Music: Best Albums of the Year series: 2010

[Saturated Fats]

1967: The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
1980: AC/DC - Back in Black
1994: Nirvana - MTV Unplugged in New York
2000: Radiohead - Kid A
1973: Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
1988: Metallica - ...And Justice for All
2004: (TIE) Madvillain - Madvillainy // The Killers - Hot Fuss // Green Day - American Idiot
1969: The Beatles - Abbey Road
1991: Nirvana - Nevermind
1977: Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
1985: Tears for Fears - Songs from the Big Chair
2007: Radiohead - In Rainbows
1965: The Beatles - Rubber Soul
1975: Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
1996: (TIE) Soundgarden - Down on the Upside // Rage Against the Machine - Evil Empire

1982: Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast (11 votes)

2nd Place: Michael Jackson - Thriller (10 votes)
3rd Place: Judas Priest - Screaming for Vengeance (8 votes)
4th Place (TIE): Bad Brains - Bad Brains (7 votes)
4th Place (TIE): Rush - Signals (7 votes)

Not super surprised that something other than Thriller won, as the rock zeitgeist tends to reign supreme on HF. Am honestly surprised to see Priest and Rush in the top 5 - and maybe a little disappointed. I dunno... Maybe it's the pop/punk/new-wave fan in me, but I can't help but think that there are a preponderance of albums better than a random, middle-tier Rush album. Just my opinion.

Anyway, 2010 is getting pretty deep into the new millennium, and is a year that I figure will have a lot of disparity. I'm leaning heavily into album rankings and best-seller lists to put together the list, with an eye towards trying to capture the best and most diverse list from a strong but complex year.

8/30: 1970
9/2: 1998
9/4: 2002

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[Teemu]

Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
Sleigh Bells - Treats
Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz
LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening
The National - High Violet
The Black Keys - Brothers
Surfer Blood - Astro Coast
Vampire Weekend - Contra
Wavves - King of the Beach
Hot Chip - One Life Stand

Sometimes feels like I'm the only one who really like the Age of Adz

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

T1. Saez – J'accuse
T1. Erik Friedlander – 50 Miniatures for Improvising Quintet
3. John Zorn – Interzone
4. Tub Ring – Secret Handshakes
5. Zs – New Slaves
6. Little Women – Throat
7. So Percussion and Matmos – Treasure State
8. Igorrr – Nostril
9. Omar Rodriguez Lopez & John Frusciante – Omar Rodriguez Lopez & John Frusciante / Omar Rodriguez Lopez & John Frusciante – Sepulcros de Miel
10. John Zorn & Fred Frith – Late Works

HM:
The Pop Group – Citizen Zombie
Noah Creshevsky – The Twilight of the Gods
Mike Patton – Mondo Cane
Hanub Ku – The Rewiring Process (EP)
Eels – End Times / Eels – Tomorrow Morning
Keith Fullerton Whitman – Disingenuity B/W Disingenuousness
Vertical Squirrels – Hold True (Accroche-toi)
Dillinger Escape Plan – Option Paralysis
Adebisi Shank – This Is the Second Album of a Band Called Adebisi Shank
Brian Wilson – Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin
Yellow Swans – Going Places
Her Name Is Calla – The Quiet Lamb
The Ex – Catch My Shoe
Marc Ribot – Silent Movies
Natural Snow Buildings – The Centauri Agent / TwinSisterMoon – The Fell the Ashes / Isengrid – Modlitewnik
Tame Impala – Innerspeaker
Scott Johnson – Americans
Fanfar Pourpour – Danse des breloques
The Jim Jones Revue – Burning Your House Down
Buckethead – Spinal Clock / Buckethead – Shadows Between the Sky / Buckethead – Captain EO's Voyage / Buckethead & Brain – Brain As Hamenoodle / Buckethead & Travis Dickerson – Left Hanging (that's 5 albums - and two more at least with Brain & Melissa Reese)

Sun City Girls - Funeral Mariachi
Harvey Milk - A Small Turn of Human Kindness (thx to @Saturated Fats)

 

[Naster Okan]

That Agalloch album is MASSIVE. The drums... Big fan of them and while not my favorite, wow. It took me places.

 

[Saturated Fats]

There's a lot of music I love from 2010 - I'll keep it to 15 albums that are absolute core for me:

Anaïs Mitchell - Hadestown
Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest
The Roots - How I Got Over
The Radio Dept. - Clinging to a Scheme
Frightened Rabbit - The Winter of Mixed Drinks

Janelle Monae - The ArchAndroid
Sun City Girls - Funeral Mariachi
Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma
Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Agalloch - Marrow of the Spirit

The National - High Violet
The Tallest Man on Earth - The Wild Hunt
The Birthday Massacre - Pins and Needles
Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me
Harvey Milk - A Small Turn of Human Kindness

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Sun City Girls - Funeral Mariachi

Oh forgot about that one! I'll add it to my HMs... You have a few albums I'm not familiar with, I'll have a hear later.

 

[kihei]

In terms of rock/pop, another big zero year for me.

 

[WeThreeKings]

National High Violet
Deftones Diamond Eyes
Eminem Recovery

 

[Hostile Offer]

The Monitor. Album of the decade as well.

 

[Ceremony]

The best album from this year is Acolyte by Delphic:



From the list I'd offer votes to The Suburbs and High Violet, although I'm only judging the former on my memories of it being released at the time.

 

[K Fleur]

MBDTF is Kanye West’s magnum opus. Been on a sharp and steep decline ever since.

 

[Oxbow Lakes]

White Lung - It’s the Evil
Deepchord presents Echospace - Liumin
Masshysteri - Masshysteri
Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma
Chuck Person - Chuck Person’s Eccojams Vol. 1
Four Tet - There is Love in You
Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz
Ruger Hauer - Se syvenee syksyllä
Women - Public Strain

 

[plank]

1. Here's to Taking It Easy - Phosphorescent
2. Signs and Signifiers - J.D. McPherson
3. High Violet - The National
4. God Willin' and the Creek Don't Rise - Ray LaMontange
5. Harlem River Blues - Justin Townes Earle
6. Brothers - The Black Keys
7. Lisbon - The Walkmen
8. Junky Star - Ryan Bingham
9. For One I Knew - Courtney Marie Andrews
10. The Black Dirt Sessions - Deer Tick
11. Other People's Songs - Damien Jurado & Richard Swift

 

[WetcoastOrca]

1. Arcade Fire The Suburbs
2. The National High Velvet
3. Beach House Teen Dream

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

I added Harvey Milk to my HMs (thanks to @Saturated Fats), and I'd really like to listen to Tropico Q's Hard Rock Pafe. It's a cover album from some of the Plus-Tech Squeeze Box members, only two songs available on YouTube (the rest is only available to premium users - ?), and it's not on SoulSeek....

Probably not worth an HM, but could have been my "curiosity" addition for this year. I'd love to hear their Welcome to the Jungle cover.

 

[Cas]

I have a lot of good 2010 albums:

1349 - Demonoir
Briton Rites - For Mircalla
Carach Angren - Death Came Through a Phantom Ship
Darkthrone - Circle the Wagons
Electric Wizard - Black Masses
Enforcer - Diamonds
God Dethroned - Under the Sign of the Iron Cross
Hooded Menace - Never Cross the Dead
Melechesh - The Epigenesis
Triptykon - Eparistera Daimones LP and Shatter EP
White Lung - It's the Evil

The album of these that I keep coming back to, though, is Briton Rites - For Mircalla. Sabbath/Witchfinder General-loving heavy doom. Eparistera Daimones and The Epigenesis would come next.

I'm surprised and glad to see I'm not the only one mentioning White Lung, either.

The only album on the list I'd heard was Ghost - Opus Eponymus, so I voted for that.

 

[Nemesis Prime]

The only correct answer.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

1970 is no fun, I have 6 albums clogging the top of the list and really can't decide between them.

 

[Aladyyn]

Surprisingly weak year. Lots of artists I enjoy released albums this year but they're generally not the strongest in their respective catalogues. My winner is In Mourning - Monolith

HMs:
Laura Stevenson - A Record
The Naked and Famous - Passive Me, Aggressive You
Sigh - Scenes From Hell
letlive. - Fake History
The Chariot - Long Live
Misery Index - Heirs to Thievery
In Vain - Mantra
Crippled Black Phoenix - I, Vigilante

 

[belair]

High Violet for me. Outstanding album.

 

[Perennial]

I'm not familiar with a single one of these albums...

 

[Saturated Fats]

I'm not familiar with a single one of these albums...

I just... don't understand how that can be the case. You're not familiar with Kanye West? The Black Keys? Arcade Fire? I get that metal folks tend to be pretty singular with their genre, but it feels weird to not know something from some of the biggest artists of the decade

 

[frisco]

Other:
Johnny Cash-American VI: Ain't No Grave

My Best-Carey

 

[Azathoth]

Missed the vote but kudos for including DSO-Paracletus and Agalloch!! Marrow isn't my favorite by them but they were a fantastic band.

 

[Perennial]

I just... don't understand how that can be the case. You're not familiar with Kanye West? The Black Keys? Arcade Fire? I get that metal folks tend to be pretty singular with their genre, but it feels weird to not know something from some of the biggest artists of the decade

I said I wasn't at all familiar with the albums...

Obviously I've heard of some of the artists

I don't listen to metal...