We're winding down 2010 by reflecting on the year's best entertainment (did you get to vote on all my polls?), but now it's our turn! It seems like yesterday I was sharing my Summer jams, but now that it's December, I'm reflecting on all the music that made my year rock. Here are my top 10 albums of 2010!
One of my favorite holiday albums is Sufjan Stevens's Songs For Christmas, and today the indie crooner has two more new Christmas songs, and he's teamed up with rockers The National for them.
There's an original called "Barcarola" and a classic as well ("Silent Night"), so if you're up for some new holiday carols, listen up (and if you're looking for something edgier, don't miss Kanye's "Christmas in Harlem"). Hear both songs when you read more
If you love indie music, then you probably spent most of your 2010 downloading hot new tunes. There were so many releases, it's hard to even keep track of them all! Take a look at these recent albums and, vote for the one the one that monopolized your iPod.
Don't forget to vote on all of our best of 2010 polls!
Your iPod's about to get a little more hip with this week's new music releases (and by the way, they're from two of my favorite artists). I've given the albums a listen and have some suggestions for which songs you should check out for a taste.
Belle and Sebastian, Write About Love
The lowdown: The mellow indie pop band releases its eighth studio album, a romantic series of mixtape-ready songs about love (as the title suggests), and all types: new, lost, and foregone.
Choice tracks: "I Want the World to Stop"
"Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John"
"Sunday's Pretty Icons"
Download this album if you: Need some lilting, lovely music to comfort you on cold nights.
Sufjan Stevens, The Age of Adz
The lowdown: After dabbling in a few side projects, the indie folk singer is back with his first full-length album of new tunes. This time, he mixes things up with an experimental album that gets a little synthesizer-happy.
Choice tracks: "Too Much"
"Vesuvius"
"I Walked"
Don't download this album if you: Were hoping for more of Stevens's banjo-infused signature ballads.
Ready for a new exciting season of entertainment? I've got you up to speed on the Fall movies to look forward to (see parts one and two here), and now I want to focus on music. There's a ton of great new albums coming your way in the next few months, so I've gone through them to tell you which ones I'm looking forward to most!
Sufjan Stevens surprised his fans with a new EP, All Delighted People, last week, but new tunes from the singer-songwriter don't end there. He just announced that he'll also be releasing a full-length album on Oct. 12 called The Age of Adz. To top it off, the first song off the album is available for free!
Here's your first listen to "I Walked," which leans more on the side of synth pop than some of Stevens's folk tunes (like what we heard on the EP). There's no resisting that sweet, lyrical voice though, so check it out when you read more
It's one of my favorite days of the week: Tuesday! Which means I get to add DVDs to my Netflix queue, along with some brand new tunes for my iPod. So check out today's music releases for what you should download. (And if you like to review albums, don't forget to take a peek at the Music Review Group in the community.)
A smooth ride: Sufjan Stevens takes a breather from his states project with BQE, an ode to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. He originally performed the work to accompany a film about the road, but the music stands on its own as a beautiful orchestral arrangement. Warning if you like Stevens's mellow voice: BQE is all instrumental. Still, it proves that he has what it takes as a composer, and I'd like to see him lend his talents to more of this sort of work. My picks: Movement II: Sleeping Invader, which sounds like a ballet dream sequence, and Traffic Shock, which mixes in clashing electronic sounds like a busy gridlock.
Pretty packs a punch: If you haven't heard of Florence and the Machine, get ready. Florence Welch is the latest spunky Brit singer on the scene, and her debut Lungs already went platinum in the UK. Today, it's available to buy stateside. She's the singer I'd want to be if I had my own band — a woman who wails while banging the tambourine — and her album veers between tough-chick anthems and haunting ballads a la Sarah McLachlan. Make sure you try the hand-clapping, feel-good Dog Days Are Over or the romantic Cosmic Love.
See two more releases when you read more
Ah, top 25 lists. I know some people hate to list music in this way because it's so hard (I know this first hand) to compare albums and favorite songs much less pick favorites. A wise first step for any list maker is to narrow the field by genre, which is what EW recently did to choose the best indie albums from each year, from 1984 up until the present.
They also gave themselves some rules for which albums are eligible, including defining "independent" as "the bands had to have been signed to an independent label for the given album" (so, Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirt doesn't count because that album was released on Geffen Records) and they have to be bands, not individual artists, which is why you won't see Elliott Smith or Sufjan Stevens in there.
Here are the picks for the past five years:
I have a nit to pick with their 2006 choice and probably would have chosen Band of Horses, Everything All the Time for the best of that year. What do you think? Anyone missing? To see the rest of the list, read more
