Badlittlekitten

Pictures Of Me 2010

2010 must surely go down as one of the strongest years for LPs in recent memory. But I doubt whether future music scholars will acknowledge this. It seems that as the 00’s progressed we’ve reached a new kind of music landscape. With the influence of music print diminishing, TV offering music channels to cater to specific tastes and, of course, the rise of the internet, music culture has become a fragmented almost invisible thing. With everyone plugged into their particular blog - MTV channel - digital radio station, it’s easy to filter out the guff you don’t want, or at least you think you don’t want. There will never be another Elvis or Jacko, someone we all agree on. I’m sure there a witch house/drag fans that have never heard of Lady Ga Ga. The last LP that seemed to have any kind of critical consensus was Radioheads Kid A, all the way back in 2001. But if this means the disapearence of The Canon , then I’m all for it as I never did like Dark Side Of The Moon anyway.

As if to reflect this musical ghettoization, rock and dance became more insular, shunning the outside world for their own esoteric one. Hence 2010 being a great year.

Dishonerable Mentions
Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
I've heard yawns more sonically exciting.

Honerable Mentions
Afrirampo - We Are Uchu No Ko
Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Moon Wiring Club - A Tabby At The Cats Wedding
Vampire Weekend - Contra

My Albums Of 2010
(In an order which is top secret)

So she kinda cheated and didn't really deliver three brand new LPs last year, but this culmination sorta thing is still the best pop record since her last. A nice mix of wide eyed teen pop, trendy club beats and 80's futurism. 'Dancing On My Own' has the most anthemic chorus of the year, and is like the femme pop equivalent of 'Mr Brightside'. Except its good. The Scandinavia goes Jamaica patois of 'None Of Dem' is a golden and is a plea to escape small time life, and it's a joy when the reggae synth comes in on the second verse. There is some odd track choice decisions but I forgive.



Kano’s still far from the best on the mic, but this is all about the production. A tour de force of star turns from Boys Noize, Hot Chip, Georgie Dodds and the living legend that is Damon Albarn. Obviously with those producers this isn’t really grime, but that genre’s unfortunately dead and buried anyway (in LP form). From Latin beat, dancehall, to the soft boy electro of Hot Chip, this is pure sonic pleasure. The track ‘Slaves’ is simply beautiful - with its gut wrenching guitar chord, regretful female vocals and synths that sound like their being played from inside a giant tube, over which Kano rants against the music business and consumerism, and ends with the line “before I become a slave to the game bro', I'll be the artist formally known as Kano”. Where some of his contemporary' s are chasing pop stardom Kano is happy to revel in the ‘maadness’, that being the Daily Mail paranoia of hooded youths or the ‘IPod generation’. The song ‘Upside’ features the lyric “Will lose dough before I lose my soul” which I admire.



Time will tell of course, but I'm enjoying this more than any Outkast LP. Big Boi was always my favourite emcee and Andre's forays into Prince territory were never convincing. Sure his lyrics are tiresome, especially on 'Tamberine', but who can resist the ominous guitar lines, rigid millatant beats, sqealchy ambient synths and that silky, dizzying flow. The Harold Melvin bassline on 'Shine Blockas' always gets me smiling from ear to ear. 'You Ain't No Dj' and 'General Patton' are skippable but at least this ain't full of the skits that pad out Outkast LPs.

The self conscious intellectualism that pervades throughout this record is something I can’t usually stand in my music but there’s no getting round it . . . this is the best art rock album I’ve heard in years. It takes a lot to sound original these days but this is like nothing before it. Using march band and electro beats, synth stabs woodwind, delicious Talk Talk style brass, a children's choir, TNPS create their own ancient, battle scarred world. Oddly enough ‘Attack Music’ sounds like ‘Jenga’ from Kano’s album, with added fruity brass, and pretentious nonsense lyrics. I forgive the lyrics though as the vocals on this album mostly serve as another layer to the musical Morse codes of the music. When an indie band experiments with digital/dance sounds they usually fall flat on their face, so I applaud the execution here.

Gonjasufi is Sumach Ecks who is, according to Wiki, a rapper, Dj, and Yoga instructor of Mexican heritage. He first got noticed from a guess spot on a Flying Lotus record. But this is not Flying Lotus or rap or yoga. This is most genre defying album I’ve heard in a long while covering Hip hop, psychedelia, old skool electro, disco and countless more, all with an underbelly of Indian chants and sitar. Sometimes it sounds like Revolver era Beatles getting high on weed, Ravi Shankar and trip hop while at others sounding like a ruff and gruff lo-fi hip hop LP. What makes this so good is that it all sounds natural and coherent. Also 'Advice' is my favourite non-Beach Fossils depression song of the year ("This is your only life, so it’s only right to take your own advice", good advice which I inevitably won't take.)



Ariel Pink has been lurking the indie underground for years, releasing brilliant, drug damaged, loner pop gems usually in debt to 70’s AOR. His first eight albums mainly consist of compiled tracks that Pink recorded to a cassette tape in his basement in the late 90’s. I’m a big fan of these oddball and influential releases, but not everyone can appreciate the sound of Pink using arm pit farts as percussion and production values that make the White Stripes cheapest album sound like Jacko’s Invincible. Before Today is Ariel’s first album with a backing band and it was recorded in a proper studio and everything. Thankfully the music doesn’t suffer from the beefed up sound and Pink (Marcus Rosenberg) retains his individuality and identity. For me, guitar lead song smithery is a pretty archaic thing, and you better be original and interesting enough to pull it off. Pink delivers again, always the most idiosyncratic of songwriters, every track is full of melodic twists and turns, songs inside songs and countless moments where you think to yourself “why haven’t I heard this before? It’s obvious”. At a time when indie’s been lacking in inspiration, Pink is a visionary and he makes the sort of music that won’t register at first, yet he trusts that his listeners ears will adjust to his eccentricities. Indeed it is Pink’s brand of retro futurism that is responsible for the ‘chill wave’ scene. Is this album any good? Well it has some filler but there’s never a dull moment and never a time to question Pink’s wonderful, restless vision. And no apologies for the gushing as, for me, Ariel Pink is the closest thing rock has had to a genius (and I hate that word) in a long time.



Splasz is the second album by London’s Darren J. Cunningham, AKA Actress. It’s full of mesmeric clunky house tracks with ghostly sample snatches in all the deliciously right and wrong places. It’s full of glitch wizardry and house bangers beaten and muffled beyond recognition. It’s one of those LPs that feels complete and just so umm. . . satisfying.




Machines put to task, whether it be gnashing white noise or lush Steve Reich style minimalist soundscapes. Lubbly Jub.

Wow. Time is a great healer ain’t it? I hated this album until litrally 20 minutes ago when I forced myself to listen to it in aid of this here list. What once sounded boring and overproduced now sounds like the return of Rock. And I don’t mean rock and roll (swinging, free wheeling, live for the moment) but ROCK; heavy riffige, stiff percussion and not a single desire to relate to the listener except to take them higher, higher, higher. The fuzz guitars and vocal harmonies are pure late 60’s psych, yet it never sounds like a rerun. And the singer sometimes sounds like Lennon if you tilt at a certain angle, no?

Ahh summer. This is looking like my very favourite LP from last year and I’m not quite sure how. I mean, if there was any rationality and reason in ones adoration of music, Beach Fossils would surely lump with Beast Coast, Wavves and all them other rubbish bands that use poor imagination and lazy songwriting skills to fuel a scene (‘chill wave’). But curses, there’s just something about this album. Maybe it’s because Beach Fossils is performed with such conviction it sounds like a genuine 60s/80s artefact rather than a 2010 retread. Maybe it’s the simple use of reverb on the vocals and jangling guitars that gets me all dewy eyed remembering those early My Bloody Valentine EPS and lost, recent, bittersweet summers spent in a dark pit, arching my head up towards the elusive sun. Or maybe it’s because when Dustin Payseur sings, “lazy today, lazy tonight and later on”, it sounds like a cry for help rather than nihilistic gloating. On ‘Vacation’ he sings “I’m getting on the bus, got to get out of town”, which is the overbearing theme of the record, yet the inevitable procrastination takes its hold, the outside sunshine taunting you, after all;

“It works out so well when you discover that it’s all the same. We get lost sometimes but the reality will keep us sane. I know I think too much, I know I waste my time. . . .but that’s fine”.

Every track is made up of a couple of verses and interlocking R.E.M./Byrds guitars in the middle and it's the kind of music that makes feel wide eyed and triumphant or wanting to wallow in misery, depending on my mood. It won’t work for everyone and even I get bored by about track eight, but the good parts of Beach Fossilshave touched and inspired me that very few albums have.

The English summers just starting to blossom. I’m sure Beach Fossils will be there to make it better, and worse.

__________________
'Said do you feel it? Do you feel it when you TOUCH ME?. THERE'S A FIRE! THERE'S A FIRE!' The Stooges. Dirt.

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My Top 52 Indie Tracks Of The 21st Century (incomplete)