Albums
of the year
2010
I felt it appropriate this year to change the title of my annual best albums post by replacing the word KILL with LIVE. It has the same effect I think, but with a positive slant. At first I thought I wouldn’t be able to do this post at all since, as some of you know, my Mom passed away last month from a 15+ year battle with congestive heart failure. My original intention was for the first time to actually write my own reviews (who would have thought, right?), but the events of the past couple months have had the bulk of my free time. So instead of not abandoning my yearly tradition (when there are so many great albums which must be heard by all of you!), I figured I would do it as I have in years past. To compensate, however, I created a companion playlist you can stream at Grooveshark so that you can effortlessly listen to tracks from this year’s esteemed “winners”! I picked two tracks from each album, which was a tough call as there really aren’t any bad tracks on any of these albums. For the album from Janelle Monáe I picked 3 songs to be fair, as the album is so incredibly long and every track is fantastic. I believe in my heart of hearts these albums would be rewarding for each and every one of you to pick up and listen to, in full, and as loud as possible. These are also in no particular order, except for the first album by Radio Dept, which is without any doubt the best of the year. Enjoy, and drive with aloha …
13
These New Puritans
Hidden
“Hidden is one of the most confounding, pretentious and self-consciously intellectual records I’ve heard in years. It’s also one of the most courageous, innovative and rebellious. Apparently inspired by Benjamin Britten’s opera ‘Peter Grimes’, Steve Reich, “and the plastic textures of modern US Pop”, it features 43 minutes of mournful woodwind and brass motifs, crunching dancehall-meets-marching-band percussion, drifting anti-song constructions and lyrics such as, “Wear fun death-suit/Tropical design/Blade grammar to the death/Everybody run”. If this is making you wonder what exactly was so wrong with three chords and Liam Gallagher rhyming “Soon-sheeeyine!” and “white line”, well, you know, I sympathise. But the way that ‘We Want War’ drags you into some spooky Essex woodland where ancient battle melodies hide in trees while the Wu-Tang Clan jam with the Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band in a fishing boat on the Thames Estuary is really, really… bracing.” – Guardian UK
“It’s no trite environmental message, though, but an exploration of the abstract tension between nature and culture, reflected in the record’s constant clash of organic orchestral poise and the industrial dissonance of beat music. It’s genuinely surprising, beautifully wrought and announces TNP as one of the most powerful artistic forces in Britain today.” – NME