rut8norm
01.16.11 | thanks 'couldwinarabbit'. I couldnt believe Tame Impala didnt make it into any major publications top 10. Glad you enjoy it as well. Check out 'iamamiwhoami'. I'm telling you. you won't regret it. a wonderful musical experiment that was 2010's best kept secret it seems. its a shame. with some more press the mystery reveals could have reached a much larger audience. The music is top notch as well as the visuals. |
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