Albums of the Year '10!

Originally this was printed in our INCREDIBLE ZINE (that we had many more orders for than we anticipated - thanks for that) but we thought for those of you who were too busy/forgetful/shy/lazy/stupid to order a copy, we'd let you browse our albums of the year anyway. We're nice like that. So here goes:

Swanlights - Antony & The Johnsons
If you thought it was impossible for Antony Hegarty's music to grow even more beautiful, you were wrong. Swanlights is so fragile, so delicate, so threaded through with a bittersweet despair, you find yourself unsure whether you should cry, smile or do both. The lyrics are especially and charmingly oblique, the album is like nothing else.

Flesh Tone - Kelis
A brave new direction from an artist previously well established in a rather rigid set of genre constraints, Flesh Tone reflects a desire for experimentation and new tastes… things we love. The music is certifiably incredible, with the very best producers in the field of dance moulding their sounds to fit Kelis‟ rather spectacular personality. The music is glorious, the imagery is exciting, the segues are wonderful. A brilliant album.

All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu - Rufus Wainwright
Wainwright may be one of the cleverest people in pop but occasionally his music is overcomplicated and his voice flat when set against his rich, ornate arrangements.
Not on this album, a pared down masterpiece borne from Rufus' grief at his mother's death. His piano playing is both modern and timeless, his songwriting: frenetic and heartbreaking.

Pink Friday - Nicki Minaj
We may still be a lil' biased due to this being the only thing we've listened to for a fortnight, but this was the biggest fresh breath of hip hop air we've taken in a very long time. Her raps are intelligent, funny, bossy and have something to actually say, while we must admit we're more than taken with her ridiculously trashy look. Her singing voice is pretty-bordering-on-quite-good, and her knack for sampling fucking good songs is more than endearing. The best vocal riff from “Don‟t You (Forget About Me)” (The Breakfast Club anyone?) is used to magical effect on “Blazin”.

Have One On Me – Joanna Newsom
How do you follow up arguably one of the greatest albums of all time? Triple it, apparently. This 3CD extravaganza is so expertly wrought it leaves you (literally) breathless. How does Newsom fold such spellbinding interlocking rhythms and melodies into eachother? How does she weave stories so meandering and heavy with meaning? An incredible achievement.

Head First - Goldfrapp
While (unusually for such musical innovators) appearing at the tail end of the brief but blissful resurgence of 80s synthesised dream pop at the end of the decade, Head First still manages to spin something new from used yarn. The soundscapes more than meet the expectations laid down by Goldfrapp's preceding reputation and body of work, with truly uplifting tunes being welcomed into their impressive canon. And the artwork is fucking gorgeous.

The Suburbs – Arcade Fire
Nostalgia for a simpler time is the theme for Arcade Fire's third album and it says a lot that it speaks so directly to someone only 20 years old. It says a lot about how fast our rapidly-developing world has changed. And it says a lot about the skill of Arcade Fire‟s songwriting – turning a semi-cliché subject from something potentially trite into something sumptuous and heartrending and bleak.

Here Lies Love - David Byrne & Fatboy Slim
We weren‟t especially knowledgeable about the work of David Byrne, Fatboy Slim or Imelda Marcos, but if you put them in a food processor (not literally lolz) and an incredibly captivating concept album featuring a plethora of fabulous all-female singers (just what we like) pops out, maybe they should work together more often. The insufferable Florence Welch becomes mildly likeable, while Martha Wainwright, Cyndi Lauper, Róisín Murphy and Tori Amos form just some of the remarkable vocal talent. “Solano Avenue” featuring the previously-unknown-to-us Nicole Atkins is a highlight.

The ArchAndroid (Suites II and III) - Janelle Monáe
Janelle Monáe careened into our lives with her stunning and effortlessly inventive EP, Metropolis (Suite I – The Chase Suite), particularly on the track “Many Moons” – a song so jampacked full of energy and a seemingly boundless set of ideas, it left us literally breathless the first time we heard it. Ohhh, we thought, what the hell was that?! It was like André 3000 had had a sex change and decided to cover Madonna's “American Life”, produced by Missy
Elliott and coached in vocal acrobatics by Kate Bush and Erykah Badu. Actually, we hate those sorts of descriptions, so totally ignore that and bear in mind that if you're not already familiar with Janelle Monáe (you should be), she's unlike anything else. Ok, one last comparison: imagine if Janet Jackson had 10 times the vocal range she does, was capable of orchestration, lyrical dexterity and obsessed with science fiction – then you might be able to picture just how incredible The ArchAndroid is…

That's the thing… Ms. Monáe is so inventive, her palette of references and influences so delightfully varied, and her voice so dextrous and skilled, that it's hard to find the words to do her work justice. This album is truly, something to savour (although not perfect, we hope future works might be shorter, with one or two filler tracks cut). The tracks blend into each other effortlessly, and especially since some of them are very long and contain many changes of pace, sometimes you don't know whether you've moved from one song to the next, or not. You enter an endless dream-world where symphony orchestras loom out at you, only to be replaced by punky guitar riffs (“Come Alive: The War of the Roses), hazy 70s prog-like ballads (“Mushrooms and Roses”) and futuristic funk.

Some believe that great music is music that does the un- expected: music that surprises. And nothing is more surprising than this album. One moment you're drifting away on a 50s “Tears on my Pillow”- style doowop ballad (the stunning “Oh, Maker”) and the next you're bobbing and writhing about to an almost pop-rock, uptempo (“Cold War”) . The album's crowning glory is its closing number, “BaBopByeYa”, the must sumptuous, stunning, sensuous, involving, dark, shudderingly good 8 minute track you'll hear all year .

There's supposedly a concept here, but as is often the case with superior concept albums, it's kind of besides the point – the music takes precedent here. Janelle Monáe's debut album is a work of such raw genius, it's hard to talk about without getting passionately speechless, it's the kind of thing you have to experience for yourself. Perhaps it'll date badly, perhaps it'll stale quickly, but one thing we know for sure: Monáe is an artist to watch and whose every move and experiment we will savour and salivate over. If you listen to only two albums from 2010 make it Robyn's Body Talk series, and this.

Body Talk - Robyn
Robyn has undoubtedly been the artist of the year, and unquestionably produced the single of the year (in the shape of “Dancing On My Own”). She's also released, alongside Janelle Monáe, the finest body of work in 2010, but her unconventional release strategy has put us in a quandary. You see, we have a chronic case of iTunes OCD, at Shiny & New towers, so Robyn's epic (in the traditional sense of the word) Body Talk series has caused us no end of grief - are they EPs? Is there an album? Is there a compilation? *head(s) explodes*

With the final, 3rd, instalment finally released, we thought that Body Talk could stand as one of the albums of the year. We wanted it to, so that we felt we had a big overarching cohesive body of work to tie 2010 together, but the officially released 15-track album didn't sound right – partly because almost every song is a heart-stopping, foot-stomping, pulse-quickening, euphoria-inducing, hip-shaking sobathon and 15 of those in a row is enough to send anyone over the edge (one needs light and shade lols)… but also because we had gotten used to each individual instalment, released as an 8 track mini- album, and their individual… erm… flavours. So this article is praising our preferred mode of listening to the Robyn songs released this year: the three separate EPs – Pt. 1, Pt. 2 and the digital-only 5-track Pt. 3:

Pt. 1 is the eclectic, masterpiece-riddled introduction to the series, veering wildly from disco (“Dancing on my Own”) to robopop (“Fembot”) to queeny reggae (“Dancehall Queen”) to dark electro (“None of Dem”), all deranged and knowing. Pt. 2 is
more cohesive, but with fewer standout highlights (although the incredible “Include Me Out” and “In My Eyes” are nothing if not memorable), much more sinuous and glitter- ing, like a gay James Bond's collective expeditions, at once dark, dangerous and intense (“Love Kills”) and then on the incredible “Indestructible (Acoustic)”, both melodramatic and romantic and yet somehow ice cold; Then the shorter and sweet(er), Pt. 3 is the poppiest, the most upbeat, jubilant , brighteyed, hopeful, not a mournful or self-pitying moment in sight – from the stompathon “Time Machine” to the heartbreaking pseudo-stalker anthem “Call Your Girlfriend”, via the über-romantic “Stars 4-ever”.

These 3 EPs may seem like they'd all slot together, but somehow, they work best (in our humble opinion) apart. Body Talk may not represent a complete or coherent album, in the traditional sense, but that doesn't matter because it's an incredible achievement. The sheer quality here is outstanding! Which other artist could expel 20 pop masterpieces in 12 months across 3 mini master- works? No one. We make the rules, so we can just as easily break them. This may not be your typical album – it may be 3 separately released ones – but that;s what makes it great. It's one of our albums of the year: a glittering abundance of tracks.