Top 25 Albums of 2010

Top 25 of 2010

This has been an almost psyche splintering few months as I have returned to teaching in a low-income, public school. I'm loving life in NC, but I'm frustrated by the ups-and-downs of 110 14-year-olds. Teaching middle school has been a slight miscalculation, only because I had not anticipated just HOW YOUNG 8th graders still are. I do thoroughly enjoy it, but I exhaust my mental faculties each and everyday as I invent ways to engage them and prepare them for the massive changes they need to make before high school.

As such, there has not been much time for me write lengthy reviews for the selections this year. However, part of being so damn busy is that I still listen to a plethora of music while I working like orgo major close to finals (HAHA!). So, while this list might not have as much sweat poured into it as years' past, thorough research was conducted.


25. New Pornographers - Together

A bit of a disappointment coming on the heels of Challengers, but they still deliver an album you'd be ashamed not to own.

25. No Age - Everything in Between

It's only fitting the list includes the one true band about which I have no clue how I feel. I love half their songs (Glitter). I fucking hate half their songs (Shed and Transcend).

23. Twin Shadow - Forget

This album truly could have come right out of the 1980s new wave scene. It's been a good three or four year run for bands really nailing the 80s, and Twin Shadow does the best job in 2010.

22. The Walkmen - Lisbon

Runner-up for the 2010 award winner for "Album with which I wish I had more time" (explanation below). And although the Walkmen always get criticized for never being in a hurry--always dragging every chord, every lyric--I find that's what I love about them most.

21. Of Montreal - False Priest

What would a top 25 list be without Kevin Barnes singing about wanting to, or actually, fucking everything in sight?

20. The Morning Benders - Big Echo

It may come on only the 20th best album of the year, it may only clock in at 1:44, but Cold War is my choice for 2010's song of the year. No joke.

19. Vampire Weekend - Contra

Once again, among my friends, I feel like the only person who still likes Vampire Weekend at year's close.

18. Best Coast - Crazy For You

Every year a band with a depressed chick for a lead singer manages to steal my heart (Camera Obscura in 09, All Girl Summer Fun Band in 08), and this year was no different. However, Best really feels like they may have some potential to stick long term.

17. Matt & Kim - Sidewalks

It's dancey and fun as hell. But am I the only one who is quite disappointed by the fact that Kim's drumming has been largely marginalized? It's still there on tracks like Red Paint, but wouldn't songs like Block After Block be way better with more Kim and less synth percussion?

16. Gorillaz - Plastic Beach

Back in late Spring, I was prematurely convinced this was going to be a top 5 album. Unfortunately, after this cd couldn't be pulled out of nonstop rotation in my car for nearly three weeks, I was honestly a little burned out on it. Only natural, right? Well, here in December I can still only take it in small doses like Superfast Jellyfish.

15. Caribou - Swim

If "Odessa" doesn't make you get up and dance for five minutes, you have no soul.

14. Wild Nothing - Gemini

I feel like a little bit of a fucking shoegazer by putting this album this high, but god damn if it wasn't a beautiful opus to reverb.

13. The Hold Steady - Heaven is Whenever

I know, I know. How the hell did I--of all people--put the Hold Steady this low? Well, "Hurricane J" is still in my top 5 best songs of the year. Unfortunately, the middle of this album is a bit of a let down for me whereas both Boys & Girls in America and Stay Positive were nonstop badassery.

12. Band of Horses -Infinite Arms

I think the general consensus is that I like this album way more than most people, but I have to admit that I fully enjoy it--even more so than Everywhere All the Time.

11. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest

The 2010 award winner for "Album with which I wish I had more time." (Which, shockingly, is the SECOND time they have won this award in three years. Dear god, release your next album in February please!) Because of the start of the school calendar, I didn't make a giant purchase of summer music until October. Deerhunter released something that was so immensely complex and evolved from their previously works, I don't feel I've wrapped my head around it's true place on this list. So I have to put it just outside the top 10 with the caveat I may see it differently a year from now.

10. Hot Chip - One Life Stand

I think this could have easily been a top-5, top-3 album if not for some overly sappy missteps like "Alley Cats." Still, it's best tracks (I Feel Better, Take It In) and it's pantheon track (One Life Stand) are enough to get it into the top 10.

9. Surfer Blood - Astro Coast

Around Superbowl Sunday, I drunkenly declared "THIS IS THE NEXT PAVEMENT!" Oddly enough, I definitely stand by that statement. They may only clock in at nine on my list, but there is no young band who has more potential to be something legendary.

8. Titus Andronicus - The Monitor

The best punk band in the world became one of the top 5 pure rock bands. I'm not sure why they decided to mature, but right from the get-go in "A More Perfect Union," they still make me want to kick someone's ass.Ccause tramps like us, baby, we were born to die.

7. Tallest Man on Earth - Wild Hunt

Although this is probably the simplest sounding selection for 2010, it's evidence that I still do have a taste for folk-inspired music. There's a point in NW North Carolina where a stone mesa suddenly rises above the Appalachians and this is the album that always makes me think of that scene.

6. LCD Soundsystem - This is Happening

The very first time I listened to this album, it was 6:30am and I was on a road trip from NC to PA. At the 3:06 mark of "Dance Yrself Clean," it officially became a nonstop, 8 hour dance party in my car.


5. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today

This year's top 5 begins with a haunting, mellow, almost "Soundtrack to the Munsters" type album. Pitchfork awarded Song of the Year to "Round and Round," but I prefer L'estat as this album's highlight.

4. Wavves - King of the Beach

A major, almost unexpected leap forward from the first album. The vocals are much clearer, and the effect is that previously inaccessible songs become instantly poppy. In some cases, that's a big miss for me ("Convertible Balloon"), while in others it's exactly where I hope he's moving ("Post Acid").

3. Girl Talk - All Day

Two years ago, I thoroughly enjoyed Feed the Animals. I had waited a long time for it, and couldn't have been more thrilled to get new GT. However, even at the time, I knew Night Ripper was light years better. Originally, I attributed that to the fact that Night Ripper had the nostalgia of senior year attached to it. All Day is the final piece to the puzzle; Greg really was lazy in 2008. Maybe he was burned out from traveling & touring, maybe hasn't truly inspired, but it's clear that he wasn't at the top of his game. Hopefully, this album means he's back. (Top track: I'm going outside the box and saying it's "Triple Double.")

2. Local Natives - Gorilla Manor

To me, they are the spiritual successor of Fleet Foxes, but with a little more edge in their sound and subject manner. When the year began, I thought Surfer Blood would be the young band that carried me through. In the end, Local Natives just couldn't be stopped. It's tough for a debut album to be a "MUST LISTEN START TO FINISH NO SKIPPING OR JUMPING AROUND," but every year you get just a couple and this was the head of the class.

1. The National - High Violet

"I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees. I never married, but Ohio don't remember me. I'm on a blood buzz, yes I am, I'm on a blood buzz." The album's best song does a poignantly stellar job of summing up the whole: this is a collection for drinking and thinking of everything about your life. Your childhood, your adolescence, your young adulthood, and wherever you might be right now. It would have been impossible for me to put this album anywhere else on the list. This is the year The National became my favorite band without question--and this is the reason why.