There was a wealth of great, and weird, music released in 2010. Let’s look back and take stock of all the monsters, androids and lady killers that ushered in our latest decade.
Against my better judgment, I’m undertaking a project to determine my top 10 albums of every year since 1960. Instead of just picking my favorite stuff out of my collection, I intend to explore, re-visit and discover. While I can’t promise to leave no stone un-turned, I am going to go deeper than I ever have before. Why would I partake in a journey that will inevitably take many years and that I ultimately may never finish? Most importantly, to uncover great music that I’ve never heard before. Second, to boost my knowledge of music history and get a sense of what was happening at a macro scale in a snapshot of time. Finally, I want to share my passion for music with you and, fingers crossed, generate a dialogue down in the comments. So without further ado, here is #13 in the series. My random number generator tells me that our next year to explore is 1994!
Check out my previous entries here.
The Greatest Albums of 2010
I’ve written recently about the musical style-blending of the last couple of years, to the point that it makes it increasingly hard to pin down an album to a specific genre, or even pin down an artist from album to album. I was interested to find, upon my revisiting of the first year of the decade, that the seeds for this upheaval were starting to sprout back then. Several artists were looking backwards for inspiration, particularly towards the psychedelic (Tame Impala, Kylesa, Yeasayer). Other groups were smashing together disparate aesthetics to varying degrees of success (The Roots, Patty Griffin, Galactic). Most importantly, the top two albums of the year were major, genre-bending opuses that really raised the bar for what could be achieved by stepping outside the imagined constraints of categorization.
The flip side of that coin is that it’s also difficult to pinpoint the progression of individual types of music in 2010. Rock, jazz, hip hop, punk… these all have clear journeys that can be fun to track all the way up through the early 2000’s. Sub-genres rise and fall out of favor in reaction to trends of the past, ideas cross-pollinate between different styles causing them to evolve, and major acts do ground-breaking work that influences their peers for years to come. All of that becomes very muddy in the 2010’s. Maybe it’s simply not having the benefit of distance – without all those intervening years to see how things played out, the quantum leaps made in hip hop by Rakim and the Bomb Squad in the late 80’s may not be so apparent. Same for the now-obvious sea change in the late 60’s and early 70’s that turned soul music from a series of factory-produced singles to a genre that incubated some of the most astounding works of art that we have ever seen. I think it’s more than that, though. Popular music has splintered and re-combined and folded in on itself so much that we are moving towards a world with a million micro-genres of one rather than a handful of major movements. What is clear, however, is that the blurring of traditional genre lines has not contributed to a decline in quality, which we will see as we dive into the latest top ten.
1. The Archandroid – Janelle Monáe
The Archandroid has train-wreck written all over it. It is the sophomore follow-up to a well-received debut that is tied to an ambiguous sci-fi allegory and attempts hold court for more than an hour across a litany of musical styles that range from classical to funk. Amazingly, Monáe lands everything that she attempts and delivers an uncategorizable classic. Her intentions are clear within the first three tracks, which lay out the framework for a bold manifesto. First, this is going to be an eclectic album. It starts off with a classical overture, then a hip hop track which melds into a peppy neo-soul number. Second, it’s going to move fast. Despite the disparity of the three songs, they flow seamlessly into one another with no breaks, and Monáe sounds like she is in a hurry (the third track is called “Faster”, after all). It’s as if, even though the album is already a long one by conventional standards, she’s afraid she won’t be able to jam in enough of her ideas. Third, Janelle Monáe is really talented, and she actually has a chance of pulling this off. Her bars on “Dance or Die” are impressive enough to echo Biggie without drawing unflattering comparisons, and the nimbleness required to sing through “Faster” without stumbling is even more heroic. I don’t know a thing about classical music, but even the opening track sounds legit. The remainder of The Archandroid unfolds in a similar fashion, with more and more left turns that are handled with unimpeachable panache.
The story of the album, which carries over from her 2007 release, Metropolis: Suite I, involves Cindi Mayweather, an android hero who is at odds with the oppressive futuristic government. I’m sure there’s much more to it than that (the Wikipedia entry references “a secret society that uses time travel to suppress freedom and love”), but I try to stick to what I can actually absorb while listening to the music. There is clearly a theme about the disenfranchisement of minorities, here represented by the androids. Mostly I find that the science fiction parable is just a good, fun element to throw into an already heady stew of musical influences. The trappings of that type of story allow a very good lyricist to build a rich world and bounce traditional themes against crazy ideas (which is pretty much the whole point of sci-fi writing to begin with.) At times it really elevates the material, like on “Oh, Maker” where Cindi wrestles with romantic feelings for the person who built her, and leads to such evocative lyrics as:
“Oh, Maker, tell me did you know This love would burn so yellow? Becoming orange and, in its time Explode from grey to black then bloody wine”
It’s tough to pick out highlights, because nearly every track is such a clever and well-constructed addition to the chrome and neon tapestry that Monáe is weaving. Instead of touching on these different genres and patting herself on the back for a variety of simplistic renditions, there is very apparent care in her craft. Witness, for example, how the “Crimson and Clover”-style faux-psychedelia of “Mushrooms & Roses” morphs into a Purple Rain-worthy guitar freak out. Or “Tightrope”, which starts fiercely funky, pivots to a delightfully cheeky verse from Outkast’s Big Boi, then comes back savagely funky before mellowing out into smooth, Kool & the Gang horn lines. Being so ambitious can often be ruinous, or at least lead to some superfluous moments, but The Archandroid never buckles under the weight of its scope. In fact, it is miraculously fun, balancing moments of wonder and light with its pretensions.
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2. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy – Kanye West
The general critical consensus is that this was the best album of 2010. It is no less stylistically audacious or linked to the singular personality of its artist than The Archandroid. The difference is that Monáe’s album is perfect, and Kanye’s is not. Don’t get me wrong, its absurdly well-realized, but Kanye can’t help but get in his own way sometimes. At one point, he invites Chris Rock to drop in and re-hash a more than decade old comedy routine for an interminable and unfunny several minutes. If all those critics are willing to give him a pass on that kind of unchecked excess, great, but there is no way the album wouldn’t be better without it. That said, every time I listen to Fantasy I entertain the idea that it’s the best album to come out this decade, and it probably is through track six or so.
The album opens with “Dark Fantasy”, a dramatic, beat-less tone-setter that features an attention-grabbing intro from Nikki Minaj. Between Minaj’s performance on this track and “Monster”, it felt like we might finally get this generation’s truly great female emcee. Instead, we got… well, Nikki Minaj, but it was a hell of an introduction either way. “Gorgeous” probably features my favorite set of Kanye verses, and I would rank this album as his best overall on the mic. That’s a pretty low bar, candidly, but I appreciate the fact that he shows growth in that department rather than relying on his legendary friends and preternatural ear for beats to carry the day. Speaking of production skills, he really shines on “Gorgeous”. The beat is great, but West’s strongest ability is the way that he develops his tracks over time, shifting elements in and out of the mix and dramatically altering the way that the song feels at different points. There is a real musicality to his production, and he’s never better than on this album. Witness the way he frames Raekwon at the end of the song: It’s the same tired verse about cocaine and Timberland boots that Rae has been spitting since 2001, but the way that the tone of the music changes it sounds like he’s the wisest emcee in the game dropping philosophies for the ages. That streak continues with “Power” and “All of the Lights”, two tracks that are sure to make the short list for songs of the decade in a few years.
A few cracks start to show in the middle stretch of the album, but hardly enough to tarnish the amazing work that West puts in (although I still can’t stand that Chris Rock bit.) Over the last couple of tracks, he shows off his boundless creativity by weaving together an auto-tuned Bon Iver track and a Gil Scott-Heron speech over an electro-tribal beat, and somehow it sounds amazing. I mean, if you are gunning for best of all time, which Kanye unapologetically is, that’s how you stick the landing. I truly believe that a few targeted edits are all that stand between My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and the conversation about the greatest albums of all time.
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3. Brothers – The Black Keys
Brothers represents the Black Keys at the perfect point along their evolution. They are past the caveman simplicity of Magic Potion (fun as it is) and unencumbered by the fussiness of their later Danger Mouse collaborations like Turn Blue. Here they sound sharp and comfortable stretching out across garage rock, blues and vintage soul to turn in the best selection of tunes that they have ever recorded. There’s great stuff up and down their catalogue, to be sure, but never so richly concentrated on a single record. They are also at peak confidence here, slinging big chunky bass-lines, reverb-drenched keyboards and vocals brimming with deadpan swagger without a hint of irony.
It’s fitting that Dan Auerbach has a bit of a public rivalry with Jack White, because the Black Keys are in many ways the polar opposite of the White Stripes, and I’m not just talking about their mirror-image band names. The Stripes, another blues-rock drums and guitar combo, are all about experimentation and pushing boundaries. The Keys are much more interested in finding their spot and settling into a groove for an album at a time. On Brothers, that spot involves something of an acid-washed grindhouse aesthetic, like you could hear these tracks in the trailer for a low-budget but kick-ass Robert Rodriguez flick. “Howlin’ for You”, for example, was probably never used in an episode of True Blood, but damn if it shouldn’t have been. Once the overarching vibe has been established, the guys do a nice job of incorporating impressive variety into the track list. “Everlasting Light” is a bouncy soul number that finds Auerbach working out his only-slightly-warbly falsetto, and it is echoed towards the end of the album with the Jerry Butler cover “Never Gonna Give You Up”. “Black Mud” sounds like it came from one of those late-period Hendrix sessions with Billy Cobham instead of Noel Redding. The back-to-back “Too Afraid to Love You” and “Ten Cent Pistol” are psychedelic and paranoid rock numbers with guitar licks that sound like they belong in a Sergio Leone film. I could go on, but the point is that the album’s cohesive sound is actually pretty remarkable given the breadth of the material, something you might not expect from the band’s early works. I would love to see them get back to something as focused as Brothers in the future.
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4. The Guitar Song – Jamey Johnson
I spend a lot of time on this blog touting the innovative blending of genres and the works that push forward into new territory. Sometimes, however, an artist can be extremely successful by just staking a claim in well-worn ground and executing the shit out of it. With The Guitar Song, Jamey Johnson tackles traditional country music and builds and exquisite double-album around a slew of authentic original compositions (plus the occasional Keith Whitley or Kris Kristofferson cover). I say its traditional not by way of making it seem old-fashioned, but rather to differentiate it from “contemporary” country, which I loathe, and even “Americana”, which I love. This is mainline, Merle Haggard by way of Hank Williams Jr., country country. It would be anachronistic if it didn’t sound so divorced from time and place… it’s archetypal stuff, which is all the more impressive given the landscape of 2010. This was a year where the only two artists who spent more than a week atop the Billboard country chart were Taylor Swift and Lady Antebellum. Even the other country-leaning albums that I liked that year were more bluegrass (Steeldrivers, Punch Brothers) or gospel hybrids (Patty Griffin) or hip rock-influenced grab bags featuring Jimmy Buffet (Zac Brown Band). Johnson is a purist, and that’s a refreshing thing.
The first side (titled “Black Album”) is ostensibly darker and seedier than the more redemptive second side (or “White Album”). That’s probably something that will come out in future listens, but I’m still busy marveling at the overall level of song-craft to notice macro themes. I will say that the “Black Album” features some heart-breaking ballads like “Cover Your Eyes” and “Baby Don’t Cry”, while its counterpart tracks a little more up-tempo and features a lot of song-extending jamming from the crack session musicians that Johnson enlists. “White Album” also boasts the song-length sex pun, “Macon”, which is great enough to withstand my initial hearty eye-rolling and convert me into a fan. Stating that a particularly strong outing could be mistaken for a Greatest Hits album is a bit of a cliché (and one I’ve trotted out before) but, man, that’s the best tool I have to describe The Guitar Song. Having never heard a Jamey Johnson song before, I could be easily led to believe this was an unheralded genius from thirty years ago that never got his break, and the album was a collection of all his best stuff. You know that 3-CD George Jones collection? Maybe there isn’t a “He Stopped Loving Her Today” on The Guitar Song, but overall it is better, and more consistent. If you aren’t already a fan of classic country music, Johnson isn’t going to convert you. This isn’t a crossover album and there is no concessions which might open the door to the uninitiated. It’s a love letter to a great American music style, and one that enriches that legacy as much as it celebrates it.
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5. The Lady Killer – Cee-Lo Green
If you’ve only heard the radio version of “Fuck You” (titled “Forget You”), then you really have no idea what a great song it is. It’s not that he’s cursing, although that does goose the fun factor a bit, but it’s just that you just can’t add an extra syllable into the chorus of a song and expect it to sound any good. As a result, the edited version conceals the fact that this is really just a classic soul song that could easily have been written by Barry Gordy or a young Stevie Wonder (minus the vulgarity). It is one of many surprising delights across Green’s excellent third solo album, The Lady Killer. There is a bit of a noir, James Bond-inspired throughline across the bookending themes and songs like “Love Gun” and “Bodies”, but Cee-Lo doesn’t invest too heavily into that concept, preferring instead to let his muse wander. In most cases, that means pulling inspiration from Marvin Gaye, Lionel Richie and Jerry Butler, but also includes curveballs like a show-stopping cover of Band of Horses’ “No One’s Gonna Love You”. As the album goes on, Green really lets his voice shine, and anybody who thinks he landed on The Voice based on personality alone should check out “Old Fashioned” or “Fool for You” to affirm his bona fides. When I last wrote about a Cee-Lo album (in my best of 2004), I docked him points for being too scattered and stuffing in too many ideas into his albums. It seems that after six years and a diversion with Gnarls Barkley, his editing instincts have become well-honed. The Lady Killer is the epitome of well-crafted, with the songs sequenced to show off the variety of styles on display but perhaps suggest a more unified vision than what is actually there. I don’t know what to expect from Cee-Lo in the future (2015’s Heart Blanche was shockingly lousy), but he may have achieved his peak with this album.
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6. Broken Bells – Broken Bells
Back in 2010, I spent a lot of time commuting back and forth between Richmond and Lynchburg, Virginia. As I prepared for work each morning in my hotel, I would usually have the TV on in the background, tuned to ESPN in the Fall when football was in season, and to MTV or VH1 the rest of the time. I never expected to hear any good music on those mornings, and I usually didn’t, but for someone of my age there is a certain nostalgia to watching music videos, and that’s the only time of the day you can get them anymore. Anyway, you probably see where this is going. One morning, in between the Ariana Grandes and the Keshas and the fucking David Guettas, I heard something that sounded completely alien, or at least unfamiliar in relation to the dance-oriented pop trash surrounding it. It was “The High Road” by Broken Bells, and it is one of the few songs in recent memory that stopped me in my tracks, to the point where I can clearly picture hearing it for the first time seven years later. It was eerie and soulful, but futuristic and polished, too. The rest of the album turned out to be great, as well, and I may have played this one more than any other album that came out in 2010 (it doesn’t hurt that my wife also loves it, which always drives up the number of spins.)
Danger Mouse was once my favorite producer, but I have a mixed reaction to his more recent work. Sometimes he tends to crowd out the personality of the acts he’s producing, and the bells and whistles that made an album like Demon Days sound so fresh in 2005 no longer evoke the same reaction. It’s DM’s one-on-one collaborations that typically prove the most successful (Gnarls Barkley, Danger Doom), and this pairing with James Mercer of the Shins is no exception. Part electronic, part disco, part Shins-style pop-rock, this is remarkably easy music to listen to, but also contains a depth that makes repeat listens rewarding. What’s funny is, Broken Bells is probably a lot closer to that dance-pop I derisively dismissed than anything else on my list. It goes to show that there are no bad types of music, just uninspired takes on them.
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7. Reckless – The Steeldrivers
Chris Stapleton stormed onto the scene in 2015 with his solo album debut, Traveller, some face-melting late night appearances, and a surprisingly lively performance with Justin Timberlake at the CMAs. Traveller featured some strong material, but, clearly, it was Stapleton’s massive voice that garnered him so much attention. What I didn’t find out until more recently is that he spent his previous years fronting a bluegrass band that had recorded a pair of albums before he sailed off for greener country-music pastures. Reckless is the second of said albums, and it arguably provides an even better setting for Chris to do his thing. Bluegrass will never come close to supplanting mainstream country’s popularity, except among hipsters at micro-breweries perhaps, but I’ve always really enjoyed the style. There is a technicality involved that most music can’t touch, and the good bands have a crackling energy that is hard to match. Like reggae, it can be a little similar-sounding at times, but that nitpick is mostly invalidated by the fact that there is so little bluegrass being produced compared to other types of music. In Chris’ solo work, his voice is the clear focal point, but with the electric intensity of the rest of the Steeldrivers underpinning his performance, as well as the powerful backing vocals of fiddler Tammy Rogers, they are able to produce a massive sound that kind of bowls you over the first time you hear it. The Southern-fried theater of the album is a rollicking good time, covering topics such as moonshine, Confederate soldiers, ghosts, and “Guitars, Whiskey, Guns & Knives”. There is plenty of time for sincere emotion, as well, and Stapleton’s Greg Allman-meets-Wilson Pickett voice is always up for the challenge. For anyone underwhelmed by the follow-up album to Traveller (like I was), maybe look backwards to this unheralded gem.
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8. Infinite Arms – Band of Horses
Infinite Arms is the album that has grown on me the most since I started researching this post. Given more time, it’s conceivable that it will creep into my top five of the year. It’s a mellow album, but never boring. The band is able to maintain a consistent identity for the entire run-time, yet is clearly pulling from a myriad of influences. In fact, I hear a different distinct inspiration on nearly every track: My Morning Jacket (“Factory”), Big Star (“Laredo”), The Beatles & The Eagles (both on “Blue Beard”, amazingly), The Beach Boys (“On My Way Back Home”). Those are all great groups, so it’s no surprise that the album sounds fantastic. What I like about it the most is probably that it is so earnest at its core. I have a long-held stereotype of indie rock (which I am slowly unwinding thanks to this project) that it is all ironic and snotty. Yet Band of Horses spends a lot of time singing about connections and community and, even if there are some messy relationships peppered in, the whole thing sounds optimistic to me. I encourage fans of any of the bands I name-checked above to give this a try, or especially if you enjoy something like Wilco or Bon Iver. If it sounds pretty good to you, then there’s a good chance you’ll think it’s great after a few more listens.
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9. Mulatu Steps Ahead – Mulatu Astatke
Whenever I talk about the journey of popular music styles, or prevailing trends from the year I’m reviewing, it’s important to remember that I’m viewing things from a purely American lens. Naturally, what is happening across the globe at any particular time will not likely track to how music is being shaped in America, and furthermore, it would be a nigh impossible task to incorporate those considerations into a project like this. So, while I acknowledge that these top ten lists are highly deficient from a global perspective, I do try and research prominent releases from other continents to what extent I can. In particular, I will focus on the continent of Africa, which I have found to be the most simpatico with my personal preferences. In 2010, two releases caught my attention: Ebo Taylor’s funky Love & Death (seen below in my honorable mentions) and this Ethiopian jazz masterpiece from Mulatu Astatke. Either of these albums could have been released as early as the 70’s, but only Love & Death truly feels like a throw-back. Mulatu Steps Ahead sounds timeless, a mysterious, richly-textured progression of songs that moves from jazz to afro-beat and back again in thrilling fashion. It is not a high tempo album, but it is very much high energy. The unique blend of instrumentation adds an amazing depth while the arrangements leave enough open space to make the music intense without being claustrophobic. I’m not familiar with Astatke’s back catalogue (a stray track or two notwithstanding), but I’m very much interested to find out where he was stepping ahead from, and he’ll be on my watch list going forward.
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10. Spiral Shadow – Kylesa
For the uninitiated, heavy metal can seem like a narrow genre of music. It can come across as all growly vocals, machine-gun drums and soulless shredding on the guitar. Of course, that’s remarkably reductive, but there’s no convincing those folks that the particular style they are thinking of has some profoundly terrific and important music associated with it. Even more shocking to them might be that there are tons of permutations of music that fall under the “metal” umbrella that don’t sound like Megadeath circa 1988. And, if you’ll allow me to flog a particular dead horse again, attempting to categorize music that came out this decade is a bit of a fool’s errand anyway. Spiral Shadow is metal, no doubt, but it’s also psychedelic rock, and there are songs here that have their foundation in punk and power-pop. The whole album is massively layered, with multiple guitars and drummers, simulating a Phil Spector-like wall of sound, albeit a much more aggressive one. The vocals (handled by Phillip Cope and Laura Pleasants) are back in the mix much like 90’s Deftones records, creating the sensation of these (non-growly) voices barely penetrating a massive cocoon of sound. What’s so unique, though, is that they achieve all of this texture and drama in tracks that typically clock in between two to four minutes a piece. It’s like if Tool didn’t need ten minutes to get to the fucking point on every song (jk Maynard, love you guys). The approach would threaten to get repetitive, except that each tune has its own underlying character, and the whole thing wraps up before it has a chance to overstay its welcome. Kylesa joins Antibalaas, the Jayhawks and many others as a previously undiscovered band that I am excited to hopefully come across again throughout this journey.
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Honorable Mentions
Rock/Metal: Innerspeaker – Tame Impala; High Violet – The National; Lisbon – The Walkmen; Sea of Cowards – The Dead Weather; Agony & Opium – Christian Mistress; The Warp Riders – The Sword
Hip Hop: Before Taxes – yU; I Fucking Hate Rappers – PackFM; Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty – Big Boi; How I Got Over – The Roots; Apollo Kids – Ghostface Killah
Folk/Country/Bluegrass: Downtown Church – Patty Griffin; Antifogmatic – The Punch Brothers; You Get What You Give – Zac Brown Band; The Big To-Do – Drive-By Truckers
Soul/Funk/Afro-Beat: Ya-Ka-May – Galactic; Wake Up! – John Legend and the Roots; New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh – Erykah Badu; Love & Death – Ebo Taylor
Electronic: All Day – Girl Talk
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