Interestinthings Law, Startups, Music; maybe in that order

Top Albums of 2010

I try to do a Top Tracks post every year, but this time I'm going to try something slightly different. As much as I wonder whether albums make sense anymore, it's still how the bulk of music is released, and many of my favorite artists choose to bundle their tracks this way. So I end up buying and loving albums in spite of myself, and my top tracks can easily get dominated by a few grade-A albums. This was a particularly good year for albums, and I'm feeling the need to split them out on their own, which will let me focus on standout standalones in a separate top tracks post. Rather than try to rank them, it makes more sense to me to list them chronologically through the year; a really good album is so full of goodness that it monopolizes your listening for a least a month, so a list like this tells a certain story of the year for me:

Vampire Weekend - Contra
I really wanted this album to be great, and I wasn't the least bit disappointed. I loved their debut album without reservation, but it would have been so disappointing to have that be all there was. Instead, like the Strokes before them, they came with a follow up that presses all the same buttons but makes you love it even more. It's wittier, prettier, and happier all the way around. This album is a fixer; it can rescue you from bad moods and bad tempers, chasing away worldly concerns in the way all the best music does.

Francis and the Lights - It'll Be Better
In some sense this was a year of Francis for me. I had never heard of him at the start of it, but Arthur was kind enough to put me on to the albums, EPs, and shows, and I ate them all up with a spoon. This album is definitely a mainstreaming effort; he is writing simpler songs to appeal to a wider audience, without question. That seems to have left some of his fans cold, but there's room in my heart for Francis to go pop. He's already pushing such a Bright Lights, Big City / Less Than Zero aesthetic that pop seems like part of the point; singing over heavy synths while wearing sunglasses with just can't be underground. This album is the best album that Phil Collins never made, and I love it for that.

Mux Mool - Skulltaste
I've been checking for more from this guy ever since I heard "Night Court" on the Ghostly Swim compilation. That one's a world-class thumper (diminished only slightly by use as the intro music for the GDGT podcast), and this album keeps up the pace. It's a slow, deliberate pace, but it's undeniably forceful, like a tank rolling down 5th avenue; you can't ignore it, and you damn sure can't stop it.

Javelin - No Más
In some ways this album is the opposite of Skulltaste; instead of darkness and lasers, it brings sunshine and horns to the neighborhood block party. The helium-hopped freaktalk of "Oh Centra" might be the oddest thing you hear this year, but just try to stifle a smile all the way through it, and if you can't find joy in the deranged steeldrums on "C Town", well then God, Jed, I don't even want to know you.

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
I'm a little hesitant about this one, but I think only because I might not love it quite as much as everyone else calling it Album of the Year. That said, I can't pretend I didn't listen the hell out of it; the songs are full of surprises and some are just impeccably constructed. Plus The Wilderness Downtown is at least runner-up for Video of the Year (competing with Sour's Mirror).

Cee Lo Green - The Lady Killer
Truly saving the best for last. "Fuck You" is a triumph by any estimation (even Gwyneth Paltrow can't hurt it), and it's barely first among equals here; he absolutely murders Band of Horses's "No One's Gonna Love You", for one. Now, I've been a Cee Lo fan since the days of Goodie Mob, and I celebrate his entire catalog, but if you had asked me what he needed to do on his next album, I would have said get back to the rappin'. The Soul Machine had its bright spots, but there was a distinctive undercurrent of weak-sauce neo-soul, and then Gnarls Barkley ran out of ideas but still put out that second album. So I thought it would be nice to be reminded of Mr. Green's ability to spit hot fire 8 bars at a time. Instead he went all in on the soul tip, and he pulled it off brilliantly. The arrangements are all gorgeous, and if there are points where Cee Lo's voice doesn't quite seem like it's up to the task at hand, he still pulls it off, just because he's got it like that. I still want him to rap a bit, but if he can keep making albums like this, then he shouldn't be giving a shit about what I think.

There may or may not be an Amazon widget with all these albums right here, depending on what Wordpress decides to do today. In any case, Top Tracks not on any of these albums coming in a couple of days...