Ah yes, the ultimate polarizing Top Ten Albums list. Does it look just like Pitchfork's? Does it look like we're trying too hard? Does it look like there was some sort of ugly indie/dance/folk/country/rock orgy that exploded somewhere near our dozen and a half contributors while they voted? We're sure you'll let us know. Here's how we did it this year:
Stealing outright from the Onion's AV Club, we contacted our most prolific contributors from the past year and gave them each 100 points. Each contributor could spend 1 - 15 points on 1 - 15 albums, in any way they wanted. For example, they could give 15 points each to six albums and discard the remaining 10 points. They could give 15 points each to four albums and 10 points each to an additional four. Or they could be more traditionally hierarchical, with 15 or so albums receiving a diminishing number of points. In the end, we totalled the points and also HOW MANY PEOPLE VOTED for the album, and ranked according to points and then votes. So, if two albums both received 30 points, but one got two votes and another got 30 votes, the 30-vote album would win.
You get it. Or you don't care. Without further ado:
If Rick Rubin wants to produce your big label debut, you must be doing something right. The Avett Brothers' I and Love and You fits well into the luminary producer's lineup of fantastic albums with it's stripped-down feeling and genre-bending sound. While I'm certain there are fans of the band who feel this album is over-produced compared to their earlier releases, there's no denying that the coupling of Rubin's production skill and the Avett Brothers' outstanding songwriting and ability to perform on the bleeding edge of their emotions has produced a recording that will earn the band the recognition they deserve.
Opening with the its namesake, the album begins so calmly that if it weren't for the poignant lyrics giving you the feeling that deep below the pleasant tones there is an angst ready to spit fire, you might actually think you're in for a mellowing experience. Quite the contrary. To get a feel for the breadth of the album give "The Perfect Space" a listen. What starts out with a melancholy sentiment works it's way into a feverishly rollicking expression of frustration and then collapses back into pleas for sympathy. Indie-rock, bluegrass, folk, and pop all twist together to make an album as diversified as the band's audience. These guys might even give The Jonas Brothers a run for most popular family band. - Steve Benoit
Solo projects can be a double-edged sword. When brother/sister duo The Knife announced they were taking a break, it came as a surprise that Karin Dreijer Andersson then released such an outstanding solo album so quickly. One that's even darker, more foreboding, and more obtuse than Silent Shout. Gloomy, catchy, tribal, and mysterious, it invites comparisons to Bjork and early Siouxsie, yet at the same time bucks any direct comparison with a bold blending of avant-garde attitude and pop/electronic quirkiness. What more do you want? Eastern-tinged melodies, melancholic droning, Brian Eno-styled electronic thrills: sure, she's got those. As Andersson puts it, "My music is a lot of everything." And it's not a gimmick. This album delivers over and over again. It's solid, well thought-out (if strange) music. It has stayed in my mind and on my playlist since its release. - Kelly Davidson
Proper blues doesn’t seem to have much of a place in the world o’music these days, and that’s just fine by me. That kind of beat doesn’t belong in the ears of just anyone, especially if their mind is too busy with the bullshit of American Idol and any other nonsensical attempt at music produced out there. But in the underbellies of popularity sits musicians like Dan Auerbach, with his scuzzed-out guitar and hypnotic barroom charm, and that makes everything alright. Mastering his dirty brand of rockin’ blues, both with cohort Patrick Carney in The Black Keys and on his tremendously fantastic solo effort, Keep It Hid, Auerbach remains a savior in a sometimes lame and monotonous world of tunes. As he growls the lyric “Nothing about you that don’t please me” on the track “I Want Some More,” the deal is done. A boozy declaration of love if it ever was one, Auerbach shows he doesn’t need Carney to help him write a magnificent song. The imagery propelled on “Heartbroken, In Disrepair” does just the same, advancing your thoughts to a lonesome bar in the desert without an inch of hesitation. Years of trying to cope with the fact that THAT voice comes from THAT man has brought me to terms with the fact that awesome doesn’t necessarily need to be questioned. - Nicci Boots
Out of the cold, provincial, mildly elitist and very academic clime of Cambridge, Massachusetts hails Passion Pit. We'd love to keep 'em to ourselves, but Michael Angelakos and band refuse to stay put. But how can you stay put when "Sleepyhead" and "Little Secrets" demand some serious shaking? This year found Passion Pit's rise from local heroes to the national exposure that a cell phone advertising campaign provides. Loved or derided as dance music, their sprightly tunes take a sparse electronic landscape and layer crisp drums for an effect that provides good grounding for playful falsettos. This is the bright, sparkly lure of Manners.
Sure, there are philosophical musings on the album, lamentation of love lost, and solid synthesizer work. Yet, as they sing, "and I believe in gentle harmony," we concur that it's all about the music. Live, they manage to exude the same earnest energy found on the record, and even carry off a touch of the anthemic on "Moth's Wings." Passion Pit seem almost devoid of irony, and this makes them amazingly endearing. How else to explain why I spent an hour watching videos of Angelakos working the "higher and higher" refrain with the PS22 kids chorus? Around here, where spring barely counts as a season, you need something to make it until summer. That something is Passion Pit. - Ian Doreian
Bromst is an avalanche of ideas brought to life by a sonic shaman off his meds and up way past his bedtime. It’s brilliant, and as you marvel at the mania that Dan Deacon makes his home in, you’ll quickly find it hard to tell where you should put your brain down. Will you choose the chipmunk choir, or the player piano that sounds like it snacks on PCP? Then again, why not the electrified currents that are so revved up, you almost have to wonder if you’ve actually been listening in on the orgasm of an arcade game. This is what it sounds like to color outside the lines, and though it can feel like an assault on your senses, the heart of this record is so warm and inviting that, in the end, it replenishes rather than depletes. So, if you were the type of kid whose heart sank when the teacher said recess was over, come sit in the sandbox of someone who never stopped playing. - Colin McLaughlin
“Rustically Earnest Indie Pop” is a mouthful of a genre, but there is no better way to describe Freelance Whales’ debut album Weathervanes. The record is a collection of feel-good tunes flecked with banjo riffs, at once accessible and nuanced. I’ve been listening to the album for a few short months now, and my favorite Weathervanes track has changed five times—that’s the sort of album it is. There are hints of other artists within these songs: Sufjan Stevens, Iron and Wine, Arcade Fire. But there’s also something fresh about Freelance Whales that gives you that "these guys are going to be special" vibe. Eschewing the en vogue lo-fi and synth-pop trends, the Whales set out on a course all their own, content to blaze a trail marked by equal parts clarity and sincerity. I’ll follow them down that trail anytime—I bet it leads to campfires and singalongs. - Chris Barth
Saddle Creek re-released Hometowns in July of this year, culling a gem from relative obscurity to the lime light of second-stage stardom. It’s a worthy choice, perfect in its imperfections. The album captures muddied beats and strained notes, but that only manages to add to the appeal. When Paul Banwatt's drums are scampering up and over backyard fences on “Four Night Ride,” what matters is the urgency, not the precision. Ferris Bueller’s flawless veneer may be admirable, but it’s Cameron’s humanity that truly elevates the movie. Similarly, it’s the humanity of Hometowns that makes it resonate. The songs are full of searching—not self-assured—poise, which is ultimately more interesting and more appealing: not just for what it is, but what the next album will be when the Rural Alberta Advantage better find their voice. Considering these songs are pushing two years old, it shouldn’t be too long of a wait. - Daniel Couch
It’s Blitz! has the leather-jacketed, health-warning'ed allure of a guilty pleasure, because while once upon a time Karen O and the boys were legitimately scary, a banshee/succubus cross with gargoyles for backing, now the menace has the teasing playfulness of a Halloween costume or a game of grossout; the growling, jungle-fevered “Shame and Fortune” is the ugliest they get on the entire album.
Here then, at her cutest, O reveals an unnerving resemblance to Gwen Stefani in her iron-hipped coo, though her post-coital, cat-burgling voice easily outstrips that particular princess. On “Skeletons,” O sounds nearly Dylanesque in her drawling Method delivery and sloppy determination to run down all the notes. And oh! the songs: “Hysteric” is one of the most subtly insidious bits of glitz in the pop universe, O sighing sotto voce “You suh, denlee compleet me…” with a terminal/initial gasp as if drawing breath before, perhaps, her next good howl. - Andrew Iliff
My love for Mayer Hawthorne (Andrew Mayer Cohen) was illustrated humiliatingly one day in the Haite-Ashbury Amoeba when, utterly dumbfounded, I dug a colored, heart-shaped 45 out of the new arrivals bin and immediately jumped up to show the rest of the store what I had found. I looked crazy, and people treated me as such, but it didn't matter . . . I had It Just Ain't Gonna Work Out on vinyl! In 2008, I had been a pusher of Stones Throw's Mayer Hawthorne and said single, so in 2009 when A Strange Arrangement was released, you can believe I was all over it.
Mayer's soulful falsetto is unforgettably classic, reminiscent of a young Curtis Mayfield or, dare I say, Eddie Kendricks circa People . . . Hold on. A Strange Arrangement is a "listen beginning to end, 3-4 times before deciding you love it" kind of album. It was hard to readjust my brain back to expecting—no, craving—that stripped-down, Now Again sound, but now that I am here I can't get enough. Buy this album. Preferably on vinyl. Preferably at a Mayer Hawthorne and The County show. - Tighe McGillivray
As a student of classical music, Dave Longstreth must have delighted in the story of the premiere of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and the audience's disgusted, even riotous, response. WNYC's Radio Lab offers an interesting interpretation of the listeners' outrageous reaction: their brains couldn't handle the sound. New noise makes brain activity fluctuate wildly. Only with repeat listens do the neurons form a smooth path such that the listener recognizes the noise as normal (and not riot-inciting).
Perhaps this likewise explains the divisive reactions to Longstreth's Dirty Projectors. In Bitte Orca, the players' unpredictable melodies and jarring tempo shifts are Stravinsky's dissonance. Upon hearing, some react in disgust: it actually hurts their brains. Others enjoy the struggle to make sense of it. For melophobe, after countless listens, repetition has bred normalcy. Six months after we first struggled through "Temecula Sunrise," we're singing "And what hits the spot, yeah, like Gatorade?" with Longstreth's signature melismatic style.
That's not to say that Bitte Orca didn't find division amongst melophobe voters. A common criticism was a lack of lyrical or emotional connection with the listener. Yet this is one of Bitte Orca's most remarkable feats. Sure it has some sweet melodies ("Two Doves"), booty-shaking grooves ("Stillness is the Move"), and lovely harmonies ("Bitte Orca"). But most of the lyrics are petty or absurd, presumably irrelevant. Instead, what keeps us listening is the fascinatingly unpredictable, yet clean and precise path the music takes. Our neurons might hate us for it, but we can't stop listening to Bitte Orca. - Beth Doreian
