The Idioteque's subjective albums of 2010 - notable mentions.
Cheers folks! 2010 is rapidly coming to a close, and end-of-year lists are popping up here, there and everywhere these days. A load of bullshit really, one could say, because music is such subjective matter, and once you've crossed out the obvious shit albums, there's still such an abundance of awesome and interesting music around. Heck, the other day I read the Danish albums of 2010-lists from the nation's two benchmark music publications, Gaffa and Soundvenue, and found that they agreed on none of their respective top four albums.
Anyway, before I kick off my own, subjective (even more subjective than all the others', 'cause its totally dictatorial), list, let me give a shout out to all the albums that won't be on my list, but that have contributed greatly to 2010 in music anyway!
Primarily, there are the albums that were truly within striking distance of making the top 10, spearheaded by two domestic releases, The Kissaway Trail's Sleep Mountain and Treefight For Sunlight's A Collection of Vibrations For Your Skull. The latter even, surprisingly, but very impressively nonetheless, made it to the very top of Soundvenue's list. Even if it has been a sort of strange, or, dare I say, mediocre, year in Danish music, that's quite a feat for a debut album clocking in at just a snicker above thirty minutes in length. But really, it's hard to see who else could've filled the void (certainly Gaffa went for the boring, conservative consensus-choice in going with Efterklang...).
There are thoroughly decent albums like Vampire Weekend's Contra, Gorillaz' Plastic Beach and Delorean's Subiza. Then there's Deerhunter's Halcyon Digest, which is still a work in progress for me, and Teen Dream by Beach House, which I perhaps should give another try. And then there's the wholly, outlandishly bizarre, Tomorrow, In A Year by The Knife which, in its own right, could be construed as the most interesting album of the year. Not in terms of listening pleasure, but when you look at it from a more expressionist perspective. Just as I predicted, disregarding its almost inhumane nature, it would almost certainly stick up its controversial thumb on some end-of-year list. Drowned in Sound agree with me, and have placed it at #5 on their list.
Also, there are the disappointments. Like High Violet by The National, which everyone but me seem to be raving about, but which honestly doesn't come close to its predecessors if you ask me. Or like Trespassers by Kashmir, who, it becomes more and more apparent, did really peak with The Good Life and Zitilites. Or Klaxons' sophomore effort Surfing The Void, which doesn't really know on which of its not-anymore-so-raving legs to stand upon. Or MGMT's Congratulations, which reminded me how I wasn't really crazy about MGMT in the first place.
And finally there are all the many albums I should have listened to this year, but that I haven't. I hope to get around to some of them before the Roskilde season really sets in. Albums such as Gemini by Wild Nothing, Heartland by Owen Pallett, Hidden by These New Puritans, InnerSpeaker by Tame Impala, Swim by Caribou, or Les chemins de verre by Karkwa, who beat out both Caribou and Arcade Fire for the Polaris Prize. And Sleep Party People's eponymous debut, and Agnes Obel's Philharmonics. And how about Crystal Castles?
It's been a year of lo-fi, chillwave, noise, slack, wonky, witch-house and dubstep gone popstep gone gone-and-done. It's also been a year blessed with the ten albums that are gonna run across this page the next ten days. Roll on 2011!
