It’ll be a few months still before I post my end-of-year list, but 2010 is shaping up to be a really standout year for music. It’s hard to tell yet if anything will rival my top albums for 2009 (Merriweather Post Pavilion and Bromst are still on heavy rotation for me), but there’s a lot of really excellent albums that have been released and narrowing it down to a top 10 is going to be a lot more difficult than last year. The newest addition, Sufjan Steven’s The Age of Adz, is already become a contender for top spot. However, 2010 still has to see albums from Animal Collective’s Avey Tare (Down There, due out in a week, and which you can stream on NPR), Panda Bear (Tomboy, two singles from which have already been released and are fantastic), and Kanye West.
The man's finally on Twitter, and has been putting out great music pretty much nonstop since his return to cultural relevancy this summer (see "Power," "Monster," and "So Appalled").
The album that’s disappointed me has been Wolf Parade’s Expo 86. I blogged about seeing them in July, and while it was a pretty great show, their latest release left me a little cold. Expo 86 fails to live up to the experimentalism of At Mount Zoomer, and while there are a couple of standout tracks on it, the whole album gets a little overly consistent.
I’ve been (expectedly) impressed with Vampire Weekend and Yeasayer’s sophomore releases, Contra and Odd Blood, respectively. “Ambling Alp” became a Hoagietown favorite over the summer… there’s something great about hearing “stick up for yourself, son” while sweeping and mopping a sandwich shop after close. But my top five albums of the year (obviously open to change and in no particular order) are:
- Janelle Monáe – The ArchAndroid: read TJ’s review of her for almost exactly my thoughts. I also saw her a few weeks ago at First Avenue, which, although a great show, couldn’t quite live up to the highly-produced sound of the album. And was Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes awkward with her or what?
- Arcade Fire – The Suburbs: I listened to this most often driving between Northfield and Minneapolis, which is highly appropriate. My friend Zack texted me, after listening to this album, that it got the band off his shit list.
- Hot Chip – One Life Stand: the title track rocks, and the whole album gives you a sensitivity that has always been just below Hot Chip’s surface, but never came out until now.
- Kanye West – (almost) everything released this summer: “Power” and its remix are incredible, “Monster” showed me a side of Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon I hadn’t witnessed before (along with introducing me to Nicki Minaj), and “So Appalled” added the invaluable phrase “fuckin’ ridiculous” to my everyday vocabulary.
- LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening: I don’t want to write too much here because this album will almost definitely be in my top three come the end of the year. It’s fantastic, and several of its songs (“I Can Change,” “Pow Pow,” and “Drunk Girls”) will likely make my top songs list.
Pretty soon TJ will be bringing some of his thoughts on 2010 in music over here in a guest blog entry (The Scott Collection is bringing you those now). And be sure to check back in December for my top albums and songs of the year.
