5. Baths – Cerulean
Glitched electronic beats and a warm falsetto mark out Will Wiesenfeld’s debut Baths album for Anticon which manages to walk a fine line between vocal sincerity and thumping bedroom beats. Wiesenfeld’s ability to write proper vocal-lines and skew them with clipped rhythms, while maintaining focus made Cerulean a standout. Personally, (every personal list should have at least one real world connection) the album reminds me of the week I spent in Berlin.
Baths – Rafting Starlit Everglades
4. Adebisi Shank – This Is The Second Album Of A Band Called..
You know the deal by now and many of you are in agreement. Adebisi Shank’s second album kept the rocking urgency but added synths, marimbas, talkboxes and Asian influences. Never was the description “Robot Rock” so accurately applied.
Listen at Spotify.
[Buy: Richter Shop | iTunes | eMusic ]
This is the second album of a band called Adebisi Shank by richtercollective
3. Glasser – Ring
Yet another debut album on the list, Ring is the album where Cameron Mesirow’s innate ability to arrange voice and instruments shone. An array of percussive instruments, synthesizers and exotic sounds filled the album with a unique and intricate atmosphere while Mesirow plays the evocative musical siren.
Listen at Spotify.
[Buy: iTunes | True Panther ]
2. Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
For all the talk of Kanye’s self-centeredness, his brattish behaviour, his tantrums and his ego, there is no doubt that only a man as complicated and self-assured as Mr. West could have pulled off the grand vision of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Whereas 808s And Heartbreaks was marked out by autotune and a lack of guests, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy finds Kanye going through the rolodex, fitting everyone in and making it work on an epic level. ‘All of The Lights’ alone features John Legend, Fergie Black Eyed Peas, Rihanna, La Roux, Elton John, Ryan Leslie, Kid Cudi, Charlie Wilson and Alicia Keys yet it still stands out as the most focused and bombastic pop song of the year.
Elsewhere, Nicki Minaj owns 2010’s best rap verse on ‘Monster‘, Bon Iver provides some gruff backing vocals and allows his own ‘The Woods’ to be sacrificed for the good of ‘Lost In The World‘, Pusha T provides the voice of the street coke rap posse while RZA and Jay-Z embolden the pure rap tune of the year ‘So Appalled’. But this is Kanye’s Dark Twisted World and he shines the most, both as an MC and as a producer of next-level hip-hop & pop event albums. Hearing how he turned Aphex Twin’s ‘Avril 14’ into ‘Blame Game’ remains one of 2010’s most enduring surprises but the power in the album comes listening to it as a whole. This is Kanye’s Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, we’re just happy to be in it for 70 minutes.
Listen at Spotify.
[Buy: iTunes]
1. Gorillaz – Plastic Beach
Plastic Beach is where Damon Albarn’s band largely dropped the cartoon facade and embraced an even more dizzying array of styles than ever, all shot through with a sense of adventure and performances from a cast drawn from all corners of the music world. Highlights included Basho and Kano sparring with each other over a Lebanese string arrangement on ‘White Flag’, Bobby Womack’s shrill howl on ‘Stylo’ and Little Dragon’s Yukimi Nagano on ‘Empire Ants’ and ‘To Binge’. Contributions from Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, De La Soul, Snoop Dogg, Mark E. Smith and Lou Reed gave the album its colour. It was captain Albarn though, who steered the record’s mood from melancholy waters to warmer climes and back again, but never without taking in some breathtaking scenery.
Listen at Spotify.
[Buy: iTunes ]
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005 . He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Cara Magazine, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, founder of Lumo Club, club promoter, event curator and producer of gigs, listening parties & events in Dublin.
Excellent choices, I almost completely concur.
yup couldnt argue with 90% of that list 🙂
Best album list I’ve read this year…even if I still don’t get the appeal of Gorillaz.
another list with kanye right up around the top..
can i ask you folks who are in the loop about kanye’s self-perpetuated soap-opera? do the tunes get better, or hold more truth (or whatever) when you know the details of what the guy’s been up in his life to or is the music just plain and simple that good?
lots of the reviews seem to make a big deal about how he’s airing everything in his songs.. as someone who doesn’t bother to read/find out about this guy (i knew nothing beyond the taylor swift stage crashing..), i found the album (two listens) annoyingly self-important and a bit over-indulgent (that chris rock skit isn’t even funny on the first listen), the roll-call of guests just too much, and the actual music nothing like as innovative as i would expect from something so lauded. much of it is decent hiphop backing track fare and not much more..
do we need to know the details of what the guy’s been up to for everything to click? that’s a genuine question, not a sneery one. i’ve read so much about this album and yet it leaves me cold. thoughts?????
Kanye’s Soap Opera life and his music are very different things. You do not need knowledge of one to know the other.
Bottom line about the album is I think it is a brilliant pop/hip-hop album forgetting about the supposed innovation. It’s just a great album and Kanye’s career best to date. If you don’t like it then so be it.
ok.. just many of the reviews i’ve read seem to intertwine the two, the soap opera and the music, as if they’re inseperable. i think the ‘innovative’ and ‘gamechanger’ tags (coupled with kanye’s immensably unlikable persona) have actually spolied it for me cos i can’t seem to get past them and give the music a chance..
check out ghostface’s latest offering “apollo kids”. completely under-promoted but probably his best album since supreme clientelle back in 2000.