Twenty Songs of 2010 - Part I
As for several years previously now, here are twenty songs of 2010 which - whilst in many cases not the best - are indubitably the ones that got their hooks into me this year. Enjoy. The first ten are available in ZIP format here.
Erland & The Carnival - My Name Is Carnival
They're sort of like Kula Shaker, but not. Erland & The Carnival very much aren't one of my favourite bands, and nor is it one of my favourite albums, of the year. But, but, but - once heard, this one stuck, and thus is the nature of this subjective top ten.
Pokey LaFarge - La La Blues
I heard this long before I heard Riverboat Soul, the album of which it is the lead song, and I was amazed that the entire record maintains the same sheer joyful exuberance. Indeed, this isn't even the best song on the album - LaFarge's brand of souped-up country blues offers many splendoured pleasures - but it is, as we've already seen to be the way of these top 20s, the one I listened to, and sang along to, most of all.
Frazey Ford - One More Cup of Coffee
Erstwhile Be Good Tanya Frazey Ford's debut album is the definition of a slow-burner: it did nothing for me on first or second listens, and I've had to persevere with it in order to appreciate it better. It's worth it: there's a quiet intensity to Ford's voice, as on this Dylan cover, which is matched perfectly by the restrained musical backing. A shame I couldn't pick one of her own songs for this top 20, but she shouldn't have made this one so good.
Stornoway - We Are The Battery Human
I may have spontaneously started singing this song more than any other this year. 'Nuff said.
Villagers - The Pact (I'll Be Your Fever)
This is probably as close to pop as Conor O'Brien gets, and that's almost certainly what makes it the earworm of his remarkable debut record, 'Becoming A Jackal'. In many ways, though, it's the title track that is most memorable for me - following a quite mesmerising solo performance of the song by O'Brien at the Mercury Music Prize, which I should think would lead many who voted for the xx to question their choice. One of the best albums of the year, hands down.
Joanna Newsom - Good Intentions Paving Company
Taken from the first, and possibly best, disc of the three-CD opus Have One On Me, 'Good Intentions Paving Company' is notable for simultaneously being one of the album's longest and catchiest songs. In many ways, the 'album' to which this track belongs is too wilfully forbidding to love; in another, it is so very clearly one of the most ambitious records released this year that it's hard not to hand it the year's best prize without further ado. Newsom is an acquired taste, but one imagines she likes it that way.
Band of Horses - Older
Not the most interesting song on this band's 2010 release, 'Older' has the advantage of having a classic melody which simply hadn't yet been written. Band of Horses were far better live than I expected them to be - but this song captured everyone in the room at the gig just as it does on record. Nice.
Roky Erikson - Ain't Blues Too Sad
Amit still hasn't forgiven me for reading out live on internet radio the liner notes of this record, in which the hideous crimes of Roky Erikson's fellow inmates at a prison for the criminally insane are described in some detail. But the context of Erikson's tortured life make this beautiful, elegiac record all the more remarkable. One of the most beautiful albums released this year - even if it is at times a rather ugly one, too.
Willie Nelson - Dark as a Dungeon
This record is far from Willie's best work (though it's certainly leagues ahead of another T Bone Burnett-produced album released in 2010, Ryan Bingham's Junky Star), but this song wheedled itself into my ears nevertheless. There's an almost valedictory warmth to Country Music, the album from which this is taken - but one hopes there are plenty more albums left in the old dog yet.
Of Montreal - I Feel Ya Stutter
False Priest received reviews more mixed than its two immediate predecessors, but with its gender bending and acid-tongued disco it's also very much of a piece with them. Indeed, in many ways 'I Feel Ya Stutter' is the apotheosis of this stage of Kevin Barnes's career: it is pure, sexualised bubblegum pop, layered to within an inch of its life with a gazillion hooks, aiming to achieve just one thing. To make you dance, of course - even if you don't want to.
Part II coming in a few days - grab the ZIP while you can.
Erland & The Carnival - My Name Is Carnival
They're sort of like Kula Shaker, but not. Erland & The Carnival very much aren't one of my favourite bands, and nor is it one of my favourite albums, of the year. But, but, but - once heard, this one stuck, and thus is the nature of this subjective top ten.
Pokey LaFarge - La La Blues
I heard this long before I heard Riverboat Soul, the album of which it is the lead song, and I was amazed that the entire record maintains the same sheer joyful exuberance. Indeed, this isn't even the best song on the album - LaFarge's brand of souped-up country blues offers many splendoured pleasures - but it is, as we've already seen to be the way of these top 20s, the one I listened to, and sang along to, most of all.
Frazey Ford - One More Cup of Coffee
Erstwhile Be Good Tanya Frazey Ford's debut album is the definition of a slow-burner: it did nothing for me on first or second listens, and I've had to persevere with it in order to appreciate it better. It's worth it: there's a quiet intensity to Ford's voice, as on this Dylan cover, which is matched perfectly by the restrained musical backing. A shame I couldn't pick one of her own songs for this top 20, but she shouldn't have made this one so good.
Stornoway - We Are The Battery Human
I may have spontaneously started singing this song more than any other this year. 'Nuff said.
Villagers - The Pact (I'll Be Your Fever)
This is probably as close to pop as Conor O'Brien gets, and that's almost certainly what makes it the earworm of his remarkable debut record, 'Becoming A Jackal'. In many ways, though, it's the title track that is most memorable for me - following a quite mesmerising solo performance of the song by O'Brien at the Mercury Music Prize, which I should think would lead many who voted for the xx to question their choice. One of the best albums of the year, hands down.
Joanna Newsom - Good Intentions Paving Company
Taken from the first, and possibly best, disc of the three-CD opus Have One On Me, 'Good Intentions Paving Company' is notable for simultaneously being one of the album's longest and catchiest songs. In many ways, the 'album' to which this track belongs is too wilfully forbidding to love; in another, it is so very clearly one of the most ambitious records released this year that it's hard not to hand it the year's best prize without further ado. Newsom is an acquired taste, but one imagines she likes it that way.
Band of Horses - Older
Not the most interesting song on this band's 2010 release, 'Older' has the advantage of having a classic melody which simply hadn't yet been written. Band of Horses were far better live than I expected them to be - but this song captured everyone in the room at the gig just as it does on record. Nice.
Roky Erikson - Ain't Blues Too Sad
Amit still hasn't forgiven me for reading out live on internet radio the liner notes of this record, in which the hideous crimes of Roky Erikson's fellow inmates at a prison for the criminally insane are described in some detail. But the context of Erikson's tortured life make this beautiful, elegiac record all the more remarkable. One of the most beautiful albums released this year - even if it is at times a rather ugly one, too.
Willie Nelson - Dark as a Dungeon
This record is far from Willie's best work (though it's certainly leagues ahead of another T Bone Burnett-produced album released in 2010, Ryan Bingham's Junky Star), but this song wheedled itself into my ears nevertheless. There's an almost valedictory warmth to Country Music, the album from which this is taken - but one hopes there are plenty more albums left in the old dog yet.
Of Montreal - I Feel Ya Stutter
False Priest received reviews more mixed than its two immediate predecessors, but with its gender bending and acid-tongued disco it's also very much of a piece with them. Indeed, in many ways 'I Feel Ya Stutter' is the apotheosis of this stage of Kevin Barnes's career: it is pure, sexualised bubblegum pop, layered to within an inch of its life with a gazillion hooks, aiming to achieve just one thing. To make you dance, of course - even if you don't want to.
Part II coming in a few days - grab the ZIP while you can.