Was hoping to count down the top 40 soups of all time, as I just had
a delicious Borsch (hot Ukranian beetroot broth) and it felt like
less of a chore than finally having to make these picks. After TOO
MANY months of thinking and umming and ahing, I am putting down the
final write-up, which began as a countdown, but end up as a
denouement.
1. THE WAR ON
DRUGS – LOST IN THE DREAM (2014)
This
decade has indeed seen fragments and bits and pieces all hover,
sputter and go every which way but loose. Genre-bending was a common
denominator 10 years ago, as we witnessed Radiohead and Primal Scream
produce career-highs with electronica-whazzbeat and post-office-punk;
two of the big harvests from very potent farmers. Also, heavyweight
albums felt as heavy as music magazines would push Daft Punk's
Discovery
and The Strokes' Is
This It
as modern classics that everyone would at least know about, if not
love. I downloaded that latter LP from Napster, and burnt it to Sony
Minidisc if anyone actually remembers or used that.
Things are different now. Fragments and splices and pastiches are
aboard; I just Googled “What artistic period are we in?” and it
came back with “neo-dadaism” - “a defiantly anti-art”
movement, and to reflect that an artist like Grimes would make sense
to represent the huge shake-up in consumerism as we all go solo and
might not even know who our best friends favorite band are – or
even care about what they listen to. Not speaking for myself here,
just a glance from afar.
Lost
In The Dream
might sound linear, but actuallyis a pastiche of the highest order.
A magnificent nod towards Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Big Star,
it is all of this and more, primed, synced up and pumped through 80's
drive-time. Nothing says that better than “Red Eyes” a
five-minute blast of giddy fresh air, with the best riff I’ve ever
heard, and believe me, I am not a riff person. “Suffering” that
follows has the gentle piano and layered liquification after the head
over heels free-fall that was delivered priorwards.
The
glory of this album boils down to two things: the playing and the
sequencing. The instrumentation is staggering – not a foot is put
wrong across the hour. “An Ocean In Between The Waves” and
“Burning” recall Dire Straits in particular as the wagon rolls
along – but it's swimming and it's building and so they crescendo.
They're not just jams, but they sure kick them up. Adam Granduciel
gets his bass coating painted on and then applies the electric gloss
in a sea of haze. Just
to reiterate, this is
the best record of the decade for one truly vital categorization –
track order. The spacey, off-centered “Disappearing” provides the
perfect glue that binds the core of the LP. “The Haunting Idle”
also gives divine breathing space, before we pick up one last piece
of gusto in the ravishing “Burning.”
The last two songs are akimbo aplomb. I had a can of Taiwan beer in
my hand in Jingan, Taipei in the winter of 2014, ready to spend
another Christmas living abroad in Asia. The title track (9 from 10)
came on Spotify and I felt both reassured and hypnotized at once. It
is a song of imagery and the album could end there and be sealed off,
all the good for it. But instead Granduciel pulls off the deal-seal
with “In Reverse,” a song that ties together nicely with Tame
Impala's “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” which is a major theme
of my decade, despite making daily progress. It's the little moments
that have made this decade for me through music, and that can of beer
– that cool burst of air, as Granduciel sings about “the grand
parade,” wanting that person, head held high to the sky, pollution,
wind, philosophy, everything goes, let it go; – you're well-earned.
2. TAME IMPALA – LONERISM
(2012)
Another
one of those little moments that happened was renting a U-bike in
Taipei after finishing my morning shift at the kindergarten, and
cycling this huge main road bombing it to my other job, playing
Lonerism
in it's entirety, with no better album title to sum up the age we now
live in.
“Music
To Walk Home By” the fifth track, was in full effect “I
just don't know how to feel right / A beautiful girl is wasting my
life” sings
Kevin Parker, and nothing could be better in this cyclable muddle
that I found myself in; a hamster on a fucking wheel.
That
bike ride used to begin with the opener “Be Above It” with the
hyperventilating panic attack of “Gotta
Be Above It” rattled
over and over to build up the huge momentum that would be needed to
sustain two jobs, before the eventual red self-destruct button would
be jammed and the trapdoor would open, but at least a game of pool
would be waiting after the end of a long day. Sometimes this would
happen 4 nights a week. This album defines that time for me.
The glorious “Feels Like We
Only Go Backwards” is the song the Beatles never wrote and it found
it's way onto rock history playlists in pubs all around the world –
it's hall of fame material and this psychedelic fuzz of an album
provides feedback of flamboyance and absolute showmanship. It's a
paradox though as it's all borne out of insecurity.
As I type this now, I realize how
much I need to write in order to feel better. I also feel that
getting this shit on the screen helps me to get away from the past
and move on. As “Music To Walk Home By” continues “I'm
playing a part of somebody else / while trying so hard to be myself”
before the electric guitar comes down like a guillotine, over the
crystalline synths, it provides one of the most defining moments of a
lifetime for me, in one of the most beguiling albums.
3. BON IVER – 22, A MILLION (2016)
Moving
to and leaving Asia were the two biggest things to happen to me over
the last 10 years, and as I left for a few last days in Chiang Mai in
Thailand, this album dropped – and the theme of uncertainty had
never resonated as well as this in the most avant-garde outing of the
artist's career so far. The opener has zeitgeist vocals that use
autotune miles better than Frank Ocean does - and Madlib style asides
which were rife in 2016, all over James Blake as genres melded
instead of being bent like time ago. On “715 – CRƩƩKS”
he sounds like Bane from Batman as the vocals carried the most
digital weight since Daft Punk, 15 years priorwards.
I
used to jog with our dog Tess by the canal with this album
sound-tracking us. I had three of the most meaningful months I have
ever had, cleaning out my head, dealing with lucidity, with the most
jumbled up and bastardized fusion of an LP, defining the time. 22,
A Million
employs jazz, post-rock and Americana to get it's meaning across. And
who knows what the shit that is? I think not the artist himself can
answer that one on a clear morning now.
As weird as this album is, it is
drunk and dizzy. The tumble and sinister Deathbreast second track is
sinister and bassy as it gets. Even the way the tracks are spelt “10
d E A T h b R E a s T” and ““33 GOD”” for example prove a
bitch to type, I should have done a touch-typing test like Tom Mundy.
The LP flows like bubbles from a saxophone, toes the line before
crossing it, gets drunk, sobers up and just rides with it. I should
really appreciate the work that went into it a bit better, as to
distill all this bizarreness into 34 minutes isn't just the result of
one whackadoo session. Witchcraft, Bain, Pleasure Island, I want
to be a real-boy. Spirited Away. Botch-job. Uplifted. A
lucidating clan. Listen to understand.
4. DAVID HOLMES – LATE NIGHT
TALES (MIXTAPE) (2016)
If
you play this on Spotify, go for the God's
Waiting Room Continuous Mix
which is at the bottom of the track-listing, as it has a couple of
extra-special cuts on there. This record deals with demons, memories
and the afterlife. It spans the globe, taking in Japanese, Hebrew,
and 1950' s America. It has an Irish backdrop as poet and DJ B P
Fallon recalls the memory of Henry
Mccullough,
a guitarist who played with Paul McCartney and Wings.
I
would put this as my favourite mixtape of all-time now, as Holmes has
outdone my previous best Come
Get It I Got It, a
wild and psychedelic effort from 2002. Late
Night Tales, instead
has an element of transcendence and humanity.
“But
seeing Aenas come wading through the grass
Towards
him, he reached his two hands out
In
eager joy, his eyes filled up with tears
And
he gave a cry “At last! Are you here at last?”
The pearly gates above or the hounds below is something I dropped
thinking about when I was about fifteen, but the reflective nature of
this shimmer of a wonder asks all the existential questions about
oneself, but also unites families and loved ones. Nothing highlights
this better than Lullaby Movements
“Ru-ru(Sleep
Little Baby)” which is an exploration into sleepy songs from around
the world, the lyrics here being from Eritrea.
So,
all in all a radiant effort from the best DJ that ever lived, a
carefully well-constructed, emotional, white-lighted mix-tape
that represents a maturity and evolution that is indeed as Jeff
Bridges sings on here: “It's
in every one of us.”
5. SUFJAN STEVENS – CARRIE & LOWELL (2015)
Hushed, toned down effort from one of the meltiest singer songwriters
since Jeff Buckley. Just checked on my 2009 write-up and he made it
in at #7 on the best albums of the noughties. Well, what a feat to
get so high on this one! The christmassiest singer-songwriter got a
whole lot more personal, singing about his mother abandoning his him
in a video store, then seeing her face on his brothers baby daughter
decades later – melancholic, haunting and poignant.
Especially since the grandiose 50 states project an album for each
state - that Sufjan had in the early 2000’s that obviously got
disbanded, discarded as an artistic whim – this pared-down effort
ushered in a new side of intimacy that I heard snippets of in the
unlikely place of my school, thanks to my colleague Harley Kean. Also
heard “Should Have Known Better” in the pool hall, which was
mental, considering the hushed, toned-down effort in a gangster
establishment.
6.
BURIAL – RIVAL DEALER (2013)
December
11th
2020 was the date that the mesmerizing
We Will Always Love You by
The Avalanches came out and it’s recently just added technicolor to
a doubtful time, the album dropping at such a crucial concurrence of
circumstance. The same thing happened a few years ago with this
record, three tracks that saw this dub boy go wayward in order of 1.
Rave-----2. Pop-----3. Sitar Tapestry.
I
remember my fourth Christmas away from home in Taiwan and the vibe of
this ringing, ringing out to be played. 1. Beats / snare. ……..2.
80’s…….....3. Hippie strings and transgender rights. Nah, I’m
just kiddin’ around over here. Burial has been more of an EP
artist, save for 2007’s stellar Untrue
and
therefore and such necessitated a change in direction.
The cold air in Taipei me felt on me limbs. Me felt on me forehead.
Me even felt from the fridge me yoinked open to grab another can of
Asahi from the convenience store. Like the winner on this list, this
album helped being 9688 km from home. Brought you so close when you
were so far.
7.
BEACH HOUSE – BLOOM (2012)
An absolute wonder of shoegaze and not the only entry of that genre
in the top 10 here. The Baltimore duo originally kicked off the
decade in 2010 with the velvety Teen Dream, then things
progressed, a.k.a puberty was done – just kidding lol- and the band
finally ahem bloomed :)
Enough
of text talk – the effect that this album was all about magnetism,
which was a theme of the decade – it is quite strange that I
noticed how as I was living closer to the earth’s core and equator
when I was in Taiwan I became super sensitive to earthquakes and
premonitions. I also got
super perceptive of people it was uncanny. A girl I went on a date
with in 2012 was so beautiful but
a little shy – and I was
singing the lyrics of “The Hours” over and over again in my head.
That whole washed-up on the rocks feeling was thoroughly warranted in
decade of being astray, isolated – washed up but not washed
out.
8.
SLOWDIVE – SLOWDIVE (2017)
To get a double dose of shoegaze in the top 10 is really something
special at this juncture – compared to the last end of decade list,
which had 10 gargantuanly different records in its wake – take this
10 as more of a special blend.
Slowdive’s fourth LP, and their first since 1995’s Pygmalion
clocked in eight songs at a cool 46 minutes and has a brilliant
sequencing. Lustrous opener “Slomo” for example was incredibly
dreamy and scented of heaven – before “Star Roving” comes
shooting out of the blocks at bullet pace, pile-driving a tectonic
riff.
And this is how it goes with this record, a crystalline, well-defined
and elegant piece of work that deserves to be held down as a stone
cold classic – time spells <3
9.
FLEET FOXES – CRACK-UP (2017)
This was like complex architecture – if the Seattle band had
previously had a song-based output – then this was the less
sandblasted, more holistic third. As the hardcore Fleet fans mainly
go for the first two LP’s over this one, this gets my nod as the
most overrated album of the 2010’s.
In the same way that The National cemented their place as my favorite
band over this decade – Fleet Foxes have sneaked up alongside them
– it’s kind of pointless having a #1 band anyway – why not just
like a few? I’d have to put Radiohead, Spiritualized and Vampire
Weekend.
Be it the rustic, be it the grainy, be it the candlewick, be it the
rainy, be it the rocky, be it the slip, be it the slip-road, be it
the grit.
Be it the end-all, be it begin, be in it to lose, be in it to win, be
the one for the bounce leading up to the catch, be the right thumb
that was injured leading up to the dance.
10.
KILLER MIKE – R.A.P. MUSIC (2012)
This record is just good lord.
11.
CLOUD NOTHINGS – HERE AND NOWHERE ELSE (2014)
What sounds like snarly punk doesn’t have in fact to be snarly –
it’s insecure, misguided, full of self-revulsion maybe but not
angry at anyone else per se, This album proved to be their fourth
outing and solidified the Cleveland outfit as one of the strongest
hook generating bands out there.
12.
HOW TO DRESS WELL – LOVE REMAINS (2010)
Taken
from my review 10 years ago:
“though
he's hyped to shit in the real world by all the blogs and hot girls
wearing pedal-pushers - he's too busy focusing on his icy-warm
harmonies. People say "lo-fi," or mention the 90's R&B
influence on his electronica, but I'm not gonna throw a genre
description into the mix. I think it's best to get lost in his hazy,
ghostly mix. If you like the idea of holidaying in Alaska and Hawaii
in one visit, then check this, partner!
13.
GIL SCOTT-HERON – I’M NEW HERE (2010)
An
autobiographical half hour in spoken word, funk and electronica, in
effect. We can call Gil-Scott the Daddy of rap music, the spoken poet
architecture boy wonder godfather extraordinaire. The fact that he
departed a year after this record was released gave it that
parting-shot like quality – and later got a couple of redux efforts
by Jamie XX and Makaya McCraven – it’s colossal and immortalized
-just as he’d like it. :)
14.
A.A.L – 2012-2017 (2018)
Doing
all the shiz that Daft Punk did in a Chilean-American form, Nicolas
Jaar absolutely took up the mantle of disco torch bearer in this
wildly old-school offering, funking up, souping up, caking this
record in make-up. The samples, beats and everything that this
offering puts forward are chosen with the taste of the cognoscenti.
15.
SHABAZZ PALACES – LESE MAJESTY (2014)
A
producers record – a neat tressled, cosmic voyage into the cosmos
with the rapping buried quite deep into the mix. This sophomore LP
from the Seattle duo kicked all the right boxes in wordplay,
cosmetology and forbearing. Funk filled, fuel-filled, full of
imagination, black and white on color – all in a chestnut box.
16.
PERFUME GENIUS – PUT YOUR BACK N 2 IT (2012)
There’s
been a bit of a theme in this top 20 that I’ve gone with some of
the less-consensus albums by a particular artist and here comes
another. For the perfume fans, many would point to his debut, or even
2020’s Set My Heart on Fire Immediately as his best album.
It’s certainly his tenderest and wooziest – there’s even a Phil
Collins throwback in “Floating Spit” – the most lo-fi of the
lo’fi’s. Fragility at iit’s finest.
17.
KURT
VILE - B'LIEVE I'M GOIN DOWN
(2015)
A
late thirty-something on an existential trip – sound familiar?
Best thing about this artst is that his surname is his real name, but
there is absolutely nothing vile about him, as his range on this
thing, from banjo to acoustic to electric to drawl
to scraggle to nook to cranny. This LP cemented the place of the
artist as one of the best voices in modern folk music.
18.
FLYING LOTUS – UNTIL THE QUIET COMES (2012)
In
which Steven Ellison decided to focus in on the slumbered down
elements of his scuttering jazztropic beats, featuring a range of
guests from Erykah Badu to Thom Yorke to Thundercat. The fact that it
was 18 songs condensed into 46 minutes, made the transitions
reminiscent of sleep itself – think of the puns you could have with
that one. “Rapid Ear Movement?” - ah, I’ll get me coat.
19.
BLOOD ORANGE – FREETOWN SOUND (2016)
This
one got described as all kinds of things – a mixtape, a futuristic
classic, a smorgasbord – or maybe these were just my artistic
flinches into absurdity, it’s hard to remember. In 2016, as I was
mentally preparing to leave Taiwan after 6 years there and this funk,
soul, rap, r & b or whatever it dememed itself to be got in all
up non at under over beneath my conscience, oh selecta!
20.
LCD SOUNDSYSTEM – AMERICAN DREAM (2017)
Picture
the scene: Stuttgart, 2017, living in an air-bed-and-breakfast, 5
minutes walk to work, a bucket of hardship, a crushed soul of
affliction - a job that was a hive of negative energy for a
multinational corporation that I still respect and ironically miss,
despite my scathing sentiment to the package.
Bang
comes this album - racing out of the blocks, to run come save me - as
the lyrics went on about his baby having a bad dream in his arms and
his friend warning him about the cocaine and then dove straight in.
