15 Best Albums of 2010

(UPDATE: As of right now, 24 January 2010, I have decided to revise my list to include Public Strain by Women.)

Both in a micro and macro sense, 2010 was a memorable year for music. On a personal level, 2010 marked the re-ascension of hip-hop, the first true love of my musical life, the love I spent too many years away from as I immersed myself in all the music I’d neglected during my very stubborn high-school time. Making up for lost time meant that in the span of a few weeks I went from no Lil Wayne in my library to nearly 200 Weezy tracks. My brother turned me on to Drake (Thank Me Later is my most listened to album this year by numbers too shockingly high to report) and many other emcees. He wrote me countless late passes. I returned the favors by playing The-Dream’s latest for him; we’re both addicts now.

In 2010 I dug into electronica and house, ambient and drone. I learned Aphex Twin, Earth, Sunn O))) and Luomo. Somehow this created in me space enough for James Blake, by far my most important artist of 2010. His distinct use of silence is peerless in popular music. Truly, Blake forced me to rethink my own sense of aesthetics (it’s too much to explain here).

And the album didn’t come out this year, but I’d be remiss to not mention Belong’s October Language. They have an album slated for 2011; I’m emptying my saliva dish daily, waiting.

Simply, 2010 killed it. I’ll only be listing 15 albums; many great albums will be neglected and I apologize in advance. Forgive me Caribou, Crystal Castles, Best Coast, Onra, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti (you had the best song of the year, surely), Four Tet and Surfer Blood. Everyone else I’ve neglected gets to throw at me a stone the size of an egg.

15. Causers of This – Toro Y Moi

I played this for a class I was subbing while they did a worksheet. One student looked at me and asked if the music was supposed to sound that way. She was concerned and I laughed and then had to apologize to her falling face when she made like I’d teased her. The albums sounds watery, like the speakers are coming unplugged or like someone is playing with the volume dial. It’s fuzzed-out and bass-heavy and she’ll get it when she’s not in 9th grade.

14. Contra – Vampire Weekend

Ezra Koenig and company grew up and felt things besides snarkiness. Yeah, they’re rhyming “horchata” with “balaklava,” but “Diplomat’s Son” and “I Think Ur a Contra” linger longer than smugness does. Those two songs almost make me sad.

13. The ArchAndroid – Janelle Monáe

If there’s anyone I trust to fill the long-vacant shoes of Innervisions-era Stevie Wonder, it’s Janelle Monáe. Not a perfect record but it’ll do. Mr. Wonder has, in my mind, been gone a too long time; this was a very welcome welcome. Nice to meet you, Ms. Monáe: now where’s that Songs in the Key of Life?

12. Cosmogramma – Flying Lotus

FlyLo dialed down the hip-hop, twiddled extra knobs, did that free-jazz thang and put out a cohesive album rather than a sampling of beats. Gregg Gillis tried to convince me that All Day should be one track; I think he meant to say Cosmogramma.

11. Love King – The-Dream

Somewhere in the faraway hazy future, I might be a parent with a woman. Near-everything is indistinct and foggy, though one thing is certain. This album will be playing when that baby gets made. The sex won’t compare to what The-Dream sings of, but it’ll be alright.

10. Love Remains – How to Dress Well

In my iTunes I tagged the genre for this as “Indie Keith Sweat.” That makes me a jackass but it doesn’t make me wrong.

9. This Is Happening – LCD Soundsystem

I discoursed earlier on what is hopefully not Mr. Murphy’s final album; I would direct you to that piece if you need to hear what I think. Everyone else should just listen to it, waiting for “Dance Yrself Clean” to clean out your ears. You’ll need them that way to get everything that follows.

8. Teen Dream – Beach House

Victoria Legrand never sounded like she had so much throat. This is a more expensive album than we’re used to seeing from Beach House – live drums! Still, I don’t think you can buy your voice into being that way. That takes time. Like Drake says, “I don’t drink every bottle I own/I be agin’ shit.” Yes.

7. High Violet – The National

The National is a band for middle-class white males of a certain age and education level; I believe that. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, it just amazes me how many people also like that. This album is beautiful and sad, mostly sad: I wrote about it here.

6. Thank Me Later – Drake

I believe in Drake. He raps about his parents’ divorce, he takes note of female attire and accessories in a way that feels sincere and not sleazy, he’s been vetted by Lil Wayne. He is always serious and seemingly cannot laugh at himself. He’s Canadian and has been bar mitzvahed. Wherever he wants to go, I will follow.

5. The Age of Adz – Sufjan Stevens

No joke, I heard this album and then the next weekend I was at the Carnegie Library in Oakland researching outsider art and schizophrenia. You might think that may be the wrong way to go about selling an album, but I don’t agree. Sufjan Stevens is reaching for enormousness here. My mum mistook part of it for Kanye West. She’s on to something there and I mean that in the best way possible. This is the album of the year that demands most of your thoughts.

4. Have One on Me – Joanna Newsom

Actually, this album is the most difficult record of 2010 for me to listen to. It makes me cry. Read more here.

3. The Bells Sketch EP / CMYK EP / Klavierwerke EP – James Blake

The most important artist of 2010 to me. Somewhere inside me there are inadequate words about this man’s music, Steve McQueen’s Hunger, and the idea of feeling the lack. Those words are in a place difficult to reach. Someday I’ll try. For now, I’m trying silence. It’s working so well for Mr. Blake.

1. (Tie) Public Strain – Women /  My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy – Kanye West

A recent discovery, Women are quickly becoming on of my favorite groups. Their use of noise and drone —especially drone—works them neatly into my current thoughts about art. Since I saw Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere, I’ve been searching for an album that captures what I mean when I cite that film as an example of drone cinema (that’s another essay I’m going to write soon!) and I think this might be the album. Even if it isn’t, there’s no denying it’s perfection. If only Women would get back together I could be happy again.

A favorite ’10 musical moment: the sound of Kanye West inhaling during the unintelligible vocoder solo that is the last few minutes of “Runaway.” This hurts me in ways that make me reach for James Blake’s music. Really, Kanye West affected me with the sound of breath going into his body through a vocoder. “Everybody knows he’s a motherfucking monster,” right? He’s also a robot capable of making me unhappy. Brilliant.

2010 goes to Mr. West. I’mma let him finish. Everyone else should too.

RS

Pink Martini

The second to last Sunday in November I saw Pink Martini for the first time. The week prior, I had written a preview of the event for The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s blog; the assignment came in late and I wrote the piece at my former place of work, using my cellphone as my primary research tool because my work computer suffered from inordinately strict Internet filters. I played the music using my cellphone. This is probably the worst way imaginable to encounter a band, especially given that I used that experience as the basis for my preview. But my deadline demanded it, and so it went.

Finally seeing Pink Martini proved something of a revelation given the strangeness of my first encounter with the band. Working most in the group’s favor were the wonderful acoustics of the Byham Theater. Each instrument was distinct and clean. You could nearly parse out the individual paths the sounds took travelling through the air. Synesthesia would’ve painted the air, and I found myself, not for the first time, wishing I had the condition.

True to their reputation, the band made the most of their pastiche of classic 50s and 60s pop. The Ocean’s 12 soundtrack sprang to mind. This surprised me, mostly because I didn’t really think I had the Ocean’s 12 soundtrack as a reference point in my cultural lexicon.

China Forbes is the eye-trapping center of the show. The band obviously knows this, using the instrumental first track they played as a way to build tension that her appearance released. At first appearance, Forbes sang in Portuguese, in a floor-length gown, eyes closed. Her adorned hands were frequently above her head, twisting, something like a goddess in sparkly bracelets and rings.

The band’s music transitioned into speakeasy-era jazz with “Hang On, Little Tomato,” a song having far more to do with gin than tomato ketchup, despite the song’s title’s origin in a Hunt’s catsup ad (you could feel the audience bristle at the mention of Heinz’s competitor).

They dabbled in music from a variety of countries, in an assortment of languages, everything gleaming and inoffensive. The band has likened themselves to musical wallpaper, and it’s not entirely incorrect. Miles Davis’ In a Silent Way was famously, and wrongfully criticized using this phrase; it was strange to me, then, that a band would self-apply the description. With Pink Martini, I found a band that could wear the term proudly. It would’ve been pleasurable to drink and mingle and dance to their music. In a plush seat in a lovely venue, though, it’s not half-bad either.

RS