The Best Albums of 2010

2010 was a tremendous year for music. A lot of stuff came out that felt entirely fresh and took me completely by surprise, while a few of my favorites came out with albums that failed to hold me for long (Beach House and Caribou in particular). Many great albums came out in 2010, but the five listed here left the deepest imprint on me. They’re not listed in order.

Black Noise – Pantha Du Prince

I knew this would be on this list since about January 2010. I’ve probably listened to it more than anything else on the list. I don’t know why I think it’s so good, but it’s so good. I got hooked on it as soon as I saw the video for “Stick to My Side” because I’ll listen to anything with Panda Bear on it. Here it is:

Innerspeaker – Tame Impala

I want more drumming like this in my life. This one is good for running. Also good for life. “Alter Ego” might be my favorite song on the album, but the video for “Expectation” is all I could ever ask for in a video (omg that drummer!):

Pigeons – Here We Go Magic

I’m really surprised this didn’t make it onto anyone’s end of year lists. This is the kind of slow growing and supremely rewarding album that perfectly validates my insistance on waiting a year to do these lists. The production is as exquisite as the songs themselves. The guitars! “Land of Feeling” made it onto my Sedona Vortex Music mix a few months ago. If you’re interested in transcendental running experiences, sprint on a beach while listening to “Collector” really loud:

2010 Summer Mixtape – Violens

This thing absolutely consumed me for about six months. It sounded like everything I loved from the 80s / early 90s and nothing like anything I’d heard before. I got really into Violens after I came across this and wouldn’t stop talking about them until their proper album – Amoral – came out and mostly bored me. Their 2009 Winter mixtape is good too – you can get both mixes on their site.

What’s funny is that this mix made me fall in love with “Never Let You Go” long before I knew about the video for it:

The Suburbs – Arcade Fire

What can I say? I hate all things popular and famous and this got best album at the Grammys. But I love it and I listened to it all the time because it’s so good. It came into my life right around the time Shannon and I bought and moved into our house in an old suburb, which was nice. The lyrics that close out the album are sublime:

If I could have it back
All the time that we wasted
I’d only waste it again
If I could have it back
You know I would love to waste it again
Waste it again and again and again…

The Best Albums of 2009

I did a 2008 list last year mainly because no albums had grabbed me in 2009. I worried (seriously!) that I was losing the ability to experience music’s sublime and transcendent power. Ha!

It turns out 2009 was just a lousy year for albums. It’s a scientific fact. From Metacritic:

Despite having many more albums to choose from (Metacritic scored 892 albums this year, up from 805 last year and well up from the 400-600 per year we averaged in earlier years), not a single qualifying new studio album achieved a score of 90 or above — the first time in our 10-year history that has happened. And only six of the 100 highest-scoring albums of the past decade were released in 2009.

So it’s not me.

The albums listed here are all great. I think they’ll be great for a long time. I like listening to them, and you might too. They’re not listed in order.

Survival — Forest Fire

The songs are beautiful while sounding like they have a headache or just got punched in the face. Also, Survival introduced a lot of people to Sharon Van Etten which has been a wonderful gift to the world.

Wind’s Poem — Mount Eerie

I don’t know how to write about Mount Eerie.

XX — The XX

I love it when a bunch of kids show up out of nowhere and create something so dialed in, so solid, and so completely new.

Mind Raft — Deradoorian

Drone, bass flute, her voice, harmonizing R&B folk vocals. I listened to this more than almost anything else in 2009.

Recordings of the Middle East — The Middle East

I should hate this album. The band has described itself as “ambient post-rock folk,” which sounds like it’d be my favorite kind of music, but I would never say it like that. The vocals ape Thom Yorke. They’re too earnest. The music is precious, which is the worst thing I could ever say about someone’s music. They use a children’s choir! They play glockenspiels! It’s pure meaningful-core! But I love it.

—

It turns out, however, that 2009 was an amazing year for songs. I’ll post one a day throughout January.

The Best Albums of 2008

Now that 2009 is almost over, I’m finally confident enough to proclaim the five best albums of 2008. I’ve lived with each of these albums for over a year, and they’ve stood the test of time—noting that a year has become an almost incomprehensibly large metric in a music world where new best-album-evers are blogged about every 15 minutes.

I hate writing about music, and these aren’t in order:

Saint Dymphna – Gang Gang Dance

Saint Dymphna feels like an emergent force, a hurricane made of voices and guitars and synthesizers and lots and lots of drums.

Microcastles / Weird Era Cont. – Deerhunter

Deerhunter and I probably listened to the same music growing up. The difference between us is that they loved it more and are better musicians. I’m really glad they’re making music. All 82 minutes of this double album are good and worth listening to all the way through.

(k)no(w)here – Wilderness

If I put this list in order, this would go at the top. (k)no(w)here is a short album that should be listened from start to finish. I think it’s about the apocalypse (I think all Wilderness albums are about the apocalypse). For some reason, I think they’re libertarians too. The closing track, “<….^….>,” cannot be played loud enough.

Dragging a Dead Deer up a Hill – Grouper

The cover art and title make this album seem more morbid and creepy than it really is—Focus on the rain and the forest instead. It’s a beautiful and quiet album.

Devotion – Beach House

This album is much heavier and harder than it sounds.