LJ Best Music 2010
By Matthew Moyer Jan 6, 2011Everyone from The Roots to MGMT released great records in 2010, so I rightfully expect a torrent of abuse and/or head-scratching in response to my selections of the year's top albums. That said, and of course taking into account the unique needs and preferences of your user community, below are six releases I feel have the greatest historical and current significance.
Some of these albums you may have already listened to, others you will hopefully listen to soon—regardless, all go straight to my turntable or CD player when I want to hear adventurous music from the past year (all are also available digitally). They are presented in descending order of excellence.
#1
David Bowie. Station to Station (Special Edition). Virgin/EMI. 2010. CD UPC 5099964758329.
When David Bowie claims that he was too f***ed up to remember the making of this icy 1975 Euro-funk masterpiece, you take him at face value. Especially when the face of Bowie's most sinister persona yet, the imperious (and cadaverous) Thin White Duke, is staring out from the album cover. Bowie may have been a shambles at the time—using copious amounts of drugs and suffering delusional paranoia while hiding out in LA—but he somehow managed to pull it together to make his most daring album yet. From the Teutonic swing of the title song to the jittery swing of "TVC15" down to the beautiful hymn "Wild Is the Wind," the music still sounds fresh. This reissue comes packed with extras, like a double-disc recording of his Nassau Coliseum show.
LISTEN to a sample track:
#2
Gayngs. Relayted. Jagjaguwar. 2010. CD UPC 656605216522.
Sweet Jesus, that's smooth! Ryan Olson's Gayngs project is going to make him one of the more notorious personages in Minneapolis music this side of Prince (who reportedly wanted to sit in with the band). Visualizing in this debut album an unholy mélange of 10cc, George Michael's 1984 single "Careless Whisper," Massive Attack, Sade, and This Mortal Coil, Olson gathered an all-star cast of 25 performers, including members of Megafaun, Bon Iver, and the Rosebud, to throw their best loverman poses and diva shapes. His goal was to make an album that was an homage to 10cc's soft-rock chestnut "I'm Not in Love." Genius. But Relayted goes well beyond that art-prank concept; the album is lush and daring in equal measure. No two songs sound alike; haunting ballads flow into Codeined grooves, stitched together by tribal drum interludes and dark globe feedback. Funky, salacious, and completely self-possessed.
LISTEN to a sample track:
#3
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings. I Learned the Hard Way. Daptone. 2010. CD UPC 823134001923.
I'm not trying to take away from any of their earlier work, but on this, their fourth album, Sharon Jones and her Daptone mafia are well and truly cooking with gas! Following the short break they took to play on Amy Winehouse's Back to Black (2007), the Dap-Kings are now back where they belong, alongside singular soul diva Jones. The album is a perfect mix of Motown shimmy, Muscle Shoals grind, James Brown precision, and gospel fury—and yet, the ferocity of the performances prevent this from being a mere museum piece or nostalgia exercise. The Dap-Kings keep their heads down and concentrate on knocking out their monstrous grooves, leaving Jones alone on center stage to...testify!
LISTEN to a sample track:
#4
The Body. All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood. At a Loss. 2010. CD UPC 616822094327.
Noise duo The Body's second album opens with a haunting vocal piece from the Assembly of Light Choir, and it only gets scarier from there. This is doom metal the way it was meant to be: unearthly, itchy, and weird. Bursting with new ideas and creativity right out the gate, the album is a game changer for doom/drone in the same way that SunnO)))'s elegiac Monoliths & Dimensions (2009) was. Some tracks feel as though they've been chopped up and haphazardly sewn back together, but there is as much calm as there is storm here. The Body's music sizzles and sparks with the nightmarish intensity of Godflesh's Streetcleaner (1989), all booming mechanical drums; roaring and thudding, heavily distorted guitars; and vocals providing a human x-factor in an otherwise tightly wound coil—a high-pitched ulcerated scream owing more to black metal's occult panic than to doom's gritty roar.
LISTEN to a sample track:
#5 [TWO-WAY TIE]
Various Artists. The Minimal Wave Tapes. Vol. 1. Stones Throw. 2010. CD UPC 659457222321.
I fully understand that pitching a compilation of minimal wave remastered from analog source tapes of the early Eighties might seem a little pretentious, but hear me out. Around 1978, when acts like Daniel Miller (as the Normal) released their early singles, it seemed like messages from a brand-new musical world. With synthesizers, drum machines, and cassette recorders now cheaply available, bedroom musicians could cheaply perform, record, press, and distribute their own recordings! Restless artists from around the world took note, and a flood of works ensued. This compilation from the archives of Veronica Vasicka's Minimal Wave label is pieced together by hip-hop omnivore Peanut Butter Wolf (!!). It is a stellar primer to this forgotten phase of music history. Take a drink every time you find yourself saying, "This band could have been as big as New Order/Gary Numan!"
LISTEN to a sample track:
Best Coast. Crazy for You. Mexican Summer. 2010. CD UPC 184923100525.
Bethany Cosentino's debut as Best Coast, Crazy for You, became the feel-good hit of the summer, fall, and winter with its bratty mix of fuzzed-out noise and supremely bummed lyrics, coming off like a 21st-century update of the girl-group drama created by the Shangri-Las and The Ronettes (see "The Girl-Group Sound," Music for the Masses, LJ 12/10). The twentysomething Cosentino—ably assisted by multi-instrumentalist Bob Bruno—pours out her inarticulate yet incisive heartache (wishing her cat could talk, lamenting that even the TV "and a bunch of weed" can't make her happy), often sounding like a stoned Courtney Love, while a lo-fi but unmistakably pop clatter churns behind her. The likes of Weezer's Rivers Cuomo and Bill Murray are confirmed fans.
LISTEN to a sample track:
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Matthew Moyer, who writes LJ's Music for the Masses column, is Reference Librarian, Popular Media Department, Jacksonville Public Library, FL
