Top 100 of 2010: The rubbish 5 (101-105)

Calling them rubbish is a tad harsh maybe, but these are the 5 albums that unimpressed me in 2010.

105. Hurts - Happiness
104. MGMT - Congratulations
103. Goldfrapp - Head First
102. Of Montreal - False Priest
101. Autechre - Move of Ten

I'll get some dirty looks for placing Congratulations so low, Head First has some catchy songs but largely felt like they were riding the Electro Pop revival, Move of Ten was too bizarre for my liking (Oversteps was much better) and False Priest...wacky stuff!

2010 in Music: Top 10 EPs

First of my lists is the EPs. I didn't listen to every EP I could find, but I did find some good stuff.

Some honourable mentions:

How To Destroy Angels (Self-Titled) EP

Nine Inch Nails with tits - that's how you'd sum it up. Not quite up to NIN standard, but it's got some good songs on it, such as A Drowning, the wonderful closer that's reminiscent of Right Where It Belongs.

Gallops (Self-Titled) EP

I saw them support 65Daysofstatic in Wrexham back in October, and they were ear-achingly loud. The drummer was on fire, and as for the music there's definitely some promise to be heard.

Balam Acab - See Birds EP

One of the most promising names coming out of the Witch House scene, blending warped vocals with Dubstep influences and some interesting music textures. Expect more in 2011.

And here's my top 10 EPs of 2010:

10. Dirty Projectors + Bjork – Mount Witternberg Ocra EP

Bjork returns to Medulla-mode with the Brooklyn-based band. It has some lovely harmonies but lacks anything brilliant. Two great artists come together to create something that sounds so pure, but with a new Bjork album coming next year hopefully, this is a nice little music gap-filler that should satisfy both sets of fans.

9. Owen Pallett - A Swedish Love Story EP

It's been a busy year for Mr Pallet - helping out with string duties for the Arcade Fire bunch, an album and 3 EPs out this year. I've only heard the latest EP, and it's a nice mix of electronic blending with strings - Scandal at the Parkade is a brilliant song.

8. James Blake - CMYK EP

The first of two EPs by James Blake that appear on this list. He'll probably become massive in 2011, but before there was "Limit To Your Love", there was some loopy atmospheric Electronic music that made little sense, but somehow managed to sound great.

7. Dark Dark Dark - Bright Bright Bright EP

Cutesy Chamber Pop that sounds like lightweight Arcade Fire at times. They've released a new album this year too, but I haven't heard it yet. I'm not sure why, this is a very good EP that should be heard by more music fans.

6. Flying Lotus - Pattern+Grid World EP

Not satisfied with just a great album out this year, FlyLo released a psychedelic trip of an EP that carries on with the winning formula first tested on Cosmogramma. Warning; some tracks may cause brains to melt.

5. Pantha Du Prince - Lay in a Shimmer EP

A great EP by any means. Following his earlier released album this year, this marks the end of a successful year with some original mixes, which offer some interesting changes and sounds from album tracks.

4. James Blake - Klaiverwerke EP

And he pops up again! This time, the songs have better structure and are much more memorable. It just makes me wish that he'd release more of his old gems like he said recently. Can't wait to hear the album in 2011.

3. Sufjan Stevens - All Delighted People EP

Age of Adz is a bit of a mess in my opinion, but when Sufjan Stevens keeps it simple it normally turns out great. It has some faults (it doesn't need that stupidly long track at the end!) but it's a nice listen from start to finish. Shame I can't say the same thing about Age of Adz.

2. The Tallest Man on Earth - Sometimes The Blues Is Just a Passing Bird EP

Utterly beautiful. It's been a great year for him, and he continues to write great music and this EP just continues the consistency. Fantastic study music too!

1. Zola Jesus - Stridulum II EP


There was only ever one winner in this category! Zola Jesus combines dark, apocalyptic music with Siousie Sioux pitch-perfect vocals and Fever Ray levels of creepyness. This artist is going to be someone to watch in 2011, and if she's churning out quality songs on this EP, then her album will be something to really look forward to.

Top 50 of 2010: The disappointments

So this is my first post of 2010 in music - over the next 2 weeks I'll post some of my thoughts on the artists, albums, songs, heroes & villains, and many other stuff. First, we start off on the disappointments.

2010 has been a year choc-full of the good and the great, but it hasn't always been that way. Overhyped records were quite rare in my experience, but then again I never did listen to the usual mainstream dross like Kings of Leon, so I can't say much can I?

Here are my 2010 disappointments:

Blonde Redhead - Penny Sparkle

I've always liked these guys, but their latest album is a little bit of a bummer. It's beautiful yes, but...that's it. There's no real spark or intent to do something that would make me go "wow". I spent the whole album wishing for something great, but the only track I took any notice of is Will There Be Stars.

Clinic - Bubblegum


I love Internal Wrangler, and this is only the second album I've heard from the band, so maybe I'm not in the best position to judge them, but this album was a let down. It had none of the itchy vibrancy of IW, none of that eccentric energy, nothing from it that I loved. It wasn't a total disaster, but it was a bit of a damp squid.

Former Ghosts - New Love.


Zola Jesus? WOW! She's in the group! I love her music...shame the production is so...well, rubbish. It was quite interesting to listen to, but I'm in no hurry to do so again.

Hurts - Happiness


Appart from Illuminated and a couple of other tracks, I very nearly fell asleep. One of the most over-rated bands I've heard in a long time.

Klaxons - Surfing The Void


Not terrible, but definitely over-hyped. I wonder how the pre-label interruption music would have sounded like. Unfortunately we'll probably never know, unless the band (or a sneaky label person) leaks it themselves. *hint*

MGMT - Congratulations


Where is this going!? My poor ears couldn't handle the psychedelic/LSD haze of a mess.

M.I.A. - MAYA


Such a disappointment. Forgettable tracks and none of that vibrancy found on Kala and Arular. XXXO started off great, Teqkilla is the star on the album, but everything else sounded like she tried too hard to be "out there". It's a shame, because she's a great artist, and maybe I was expecting something brilliant after two great albums.

My top 10 pieces of art: 1

Guernica - Pablo Picasso (1937)

I thought long and hard about this, but I think this was a worthy piece of artwork for my top spot.
I'm not normally into Pablo Picasso; I do enjoy his Cubism work and his "Blue Period", but otherwise I find him to be slightly over-rated in my opinion. Not that I'm calling him a bad artist by any means, I just have different taste to the masses I guess!

However, there is one Picasso painting that I consider to be my all-time favourite; Guernica was painted during the Spanish civil war in the late 1930's, and it captures the emotional trauma the war brings.
Closer inspection of the figures shows ghostly figures of humans with gruesome features and frightened frozen faces, but because these humans are killed along with animals, Picasso proves that it's not only humans who suffer, but all form of life do - such is the brutality of war that the innocent often gets punished. There is plenty of symbolism in this artwork - something I often look to find in art - the monochrome colour suggests a bleak outlook and a stark reminded of what impact war really has on life. Another point on the importance of animals in the piece is that they are shown to be deformed and showing the same emotions as humans suffer, and the whole painting just shows chaos and pain at its worst.

I think the scale of the piece should also be taken into consideration - it's massive, and that shows the scale of the devastation, and it's quite impossible for the viewer to detach themselves from the piece. I'd like to see it for myself one of these days.

My top 10 pieces of art: 2

London Calling - Pennie Smith (1979)

We've all seen this photograph. Even if you're not that into music, detest Punk, or have lived under a rock for the last 30-odd years - this is the image that defines Rock and Roll at its most violent and powerful moment.

The photograph nearly wasn't shot at all; Pennie Smith wasn't feeling up to another front row gig with the Punk rockers, but she changed her mind and the world of music was glad that she did. This particular gig, The Palladium in New York City on 21 September 1979 during the "Clash Take the Fifth" US tour, bassist Paul Simonon unleashed his frustration and anger on his bass when the gig was far from a success. One shot was all it took to capture Rock's appeal, and it is one of the reasons why it's included in my top 10. It's a simple photograph, luck had a part to play in the precise timing it required to capture the second before the bass got shattered, the smoky background plays a part in its "red mist" appeal, and the spotlight is focused on Simonon, so you can't help but focus on his bass-smashing antic!

A powerfull photograph - one that'll always be remembered. That's at least one great thing that came out of the Punk movement!

My top 10 pieces of art: 3

Kid A/mnesiac - Stanley Donwood (2000/2001)

I'm cheating a bit here as there's two artwork, but I firmly believe that both of these artworks should be presented together as part of one big outlook of Radiohead's Warp Records phase.

Simply put; this was a drastic change of musical direction from the band's masterpiece OK Computer back in 1997. They were applauded as the saviours of rock 'Post-Britpop' when the likes of Oasis, Pulp, Suede and Elastica etc had ran out of ideas. And so a world tour followed, coupled by the pressures of touring, primary singer-songwriter and lead vocalsist/third guitarist Thom Yorke addmitted to having a breakdown, and so 3 years down the line, with the world of music holding its breath, they returned in 2000 with an album completely devoid of guitars and full of electronic blips, keyboards, and vocals that sound like they were sung in the bath. Commercial suicide? It actually cracked America!

Enough about the music - Kid A's album artwork is that of a cold, seemingly dead world surrounded by iced caps and strange ghostly shapes. For me it represents Kid A's music - an ambient atmosphere compared to pre-Kid A material. Look into the background however, and you can see an errupting volcano, or perhaps just fire looming. Couple this with Amnesiac's artwork, and the connection becomes clear.

Amnesiac was released in 2001 and is often called "Kid A's B-side album". Far from being B-side material, Amnesiac features more promising use of guitars and harsher electronic avant-garde equipments compared to its older brother, so how does the artwork resemble the music?

If Kid A was the "calm before the storm", Amnesiac's artwork is us "within the storm", or in this case, fire. The cover is a harsh red colour of danger (the fire) surrounding the pathetic figure of the bear that weeps in the middle (Stanley Donwood created the Kid A bears in companion to the album's release) Another case of looking into the artwork carefully to examine all the little details that really bring out the hidden meanings.

My top 10 pieces of art: 4

The Persistance of Memory - Salvador Dali (1931)

Salvador Dali is my favourite artist, simply because his art is so bizarre that it's refreshing for an artist to image the world through his imagination, rather than be restricted by sight. Here we see a dream-like landscape, as the shapes are irregular and the colour vivid and almost "wax-like". There are many symbolizing moments in this painting, which I'll go thorugh...

The most obvious imagery is the melting clocks of course. For me, it signifies the slowing of time, or how it seems to dissolve around us. There's two above seemingly dead objects, such as the dead bark and the strange object on the ground. This is what happens when time eventually catches up with us - a bit of a harrowing conclusion maybe, but it's one that everyone must face.

The cliffs in the background are those that surrounds Dali in real life near his home in Spain, so there is some degree of reality in this bizarre painting. Maybe it's just me, but I find this artwork to be one of his "tamer" work in comparison to some of his wilder counterparts; like the Lobster Telephone for example, or even the Lip Couch, but when I think of Dali I think of this wonderfully weird masterpiece.