Mid Year Report.

We're half-way through the year and that means I'm gonna do a little speil about my favorite records and songs of 2010. This year the records I've heard have been communicating more with their style than actual lyrics so far, plain songwriting albums like last years "The xx" and "Middle Cyclone" coming up weak, but the broad range of tones and sounds that artisits have hit this year is exciting enough. Also, typically my favorites are somewhat mainstream efforts which this year have been weak also (Kanye West and M.I.A. should be making splashes soon) so the indie crowd have been wooing most of my attention for the first part of the year. That may change, as these lists are highly volatile but here we go.

Ten Best Albums of 2010 (thru June)
10. Heaven is Whenever - The Hold Steady
The Minnesotta-turned-New-York bar-band-turned-classic-rock-revivalists deliver morality soaked if melodramtic tunes about being down-and-out and growing up. Notable Tracks: "The Sweet Part of the City" "Hurrican J". Notable Lyric: "I only had one single it was a song about a pure and simple love...I still play that record/ but it don't sound that simple anymore."
9. Welder - Elizabeth Cook
A country crooner with a pipette voice sqeaks through true-life stories of herion-addict sisters and, of course, lost love, with an attention to emotion honesty and truncated rythyms. Notable Tracks: "Rock and Roll Man" "El Camino" Notable Lyric: "When you say yes to beer, you say no to booty".
8. Contra - Vampire Weekend
I slammed this album early in the year and now I'm having second thoughts. Sure, it's not as exciting or touching as it's predessesor but it's a more mature work that discretly handles the band's preoccupations with class struggle, Ivy-League style. Notable tracks: "Taxi Cab" "Giving Up the Gun" Notable Lyric: "Dad was a risk-taker/his was a shoe-maker/you greatest hits 2006, little list-maker/your caught in the melody/ you wait in the car/ you were born with ten fingers and you're gonna use them all."
7. High Violet - The National
Another unfortunate slamming which shows i'm still getting used to this whole rating thing, I took the lameness of the first two and last two tracks as empty sad-sackery which it is, but the middle chunk of this album has a sweeping gothic grandeur and attention to detail which is rich as the warm thud of the music. Notable tracks: "Afraid of Everyone" "Conversation 16" Notable Lyric: "I gave my heart to the army/ The only sentimental thing I could think of/ With cousins and colors somewhere overseas/ But it'll take a better war to kill a college man like me."
6. The Monitor - Titus Andronicus
An epically-scoped and furiosuly-performed punk-opera about the Civil War and rebellious New Jersey teenagerdom, they mine the teritory of Bruce Springsteen, The Ramones, and The Replacements to probe the idea of what makes America through ambitious and grand anthems which a ruh around the edges and frail at the heart. Notable Tracks: "Theme From 'Cheers'" "The Battle Of Hampton Roads" Notable Lyrics: "I never wanted to change the world but I'm looking for a new New Jersey/ Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to die."
5. Blackjazz - Shining
Truly living up to it's title, this album by the Nordic-metal band Shining is as dense as it is dark, creating an all incompassing soundscape whcih probes madness and violence and while the lyrical quality is typical metal, the music is not, endlessly invintive and challenging. Notable tracks: "Exit Sun" "Blackjazz Deathtrance" Notable lyric: Ican't understand what the hell their saying and i don't care to.
4. Have One on Me - Joanna Newsom
A harpist and mousy-voiced singer who mines the past with a nostalgic romanticism which she reflects in her cryptic lyrics, Newsom spend most of this triple-album probing the relationships between her and the men in her life revealing a complex portrait of the modern young woman and a musical tapestry as difficult as it is rewarding. Notable Tracks: "Go Long" "Jackrabbits" Notable Lyric: "I have sown untidy furrows across my soul but I am still a coward/ Content to see my garden grow so sweet and full of someone else's flowers"
3. Treats - Sleigh Bells
Mining the work of James Brown more than they know, these hipsters want the catharsis most artists crave once a song 24/7 so they make a loud, raging album of dance-jams, amp-explosions and bubblegum vocals for the overstimulated teenager in us all, all while exploring what it means to be, well, and overstimulated teenager. Notable tracks: "Riot Rhythm" "Crown on the Ground" Notable Lyric: "Deaf chords, dead ends/ sling set can't meet their demands/ dumb whores, best friends/ infinity guitars, go ahead"
2. Transference - Spoon
Spoon get into typically deep territory on this album, their best since 2002's Girls Can Tell. The voice existential queries about growing up and facing their own specific splace in the rock pentheon, one which they advance with this serious of dark, adult, rock grooves. Notable Tracks: "Trouble Comes Running" "Written In Reverse" Notable Lyric: "I got nothing to lose but darkness and shadows/ got nothing to lose but bitterness and patterns"
1. This is Happening - LCD Soundsystem
Dance-puck auteur James Murphy ups his game in every way possible, on this final record from his flagship band. The electronic grooves are hypnotic and elusive, with nods to Talking Heads, Iggy Pop, Daft Punk and an entire library of great bands, but ultimately its the sardonic, neurotic lyrics that stand out. They are the last will and testament of an aging hipster who finally finds himself able to cut past the cool and come home. Notable tracks: "One Touch" "Pow Pow" Notable Lyrics: "You're afraid of what you need/ If you weren't, I don't know what we'd talk about"

Top 10 Tracks So Far:

10. Theme From "Cheers" by Titus Andronicus
9. Soft in the Center by The Hold Steady
8. California English by Vampire Weekend
7. Rill Rill by Sleigh Bells
6. The Suburbs by Arcade Fire
5. I Can Change by LCD Soundsystem
4. Telephone by Lady Gaga
3. Power by Kanye West
2. Go Long by Joanna Newsom
1. We Used To Wait by Arcade Fire

Most Anticipated
1. The Suburbs - Arcade Fire
Exploring middle American upbringing is the best conceit an Arcade Fire album can possibly have; the singles they've released are stellar; the band has never made an album that wasn't masterful. It just all adds up for this band in this year. And if they could throw a single up the charts, the world just might change.
2. Good Ass Job - Kanye West
Mr. West is returning to rap and hoping to return to the populariy he lost at last years VMAs. My guess is, he won't but if the album isn't great, the next one certainly will be. He may be a jerk, but one should never forget that he's also a genius.
3. Title TBA - Fleet Foxes
Their debut was a suprise hit and one of the most universally-loved records of the past decade full of pastoral beauty and aching vocals. The plan is to record the record quickly al-la Van Morrison's Astral Weeks to make a more cohesive, darker, and rawer album. Should be a tight-rope walk well worth hearing.
4. /\/\/\Y/\ - M.I.A.
After making huge artistic and commercial strides on 2007's Kala the Sri Lankan chanteuse has every oppurtunity to take her third record of electropunk into new heights, or to sink under pressure and self-importance. Either way, this will be one of the most intereting and talked-about records of the year.
5. Hot Sauce Committe Pt. 1 - Beastie Boys
After a dissappointing instrumental album, the rap pioneers are preparing a self-produced album featureing Nas and Santigold. Almost none of their albums are let downs and the party boys turned vetrans have plenty of material to mine for introspection and their peculiar brand of humor. The cover art is quite promising as well.