Part 1 :: Part 3 :: Part 4 :: Top 25
Purchase The Winter of Mixed Drinks here.
Example 2 of "Artists in 2010 Who Will Never Match Their Best Effort, Despite Trying". I was truly excited for this album because of my strong affection for 2008's The Midnight Organ Fight. I feel the songs on this year's effort have a strange narrative structure where they were lacking in a true beginning and end, instead containing long stretches of middle. Still, the boys from Scotland put on a great live set at Lollapalooza this year and the new tracks benefited from their live energy.
Frightened Rabbit - Swim Until You Can't See Land
Download "All Day" for free here.
This album was dropped with barely a gesture and created a week long Twitter fury, mostly about people complaining that they couldn't successfully obtain A FREE ALBUM just by snapping their fingers. Nevertheless, this glorified mixtape is still a party starter and has a lot of the requisite moments where Greg Gillis finds that perfect interlocking of hip-hop and rock music to make something purely his own. To those who scoff at that notion, I like to bring up my Andy Warhol argument of how artist can draw from popular culture signposts and create (or in Warhol's case, pay others to create) something that is a commentary on the concept and direction of culture itself. Still this album was no Night Ripper and therefore is Example 3 of "Artists in 2010 Who Will Never Match Their Best Effort, Despite Trying".
Girl Talk - All Day (Full Album)
Purchase Latin here.
This is a really solid album of instrumental head twisters that never seems to get bogged down by any genre label of what they should sound like. Holy Fuck just is in a class by themselves. However, being so singular in their sound (as so many instrumental bands are) tends to box them into some sort of novelty act category, which is far from the case. It probably would have made it to my Top 25, but it was missing something...oh, yeah. Words.
Holy Fuck - Stay Lit
Purchase One Life Stand here.
This one was really close to being in my Top 25 as well. A shame, since this Hot Chip's best album to date. The songs on One Life Stand are much warmer and mature than anything else they have done. In fact, I probably could have made it my #25. Maybe it is the fact that I am not inspired to write much more about Hot Chip than I already have is the reason why it is here. Ah, cie la vie.
Hot Chip - Take It In
