Rockfeedback Records of the Year 2010 – #10-1
By: Thomas Hannan, Rachel Bolland, Stan Morgan, Tim Dellow, Fred Mikardo-Greaves, Michael Lewin, Hayley Leaver, Jen Long
10) Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Before Today
What the f**k is going on? This was my first thought as I awoke several thousand feet above the ground amid Almost Famous-like turbulence to the sound of a screeching car, dissonant chatter, and what could have been a children’s choir. It’s safe to say that Before Today, the new record from Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti is not an easy ride. This is not a criticism. It isn’t very often that you find a record with this many ideas, experiments and nerve for adventurism. It’s even rarer to find a record that can hold these qualities and still sound as completely accomplished, inspiring, and mind blowing as Before Today. It’s as if someone has given the guy a 1950s songbook of slick quiff crooners and told him to cut and paste until his ears are content. It’s disorientating at times but that’s the real joy. I’ve spent my life listening to verse, chorus, verse, chorus… It’s nice to be challenged. (Jen Long)
LISTEN - Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Bright Lit Blue Skies
9) Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me
While some fans found Joanna Newsom’s trademark squawky vocals and challenging polyrhythmic structures part of her unique appeal, others were glad that Have One On Me saw her go for a more accessible sound, partly made possible by a change to her voice caused by an illness. Newsom treated us to a two hour epic of an album, spread over three discs, covering ground not seen in either of her previous albums. ‘Baby Birch’ is as close to a pop song as she’s ever likely to get, and highlight ‘Jackrabbits’ is possibly her finest work to date. Whether you approve of her change of style or not, Have One On Me was the sound of Joanna Newsom maturing into something very special. (Stan Morgan)
LISTEN - Joanna Newson - Good Intentions Paving Company
8) Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest
Having released two of the best albums of the last ten years in the form of Cryptograms and Microcastle, a slight hiatus ensuing after the latter, the band’s next LP shows a slight change of pace. Halcyon Digest has less of the Animal Collective weirdness and more of the Dandy Warhols’ dreaminess – but worry not, it’s still bloody good. Apparently an album of sentiment, Halcyon Digest draws on a sense of nostalgia without hanging on to what the band have produced before in terms of their music. If there were any murmurings of Deerhunter edging towards more conventional ‘indie’ with Microcastle, then this latest offering puts it all to rest with its cryptic moans, its gentle whispers of something impossible to settle a finger on. (Hayley Leaver)
LISTEN - Deer Hunter - Halycon Digest
7) Lindstrom & Christabelle – Real Life Is No Cool
I went to Lindstrom’s studio in Oslo during the promo period for this record. In a room 10m x 8m, three of the walls were covered with shelves 12”s deep. All of them were stuffed with records. There must have been tens of thousands of vinyls there, and I reckon he and Christabelle squeezed at least half of them into Real Life Is No Cool. It is a phenomenal record, the perfect pop disco album from another reality where Grace Jones’ face is on every coin. Out in January, it set the tone for a thousand more Moroder- and Vangelis-aping synth-whores through the year. None could quite match the strut, sass and soul of this opus, though. None of them had the knob-twiddling reclusive auteur genius of Lindstrom helming it, nor the remarkable vocal performances of Christabelle giving his pristine soundscapes vaunting attitude. At its best, on the huge ‘Let’s Practice’, her voice flaunts the control of his synths, singing, shouting, all out of tune but completely working it. The record charts a battle between these two personalities that’s as fascinating as it is funky-as-fuck. (Michael Lewin)
LISTEN - Lindstrom & Christabelle - High and Low
6) Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
The discussion on Kanye West has reached the point now where there is no middle ground, and only the polarities of brilliant success and brilliant failure remain. I don’t need to be telling this, you knew it before you heard the record; My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was only ever going to be the worst album of the year or the best album of the year. Yet no-one else in pop could attempt something that came anywhere matching to this record for scope of vision and breadth of imagination, let alone pull it off and still make the whole thing seem melancholy as hell. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is the sound of a man going insane. Fame was the worst thing that could have happened to Kanye West; but at the same time, it’s the only thing that could have happened to Kanye West. Where he goes from here, I don’t think even he knows. It’s a masterpiece. What did you expect? (Fred Mikardo-Greaves)
LISTEN - Kanye West - Runaway (Feature length film)
5) Perfume Genius – Learning
Following the kind of hyperbolic blog love that we now see over the slightest flicker of inspiration recorded in Garage Band that welcomed Perfume Genius into existence, Michael Hadreas had, with this document, vaulted the near impossible first hurdle of the music industry today: released a debut album before a fickle community moves on. Somewhat morbidly, the uninvited attention that his music received in its infancy seems to follow a biographical trend in his music of child abuse and sexual confusion. Almost immediately, these chronological diary entries confront you with the line “No one will answer your prayers until you take off your dress”, a violently sensationalist opening which is more effective than a thousand words of teenage angst from any number of pantomime metal bands, in an opening title track which begins a downward spiral of mistrust of those in positions of power or authority. It was tough, but beautiful going - if, even after Antony’s runaway success with I Am A Bird Now, Perfume Genius’ debut is too complex, too confusing, to be absorbed into the mainstream, we should celebrate it as a masterpiece of modern song-writing, dealing with subjects that most people would hope never to encounter with the complexity that they deserve, to create a visceral and compelling tract. (Tim Dellow)
LISTEN - Perfume Genius - Mr. Petersen
4) Liars – Sisterworld
The fifth album by Thom Yorke’s favourite noise-rockers saw them reach heights they had only hinted at previously, and create an album blessed with the kind of balance absent on their other LPs. Sisterworld lacks some of the ferocity of their previous effort Liars, but what is lost in that area is more than made up for by the depths added by more ambitious instrumentation found on tracks like ‘Drip’ and album highlight ‘Scissor’. Where Liars go from here is anyone’s guess, but it will surely be difficult for them to utilise both their vision and restraint as successfully as they managed on Sisterworld. (Stan Morgan)
LISTEN - Liars - Scissor
3) The Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
Arcade Fire have never been a band afraid of making grand statements, and while The Suburbs carries on that tradition to an extent, it seemed like the Canadian septet pulled things back a little, having less to prove with this LP than they did with the “difficult second album” that came before it. They released this record into a world where they’re firmly established as one of the best and most well respected bands around, and while there were ridiculously high expectations surrounding its release, The Suburbs saw them rise to the challenge magnificently. (Rachel Bolland)
LISTEN - Arcade Fire - Ready to Start
2) Janelle Monae – The Archandroid
The talk of a 70-minute epic tale of Monáe’s cyber alter-ego, Cindi Mayweather (a follow up to her early EP, Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase)), made The ArchAndroid sound incredibly ambitious to say the least. But even with being so high concept, The ArchAndroid continuously leaps from dizzying high to dizzying high. Throughout the 18-tracks, Monáe touches upon, and completely perfects, so many different genres and styles of music that it’s impossible to define. There’s pop, R ‘n’ B, hip hop, electro, soul, funk and anything else you care to think of - you conjure up a genre and it’ll probably have reared its head somewhere on the record. She’s kinda a genre to herself, this one, and she’s made an incredible, utterly breathtaking LP that united the Rockfeedback office instantaneously –if there’s anyone more deserving of such love and admiration, I can’t wait to hear them. (Rachel Bolland)
LISTEN - Janelle Monae - Tightrope
1) Beach House – Teen Dream
It gives me a warm feeling to present our highly coveted (for real) Record of the Year award to an album that became the Rockfeedback team’s favourite simply in virtue of the fact that each of the ten songs here was really, really great. Simple as that. Indeed, Beach House seem to produce music in a way that riles against the very idea of gimmickry, proceedings here being as pure, unhurried and uncomplicated as one imagines they should possibly ever get. Any purer, and Teen Dream might just ascend to the heavens – but we’d rather keep it down here with us. Things that tended to occupy one’s mind when listening to other records this year – whether the band were decent bloggers, who was guesting on the album, what Pitchfork (and in turn Hipster Runoff) was going to make of it – just seemed not to matter whatsoever once your ears were tuned towards this majestically serene masterpiece. Watch them grow with me, friends – I predict that on their next record, if they become as rhythmically stunning as they are melodically on Teen Dream, they’ll probably be the best band in the world. (Thomas Hannan)
LISTEN - Beach House - Zebra
Rockfeedback Records of the Year 2010 – #50-41
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Rockfeedback Records of the Year 2010 – #10-01
Artists in this article: Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, Joanna Newsom, Deerhunter, Lindstrøm & Christabelle, Kanye West, Perfume Genius, Liars, Arcade Fire, Janelle Monae, Beach House