Yes, yes the second part of this list is very late; part one was posted way back in February. I initially had every intention of posting part two a week or so later, but school- finals, papers- got in the way for the last few months. Anyway it's done now. Better late than never? Ya, sorry.
5- Beach House- Teen Dream
Victoria Legrand understands the communicative capabilities of a song better than many. In Teen Dream, she shows her mastery of the medium. Speaking in terms of vague memories and personal metaphors, she has crafted a dazzlingly written and performed collection of songs. Her voice and words are deeply imbedded with meaning, intent, reminiscence, and heartbreak. But what makes Teen Dream such a stunning thing to listen to is she doesn't over sentimentalize the past or remember things through the hazy cloak of nostalgia. It's a refreshingly rationale and balanced memorializing of her past experiences; all of the good, and all of the bad. She speaks of a boy she new better than any one in “Zebra”. She realized as good as he seemed, it was all a deception. Not an oasis as she sings, but a mirage. It's a eloquent metaphor that warns us to acknowledge all the blemishes and excruciating truths of the past, not to gloss over them with some fictional history- or teen dream if you will. The point of this album isn't some starry eyed half remembered journey down memory lane. Rather it's a difficult, at times agonizing endeavour to confront all of the awful memories that linger in her mind. In “Norway” she attempts to recall a past love, confidently revealing it for what it was, “The beast he comes for you, the hunter of a lonely heart”. It's a far cry from something more analogous to a fairy tale romance. While Legrand shines a penetrating and revealing light on her past, she romanticizes it as well. She acknowledges the devastating events for what they were, but also aware, at times blissfully, of the character these events have forged her into. Not a jaded, cynical shell of a person, but someone fully in tune with her own self. Capable of absorbing the depths of misery but also experiencing pure elation. This mixture of opposites swirl together in a surprisingly harmonious fashion in both her voice and words. In “Walk in the Park” she boldly states “In a matter of time, you will slip from my mind”; despite the damaging implications of such, she sings in an almost triumphant manner. Listening to her purge herself of these demons conveys a wonderful sense of catharsis, and only after she spends most of the album doing this, can she once again give herself over to the hopeless romantic in her. The final tracks, “Real Love” and “Take Care” are about as reassuring and comforting as a song would ever need to be. It's all the more endearing in the context of the harrowing path she had to follow to get there. It's funny that she calls the album Teen Dream, as it is much more seasoned and devoid of immature hormonal myopia that taints so many other ballads and dreamy offerings of less weathered musicians.
4- Crystal Castles- (self titled)
Don't listen to Teen Dream and then this album, back to back- it'll fuck you up. Where as the former is an earnest look at all the suffering and jubilation one experiences, Crystal Castles' brilliant second album has little desire to delve into anything so laughably frail and weak as humanity. This album is a dark, ferocious, and completely unnerving collection. Alice Glass and Ethan Kath use all the wonders and horrors of the digital age to form a codex of volatile and cacophonous rhythms. The album opens with feral screeches that are subtly mixed into crass distortion in “Fainting Spells”, and things only get weirder from there. From the almost overbearingly and thunderously intense freak out that is “Doe Dear” to the paranoia inducing hooks of “Intimate”, ones that seem to chase themselves until they collide in an eruption of nauseating noise- it can be a challenging album to get through. But it's a uniquely enjoyable one as the more you listen to it, the more you appreciate not only how they expand the boundaries of what music can be, but also the boundaries of what a human voice can be. Alice Glass is more of a mechanical beast than frail young woman. She seems scathingly harsh yet emotionally detached in “Baptism”. I don't even know how to describe their interpretation of language in “Year of Silence”, other than it is a stunningly theatrical peace of work. She is at her most organic in “Celestia” a track that describes itself, downright celestial. Yet it is here that she is at her most dangerous and seductive, leading you along a path that grows more and more intriguing and epic, but also more ominous and foreboding. With this track and others such as the starry and dreamy “Vietnam”, they punctuate the assaulting array of sounds that predicates most of their songs, with beautifully orchestrated silky smooth pieces. You are jarringly forced to bounce back and forth between both extremes of this particular audio spectrum that Crystal Castles has cultivated here. Thus it is seemingly impossible not to be constantly engaged and stimulated by this album. With this album (I really wish they named the damn thing) Crystal Castles show their disdain for outmoded and comparatively boring ways others use music to communicate ideas and emotions. Admittedly most of what I hear is so bizarre and alien I fail to derive the meaning behind it, but that almost seems like the point. By being incapable of understanding the sentiments and intents of Crystal Castles you are free to fully appreciate their unique and marvellous synthesis of hauntingly eloquent and viciously brutal music.
3- Arcade Fire- The Suburbs
It's hard to articulate just how well articulated The Suburbs is. With this album Arcade Fire managed to convey in such a powerful and emotionally charged way what so many of us have always known and feared. Where as your typical critique on the stifling nature of a life of consensus in the suburbs is little more than an immature tirade about boredom and restlessness that usually segues into recreational drug abuse, Arcade Fire have crafted a truly grand, sweeping epic that gets to the heart of the truly damaging nature of such a concept. For such a long album there is an astonishing number of high points all showcasing an incredible amount of variety, even surpassing Funeral in this field I would argue. From terrifyingly suffocating tracks like “The Suburbs” to triumphant acts of defiance like “Sprawl II” the group weaves a vast and convoluted tale of a life far too ordinary- yet they make it sound extraordinary. “Rococo” plays out like a horror story, whereas tracks like “Month of May” are like an intense feel good hit summer. Like I said, ton of variety and nearly all of it is compelling for one reason or another. The group intuitively and cleverly utilizes their advantages of having two singers as Win Butler and Regine Chassagne fill two distinct yet equally vital roles. Butler plays the part of the distraught and utterly defeated individual, crushed under the weight of his own claustrophobic surroundings, only occasionally being reminded of the possibility of a larger world. His voice is strained and weathered, as if his words are imbedded deep in is throat and he must forcibly and painfully expel his thoughts. In Contrast Chassagne represents that optimistic and energetic mix of hopefulness and challenge to the status quo. Her voice is sweet and frail, yet steaming with confidence. The interplay between the two and the strategic placements of Chassagne's tracks at just the right points in the album is a testament to its fantastic production. Too often bands, suffering from a deficit of intent and direction, will simply base an album around hooks and beats, callously and disingenuously throwing canned and recycled lyrics into the void simply to get it out there. With The Suburbs, Arcade Fire inexorably demonstrate the possibilities and potential of a band on a mission- just as long as they have the talent to back it up.
2- Deerhunter- Halcyon Digest
Of all the albums on this list, Halcyon Digest is certainly the most confounding and difficult one to get a read on. This is very much due to the nature of Deerhunter, a group that modifies and reinvents their sound with an almost disorienting consistency- no one can really say what Deerhunter sounds like: Nu wave punk? Indie grunge? How about they sound like Deerhunter? That seems to be the point of Halcyon Digest; an album that documents a seemingly fatalistic void of creativity and innovation that the group painstakingly and eventually enthusiastically triumph over. One could wonder or even assume that bands like Deerhunter force their way through these tribulations with every album, and all we ever see is the polished end result. This time that struggle is the album. Beginning with Bradford Cox lost in some sort of rhythmless confine with only the most anaemic of ideas even hoping to gestate. The mood is set here perfectly with the opening track “Earthquake”, as sharp, blunt, and ultimately constricting percussion clashes however a hazy- almost victorian era in its eloquence- string section that slowly sways forward. Cox seems nearly comatose, barely able to conjure up a memory let alone an idea. He is at his intellectual and even cognitive rock bottom, bereft of any motivation to communicate at all it would seem; “Do you remember... waking up... on a dirty couch”, is all he can muster. It's a devastating yet gorgeous track. But while Cox is near defeat and teetering on the brink of collapse, he's not done just yet. Rather he forces a sense of enthusiasm on himself, with a bright eyed but shaky and confidence lacking second track “Don't Cry”. The tactic works, and he experiences some kind of glorious epiphany as he becomes his own muse and rediscovers the jubilation and exhilaration of creating music. In “Revival”, he at the same time realizes himself and convinces the listener, “darkness always, it doesn't make much sense”. From there the group, emboldened by a newly conjured creative zeal, set out to embrace and experiment with anything that relates and interconnects music and the process of creation. In “Desire Lines” they delve in into 90s alt rock, complete with a dizzying 4 minute guitar solo, one that hits pretty hard. In “Basement Scene” they simply want to see what they can come up with in their dreams, and what inspirations narcotics can afford them. By they end they've transformed into full blown heartland soul mode- and you find yourself amazed that you're hearing saxophone in a Deerhunter album. By the end, one wonders if they have “found their sound”. But that seems childishly far from the point. The whole point of Halcyon Digest is that creativity knows no bounds, and certainly cannot be constrained by something as benin as genre. In the final stunning track, “He Would Have Laughed”, Cox looks back on where he was and where he is, and marvels at how he got there, wondering if anyone else has undergone such a similar process. If you haven't, you really should- start with this record.
1- LCD Soundsystem- This is Happening
Much like selecting what I believed to be the best song of 2010, I found it almost comically easy deciding which album should adorn the top of this particular list. I knew this album would be #1 on this list before I had even consciously endeavoured to make a list. This is Happening is by far the best thing released in 2010; it's one of the best albums I've ever heard. It's the only album this year, where upon giving it it's first go I actually had to stop what I was doing, stand up, and just listen. I knew the first time I was exposed to it way back in March of 2010, that nothing better would be released that year. Of course with such declarative presumptions comes the conditional problem that one might convince himself of this simply to placate his own predispositions. This is not the case. I'm here to argue why This is Happening is the best album of 2010. I can do this over the course of a few sentences, an elongated paragraph, a fucking book; I'll convince you.
This is Happening's most integral and fantastic quality is one that will not be easily perceptible right away. This is not to imply that it is subtly implanted or designed for a subliminal level. Quite the contrary, what I'm referring to is overtly and bombastically on display for all to experience- but it's spread so thoroughly and deeply across all aspects of all the tracks that it will take multiple listenings to get a full and complete sense of it. What I am referring to LCD's desire and very much successful endeavour to combine as many seemingly disparate genres as possible together. Pop, punk, dance, techno, rock, indie, soul, and a seemingly endless melange of increasingly irrelevant sub genre descriptors are meticulously examined and collided together in spectacular fashion. For years James Murphy has lamented and decried the increasing segregation of genres. For so long pop music with it's ever changing and amorphous qualities acted as conduit for all other genres to communicate. But as pop music was stripped of all credibility and eventually relevance with the boy and girl band boom and bust of the 90s, no genre wanted to go near pop. As such all genres grew increasingly isolated and frustratingly boring. As genres became divided and subdivided they soon became more and more narrowly defined with fewer and fewer pathways to expansion. As the 2000s moved on, bands once again started to dip their toes in the genre meshing field. LCD Soundsystem has always been a pioneering crusader in this regard, and This is Happening is a colossal triumph in breaking down the arbitrary boarders of genres.
The songs in This is Happening are a staggering and brilliant synthesis of everything that music can be offering so much for anyone that has even a passing interest in the medium. “One Touch” is hard enough to come from the playbook of Kraftwork's industrial dance-rock stylings, yet is polished with the glistening veneer of a modern day club beat. “All I want” takes a traditional early 90s rock hook and throws it in a blender with Animal collective style experimental alt-pop. “You wanted a Hit” takes a chilled out and mysterious asiatic dance beat, and elongates it the point where it fades away into bare bones techno tune only to erupt into a cacophonous and blistering punk guitar riff, with all of them forcibly intermixed for the song's climax. The track is stretched out as long as it can be so the segues take so long yet seem so natural that one begins to think this is the only logical and perfectly linear path that these vastly different sounds could take together. “I Can Change” would be an honest to goodness love ballad, if it weren't so comically self deprecating, yet it's bulked up and energized with sparkling and pristine pop hook. “Home” goes beyond any of this, using really old synthesizers to create something shockingly new and innovative- like nothing I've heard before. What starts as an embryonic beat of hollow percussion and a mix of low and high keyboard tones bouncing around each other swiftly evolves into something more than the sum of its parts- it's as if a greatest hits survey of life was distilled into music, and then James Murphy screws around with it. I don't even know hoe to describe “Dance Yrself Clean”. Something like a faint, cozy little beat, that gently introduces you to the album, only for it to literally explode into a dizzying array of dance and techno sounds. It's pretty cool.
Beyond the considerable aesthetics of This is Happening, lyrically and sentimentally, this is a crowning achievement for James Murphy and company. Whereas the first album was about Murphy more than a little unnerved that he was losing his edge and that the hedonistic and bohemian crown of hipster stardom was being unceremoniously taken from him- by better looking and nicer people no less. Sound of Silver was about coming to terms with this inevitability but being anywhere from confused to scared shitless about how this will happen. Do you try and fight back like in “Us V. Them”? Do you try and glorify and eulogize the life you once knew as in “All My Friends”? Do you simply become traumatized by the sense of loss like in “Someone Great”. With This is Happening, Murphy no longer fears that decent into the lame unknown, into a life of normalcy; in fact he invites it (the band did just play their last show after all). But before he walks away from it all he needs to determine what aspects of himself and his life will carry forward, what elements form the salacious life of clubs, bars, drugs, and drunk girls can be successfully integrated into waking up in bed looking for the girl and the dog. Can you really “Dance Yrself Clean”? The “Drunk Girls” were fun, but he needs to move beyond the bear minimum of romance. With “You Wanted a Hit” He gives a scathingly critical analysis of a cynical and embittered industry that has been outdated and out manoeuvred. He doesn't need it anymore. With Pow Pow, he tries to paint a simple and ordinary life as one full of improvisational wonderment and “Discovery, Discovery, Discovery!!” By the time he reaches the end, “Home” He's ready to retire. He has it figured out, knowing that the most important things, love and rock, are things he will never walk away from. He's saying good bye to people, but he won't forget. It would be corny if it were coming from anyone other than James Murphy.
I've still barely scratched the surface on This is Happening. I didn't mention that David Scott Stone and Al Doyle are multi talented geniuses, or That Nancy Whong continues to be the coolest woman in music, or that Pat Mahoney is a fucking metronome on the drums. But hopefully you get the idea by now. As I write this, LCD Soundsystem just finished their final show at Madison Square Garden. They're not a group anymore. As sad as that is I can not think of a better conclusion to an incredible career as This Is Happening. I don't know if it is better than Sound of Silver- an album I called the very best of the last decade. I don't think it really matters. When it first came out people were trying to figure out what the “All My Friends” moment was or what the “Someone Great” moment was. It doesn't have those moments; that's a hasty and myopic way to look at the album. It has “Dance Yrself Clean” moments, it has “Home” moments. Murphy concludes the album, and the entire catalogue of LCD Soundsystem with the words “Look around you, you're surrounded, it won't get any better. So goodnight”. That's as good a way as any to put it.
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