Words of Wisdom

Best of 2010 – Music Edition (Top Ten) December 21, 2010

Over the past two weeks we’ve been looking at my choices for the best music of 2010, beginning with ten honorable mentions, followed by those that I ranked 11-20. Today we continue our list with my top ten albums of 2010. Before we get started, though, here is a quick recap of the albums mentioned in the past entries.

Honorable Mentions:
Justin Townes Earle – Harlem River Blues
The Whigs – In the Dark
Dr. Dog – Shame, Shame
Carolina Chocolate Drops – Genuine Negro Jig
Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse – Dark Night of the Soul
Magic Kids – Memphis
Titus Andronicus – The Monitor
Robert Plant – Band of Joy
Ra Ra Riot – The Orchard
Black Mountain – Wilderness Heart

20. MGMT – Congratulations
19. Weezer – Hurley
18. Broken Bells – Broken Bells
17. Cee Lo Green – The Ladykiller
16. Jamey Johnson – The Guitar Song
15. Sufjan Stevens – The Age of Adz
14. Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More
13. Josh Ritter – So Runs the World Away
12. The Roots – How I Got Over
11. The Dead Weather – Sea of Cowards

The Top Ten Albums of 2010

10. Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings – I Learned the Hard Way
Listening to Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings is like stepping into a time machine and emerging in the R&B world of the 1960’s-70’s. The band has been around for nearly 15 years, but I was just introduced to them in 2010 – and let me tell you, it was a wonderful introduction. Combining funky horn-led arrangements with Jones’s outstanding soulful vocals, this is a welcome retro blast for those who enjoy sounds you might hear from Stax or Motown. From broken hearts to hard times on the poor side of town, Jones and her band tear through song after song with a mix of emotion and joy that is impossible not to like. Download: The Game Gets Old, Better Things, Money

9. The National – High Violet
Downbeat and moody, The National make dreary, rainy day music for those who choose to accept or even revel in the dark crevices of life, carrying on the gloomy tradition of late 70’s/80’s post-punk bands like Joy Division and The Cure. Matt Berninger’s rich baritone is the glue that holds these stories together and when he sings, “I live in the city sorrow built,” you believe him and your heart aches for him. The band is in great form on this work, which may be their best yet in a critically lauded career. Though it was released back in May, amid the sunshine and flowers, this is time of year for which it was meant, when the sun goes down early, the temperature drops, and the feelings of isolation and loneliness are magnified. Download: Sorrow, Anyone’s Ghost, Bloodbuzz Ohio

8. The Hold Steady – Heaven is Whenever
I first got into The Hold Steady with their 2008 album Stay Positive, my top pick for that year, so my hopes were high for their latest release and they did not disappoint. While I wasn’t that impressed the first time I listened to it, Heaven is Whenever grew on me quickly and by the time I saw them live over the summer it was among my favorites for the year. The album starts with the uncharacteristically slow, almost country music-like The Sweet Part of the City, before kicking into their normal, high-energy, bar band sound, tearing through track after track about the scene, a place characterized by street fights, parties, bars, and townies, but also where the beautiful happens. It’s a place where two music lovers can discover that, “Heaven is whenever we can get together, / Sit down on your floor / And listen to your records.” Download: Barely Breathing, We Can Get Together, Hurricane J

7. Big Boi – Sir Luscious Left Foot
Despite being one of the most talented and influential hip-hop collaborations in history, Outkast has been relatively quiet since their 2006 film project Idlewild, and have not released a proper album since 2004’s Grammy-winning Album of the Year, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, so the first solo release from Big Boi, one half of Outkast, was greatly anticipated by purveyors of intelligent hip-hop. Luscious kicks of with a short, funky intro before kicking into high gear and it quickly becomes apparent that Big Boi is in excellent form. He turns in a performance that reeks of dirty, George Clinton funk, with heaps of soul and old-school, Southern fried hip-hop added in for good measure. The songs are adventurous, inventive, and totally captivating. Now we just need a new Outkast album… Download: Daddy Fat Sax, Shutterbugg, Tangerine

6. Drive-By Truckers – The Big To-Do
I’ve been following just about every move of the Drive-By Truckers for nearly a decade, and though there have been some ups and downs, they are still, without a doubt, my favorite band of that time period. This latest release continues in the tradition of telling dark tales of life in Dixie through a three guitar, Southern rock avenue. Where their last release, Brighter Than Creation’s Dark, displayed more of a country influence, To-Do is more of a straight-ahead rock album, blasting through tales of death, drugs, and depression with razor sharp lyrics and amps turned to ten. Co-leaders Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley sound great, as usual, with Hood’s storytelling abilities at full strength and Cooley’s guitar and one-liners ringing out strong and true. The band touches on real events like the Church of Christ minister murder in Selmer (“That Wig He Made Her Wear”), classic tales of women done wrong (“Drag the Lake Charlie”), and even one that took place in Memphis (“Birthday Boy”). I’ve had the opportunity to see them twice on this tour and I can assure you that the band sounds as great as ever. Download: Drag the Lake Charlie, Birthday Boy, Santa Fe

5. The Gaslight Anthem – American Slang
I was first introduced to The Gaslight Anthem with their 2008 work, That ’59 Sound, and I quickly became a fan of their style, one that I described as being “like Springsteen fronting The Clash.” Their latest release continues in the same vein, with the band’s Jersey-influenced songs and hard charging guitars taking center stage, yet it may even best that album that I loved so much from two years ago. The Gaslight Anthem should be a huge, household name, but still they toil away in relative obscurity, playing anthems that could fill stadiums in smaller venues to a growing base of fans. If there is any justice in the world, these guys will be huge someday. When vocalist Brian Fallon sings, “While you told me fortunes in American slang,” you hope that those fortunes turn out well for the band. Download: American Slang, Boxer, Bring It On

4. The Black Keys – Brothers
I’ve been a big fan of blues-rock duo The Black Keys for several years and it has been fascinating to watch the evolution of the band beyond their initial blues focus to something that borrows from a number of genres, combining them into a fun, rocking whole. This latest release borrows some style from their last album, the Danger Mouse-produced Attack and Release, and their older, bluesier recordings, while adding in a few new wrinkles, swinging from vocalist/guitarist Dan Auerbach doing his best Prince impression on “Everlasting Light” to their trademark riffage on “She’s Long Gone,” to the keyboard-dominated “Too Afraid to Love You,” and they have never sounded better. I saw the band in concert a few years ago and the show was incredible, so it is my hope that they will make another stop in Memphis sometime in the near future. If you like good music, you need this album. Download: Next Girl, Tighten Up, She’s Long Gone

3. Kanye West – My Dark Twisted Fantasy
Over the past ten years there is perhaps no artist in rap music, or for that matter music in general, who is more important and timely than Kanye West. Sure, he has a tendency to go off the deep end publically, but all can be forgiven and forgotten by those who allow themselves be lost in his ingenious vision. My Dark Twisted Fantasy is more than just your average hip-hop album, it’s a landmark on par with nearly anything ever produced in the genre. After the underrated minimalism of his last work 808s and Heartbreak, the dense orchestrations present on Fantasy represent a completely new and welcome direction, one that displays rap music as the art form that it can be. The songs are long and powerful, pulling in the listener and not letting go. In the anthemic “Power,” with its tribal chants and King Crimson sampling, ‘Ye makes the prophetic statement “I guess every superhero needs his theme music,” and this is the sound of him finding his. The real gem on this work, though, is the uncomfortably confessional 10 minute opus “Runaway,” where he reveals this really tortured soul, telling the listeners how he’s “so gifted at findin’ what I don’t like the most,” before delving into some of the roughest verbal self-flagellation in recent memory. This is a must-own. Download: Runaway, Power, Monster

2. Neil Young – Le Noise
Though the initial news that Neil Young was collaborating with mega-producer Daniel Lanois was intriguing, it had been years since I heard anything from Young that interested me and I wasn’t putting much stock into this latest work. Then I heard it on NPR and immediately was hooked by both the music and the story behind it. According to reports, Lanois approached the 65 year old legend with a custom built guitar and an idea, a simple project consisting solely of Young, the guitar, and some great production, and this incredible work is the fruit of that partnership. Young sounds great, his voice still in excellent condition and his grungy guitar work reminding us of his widespread influence across the gamut of rock music. The old man still has his finger on the pulse of society, particularly in songs like “Angry World” where he sings, “Some see life as hope eternal / Some see life as a business plan / Some wish some would go to hell’s inferno / For screwing with their life in freedom land,” and in the fantastic, perhaps even career-defining track, “Love and War,” where his acoustic guitar and soft, almost whispery vocals become an ethereal vessel through which a great prophet can speak his message, saying, “When I sing about love and war / I don’t really know what I’m saying. / I’ve been in love and I’ve seen a lot of war / Seen a lot of people praying. / They pray to Allah and they pray to the Lord / But mostly the pray about love and war.” This beautiful and timely piece of societal commentary is indispensable. Download: Love and War, Angry World, Sign of Love

1. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
The Arcade Fire dealt with some big issues on their first two albums, so on their third, the band turns to another slice of America, the lifeless and endless suburban sprawl. As one of the millions and millions of people living in this area of concrete, strip malls, and cookie cutter houses stretching past the horizon (“Oh this city’s changed so much / Since I was a little child / Pray to God I won’t live to see / The death of everything that’s wild”), this work strikes a chord with me. It’s the land of quiet desperation, of fear and of endless attempts to escape, moving farther and farther away from supposed danger, never settling and always vigilant (“The town’s so strange they built it to change”). In the album opener, “The Suburbs,” vocalist Win Butler laments, “So can you understand / Why I want a daughter while I’m still young? / I want to hold her hand / And show her some beauty / Before all this damage is done.” The band’s targets range from that hopelessly run rat race to the suburban megachurch-dominated religious scene with lyrics like, “You never trust a millionaire / Quoting the sermon on the mount / I used to think I was not like them / But I’m beginning to have my doubts / My doubts about it.” And, of course, there’s always the neverending sprawl (“Sometimes I wonder if the world’s so small / Then we can never get away from the sprawl / Living in the sprawl / The dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains / And there’s no end in sight / I need the darkness. Someone please cut the lights!”). This is, without a doubt, my album of the year. It touches deep down in my psyche, for I’ve struggled some time with our decision to live in the suburbs instead of the city, feeling like I don’t belong here, that there is no place here for me. The endless traffic and big box stores and chain restaurants, the fear and hatred and exclusionary tactics go beyond merely bothering me, they hurt me, they scar me, they leave me wanting to escape the clutches of the sprawl.

Yet all is not so terrible, no, everyone does not buy into the stories, not everyone finds themselves destroyed by the “businessmen that drink my blood.” As is true anywhere in any city or suburb or country town that you may find yourself in, there is a reason to go on and it is one that does not involve mcmansions or illusions of safety or churches that look like football stadiums. Friends. Love. Relationships. That is what matters. In the end, you may say as Arcade Fire does, “If I could have it back / All the time we wasted / I’d only waste it again / If I could have it back / You know I would love to waste it again.” Time with the ones you love, even time in which you do nothing at all, is never wasted. The new chapter of my story is a happy one so far, one in which relationships are being built and even if it happens in the endless sprawl, that is okay. The time will not be wasted.

Like I said before, this album really struck a chord with me. It has stuck with me and haunted me ever since I first listened to it. If there is one album you buy this year, make it this one.

Thoughts?