The Best Albums (and more) of 2010

This year was not the strongest for album releases in a whole. Out of the 88 albums we reviewed this year, 22 albums were considered bad. That’s 1 out of 4 albums that aren’t worth your time. However, 17% of the albums we reviewed were nominated for album of the year. Of course, only five get to be chosen as album of the year. Here’s the list! Feel free to click on the album to check out the full album review.

5. Minus the Bear – Omni

4. Jonsi – Go

Nate Pavlot on Go: From start to finish, listening to this album puts me in a dreamlike state. While definitely retaining some similarities to Sigur Rós, Go offers a much lighter and whimsical sound, and with Sigur Rós on an indefinite hiatus, I am anxiously awaiting more from Mr. Birgisson.

3. Fang Island – Fang Island

Nick Wan on Fang Island’s self titled: When putting together a “best of” list for myself, the biggest question I usually ask first is what album haven’t I stopped listening to since I got it? This is definitely one of them.

2. Cloud Cult – Light Chasers

Nate Pavlot on Light Chasers: What an album. I can’t even begin to describe how much I’ve become enamored with Light Chasers. Making creative use of a vocoder, French horns, and violins — Cloud Cult’s Light Chasers hooked me from the very first listen. Built as a concept album, the LP really deserves a full listen, but even still almost all of the tracks shine individually. Overall, this is the most complete album that I’ve heard this entire year, hands down.

1. Sufjan Stevens – The Age of Adz

Adam Finley on The Age of Adz: To be perfectly honest, I’ve always been on the fence about Sufjan and, unlike many, I don’t think Illinois is the greatest album ever.  But The Age of Adz blew my away and gave me an entirely new perspective on Sufjan, from his ability to pluck a guitar and whisper a song that Elliott Smith would have died to write to his ability to layer 327 sounds and scream “I’m not fucking around!” over it and have it actually sound organic.

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For a little more insight to how we got down to deciding our list for the year, the writers had to contribute their top five albums of the year in the order they believed them to be in. Then, we averaged the scores and ranked them based on the average scores. In the event of a tie, the album with a higher ranking from a staff member will be the tie breaker (in this case, Fang Island vs Jonsi). In the event of a no album was ranked higher in any circumstance, judgment was delivered by how much more I enjoyed one album than another (in this case, Minus the Bear vs Jonsi). Check out the table below to see what I’m talking about.

Some list facts and oddities: Nate was the only writer who chose all five albums of the year as his own top five albums of the year. Adam Finley chose only one album that was also chosen by another writer. Cloud Cult’s Light Chasers received the most #1 votes.

For your blog and reposting pleasures:

5. Minus the Bear – Omni
4. Jonsi – Go
3. Fang Island – Fang Island
2. Cloud Cult – Light Chasers
1. Sufjan Stevens – The Age of Adz

Albums that just missed the cut:

Sleigh Bells – Treats

Adam Finley on Treats: I would hope that I’ve made it clear by now as I insisted that this be added to the AotY list, but my musicscape was expanded by Treats. I’ve listened to this album easily 30 times this year and I’m not at all tired of it.

Good Old War – Good Old War

Michelle DeVries on Good Old War: This album was hands down my favorite. There’s always at least two or three tracks on an album that just don’t do it for me, but there was literally not a single track that I didn’t like, if not absolutely love. I think there have only been two or three other albums in my LIFE that have had solid tracks throughout the entire album. For this reason, and for the fact that they absolutely fucking rock, I choose them as my number one.

Our Top 5 Random Things of the Year:

Adam Finley’s Top 5 Gross Awesome Homemade Drinks of 2010

5. The Ghetto Turtle – Drink half of a Colt .45 and fill it back up with that green Ecto-Lime Kool-Aid. The resulting color resembles a dirty turtle. It also tastes like licking Splenda off a rusty bike chain.

4. Just Goon – A drink I invented out of necessity when I lived in Australia, this consists of equal parts store-bought from-concentrate juice with no nutritional value to speak of (Just Juice if you can find it), and boxed wine, which is affectionately referred to down under as ‘goon’. Makes you look classy when you’re drinking at 9am.

3. Home Loko – Now that NYC and Washington State have banned the caffeinated malt liquors, it’s necessary to get creative. This recipe involves recreating a Four Loko with stuff available at any corner store. Get a 40oz of your favorite malt liquor, pour half into an empty 40oz bottle, then fill both bottles up with equal parts Monster Energy Drink and Sprite. Finally, drop a caffeine tablet and 5 jolly ranchers of you choice into the bottle– I prefer Watermelon. Prepare to black out and fire half your staff (ahem, Nick).

2. The Orange Jack – Ever tasted a sugar cube covered in Tang and live bees? Drop a shot of Jack Daniels into a glass of Orange Crush and you’ll get as close as you’ll ever want to.

1. Brita Vodka – Still my all-time favorite homemade drink for dedication and hilarity, this one-time experiment has turned into an annual event proving that science can be delicious. This works exactly like it sounds: take a bottle of shitty grocery store vodka, get an ordinary Brita filter, and filter the vodka several times. Each time through, the charcoal in the filter absorbs excess hydrocarbons which makes the vodka taste less like the inside of a carburetor.

Nate Pavlot’s Top 5 Mustaches

5. Anthony Edwards AKA Goose

No ace pilot would be right without his wingman, and no wingman would be right without a sweet mustache. Even though Maverick is clearly the star of Top Gun, Goose and his ‘stache will always hold a special place in my heart… even if he does die.

4. Geraldo Rivera

Even if he didn’t find Al Capone’s secret stash, Geraldo Rivera knows a thing or two about ‘staches. This news buff knows how to ask all the tough questions, and his mustache has been there for all of them.

3. Wilford Brimley

If I were to make a top 5 list for Wilford Brimley, his mustache would come in at #2, only slightly behind his pronunciation of the word “diabetes”. The thing is just timeless. Wilford’s mustache says “I’ve been there, I’ve done that, and I can do it well”. Plus, he kind of reminds me of a walrus.

2. Tom Selleck

The man, the myth the legend. The Magnum himself comes in at #2 with a sick mustache hair combo that will have all the ladies saying “haaaaaay”. Even though he still rocks it today, Selleck’s mustache saw its prime in the glory days of all mustaches. I can only hope that those days will return soon.

1. Burt Reynolds

There was never any doubt in my mind as to the #1 pick. Reynolds is the king of the mustache, iconocizing the lip warmer in all of his manly glory. Looking at his mustache brings me back to a simpler time, a time where men could be men, and mustaches were not creepy at all. I often wonder what life would be like today had mustaches everywhere retained their glory.

Nick Wan’s Top 5 Ways to Not Get Press

5. Using dumbspeak

I’m not your bro, so please don’t trying to spruce yourself up by trying to level with me via inquiring how hella sick I am. In all honesty, I’m not that great of a person anyway. Especially when I reply back with something along the lines of NEVER SAY THAT AGAIN.

4. Forgetting to send something necessary for us to review you

Album art, fine. I’m sure we can scrounge something up from your website. No bio? That might be difficult to find your EPK if you haven’t sent one, but we’ll try to make due. No ALBUM? Seriously? And don’t even get me started on people who don’t mention their band’s name. I’m not Professor Xavier. I can’t locate all of your band’s info telepathically. Much less, it’s not possible to do these tasks if your band doesn’t have a website in the first place. So, try researching around a little bit to see how others have done it. Utilize the internet, people.

3. Send hate mail via your management

This one is something relatively new but impressively dumbfounding. Most management and PR people we come into contact with are really nice about us bashing one of their own in, in hopes that they’ll impress us with another one of their affiliates. Some decide it’s worth it to write threatening responses for various reasons. Some say we are horrible journalists. Some mention we have no experience listening to the music we review. Some even bash the other bands we reviewed (very, very unprofessional). Heads up clue, team: don’t be pricks.

2. Send too many emails

After about five or so, I don’t find myself very enthusiastic about piecing together this collage of data sprinkled throughout your somewhat-daily-installments of obviously-enthralling internet facsimiles. Each of the writers has some sort of threshold, and it definitely is a sliding scale. But one thing is for certain: if the reason this is happening is because of something to do with #4, then we got problems.

1. Write a poor email

Sometimes, people actually send everything and have their ducks in a row and everything seems to be perfect. Then I read the body of this email and it’s as if a third grader was just practicing his or her first sentences ever. Subjects and predicates are nonexistent. Spelling errors take over each word like zombies feasting on a catatonia ward. It’s like what a cake looks like after a food fight. Would you want to eat that cake? Could you? I didn’t think so.

Michelle DeVries’ Top 5 Things That are Green

5. The old Mighty Ducks Jerseys

4. Christmas trees

3. My cat’s eyes

2. The Emerald City

1. Avocadoes