Monday, February 21, 2011
Listening To The Records On My Wall
After a frankly inexcusable delay, behold!
It's the Delrico Bandito Review Of The Year 2010!
Yeah, so after being so keen last year, it's taken me a little longer to decide my faves from the previous 12 months. But here we go, for posterity if nothing else. These are the things that made 2010 just that little bit more special...
Albums Of The Year.
1. Avi Buffalo - Avi Buffalo
2. Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles II
3. School Of Seven Bells - Disconnect From Desire
4. Sleigh Bells - Treats
5. Best Coast - Crazy For You
6. Beach House - Teen Dream
7. Tame Impala - Innerspeaker
8. The National - High Violet
9. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
10. Manic Street Preachers - Postcards From A Young Man
Ok...yeah, so I was listening to a LOT of Northern American music. But so much of it was so good. Crystal Castles seduced me with a second album that was somehow both darker and more pop than their debut. Sleigh Bells were wonderfully noisy, School Of Seven Bells beautiful, and Beach House & Best Coast were simply dreamy. Arcade Fire produced their masterpiece. And Tame Impala and the Manics broke the US/Canadian hegemony with a stunning debut and continued late career renaissance respectively. In the end, despite all that, it was an album of Californian indie pop that won it for me this year. Twee and dirty and fragile and perfect. It left its stains on me.
Singles Of The Year.
1. Crystal Castles - 'Celestica'
2. The National - 'England'
3. Jenny & Johnny - 'New Yorker Cartoon'
4. Magnetic Man - 'I Need Air'
5. Best Coast - 'Boyfriend'
6. Swedish House Mafia - 'One (Original Mix)'
7. Mark Ronson And The Business International - 'Bang Bang Bang'
8. Kylie Minogue - 'Get Outta My Way'
9. Pull In Emergency - 'Everything Is The Same'
10. The Crocodiles - 'Sleep Forever'
This one was tough... in December, friends asked me to share a Top 20. I came up with over 50 tracks I had to filter down. And moreso for this. It was a great year for singles, and stand out album tracks (all of which count thanks to downloads). There were some gorgeous pop moments this year. These tracks all lodged themselves in my brain, and refused to leave until I'd listened to them time and again.
But it was Celestica that blew my mind the first time I heard it, and every time since, whether on my iPod, on Radio 1, or in my DJ sets. Otherworldly and haunting and driving and genuinely beautiful. Alice turning off the crazy to deliver a lifechanging vocal, before it launches itself into the stratosphere. I can't hear it too often or too loudly.
EPs Of The Year
1. Team Ghost - You Never Did Anything Wrong To Me
2. Girls - Broken Dreams Club
3. James Blake - CMYK
4. Los Campesinos! - All's Well That Ends
5. Sufjan Stevens - All Delighted People
A new category, cos it's my blog and I'll do what I like. Thanks to downloads, EPs have come back in considerable style. Team Ghost and James Blake used them to test the water with fresh ideas; Girls and Sufjan as a breather between albums; and Los Campesinos! to remind us how great the album before had been all along. Team Ghost's first EP was just perfect, possibly my favourite release of all this year. Hell, I added a whole new category just so I could give a prize.
Live Performances Of The Year.
1. Pet Shop Boys at Glastonbury Festival
2. Avi Buffalo at Glastonbury Festival
3. Team Ghost at The Social, W1
4. LCD Soundsystem at Brixton Academy
5. Metric at Shepherd's Bush Empire
6. Beach House at Glastonbury Festival
7. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart at 229, W1
8. Godspeed You Black Emperor at The Troxy, Stepney
9. Rolo Tomassi at the Underworld, Camden
10. Thee Oh Sees at the Luminaire, Kilburn*
I'm getting chills just thinking about these. Avi Buffalo and Beach House shining in the Glastonbury sun. LCD Soundsystem's victory lap. Team Ghost surpassing all my expectations. Metric giving stadium love in a medium sized venue. Pains being Pains but better. Thee Oh Sees and Rolo Tomassi making a fantastic sweaty racket. And Godspeed changing everything I ever thought I knew about live performance. But it was the kings of pop the Pet Shop Boys who win this year. I'd seen them live before, at the tiny Barfly in Camden for charity, but their Glasto gig was a great show that left me grinning for days afterwards. National treasures.
(*RIP The Luminaire. Great venue. A sad loss.)
Other Musical Bits...
Best Compilation: Swedish House Mafia - Until One
Best Soundtrack: Various Artists - Scott Pilgrim vs The World
Best Original Score: Daft Punk - Tron: Legacy
Best Video: Duck Sauce - 'Barbra Streisand'
Movies Of The Year:
1. Scott Pilgrim vs The World
2. Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
3. Kick Ass
4. No Distance Left To Run
5. Tron Legacy
Really?, I thought when I first made up my Top 5. But yes. Two musical biographies of a sort, two blockbuster action movies with different strains of daftness, and a number one that practically combines the two. Scott Pilgrim was so much fun to watch, I actually saw it twice in the space of a week, and then my brother got it for me on the very day it was released on DVD. The original comic books are wonderful, the soundtrack is sublime, everything about it makes me happy.
And The Rest.
On TV, The Lovely Amy Pond Show featuring Doctor Who was a constant delight. Sherlock Holmes was a brilliant, but all too brief, revelation. Peep Show just kept getting better. I discovered 30 Rock, House and True Blood. And Charlie Brooker made the acerbic into an artform.
In Art, my Tate membership granted me access to the filth and glamour of Pop Life and the voyeurism of Exposed at Tate Modern. The Rachel Whiteread and Chris Ofili retrospectives at the Tate Britain were both excellent.
Also, this was the year that I went to Ayia Napa. Ok, so it was with work, and I couldn't party too hard, but it was great, great fun. And I returned to Cyprus later in the year to see a whole other side of the island. And I escaped my bunker in Finsbury Park to a wonderful flat in Manor House (which is actually closer to Finsbury Park itself). I did some amazing new things at work. It's been a good year. A really good year.
Appropriately , the true sign of a good year is that I'm fretting about all the other stuff that I left out. I'm happier than I was this time last year. And in the grand scheme of things, I can't ask for much more than that. I hope 2011 is treating you well.
It's the Delrico Bandito Review Of The Year 2010!
Yeah, so after being so keen last year, it's taken me a little longer to decide my faves from the previous 12 months. But here we go, for posterity if nothing else. These are the things that made 2010 just that little bit more special...
Albums Of The Year.
1. Avi Buffalo - Avi Buffalo
2. Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles II
3. School Of Seven Bells - Disconnect From Desire
4. Sleigh Bells - Treats
5. Best Coast - Crazy For You
6. Beach House - Teen Dream
7. Tame Impala - Innerspeaker
8. The National - High Violet
9. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
10. Manic Street Preachers - Postcards From A Young Man
Ok...yeah, so I was listening to a LOT of Northern American music. But so much of it was so good. Crystal Castles seduced me with a second album that was somehow both darker and more pop than their debut. Sleigh Bells were wonderfully noisy, School Of Seven Bells beautiful, and Beach House & Best Coast were simply dreamy. Arcade Fire produced their masterpiece. And Tame Impala and the Manics broke the US/Canadian hegemony with a stunning debut and continued late career renaissance respectively. In the end, despite all that, it was an album of Californian indie pop that won it for me this year. Twee and dirty and fragile and perfect. It left its stains on me.
Singles Of The Year.
1. Crystal Castles - 'Celestica'
2. The National - 'England'
3. Jenny & Johnny - 'New Yorker Cartoon'
4. Magnetic Man - 'I Need Air'
5. Best Coast - 'Boyfriend'
6. Swedish House Mafia - 'One (Original Mix)'
7. Mark Ronson And The Business International - 'Bang Bang Bang'
8. Kylie Minogue - 'Get Outta My Way'
9. Pull In Emergency - 'Everything Is The Same'
10. The Crocodiles - 'Sleep Forever'
This one was tough... in December, friends asked me to share a Top 20. I came up with over 50 tracks I had to filter down. And moreso for this. It was a great year for singles, and stand out album tracks (all of which count thanks to downloads). There were some gorgeous pop moments this year. These tracks all lodged themselves in my brain, and refused to leave until I'd listened to them time and again.
But it was Celestica that blew my mind the first time I heard it, and every time since, whether on my iPod, on Radio 1, or in my DJ sets. Otherworldly and haunting and driving and genuinely beautiful. Alice turning off the crazy to deliver a lifechanging vocal, before it launches itself into the stratosphere. I can't hear it too often or too loudly.
EPs Of The Year
1. Team Ghost - You Never Did Anything Wrong To Me
2. Girls - Broken Dreams Club
3. James Blake - CMYK
4. Los Campesinos! - All's Well That Ends
5. Sufjan Stevens - All Delighted People
A new category, cos it's my blog and I'll do what I like. Thanks to downloads, EPs have come back in considerable style. Team Ghost and James Blake used them to test the water with fresh ideas; Girls and Sufjan as a breather between albums; and Los Campesinos! to remind us how great the album before had been all along. Team Ghost's first EP was just perfect, possibly my favourite release of all this year. Hell, I added a whole new category just so I could give a prize.
Live Performances Of The Year.
1. Pet Shop Boys at Glastonbury Festival
2. Avi Buffalo at Glastonbury Festival
3. Team Ghost at The Social, W1
4. LCD Soundsystem at Brixton Academy
5. Metric at Shepherd's Bush Empire
6. Beach House at Glastonbury Festival
7. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart at 229, W1
8. Godspeed You Black Emperor at The Troxy, Stepney
9. Rolo Tomassi at the Underworld, Camden
10. Thee Oh Sees at the Luminaire, Kilburn*
I'm getting chills just thinking about these. Avi Buffalo and Beach House shining in the Glastonbury sun. LCD Soundsystem's victory lap. Team Ghost surpassing all my expectations. Metric giving stadium love in a medium sized venue. Pains being Pains but better. Thee Oh Sees and Rolo Tomassi making a fantastic sweaty racket. And Godspeed changing everything I ever thought I knew about live performance. But it was the kings of pop the Pet Shop Boys who win this year. I'd seen them live before, at the tiny Barfly in Camden for charity, but their Glasto gig was a great show that left me grinning for days afterwards. National treasures.
(*RIP The Luminaire. Great venue. A sad loss.)
Other Musical Bits...
Best Compilation: Swedish House Mafia - Until One
Best Soundtrack: Various Artists - Scott Pilgrim vs The World
Best Original Score: Daft Punk - Tron: Legacy
Best Video: Duck Sauce - 'Barbra Streisand'
Movies Of The Year:
1. Scott Pilgrim vs The World
2. Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
3. Kick Ass
4. No Distance Left To Run
5. Tron Legacy
Really?, I thought when I first made up my Top 5. But yes. Two musical biographies of a sort, two blockbuster action movies with different strains of daftness, and a number one that practically combines the two. Scott Pilgrim was so much fun to watch, I actually saw it twice in the space of a week, and then my brother got it for me on the very day it was released on DVD. The original comic books are wonderful, the soundtrack is sublime, everything about it makes me happy.
And The Rest.
On TV, The Lovely Amy Pond Show featuring Doctor Who was a constant delight. Sherlock Holmes was a brilliant, but all too brief, revelation. Peep Show just kept getting better. I discovered 30 Rock, House and True Blood. And Charlie Brooker made the acerbic into an artform.
In Art, my Tate membership granted me access to the filth and glamour of Pop Life and the voyeurism of Exposed at Tate Modern. The Rachel Whiteread and Chris Ofili retrospectives at the Tate Britain were both excellent.
Also, this was the year that I went to Ayia Napa. Ok, so it was with work, and I couldn't party too hard, but it was great, great fun. And I returned to Cyprus later in the year to see a whole other side of the island. And I escaped my bunker in Finsbury Park to a wonderful flat in Manor House (which is actually closer to Finsbury Park itself). I did some amazing new things at work. It's been a good year. A really good year.
Appropriately , the true sign of a good year is that I'm fretting about all the other stuff that I left out. I'm happier than I was this time last year. And in the grand scheme of things, I can't ask for much more than that. I hope 2011 is treating you well.
Labels: gigs, lists, movies, music, top 10's
