Skip to main content

2010: 8 Albums I'm Glad I Bought

Used to be I spent the better part of November and December laboring over a top 10 list of my favorite CDs of that year. It was a sacred process to me, enduring countless revisions and agonizations.

Last year I downshifted to an unranked list of "Albums I'm Glad I Bought." It felt right, given my diminished music obsession. So that's what I'm doing again. As I said last year, this doesn't mean I regret buying the other 24 albums I bought this year (well, in the case of Motion City Soundtrack and Weezer it does), but with my focus continuing to fall more on singles than albums, the CDs that stand out are the ones with at least 5 killer songs.

UPDATE (February 2011): Upon further listening I've added two more albums into the mix. Welcome, Kings of Leon and Old 97's!

Here're this year's faves:

Arcade Fire: The Suburbs
Check Out: Modern Man, City With No Children, Half Light II (No Celebration), Deep Blue, We Used to Wait, Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)


Ben Folds and Nick Hornby: Lonely Avenue
Check Out: Levi Johnston's Blues, Claire's 9th, From Above, Password, Belinda

Jimmy Eat World: Invented
Check out: Heart Is Hard to Find, My Best Theory, Movielike, Coffee and Cigarettes, Invented

Kings of Leon: Come Around Sundown
Check Out: Radioactive, Pyro, Back Down South, Beach Side, Pony Up, Pickup Truck



Jeremy Messersmith: The Reluctant Graveyard
Check out: Dillinger Eyes, Lazy Bones, Violet!, Knots, Tomorrow

Old 97's: The Grand Theatre, Volume One
Check Out: The Grand Theatre, Every Night Is Friday Night (Without You), The Magician, Let the Whiskey Take the Reins, Champaign Illinois
Ra Ra Riot: The Orchard
Check out: Boy, Too Dramatic, Foolish, Shadowcasting, Do You Remember

Vampire Weekend: Contra
Check out: Horchata, White Sky, Holiday, Run, Giving Up the Gun, Diplomat's Son

Comments

Jo said…
You should check out iamamiwhoami. Great stuff!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB85HAUXbbM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW89Pv8QrX4&feature=related
Alex said…
Listening to "Levi Johnston's Blues" while driving through Wasilla, Alaska was definitely one of the more surreal experiences I've had this year.

Popular posts from this blog

Stuck, or Obsession Cessastion

You may have noticed that things have slowed down around here. I had the summer off from teaching, and I spent it with my 7 month-old son. I gave myself permission to make this blog less of a priority. Well, "less of a priority" is putting it lightly. Initially, I considered an abrupt retirement. But then I reconsidered. Maybe the proximity to Brett Favre is causing this. If you're a long time reader, this is probably not all that surprising to you. Since 2007, it has become an annual ritual for me to soul-search about my waning interest in music. First I blamed an inability to express myself and a lack of quality music . Then in 2008 I cited new technology and the death of the album . Last year I wrote about how my changing life priorities hindered my ability to seek out new music. I've done a lot of thinking about it this summer and in truth I believe this was all just dancing around the issue, a slow realization of something I didn't want to admit to myse...

Billy Joel: 1980 - 1977

When I decided to write about every single Billy Joel studio album I knew had a bit of a leg up in that I'd written reviews of a handful of his records already. What I didn't realize until just now was that those reviews were of albums that had been released consecutively between 1977 and 1980. As I reread those reviews - the most recent of which is 14 years old! - I found that I still stand by them. My writing style has mellowed a bit, and I no longer give grades to albums, but otherwise my opinions then are my opinions now. So here you go... Billy Joel: Glass Houses (1980) Billy Joel: 52nd Street (1978) Billy Joel: The Stranger   (1977)

Billy Joel: Greatest Hits, Volumes I and II (1985)

As you may know, I'm something of a connoisseur of compilations. I have three guidelines that I like my greatest hits to follow, though I am open to these rules being disregarded in certain cases. It's not an exact science. Billy Joel's 1985 Greatest Hits Volumes I and II (an odd title for a set that was never sold separately) is proof of that.  It mostly follows the rules. The songs are in chronological order. There are no remixes, just a couple of single edits; there are two live songs, but those were actually were the versions that charted. And there are two new songs - we'll get to them eventually - but both ended up in the Top 40, so in retrospect that was a good decision. My mom bought the double LP when it came out and then dubbed it to a tape that lived in her car for at least three years. It and An Innocent Man were part of the soundtrack of the second half of my first decade of life. So I have a hard time criticizing something so ingrained in my consciousne...