You've seen the albums that nearly made it, and the ones we couldn't stand; now it's time to reveal the Popscener's records of the year 2010. It's the final countdown...
Proof that innovation is alive and well outside the claustrophobia and one-upmanship of London’s inner city scenes, Southend-on-Sea’s genre-hopping connoisseurs created a tour de force of art-rock experimentation. The unsettling murmur of children’s choirs met shuddering bangra-beats, meticulous woodwind and brass arrangements (provided by a Czech orchestra) and Richard Garrett’s 19th century poetry, while the eccentric time signatures framed a sound at once menacing and oddly moving. Hearing is believing.
Beyond the bleach blonde pompadour and colourless panel-show appearances, 2010 saw Mark Ronson drop the faux-soul whimsy of his previous musical excursions for a more cutting edge contemporary up-date on '80s synth-pop and electro. The results could have been inconsequential – Ronson’s limp attempts at singing on ‘Record Collection’ are testament to that – but a superb revolving-door supporting cast, including Q-Tip, Kyle Falconer and Rose Elinor Dougall, brought to life a series of brilliantly crafted pop songs. Bringing Boy George (‘Someone to Love Me’) and D’Angelo (‘Glass Mountain Trust’) back to commercial coalface added tenderness and explosive vocal virtuosity to the inescapable hooks.
A recording budget of over $3million used to fund sessions with a vast myriad of co-producers and supporting artists – including Jay-Z, Pusha T, Chris Rock, Bon Iver and John Legend – at what amounted to a gated ‘Rap Camp’ ad-hoc community in Hawaii seemed a unsurprising move for the most egomaniacal rapper on the planet. However, what followed was no bling ‘n’ bitches celebration of life in a tropical paradise. Instead, 'Yeezy' carved up critical preconceptions with an album of open-hearted vulnerability, the puffed-chest moments always splintered with an underlying quiver of inadequacy and aching discontent with the rap-star caricature. Beauty prevailed in spades on this undoubted magnum opus.
To describe Everything Everything as a rare beacon of success in 2010 for the kind of angular ‘indie’ long the preserve of many of England’s finest bands would be doing them a disservice. Despite similarities with the naughties’ scatterbrained post-punk resurgence (best realised by The Futureheads and their contemporaries), Everything Everything offered a great leap forward. The familiar jerky hooks and hyper-melodic art-pop choruses were embellished with rhythmic math-rock precision and spiralling guitar trills. Meanwhile, the dexterous falsetto yelp of frontman Jonathan Higgs was ideally suited to an engaging, articulate examination of the vacuous quick-fix realities of popular culture.
1. Laura Marling - I Speak Because I Can (Virgin)Folk revivalist Laura Marling’s precocious maturity has been heavily documented, but this should neither boost nor detract from assessments of the 20-year-old’s stunning sophomore record, which stands apart as a majestic landmark in her remarkable development. I Speak Because I Can eschewed the casual immediacy of her debut for something more intricate and captivating. Lyrically, Marling excelled, taking on the role of brow-beaten but stoic daughter (‘Hope in the Air’), girlfriend (‘I Speak Because I Can’) and lover (‘What He Wrote’) in a series of stinging mini-dramas which asserted themselves like epic short-stories amidst a serenely elegiac masterwork. On ‘Goodbye England’, the album’s desperate emotional fulcrum, she countered former lover Charlie Fink’s despondent assessment of their disintegrating relationship (from 2009’s The First Days of Spring) in a breathtaking crescendo. ‘I tried to be the girl who likes to be used / I’m too good for that / there’s a mind under this hat’ she spat – as moving a trichotomy of feeling between rage, sorrow and dignity as was heard the year over.
Don't forget to check out the rest of the albums of the year and the songs of the year for 2010.
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