Hello peoples. This is a post about music. Music is a things that is similar to sound except more tolerable than listening to others around you talk about their lives. This list is a little bit more butchered than I would have liked and a few artists who made some amazing Pop music this year (Kelis, Alphabeat, Joe Worricker and Sky Ferreira, I'm sorry) were just squeezed off the list. Yes, I am also aware it's November but I doubt the new Westlife album or Susan Boyle's spoken word edition of 'The Very Hungry West-Lothian Caterpillar' will shake anything out of place when they're released.
11. Kate Nash - Paris
Probably the best thing on her sophomore album 'My Best Friend Is You'. Shame her choice of singles was a little odd to say the least. Kudos to her though for not simply writing another albums worth of 'Mariella' and 'Foundations'. She was also supported on tour by the hilarious and amazing Brigitte Aphrodite who's 'Dance With A Stranger' EP is worth your attention.
10. Fiona Apple, the Punch Brothers and Jon Brion - So Sleepy
This is some sort of charity thing where established artists sing the songs of young upstarts. Well done young upstarts. Fiona is back in earnest early next year.
9. Avi Buffalo - What's It In For?
This song and this band are so hopelessly cool you should feel utterly inadequate to click the play button. They're so laid back that they have no concept of acts so contrived as clicking.
8. Sia - Never Gonna Leave Me
Sia's 'We are Born' is one of the best albums of the year. This is a fact. All you may have seen of it is the cover art on the adverts for that absurd new iPod nano. 'Never Gonna Leave Me' is vaguely reminiscent of Motown girl groups if they were a bit more bisexual, Australian and had a rocket shoved up their arse.
7. Tunng - Hustle
One of those songs that sounds really happy but is about something utterly awful. I mean not 'Jenny, Again' awful but still not very nice. Thank you very much to my mate Paul for dragging me to see them live. Yes their female vocalist really is that short.
6. Evelyn Evelyn - Elephant Elephant
Amanda Palmer is doing a side project eh? She's going to become a faux-Victorian circus conjoined twin act with another singer/songwriter? What could possibly go wrong? Result: Possibly the catchiest little ditty in ages and a live show that has to be seen to be believed.
5. I Blame Coco feat. Robyn - Caesar
Angry. Pulsating. Masochistic. And it has Robyn in it. Brilliant.
4. Hurts - Wonderful Life
A hyped band who are actually as good as people say they are. 'Wonderful Life' sounds like exactly the kind of stuff you'd expect Tears for Fears to be doing in 2010 if they were,... um.. Mancunian and mates with Kylie Minogue.
3. Joanna Newsom - Good Intentions Paving Company
I've still probably not listened to all of Joanna's TRIPLE album 'Have One on Me'. There's 3 discs and her average track length would make James Cameron impatient. Still, this is likely the best thing on it.
2. Manic Street Preachers feat. Ian McCulloch - Some Kind of Nothingness
Every time the Manics seem to be about to drop of the radar of popular culture, they do something utterly brilliant. Last time it was a return to Holy Bible melodrama, this time it's their new, bigger, busier take on Stadium rock. And there's a lot of gospel choirs. In an awesome way, not in the X Factor way. Actually, I bloody love an X Factor gospel choir.
1. Robyn - Dancing On My Own
A heart, covered in glitter and blood, being trod on in the depths of a club. Robyn effortlessly mixes personal tragedy and a banging tune so well, you'd have to stop dancing for five seconds just to deal with how epic the emotion behind the rhythm is. A career high.
Sunday 7 November 2010
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