Part of me wishes I had more time to write intros to these individual blocks of 10 albums. Ultimately, it’s the least important element of these countdowns, because the albums with numbers next to them are the real point. So I’m just going to leave this one short and sweet. Today we reach the halfway point in our countdown, then promptly move past it. With each passing day and number, my love for these records grows stronger. Writing about them again in little pieces for this bit of Listmas is a nice refreshing of perspectives I took any number of months ago. I hope you’re enjoying this so far. We’ve only got a couple days left. If you’d like to do some catching up, here’s a couple links to show you what you’ve missed.
Yesterday was a whole lot of fun, crossing off the bottom 10 albums on my Top 50 Albums of 2011 list. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed putting it together. Today we hit Part II, in which #40-31 will spike your blood sugar. If you’re reading this, I’ll now drop a “hint” for you as to what the #1 album might be, just to satisfy your curiosity. I’ve yet to find a publication, in print or online, that has agreed with my choice for Album of the Year. That doesn’t so much tell you what it is, but more like what it isn’t. There should be a good 5-6 records at least you can cross off as candidates for that top slot. Just another couple days and you’ll know the full story. Until then, please check out yesterday’s 10 albums if you have yet to do so. Here’s the link to that.
Welcome my friends, to the second week of Listmas, and the first installment of my Top 50 Albums of the Year. To put it in the simplest terms possible, I love this list. I love everything on it and everything about it. In my opinion, it’s the finest list I’ve ever put together, the most balanced and well-ordered. I feel it truly encompasses the best of the best from 2011, and honestly I couldn’t always say that in previous years. I’ve always doubted myself in one aspect or another. To answer your next question, yes, I’m upset that there were a few albums that couldn’t quite make the cut. I set the limit at 50, because it seems to be the fairest and most encompassing number to use. Coming up with 50 wasn’t so much a problem, but 55 or 60 might have been. At the end of all this, I may include a couple of honorable mentions, but primarily what you’re seeing here is what you get, and I’ve only made one small adjustment from my initial first draft. So we’ll be going through the Top 50 Albums all this week, 10 each day, until we hit number one. I hope it makes for some excitement and a great read on your part, and I also hope you discover something new as well, even if the most voracious of music lovers might recognize every single one of these. And so we begin with #50-41 today. Click past the jump to read onward!
Well my friends, we’ve reached the end. The end of our countdown of the Top 50 Songs of the Year, that is. I pray you’ve enjoyed this recap thus far, as there’s been plenty of variety to hopefully satisfy tastes of all shapes and colors and ears. One of the things I wish I could have included more of on this particular countdown is hip hop, so I’d like to apologize for the lack of it. I don’t listen to a lot of hip hop, so that’s problem 1 right there, but also of the hip hop I did listen to, some I felt wasn’t quite good enough to qualify for this list (see: Jay-Z and Kanye West’s Watch the Throne) while others made it quite difficult to single out a particular track as being better or more special than the others (see: Shabazz Palaces). So there’s no hip hop to be found in the final 10 songs listed below. What we do have though are all really special to me in their own individual ways. There’s a touch of folk, some more traditional pop be it upbeat or balladry, a few flashes of experimental or undefined, a couple dance cuts, and the genre revival of the year, 90s alt-rock. I like to think that my pick for Song of the Year is a little bit controversial, in that I’ve barely seen any mentions of it in any year-end lists, but I also feel like my logic and justification of its placement are valid. I hope you will agree with me, or at least understand where I’m trying to come from. So let’s get into it, but in case you’ve missed the other 40 songs covered on this list, feel free to follow the links below to learn more:
Thanks for hanging in there so far as we do Listmas 2011 proper with yet another day of counting down my Top 50 Songs of 2011. If yesterday was all about getting eclectic, today is much more thematically in the direction of upbeat pop and dark psychedelia. At least a couple of these songs have been in commercials or other such media-related ventures outside of the scope of music. That doesn’t so much matter to me, primarily because I’ve been listening to all these songs before they showed up anywhere outside of an album. In cases like that, I invoke the right of “finders keepers” in an effort to say that the music swayed me, not the product it may have been attached to in an advertisement or TV show. I hope these songs are familiar to you for those exact same reasons, and if you haven’t heard them before now, well, here’s your chance to make such a discovery. I hope this list has helped you find something new you may have missed earlier in the year. Speaking of things you may have missed earlier, have you checked out the first 3 installments of this Top 50 Songs of 2011 countdown? Here are the links so you can catch up:
We’ve reached the halfway point in the Top 50 Songs of 2011 countdown. I hope you’ve enjoyed this list, and Listmas in general thus far. Today’s set of 10 songs are probably the most eclectic yet, going everywhere from psychedelically weird to warm electronica to lo-fi to spoken word poetry to R&B to a pair of some of the most popular songs of the year. When looking back at 2011, it’s important to give some recognition to all those different types of music. For those that missed the first two installments of this Top 50 Songs list, here are a couple links to help you catch up:
Welcome to Day 2 of Listmas, and my countdown week of the Best Songs of 2011. Yesterday was a lot of fun and naturally as the week progresses I expect that to continue to increase. One fun fact I’ll reveal to you in regards to my composition of this list is that I highly doubt you’ll be able to guess any of my Top 3 songs, which will be revealed on Friday. Feel free to guess in the comments section, but those final 3 are in some ways curveballs of the most interesting sort. There will likely be complaints. We’ll see how it all shakes out though. There’s still a couple days left before we get to that point. For today, there’s another interesting set of songs, and I’d actually say there’s nearly a theme to these 10. Save for a couple more left field choices, a handful of these songs were moderately successful and popular in 2011. That is to say, I heard a few of them on the radio, some even more than once. Do with that what you will. Click past the jump to read the list, my thoughts on each individual song, and stream or download all of them too. Oh, and here’s the link to yesterday’s 10 songs in case you missed them: The Top 50 Songs of 2011: #50-41
It brings me great pleasure to welcome you to Faronheit’s Listmas 2011! For a couple weeks in December, the forward progress goes on hold to take a step backwards and examine the past year in music. Specifically speaking, this week marks the Top 50 Songs of 2011 countdown, and next week will be the Top 50 Albums of 2011. In the earliest Listmas editions dating all the way back to 2008, I’d also break down my favorite EPs, TV shows, movies, music videos and worst albums into lists, but most of that just doesn’t quite jive with the content you’d find on the site regularly, so those elements have been cut. If you want more information on those, email me and I’ll be more than happy to send those lists your way. I’ve got a couple special things planned beyond the two main lists I’ll be counting down as well, so keep an eye out for those when they emerge. In the meantime, we’ve got some hefty (but fun) business at hand. Coming up with a list of 50 and only 50 songs out of any given year is a monstrous task, particularly when you think about all the albums, EPs and 7″ singles that get unleashed week after week. After digging through pile after pile and sifting out only the songs that really stuck with me, I very well could have extended this list to 100 or more. Instead we’re left with only 50, and I’d like to think that makes them the best of the best.
There’s a reason why this list uses the word “song” and not “single”, and that’s because while commercially released singles are often the most pleasing to the ear, they’re not necessarily the best song on any given album or EP or sometimes even 7″ single (a b-side could hypothetically be better than the a-side single). If I start throwing around the word “single” when talking about this list, that limits it to what the commercial market dictates and not necessarily what quality does. Granted, many of the songs you’ll see here are also singles and have places where you can stream them or watch music videos made for them. If an mp3, audio stream or video is available for any of the songs on this list, I will do my best to link to it for your downloading/streaming/viewing pleasure. If you haven’t heard some of these songs before, naturally I encourage you to check them out in whatever way you can. It’s also worth noting that while some albums/EPs/7″ singles have a wealth of great material on them, I’m only allowing one song per artist on this list. The hope is to diversify as much as possible while also giving a little bit of credit to some of those “one hit wonders” that may have wowed with one song and then sucked with the rest. By that same token, some artists have crafted such perfection in terms of an entire record that choosing a single song from it feels a little criminal and distracting from the rest of it. Some albums are meant to be heard as one whole rather than broken down into three minute chunks. If we get to the end of this Top 50 Songs list and the artist responsible for your favorite album of 2011 doesn’t show up for some reason, I assure you I probably didn’t forget but instead couldn’t pick a single song because they were all so great. As a twist on that though, sometimes even the best albums have a song or two that jumps out at you just a touch more than the rest. You will get at least a touch of insight into some things that will appear on my Top 50 Albums list next week though. Try not to read too much into that, you may wind up deceived when this is all over. Okay, enough talking, let’s get right into the list. At a rate of 10 songs per day, here are numbers 50-41 on my list of the Top 50 Songs of 2011.
Every year around the start of July, it becomes abundantly clear via the calendar that we’ve hit the halfway point. Six out of twelve months have passed, and given that amount of time it feels appropriate to look back briefly on some of the highlights (and lowlights) of the music we’ve heard thus far. Rather than approach it in a typical “Best Albums” format (no hints as to the “master list” that will emerge in December), I like to instead examine the first half of the year in terms of “surprising” and “disappointing” albums. The differentiation between the two isn’t as simple as good and bad or black and white. There are records on the Surprising Albums list that won’t show up at year’s end as the “Best of” anything, and by that same token, just because a record winds up on the Disappointing Albums list doesn’t mean it’s destined for the bargain bin. In order to achieve the designation of being “surprising”, a record simply needs to blow my expectations out of the water. You turn it on expecting a total crapfest and wind up with something that at the very least leaves you moderately satisfied. A strange turn of events towards the positive side of the spectrum. Opposing that, those albums designated “disappointing” earn that label by building expectations prior to its release and then failing to meet them. Everyone WANTED to like the fourth Indiana Jones movie of the 3 “Star Wars” prequels, but in the end it was letdown city. You earn a reputation for greatness and then slip up for whatever reason. So as to avoid any sort of confusion or suggestion that any list is ordered in such a way that these albums are ranked, I’ve arranged each list to be alphabetical by artist. If you like, feel free to also click onto the links provided to read my original reviews of the albums on these two lists. Today we’ll tackle my list of “5 Disappointing Albums”. If you missed yesterday’s list of “5 Surprising Albums”, you can read that piece by clicking here. I hope you have fun and enjoy these lists, and by all means feel free to let me know what some of your most surprising and disappointing albums from the first half of the year are in the comments section.
Bright Eyes – The People’s Key (Original Review)
It’s just a tiny bit unfair to say that “The People’s Key” was a disappointing album. For devoted Bright Eyes fans, this was more of a record that wanted to give something back after a pair of mediocre-to-bad solo/Mystic Valley Band long players. Oberst was exploring more of an alt-country angle that devolved into frat boy rock after awhile and just wasn’t working. By contrast, “The People’s Key” sought to bring something good back to the Bright Eyes name, maybe for one last time before it gets retired, and does a relatively good job doing so. Oberst’s lyrical witticisms are strong and viable, and the songs themselves are among the most commercially pleasant that he’s ever written. The record is a full step ahead of even the last Bright Eyes album, 2007’s “Cassadaga”. So what makes this record so damn disappointing then? If this is the best album Oberst has been associated with in years (save for Monsters of Folk), shouldn’t this small victory come as a pleasant surprise? On paper, that’s absolutely what it should be. In context, this is more of a pyrrhic victory than anything else. Oberst may still know how to string words together that are jaw-droppingly brilliant, but now they’re colder and more distant than ever. We easily could have and should have given up on the thought that maybe Bright Eyes would return to the days of “Fevers and Mirrors” where he was an emotionally scarred and scared kid, but if that side of the band changed your life, giving up is that much harder to do. Then there’s the concept of “selling out”, which to his credit Oberst hasn’t really done, but the much more rocking and much more easy to digest nature of “The People’s Key” seems to suggest it’s what he wanted. There’s something coldly calculated about this record in how it seems designed to please people. If this truly is the final Bright Eyes record, we definitely know he could have done better, even if it meant torturing his soul for just a little longer. That’s all we really wanted anyways. Buy it from Amazon
Panda Bear – Tomboy (Original Review)
To those that used “Tomboy” as their introduction to Panda Bear, I feel a little sorry for you. It’s by no means a bad record, but to put it more broadly, it’s like first hearing Weezer via “The Green Album”. Your experience with the artist isn’t ruined, but there are far better entry points you could have taken. With Panda Bear, your one and only spot to jump in was via “Person Pitch”. That was a record not just mindblowing in 2007 when it was first released, but it’s one that continues to shake worlds even today. It was a record fiercely ahead of its time, launching a whole other genre unto itself that wouldn’t fully blossom until over a year later. Plus, it shared some of the spotlight with the Animal Collective record that would soon follow it, “Merriweather Post Pavilion”, which is very much its own story too. So it was a very good couple years for Noah Lennox. Where “Tomboy” found him earlier this year was in a lot of the same headspace where those two albums were made, but in a world that had vastly changed its musical landscape since then. What was once ahead of its time and brilliant suddenly registered as being a retread of old ideas and at the very most exploitative of current trends. Panda Bear still stands higher than many of his now similar counterparts on “Tomboy”, but the hope was for less of that and more of an admirable attempt towards keeping the expansion of his sound going with even fresher techniques this time. Was he out of ideas, or just trying to bide some time? We’ll know for sure next time. Buy it from Amazon
Radiohead – The King of Limbs (No Original Review)
I have never reviewed a Radiohead album, and by all accounts I probably never will. I bear no hatred or ill will towards the band, and in fact my feelings are closer to the opposite. My primary concern is that once I start writing about the band, I won’t be able to stop myself. I intensely study every single Radiohead album to the point where a day rarely goes by in which I don’t hear one or more in full. I would write a 300 page book on them in 10 days if somebody would commission it. I go from vinyl to CD to mp3 to nitpick little details and discover elements unique to each format. Obsessive is one way to describe it. The point being, I continue to hold the belief that there has never been a legitimately bad Radiohead record (not even “Pablo Honey”), and “The King of Limbs” only affirms such a stance even more. What amuses me is all the anger being heaped upon the band for making an album that’s a completely logical progression from where they’ve been before. Coming off the success that was “In Rainbows” is what essentially screwed them. Say the band had reversed the release order of their last two albums, so “The King of Limbs” came out in 2007 under a “pay what you want” scale and “In Rainbows” was a carefully priced “newspaper album”. My argument is that the reaction to both records would have been noticeably different. In fact, “The King of Limbs” feels like a natural progression out of the “Kid A”/”Amnesiac” days more than anything else, combined with a slice of Thom Yorke’s solo effort “The Eraser”. But the cold hard truth is as follows: after a hugely successful revival and radicalization of the music business that was “In Rainbows”, Radiohead retreated into their own heads and made the record they WANTED to make, fan reaction be damned. They’re really fucking brilliant still, it’s just this doesn’t seem to be the expected or right thing to be doing at this juncture. So people have been bitching and moaning about it, and they’ll continue to bitch and moan about it until Radiohead straightens up and flies right again. The only reason this record should be a disappointment is if you were expecting something truly revelatory or earth-shattering. As for me, that’s what I expect from the band every time. Buy it from Amazon
The Strokes – Angles (Original Review)
After the mess of a record that was “First Impressions of Earth”, The Strokes were on the verge of breaking up. They never officially announced a break up, but given their lengthy hiatus and establishment of other projects, you could easily understand if they pulled a Jack White and woke up one day saying that The Strokes had nothing left to offer the world. What motivated these guys to get back together again was likely more monetary than anything else. The return of The Strokes meant that dollar signs were in their future, as evidenced by a number of sold out shows when they first began to resurface. Shortly after word had gotten around that a new album was on the way, the band put out a new single “Under Cover of Darkness”. Unlike their douchey third album, the song sounded like it belonged in the same sessions as their first two amazing records, and that only pushed hopes and dreams higher that now was the time The Strokes would truly be able to capitalize on their success. Then again, reports were also surfacing of band members calling one another out for things and word that Julian Casablancas came in and recorded his vocals separately from the rest of the band. Not a great sign for personal relationships, but if the album worked then so be it. “Angles” turned out to be a small failure almost entirely because of the band’s inability to fully cooperate with one another. Traverse its 10 songs and you’ll find a handful of different perspectives written into what was supposed to be just one. This disconnection ultimately hurt the album, yet it remains better than “First Impressions of Earth”, which is something of a compliment. Word on the street is that everybody’s friends again and recording for the next Strokes album has been good so far. Start crowwing your fingers now. Buy it from Amazon
TV on the Radio – Nine Types of Light (Original Review)
The fellas in TV on the Radio had been on a hot streak the likes of which had not been seen since Radiohead pulled off the perfecta trifecta that was “The Bends”, “OK Computer” and “Kid A”. The TVOTR perfecta trifecta amounted to “Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes”, “Return to Cookie Mountain” and “Dear Science”. All three of those albums were at or close to being named the best albums of their respective years by a number of publications (including this one). Not only that, but those three records were released in a span of 6 years that coincided perfectly with a tour-record-tour-record pattern. Naturally, they were in need of a break. The hiatus came, band members focused on side projects, and after close to a year off they reconvened to craft their fourth full length. Either they needed to take a longer break or have simply run out of fresh ideas, because “Nine Types of Light” represents a new low from a band whose level of respect was at an all-time high. That’s not calling the album bad, that’s saying a couple small blemishes have appeared on what was once a pristine surface. There are a few distinct album highlights, from “No Future Shock” to “Will Do” and the effervescent closer “Caffeinated Consciousness”, but the weakest turns are made via the slowed down, quieter moments. TVOTR can do sleepy ballads very well, as evidenced by their past ones, but when you string a few of them together it starts to drag the entire album down. Such is the case here, even if each one is frought with substance and meaning. “Nine Types of Light” is a step down for the band, but more like a minor half-step than a taller, cliff-sized one. Buy it from Amazon
Every year around the start of July, it becomes abundantly clear via the calendar that we’ve hit the halfway point. Six out of twelve months have passed, and given that amount of time it feels appropriate to look back briefly on some of the highlights (and lowlights) of the music we’ve heard thus far. Rather than approach it in a typical “Best Albums” format (no hints as to the “master list” that will emerge in December), I like to instead examine the first half of the year in terms of “surprising” and “disappointing” albums. The differentiation between the two isn’t as simple as good and bad or black and white. There are records on the Surprising Albums list that won’t show up at year’s end as the “Best of” anything, and by that same token, just because a record winds up on the Disappointing Albums list doesn’t mean it’s destined for the bargain bin. In order to achieve the designation of being “surprising”, a record simply needs to blow my expectations out of the water. You turn it on expecting a total crapfest and wind up with something that at the very least leaves you moderately satisfied. A strange turn of events towards the positive side of the spectrum. Opposing that, those albums designated “disappointing” earn that label by building expectations prior to its release and then failing to meet them. Everyone WANTED to like the fourth Indiana Jones movie of the 3 “Star Wars” prequels, but in the end it was letdown city. You earn a reputation for greatness and then slip up for whatever reason. So as to avoid any sort of confusion or suggestion that any list is ordered in such a way that these albums are ranked, I’ve arranged each list to be alphabetical by artist. If you like, feel free to also click onto the links provided to read my original reviews of the albums on these two lists. Today we’ll tackle my list of “5 Surprising Albums” and tomorrow will top it off with “5 Disappointing Albums”. I hope you have fun and enjoy these lists, and by all means feel free to let me know what some of your most surprising and disappointing albums from the first half of the year are in the comments section.
…And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead – Tao of the Dead (Original Review)
Creating an album that many deem to be “perfect” is more of a curse than it is a blessing. Yes, you’ll achieve something not many others can lay claim to, but the weight of that success will likely crush you and ultimately handicap you for the rest of your career. Such is the case with …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, a band whose 2002 album “Source Tags and Codes” remains one of the highlights from the last decade yet continues to be relatively underappreciated in this day and age. Perhaps that’s because it was followed by three albums that pushed really hard to recreate or expand upon the sound that won millions over; all of which failed miserably. Eventually dropped from their major label contract, Trail of Dead continued to push onwards via their own record label, and that along with some fiercely negative reviews caused them to step backwards and take stock of where they were at musically. They pared down to a four piece and with that came a much more stable, stripped down sound that still rocked pretty hard. The high concepts remain though, and they crafted their new album “Tao of the Dead” to be heard as two separate suites, each recorded in a different key. There may be dividers between the tracks, but the record is intended to be heard in a single sitting, and if you take it as such it serves as a reminder that this band is able to do great things when they’re not trying so damn hard. It may have taken them almost 10 years to do it, but it’s starting to seem like the ghost of perfection that has haunted the band is beginning to fade away and the boys might finally be able to reclaim some of the spotlight that was once lost. Buy it from Amazon
Cake – Showroom of Compassion (Original Review)
To call Cake “innovative” is to mislabel them. Charming though many of their songs may be, it would appear that longevity is not in their nature. Yet next year they’ll be celebrating their 20th anniversary of being together and allowing John McCrea to constantly sing-speak so many of his lyrics. In that massive amount of time, Cake has only released 6 albums. There was a 7 year gap between their last album “Pressure Chief” and their new one “Showroom of Compassion”, and with the former being such a bland effort on their part, the long wait was probably warranted. They needed the time to remember exactly who they were and why they should continue to make music. Raise your hand if you pretty much forgot that Cake even existed until you heard they had a new record coming out. Spend too much time away, and people will forget about you because there’s so many other musical options available to them. Anyways, “Showroom of Compassion” was like a big welcome back hug from an old friend that you had lost touch with a long time ago. The songs were much stronger than they had been in the last decade, and there were even small signs of sonic progression, with the band incorporating some new instruments and song structures into the fold. On 1996’s “Fashion Nugget”, Cake famously (and ironically) covered Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive”. With “Showroom of Compassion”, it certainly appears that they will continue to do so for a little while longer. Buy it from Amazon
Foo Fighters – Wasting Light (Original Review)
Unlike Cake, Foo Fighers didn’t take a long time away from the spotlight before returning. Still, they did wait four years between their last album “Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace” and this new one “Wasting Light”, which was the longest gap in the band’s 16 year history. With all their powerhouse singles though, it was never tough to keep Foo Fighters at the front of your brain, and Dave Grohl’s constant presence in playing with other bands (see: Them Crooked Vultures and Queens of the Stone Age, among others) kept you guessing about where he’d turn up next. But the Foo Fighters themselves had been suffering a serious slump as of the last 10 or so years despite their moderately successful singles output. There was the rather plain “One By One”, the double album electric-acoustic missteps of “In Your Honor”, an attempt to create something as classic as Nirvana’s “Unplugged” session via the live acoustic jaunt “Skin & Bones”, and finally a painful attempt at pandering to the lowest common demoninator courtesy of the pathetic “Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace”. In other words, it was really easy to assume “Wasting Light” would continue the downward trend the band has been on these last few records. Instead, they pulled out all the stops: Butch Vig produced the record and worked with Grohl for the first time since Nirvana’s “Nevermind”, former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic guested on one track, and Grohl built an old school recording studio in his garage. The plan worked, and the new record marks an amazing comeback for a band that appeared to be all but lost. When Grohl screams “I never wanna die” on the album’s closing track “Walk”, he sounds like he means it: Foo Fighters haven’t sounded this alive in a long time. Buy it from Amazon
PJ Harvey – Let England Shake (Original Review)
Polly Jean Harvey has always been a tough nut to crack. Her early career played off the “tortured soul” card, and while she was a little more offbeat than her counterparts like Fiona Apple and Courtney Love in the early 90s, the grungy electric guitars and dark lyrics weren’t entirely uncommon. Her evolution since then has been nothing short of fascinating, and perhaps her oddest move came on 2007’s “White Chalk” in which she put down her guitar in favor of an autoharp and piano. The whole thing had a very Victorian Gothic aire to it, only pushed farther courtesy of some increasingly antiquated outfit choices. Her collaboration with John Parish via “A Man A Woman Walked By” was a small return to normalcy for her, though it’s doubtful that the word “normal” has been used much when describing any of her records. The point being that PJ Harvey is often indefinable by nature, consistent only in how she continues to switch things up and challenge herself. “Let England Shake” is another one of those moments, and this time it’s in the form of a concept record detailing the horrors of war. Harvey’s newly expanded instrumental palette serves her well here, and in a way combines some elements from her harsher electric guitar past and her much more delicate and beautiful varied approach of the more present day. In one sense, each new PJ Harvey record is a surprise, because you’re never sure what to expect as she tends to not repeat herself. What wasn’t expected was how carefully and smartly written and composed this album would be, and how after the last few albums of shots that never fully reached the heights of her past glories, here finally is an album that returns her to that force of nature state. She’s come full circle without ever really returning to where she started. Buy it from Amazon
tUnE-yArDs – w h o k i l l (Original Review)
Hate is a strong word, but I’m by no means hesitant to use it when referencing the first tUnE-yArDs record “BiRd-BrAiNs”. The project of Merrill Garbus, she recorded that debut album via a crappy built-in laptop microphone and mixed it with some freeware program she downloaded. It sounded exactly like that, and was primarily the reason why I couldn’t stand listening to it. I don’t expect full audio fidelity these days, particularly with the rebirth of lo-fi a couple years back, but there comes a point where the bottom of the barrel gets scraped and that was it for me. Still, for those able to look past the sonic issues with “BiRd-BrAiNs”, it was the introduction of a major new talent, a woman with a powerful voice and smart lyrics who used live shows as her true proving ground. For her second album “w h o k i l l”, Garbus actually made it into a legitimate recording studio and had some backing musicians to help her out. Free and clear of any audio quality issues, I felt that revisiting tUnE-yArDs was the wise thing to do. Turns out it was one of the best decisions I’ve made so far this year. The way the songs on “w h o k i l l” are developed and layered with so many instrumental quirks and matched next to that incredible voice is like a sonic punch to the face. It’s innovative and exciting and catchy and pretty much indescribable genre-wise. Most importantly, it’s everything that debut album was not, or rather, it exposes everything that debut album kept hidden courtesy of a shoddy microphone. Buy it from Amazon
Here they are, my Top 10 Albums of 2010. We’ve been down a long and tough road to get here, but these are the ten records that stood out the most for me in the past year. I love the variety, along with the healthy mixture of veterans and a couple newcomers. The last couple entries may only be from some well-established, hotly hyped artists, but to be fair, they did have banner years. If you’re going to read any entry on this site for the next 365 days, please make it this one. A lot of time and thought went into creating this list and I hope you either agree with my choices, or at least understand why I made them. It’s what the paragraphs below the numbers are for. In case you missed the rest of this lengthy Top 50 Albums countdown, here’s some handy links to check out those other entries:
Before jumping into this, I just want to note quickly that outside of a couple tiny updates, Faronheit will be on vacation through the end of 2010. It’s been an interesting year for this site to say the least, what with my old Blogspot address and 3+ years worth of archives being wiped clean off the face of the earth…but I actually couldn’t be happier with the current layout and the official “dot com” at the end of the address. Been going revamped and stronger than ever since April. 2011 will bring a couple small site tweaks, but nothing you need to worry about, just some added fun perks. Anyways, I hope your holidays are enjoyable and we’ll play catch up officially come January 3rd.
Without further ado, here are Faronheit’s Top 10 Albums of 2010:
This is the home stretch, the leg of this “race” just before the final one, where there’s light at the end of the tunnel if you could only make it there. Tomorrow I reveal my Top 10 Albums of 2010, and that should be pretty great. RIght now I’ll give you some subtle hints as to what will be on that list. There are two debut albums that crack the top ten, along with one psych-rock band and a handful of other indie darlings. If you’ve been reading up on your year-end lists, there’s a halfway good chance you can guess most of my list. My #1 album of the year though, I’ve yet to see anybody place it atop their lists yet, so some of you might be surprised (but not REALLY surprised). Anyways, enough about tomorrow, let me make quick mention of what we’ve been counting down the last couple days:
As with thet previous sets of 10, I’ve once again included mp3s with the albums (when allowed) to give you an audio taste should you want one. I’m also continuing to solicit comments from you, either in regards to this list or a list of your own. I’m interested to hear your thoughts on the best of the year. So let me delay this no longer, I’m proud to present my Top Albums of 2010, #20-11.
It’s Hump Day my friends, and it just so happens we’re also journeying over the proverbial hump of this Top 50 Albums list. Today tackles #30-21. If you’re just now stumbling across the countdown and have yet to see the other couple sets that go all the way back to #50, let me introduce you to them via the following links:
Great stuff so far, even greater stuff to come. Be sure to check back for the rest of the week until the #1 album is revealed on Friday. As usual, I do encourage commentary from you, letting me know your thoughts on what albums deserved placement other than what I’ve already thrown at you, or what might otherwise be regarded as “underrated”. If you’ve got your own list of Top Albums, by all means share that as well. So here we go, Faronheit’s Top 50 Albums of 2010: #30-21!
With Part One all sealed off in Faronheit’s Top 50 Albums of 2010 list, I’m now proud to present a humbling Part Two, in which the game gets just a little more exciting and nothing is exactly what it seems. Just to take a moment to give you a brief insight as to exactly WHY I take 5 days to roll out a list of 50 albums instead of just throwing them at you in one fell swoop, the simplest explanation is that I think you need the slow burn rather than the fast cut in order to have a real appreciation for the year in music. You can scroll past these albums and not read any of the blurbs I’ve written in association with them, but the hope is that if you’ve only got ten at a time, you’ll be more inclined to stop for a minute in your day. Fifty at once, that’ll take you a good 10 minutes to sift through and do you really have that time to take in this “every second counts” world? Also, the slower roll out gives me moments to breathe and ponder these records more closely, rather than just listing them in plaintext. Thirdly, I get a little starved for content this time of year, so taking a week to unveil these choices is easier when it comes to creating content. That’s about as honest as I get. Anyways, there’s still three more parts to go, each one of increasing importance as I count down my favorite albums of the year. Please enjoy #40-31 and the associated mp3s. Perhaps you’ll discover something new. Also, I’m soliciting for comments on your favorite records of 2010, or just your thoughts on this list so far – feel free to leave a note below.
Welcome to Faronheit’s Top 50 Albums of 2010! Every year this is the most exciting list to compose and write, mostly because it requires looking back at what a great year in music it was. 2010 was pretty solid, though arguably not the best year (what is, really?). Difficult though it may have been at times, composing this list was not as challenging as it has been in past years. It’s still early in the week and this thing is being rolled out in installments of 10 through Friday, but I’ll drop you an early hint in regards to my favorite album of the year: not Kanye. Wait until Friday to see how THAT shakes out. Anyways, let’s get started with this list. Full albums released between January 1st – December 31st, 2010 are the only ones eligible for this list, and you may get a brief list counting down the best EPs of the year sometime soon. Today I’m proud to present my Top Albums #50-41. We begin right after the jump, complete with some mp3s to help get you some samples wherever possilble:
