Top 10 Albums of 2010

Two thousand and ten has been a musical wonderland – a paradise of sound from all corners of the world that has brought pleasure, enjoyment, awe and inspiration to the awaiting eardrums of the masses. So where do you start? The sheer number of albums is beyond comprehension: you’ve got the much anticipated new albums from Gorillaz, Kanye West, Sufjan Stevens, Klaxons, The National, MGMT, The Tallest Man On Earth and The Arcade Fire, to name just a few.

You’ve also got the newcomers/up-and-comers, which was the real highlight of 2010: Beach House, Phantogram, Mumford & Sons, The Morning Benders, Los Campesinos!, Yeasayer, Avi Buffalo, Kisses, Generationals, Two Door Cinema Club, Plants And Animals and Wild Nothing just begin the list of great new sounds that have graced our ears this year. Not to forget the collaborations: Danger Mouse + James Mercer (The Shins) = Broken Bells, Ryan Olsen’s Gayngs, John Legend teaming up with The Roots, Nas and Damian ‘Junior Gong’ Marley bridging genres with ‘Distant Relatives’, and yet another Robert Plant band (of Joy).

So with all that, where do you possibly start? You can look at some new genres: chillwave, glo-fi, nu-folk or the re-invention of surf that emerged this year. And you can look at the ground-breaking genre-defying artists that moved music through its latest progression, as the real leaders of 2010. But, no matter how you put it, what it basically comes down to are the albums that you’ve listened to and loved the most this year. So here they are:

 10) The Arcade Fire – The Suburbs 

It was always going to be a tough road for The Arcade Fire after they took the world with 2003’s Funeral, and whilst The Suburbs isn’t better than the former– I don’t think that’s possible – it’s not trying to be. They’re a different band now – more mature, and subsequently less raucous – meaning that the music they produce can’t wholly be compared to their beginnings. But what was orchestral indie rock has been refined to a slower, sophisticated rock. They slipped a little with Neon Bible, but with The Suburbs they are definitely back on track, and proving their worth as one of the best bands of our time.

 9) Tame Impala – Innerspeaker

 Saying that there is no one else that sounds like  them, is one of the best compliments I can think of  for Tame Impala. They’ve created a wah drenched  psychedelic sound that is so original and so  different to what the modern ears are used to, that  it sets them apart from everyone else in 2010:  they’d be more at home in the psychedelic blues  realm of Jimi Hendrix / Cream. They’ve produced  something with a completely different tone that  almost sounds out of place in the world of new  music, but that’s the beauty of it. 

8) Suckers – Wild Smile

Wild Smile is Brooklyn indie at its best. It’s eleven tracks that all have a slightly different style to them, they set a different mood, and create a different feeling. It’s layered with synths and choral vocals, with some trumpet and whistling thrown in for good measure, and they drift through rock, indie and psych with a little something electronic in the mix, creating a stand out album full of energy and ambition.

7) Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More

Listening to Sigh No More is inspiring – its pure folk,  but a different take on it – a powerful, soulful take  on it: combining simple riffs with what sounds like a  rather melancholy barbershop quartet. But the best  part of it is when it builds it gives you a certain  energy, gets you moving and singing, and makes  you want to jig. And I don’t know many bands that  make you do that.

6) Wild Nothing – Gemini

What’s so inspirational about Wild Nothing is that for a while it was just a bedroom recording project, by one man, Jack Tatum, which clearly shows the beauty of the modern music scene. What’s even better is the sound that he has: you could call it dream pop, because its slow, light with emphasis on the synths. Supposedly inspired by the eighties UK pop of The Smiths and The Cure, it’s got a similar style and tone of voice, but the layers of luscious melodies make it something completely different and completely fresh.

5) Avi Buffalo – Avi Buffalo

California newcomers Avi Buffalo get the fifthspot  with their debut album just because of the sheer  amount of times I’ve listened to their album this  year. It’s soft indie rock at its best – it’s slow, it’s  catchy, moody and it’s always melodic. It’s a little  teen, but then that’s what they are, and for a band  so young, the sound it surprisingly mature. It’s an  easy listen and gets better ever time.

4) Gayngs– Relayted

Relayted gets you moving in ways you didn’t know you could: it’s so slow , so smooth and so moody that your body gets a mind of it’s own. Mastermind Ryan Olsen gets together the crème de la crème of Mid-Western talent of all styles (Bon Iver, The Rosebuds, Megafaun, rapper P.O.S., Solid Gold and more), for a 10cc inspired composition. The result being a collage of voices (the band cites 23 members) and sounds (yes, they record with a saw), that is both a modern masterpiece and a timeless classic that would appear to be destined to line dusty bookshelves for years to come.

 3) Yeasayer – Odd Blood

 They said themselves that they wanted to make a  pop record and whilst it’s not the pop that the  charts have made us used to, it’s so much more.  It’s there own version: sometimes gritty, yet  polished and downright original. The synths and the  sounds are so different that on Odd Blood Yeasayer  manage to sound like the past, the present and the  future all at once. Definitely one of the coolest  bands of 2010.

2) Sufjan Stevens – The Age of Adz

The Age of Adz demonstrates the evolution of Sufjan Stevens – he’s gone from folk, to something that can’t really be defined, and in doing so has asserted himself as one of the greatest musical composers of our time. He’s gone electronic, and he’s gone all out: at times sounding like a dark offbeat Disney score, at times like a church choir, and at times like nothing you’ve ever heard seemingly losing any apparent structure or focus, only occasionally returning to the Sufjan Stevens we used to know. It’s not an easy first listen, but the more you listen to it the more you love it and the genius of it is simply undeniable: it’s genre-defying and it’s a masterpiece.

1) Caribou – Swim

The album of the year has got to go to Dan Snaith and Caribou. Snaith said himself that he wanted to make an ‘organic dance’ album that sound like it was made out of liquid (Swim) rather than solid. What he created is a nine-track arrangement of layered compositions, using the most bizarre of sounds, at times building into a complex chaos of music that your mind doesn’t really know how to process. It’s a dynamic musically ground-breaking album that gets you moving, gets you thinking, gives you both clarity and confusion, and occasionally finds you emitting the strangest of sounds as you try to sing along. A real work of art.