1. Flying Lotus – Cosmogramma January 12, 2011
Posted by theidentitythief in favorite 25 albums of 2010.Tags: and the world laughs with you, cosmogramma, dance of the pseudo nymph, do the astral plane, flying lotus, recoiled, Satelllliiiiiiiteee, thom yorke
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This album should have been impossible. It’s rare enough for a beatmaker to display this much depth of intuition, and it’s even rarer for one who is so aware of his strengths to stretch this far past both his peers and his entire back catalog. I mean, four years ago, I thought this guy was just another Dilla knockoff. My, how he’s grown! It’s one thing to be ambitious, to develop a lively, animated style of making beats and then to use that method to swallow up galaxies of styles and genres. But ambition isn’t even the most important element of what Flying Lotus is doing. His spirit hovers over this album like an all-seeing eye. Anywhere you look, there he is. The subtle imperfection in the hi hats? It’s him. The way the buzzy bass synth in “Recoiled” jumps out of the mix toward the middle, when the chords change? That’s him too. The lazy groove of the pitch shifted rap sample in “Satelllliiiiiiiteee”? If the shoe fits. This album doesn’t have a lazy genetic strand in its DNA. It oozes spirit and life, despite indulging so deeply in mind-altering studio wizardry. Every element speaks like an answer to a question you haven’t even thought to ask. It’s a musical oracle. Its sense of purpose is like your dad’s hand on your shoulder when he tells you everything’s going to be okay.
Everything’s going to be okay.
I am tired of thinking about the list. I am glad it is over.
2. Sufjan Stevens – The Age of Adz January 12, 2011
Posted by theidentitythief in favorite 25 albums of 2010.Tags: 50 states, age of adz, bandcamp, bqe, enjoy your rabbit, futile devices, now that i'm older, sufjan stevens
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“I’m not fucking around.”
-Sufjan Stevens
I didn’t see this coming. This work was massive, for the same reasons that everyone said Kanye’s album was massive. It draws liberally from all of Sufjan’s past phases, from the spazzy electronica of Enjoy Your Rabbit to the hushed, introspective folk of the aborted 50 states project to the delirious orchestral maximal minimalism of The BQE. And it’s not just a mash of styles, but a suite of epic, well-written songs whose stylistic trappings are as important as their content and their internal drama. For someone who relies so heavily on devices as a means of expression, the two-minute musical statement at the album’s front end, “Futile Devices,” goes surprisingly easy on words, letting its lightly sketched observations float freely amidst a pointillistic backdrop of pianos and plucked guitars. The rest of the songs, which run considerably longer, float on wings of faith as often as Sufjan’s lyrics give ground to his doubts. “Now That I’m Older,” the luxurious, beatless tableaux toward the album’s center, revels in hard-won maturity while its sonics gaze wistfully beyond it. Although The Age of Adz feels like a creative apocalypse, I, for one, hope there’s more of a story on the other side.
3. Dirty Projectors + Björk – Mount Wittenberg Orca January 12, 2011
Posted by theidentitythief in favorite 25 albums of 2010.Tags: bjork, dave longstreth, dirty projectors, mount wittenberg orca, save the whales
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“All in all is all we are.”
-Kurt Cobain
I already wrote a paragraph about this album too (it’s number 17 on TMT’s list), a paragraph that took me hours to write. It would have been nice if I could have learned a lesson from Dave Longstreth, if I could have ignored my tendency to try to revise and perfect everything I do and let out a product that was raw and immediate. But it helps if you already have a strong back catalog, if you have been challenging yourself for years, and not only yourself, but an a group of incredibly talented singers with a wide range of strengths and personalities. Mount Wittenberg Orca isn’t just immediate; it breathes. Longstreth’s compositions usually don’t leave room for someone like Björk, who has such a quirky and intuitive grasp of self expression as he does. But it just goes to show you: brevity is a gift; not even an indie rock vet should need more than 15 minutes to make a solid artistic argument.
4. DJ Nate – Da Trak Genious January 12, 2011
Posted by theidentitythief in favorite 25 albums of 2010.Tags: audio dope, da trak genious, dj nate, dj roc, planet mu, the crack capone
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I said almost everything I am capable of saying about Juke in a review of DJ Roc’s album The Crack Capone. I stand by those opinions; Da Trak Genious isn’t really one of those albums that fits the traditional idea of a “good album.” It’s harsh, repetitive, and difficult to sit through, but there’s a focused purpose hiding under all the sampled chanting and clattering drum machines that hits me in the solar plexus and empties my lungs. What I am trying to say is that DJ Nate’s music takes my breath away. It doesn’t matter whether or not I like what he’s doing; the momentum is so strong that it steamrolls right over my opinions. And not just opinions, but my perception of meaning and time. It’s like a drug. Audio dope. Thanks for the fix, Planet Mu!
5. James Blake – CMYK EP January 12, 2011
Posted by theidentitythief in favorite 25 albums of 2010.Tags: aaliyah, are you that somebody, caught out there, cmyk, james blake, kelis
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Context. It’s the bearer of conditional truths, things like who’s allowed to use the N-word. Sampling can be a legal issue, ever since the time the Turtles sued De La Soul over “Transmitting Live from Mars,” or it can be a contextual issue, a way of playing on collective memory, dragging the past through the gears of invention. James Blake’s “CMYK” samples two 90s R&B hits: Kelis’s “Caught Out There” and Aaliyah’s “Are You That Somebody,” but instead of being polite about it, the track pitch shifts the original vocals nearly beyond recognition, filtering the source material through a propulsive, atmosphere-heavy composition that wraps itself in their fabric without having anything to do with them. This clearly isn’t plagiarism, but it’s not a polite nod to 90s nostalgia either. James Blake wears a lot of hats, plundering the recent past on CMYK, plundering his own vocals and piano work on the subsequent Klavierwerke EP, and toward the end of 2010, releasing a sparse, subdued Feist cover. He’s not riding the trends like a surfer rides waves; he disfigures everything he touches, stretching his material beyond its previous form with a merciless creative gravity.
6. Jaga Jazzist – One-Armed Bandit January 12, 2011
Posted by theidentitythief in favorite 25 albums of 2010.Tags: jaga jazzist, one armed bandit
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I haven’t heard this album since last January, when I reviewed it for Tiny Mix Tapes. I thought it was great, at the time, and then forgot about it, until November came and I had to start scrambling to recover all the memories that dozens of 2010′s six packs had tried to erase. One-Armed Bandit is like a person you meet the first day of school who you realize is more interesting than anyone else you will know all year, even though you only hang out with that person until you start meeting other people. A person who talks too much, whose friendliness you take for granted once you can afford to ignore it. And maybe the friends you meet later, on your own initiative, keep you in your comfort zone, but that pure friendliness that gives without asking is a treasure whose value often goes underestimated.
7. Drake – Thank Me Later January 12, 2011
Posted by theidentitythief in favorite 25 albums of 2010.Tags: drake, thank me later
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I’ll be honest; I’ve only heard this album once, and I will probably never listen to it again. It’s weird that I ever listened to Drake in the first place, and it’s even weirder that I downloaded some of his music after being so thoroughly annoyed by the ubiquity of his radio singles. Drake’s place on this list is as much of a shot at Weezy (you have my permission to start writing your rhymes on paper) and Yeezy (put your megalomania in a sarcophagus) as it is a reluctant acceptance of his ability and of the strength of his product. The way his songs go from full-throttle, bird-flipping anthems of promiscuity and consumption to hushed, genuinely introspective mood pieces…well, it took me by surprise. And his switching back and forth between singing and rapping? Yeah, it’s kind of a gimmick, but it works for him.
I usually put a song at the end of each post, but if you don’t know Drake’s songs yet, you might as well just turn on a radio.
8. The Besnard Lakes – The Besnard Lakes are the Roaring Night January 12, 2011
Posted by theidentitythief in favorite 25 albums of 2010.Tags: are the roaring night, besnard lakes, land of living skies, like the innocent, like the ocean
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“Kill all the swine, young and old…”
A melody can be powerful on its own, but it can be a lot more powerful if you support it. A lot of musicians realize this, and they support their melodies with grooves and convincing performances. But you can go further. It’s like dessert. Dessert is delicious enough on its own, but it’s even better when you’re a kid and your parents make you wait for it. When you start eating whatever is actually on your dinner plate, and you know there’s going to be pie later, when the pie comes, it is so delicious. And when you know you’re only going to get one slice before bed, you savor that slice. You let it taste as delicious as it possibly can. You let the taste sit in your mouth while you chew. This paragraph isn’t about the value of food; it’s about the value of composition. Composition isn’t a mere display of technique; it’s a means of preserving value. A big chorus, a guitar solo, a meaningful line of poetry: these things are enhanced by a strong and patient musical composition. The Besnard Lakes are the Roaring Night resonates with me not only because of the echoey boy/girl vocals, the walls of guitar sound, and the careful pacing of melodic development, but because the compositional balance of all these elements intensifies the joy I get from this music. You can skip four and a half minutes into “Land of Living Skies Pt 2″ and hear the high point of the album, but without knowing how it got there, it won’t taste nearly as sweet as it could.
9. Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy January 11, 2011
Posted by theidentitythief in favorite 25 albums of 2010.Tags: beautiful dark twisted fantasy, devil in a new dress, kanye, power, runaway
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There’s one difficult thing about Kanye’s work: he makes such outrageous claims that he forces his critics into a corner. Either My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a beautiful, dark, twisted masterpiece, or it’s a criminally overrated piece of trash, the product of an incurable narcissist whose brain never learned how to filter itself. The thing is, if you are someone like Kanye and your self confidence is spiraling out of control like a tumor, there are only two reasonable career paths for you: rapper and president. And who would be stupid enough to choose president? Kanye talks big because rap has always involved big talk; his biggest selling point is not his art, but his ability to convince everyone that it’s important. He deserves credit for his incredible work ethic, his willingness to challenge himself, and his dedication to presentation, but not for his cringeworthy punchlines or the vocoder solo at the end of “Runaway”. MBDTF is important not because of Kanye’s boasts about his worth as an entertainer, but because it offers such a detailed view of hip hop’s split conscience. There’s a huge range of awareness that separates “Power” from “Runaway,” and it’s the fact that Kanye has used this medium to animate so many contradictory states of mind that makes MBDTF worth our attention.
10. Big Boi – Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty January 11, 2011
Posted by theidentitythief in favorite 25 albums of 2010.Tags: back up plan, big boi, sir lucious left foot, son of chico dusty
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I believe I would have been more useful to the world if I had been born as a white person, at least a century ago. As it is, I am a black person living in a doomed century. I like old ideas better than new ones. I am using this as my excuse for why I did not finish this list on time. I know that anybody who usually cares about Best Of lists has already stopped thinking about them by now, but nevertheless, I am going to finish what I started. I am going to knock out the rest of this list in one sitting. One paragraph per album. Here it goes:
“Shittin’ on niggas and peein’ on the seat…”
-Big Boi
Big Boi is the rarest kind of rapper: a veteran whose bold creativity has helped his marketability instead of contradicting it, an agile lyricist whose dense verses leap off the page instead of getting choked by idiosyncrasies, an auteur whose vision guides musical trends instead of resenting them. Sir Lucious doesn’t have much to do with anything coming out of Atlanta these days, even though both Gucci and T.I. appear on the album. And although it sold well, it seems as if its release hasn’t made much of an impact on its genre. At first I thought it was because people were taking Big Boi’s consistently brilliant output for granted, but then I realized that maybe it was because no one is really capable of co-opting this style without sounding like an idiot. This album is a work of innovation that could only have been produced by someone who, besides knowing his game and his music inside and out, has gained all his wisdom without losing connection to the spirit that made people lose their minds to hits like “So Fresh, So Clean” all those years ago.
