The Best Records of 2010

***

TOP TEN ALBUMS

By my count, I listened to 81 new albums in 2010. I loved 23 of them. All are listed below; I listened to every one of them again to make this list, the preliminary draft of which I've worked on throughout the year. The preliminary draft quickly went out the window. Ten albums were separated out as my absolute top choices; at least four more deserved to be on it and would have been in a lesser year. Those are the first four listed under "honorable mentions" below; all those underneath are of nearly equal merit, but the first fourteen went the extra mile. As for these ten, there's not one bad cut among them, and most not only have an overwhelming number of excellent songs that sound fabulous on their own, they demand to be heard together. Meanwhile, #2 and #1, which I loved on release, have increased enough in stature that I'm increasing the grades in their respective reviews to A+. I think it's a good idea to withhold the super-high grade until the end of the year like that, yeah? I'm going with it. At any rate, these were the records that I lived with and that soundtracked my world in 2010. A banner year for rock & roll.


10. Deerhunter: Halcyon Digest (4AD)
It might be unfair to accuse Bradford Cox of being obsessed with the past, so let's say he's preoccupied. That's the reason this record sounds so lovingly distant, designed and executed as a devastatingly vague journey brushing shoulders with all manner of emotions. Even at its most direct, the record's mystery is tantalizing. You can come away with impressions of a psychedelic LP, or a shoegaze revival, or an exploration of 1950s stylistics funneled through god knows what kind of lo-fi technique. The point is that this is just about as densely layered as rock & roll gets without losing its impeccable direct touch. It might take its time to move you, but once it does, you're gone and grateful.
Best cuts: "Basement Scene"; "Desire Lines"; "Don't Cry"
[Full review]


9. Love Is All: Two Thousand and Ten Injuries (Polyvinyl)
Josephine Olausson says she could never be grumpy on stage. "That wouldn't be very nice." Perhaps not, but I don't know of a singer these days willing to lay herself and her demons out with the abandon she shows, while managing to make it some kind of a joyful act. Even at her most reflective ("A Side in a Bed") and depressive ("Again, Again"), a brilliantly bright life zigzags through her voice. The band's tight, eclectic, noisy pop falls behind with the most infectious enthusiasm imaginable. They can do the X-Ray Spex or the Fifth Dimension, all with wisdom and grace. The lyrics are mostly about heartbreak, but sometimes they're about the birds singing with all their might, and they're always about being alive. Honest, intense, likable, minimalistic, bursting -- it is impossible to conceive higher art than this.
Best cuts: "A Side in a Bed"; "Early Warnings"; "False Pretense"


8. Hot Chip: One Life Stand (astralwerks)
Ten years in, Hot Chip's earned the right to do as they please; this is still dance music, it's not a radical redesign, but it's on their terms. From older-brother sentimentality to unabashed romanticism, it's a complete stripping of the old beats & irony routine. The bangers are the best they've ever done -- "Hand Me Down Your Love" and "We Have Love" drive harder and fiercer than Made in the Dark at its wildest -- but so are the harmonies ("Take It In"). Like anybody who's done a bit of growing up and marrying and child-having, they've gotten paranoid ("Keep Quiet," "Thieves in the Night"), but mostly they're stunned and cornered by beauty. "Alley Cats," "Brothers," and "Slush" are mostly beatless, calm adult documents that sound nothing like Hot Chip except check it, you can still bask in them and share it all with the loved one of your choice.
Best cuts: "Hand Me Down Your Love"; "One Life Stand"; "Brothers"
[Full review]


7. The National: High Violet (4AD)
Depression, economic anxiety, pervasive fear, and more depression -- sounds sexy to me! These simple, haunted melodies are performed with such aplomb you'd never trust that there's as little hope as they seem to imply. Raise a glass to soldiering on despite everything sucking, and raise it higher to doing so with guitars. The boys cop to their masculinity without hiding behind it; the words are so elegantly minimal as to feel more universal than such felt specificity would imply. Sometimes hopelessness and dread just feel really fucking right and beautiful, and I don't know that anyone's ever captured that so well on record. The way that "I never thought above love when I thought about home" stings will stick with you, and it feels bloody good.
Best cuts: "Lemonworld"; "Bloodbuzz, Ohio"; "Anyone's Ghost"


6. The Walkmen: Lisbon (Fat Possum)
The Walkmen are farther along in their career than any other band in this top ten. This is their fifth proper album, and to debate whether it's their best seems almost to miss the point of loving an act so consistent. They've yet to put out an unimpressive recording, but every year their wizened, calm way with a melody and a sustained emotion becomes more of a miracle. Lisbon has their typical dynamic rock move and their shimmering traditionalist pastiches of roots-rock and punk, but never before have they copped to so much pure beauty. The two closing tracks, "While I Shovel the Snow" and "Lisbon" revel in the miracle of jangling guitar and vocal abandon like outtakes from Marquee Moon. It's so modest it's difficult to make much more of it than it makes plain, but while this LP's on, every second sounds like heaven.
Best cuts: "Stranded"; "Lisbon"; "Torch Song"
[Full review]


5. Titus Andronicus: The Monitor (XL)
Bleeding and literate, overcome with rage, this eloquent near-masterpiece is the place we always wanted punk rock to end up. This is adult music about fucking grownup, boring-ass problems that cannot conceal its adolescent fury, cannot even contain its frustration and fear. It's couched in some curious if rousing Civil War rhetoric and a pained fraying that takes some getting used to, but by its peak, you're feeling every moment. These Jerseyites consolidate their already wounded influences into something even more tragic, sad, and wild. Much of the most affecting music of our time hinges upon a distrust of modern life and a passionate grasping at solace; The Monitor sees no relief from the terror, but it certainly puts up a beautiful fight.
Best cuts: "The Battle of Hampton Roads"; "Theme from 'Cheers'"; "A More Perfect Union"
[Full review]


4. The Tallest Man on Earth: The Wild Hunt (Dead Oceans)
It takes most singer-songwriters a hell of a lot longer to learn how to be this subtle. Before even coming a tenth of the way toward wearing out his welcome with the streamlined, stark folkster sound of Shallow Grave, with its traditionalist bluegrass themes (all murder ballads and blizzards and desert sands) and melodies that seemed tantalizingly familiar, Swede wonder Kristian Matsson takes a turn for texture and reflection, the sound of a life passed on a series of roads, the sound of songs fading gently into skies. He yells more, for sure, but the treasures take longer to process; it's a bag of tricks as haunting and vivid as the debut, but in the end, seemingly even more personal, and certainly more beautiful.
Best cuts: "Love Is All"; "Thousand Ways"; "Burden of Tomorrow"


3. Janelle Monáe: The ArchAndroid (Bad Boy)
Oh, sure, we all talk about recording cataclysmically eclectic R&B albums based on Fritz Lang's Metropolis, but who goes through with it? This lady, that's who. And get this -- the silly-ass concept is the least interesting thing about it. Monáe may or may not be using her framework here as a method of exorcising demons. It sounds like she's splitting her guts, but then again, no one could do so many things without a little posturing, right? Whatever. This album is as major a work of pop genius as we've had in the last decade; everything she attempts, from Carpenters-esque pastoral pop to rainy-day bebop to shady freak-funk, comes off, and her gleeful weirdness and experimentation coalesce almost cosmically with her obvious excellence as a performer. This is the most artistically bold album of the year, and yet everything on it falls on the ear like sugar. One hell of a fucking performance, this.
Best cuts: "Cold War"; "BaBopByeYa"; "Oh Maker"


2. Kanye West: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (Def Jam)
All the hype is true. It delivers in all the right ways -- the juggernauts like "Monster" and "Power" lay it on you like dynamite. The structure of both album and individual songs is primed for sparkling, fiery release. What sticks with you, though, are the quieter moments. The sheer pain of "Blame Game," as brutal and beautiful as any breakup song in the pop music annals, is enough to make even its goofy Chris Rock skit ache with grief. On the entire album, Kanye passes the ultimate test for the self-involved artist: his self-loathing fascinates, braces, and connects. Oh, and also, hearing it all come together has the primary effect of making you want, need to hear it again. Now.
Best cuts: "Runaway"; "Monster"; "Power"
[Full review]


1. Joanna Newsom: Have One on Me (Drag City)
The best albums, the ones that deserve to have a place in some sort of pantheon, are those that expand the form of the album itself. Because pop albums are inherently a limited form -- there are still those of us who believe the primary form of expression in this field should be the 7" -- and as shuffled years go by, it becomes ever more difficult to justify the very act of setting time aside for forty-five minutes of music on the artist's terms, in the artist's sequence, with the artist's full agenda. Expand that to over two hours and you may have a problem. Or you may be a pop genius. Kanye West's entitlement to such a distinction was cemented in 2004 with his debut album; his new record is his best since that landmark, and it qualifies as a work of actual art that justifies the album fixation of many rock fans. Sufjan Stevens certainly did new things this year too. But only Joanna Newsom matched an intimidating, endless army of near-perfect songs -- earlier in the year, I counted one near miss ("Kingfisher"), which has since found its way to me, so now I say eighteen hits and no duds -- with an album entity that presented itself as an altogether new medium. This three-record set explicitly designed to be heard in fits and starts and acquainted with slowly, is the most innovative album package I'm aware of in the last decade. We can spend years debating its conceptual purposes. I suggested it's a year in the life of a failing relationship before Newsom struck that down by relating it's meant to all take place in twenty-four hours. If there's a story to all this, it really doesn't matter. Each of the three records becomes a side of our story, and that's what makes this feel so new, so much a part of these vastly different times. And then, of course, there's the music: Newsom's voice is softer and more nuanced than ever before, her songs more carefully crafted but also more precise and subtle, without sacrificing her most hard-hitting emotional catharsis to date on "Occident," "Go Long," and the absolutely shattering, shaken-to-the-core "Does Not Suffice." We meet this album in February or March as a lengthy, difficult, and fascinating piece of compositional brilliance and warm, feathery performance and production craft. We leave it as a greatest-hits package, the peaks innumerable. If "Baby Birch" and "Ribbon Bows" alone, with bravura singing and wounded fray, don't qualify her as the biggest deal going in 2010, well, I give up. Best album of the last three years.
Best cuts: "Occident"; "Good Intentions Paving Co."; "Baby Birch"
[Full review]

HONORABLE MENTIONS
(Others I loved in 2010)


Surfer Blood: Astro Coast (Kanine)
It kills me that this isn't in my top ten. This album was as omnipresent for me in 2010 as any of those above, and it continues to reveal itself. This is a far more sophisticated, fascinating album than it initially seems to be, and that's even discounting the provocative, silly, confounding lyrics; credited as a surf rock revival and lumped in with Best Coast and Wavves, this reveals a core of poetic agony and loss -- every harmonized moment stings in some odd way. Late in the year the awe-inspiring "Anchorage" finally hit me emotionally; it builds and builds on its guitar heroics as though their own like-a-rock intensity is a meaning unto itself, as though that joyful noise is as much something to believe in as it ever was, indeed as though there's nothing else. But the repeated plead to "take it easy on me" in one song ("or we will both be sorry," adds another) displays fear in these youngsters' eyes I'm not sure they know won't go away with time. If they're wise, they don't want it to, and they won't let it when they release their debut on Warner Bros. sometime in the next couple of years. Good luck, guys, and even if you don't pull off anything else, I'll treasure this one permanently. It feels like escape into void, the highest compliment a rock album can get from me.
Best cuts: "Take It Easy"; "Swim"; "Twin Peaks"


Sufjan Stevens: The Age of Adz (Asthmatic Kitty)
Here's an ambitious, courageous return, just the sort of thing you hope an indie hero like this would attempt. Electronics are just a red herring. Stevens' most raw and exciting LP so far is as kindred spirit with Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy; both albums are crucially exposed, tinged with honesty and doubt, and both are fascinating as compositional experiments. Adz is a lengthy and challenging piece, and it's undoubtedly cost Sufjan some of his longer-running fans. They'll blame reliance on bleeping and off-kilter textures, but the reason so many are turned off is really the same reason folks avoid Daniel Johnston and the Beach Boys' Love You: it's a confrontation of nihilism and it makes people really fucking uncomfortable. I concede it could be shorter, yeah... but not by much.
Best cuts: "Age of Adz"; "Vesuvius"; "I Walked"
[Full review]


Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti: Before Today (4AD)
Sensory overload and an intense fetishizing of cultural artifacts for their own sake might make this rough going, except for fellow fetishists. That, thankfully, is most of the audience for this. Every "chillwave" distinction with which this brilliant album has been saddled misses the larger story, of its broadminded, affectionate, and expert rendering of The History of 20th Century Pop Music, specifically alternative-leaning rock & roll. Few sounds you loved in the last three and a half decades aren't represented, distorted, and even skewered here. That would mean nothing if Ariel Pink couldn't craft memorable songs all on his own, but one taste of that overwhelmingly sunny, sad Buckingham-Nicks chorus on "Round and Round" and we're all a fucking community again, brothers and sisters.
Best cuts: "Round and Round"; "Fright Night"; "Bright Lit Blue Skies"
[Full review]


Vampire Weekend: Contra (XL)
The holier-than-thou rock press that would like to rip this band in half for being perceived Afro-robbing white college boys who dress conservatively will come around just like they came around to Bow Wow Wow and Talking Heads after vilifying them for the same reasons. As one writer pointed out (and I'm paraphrasing because, to be honest, I can't find the quote right now), only in the U.S. of A. could a band with an Iranian and a Jew be considered by a snobbish establishment as too whitebread. Oh the hell well. This went to #1 and that's because it's insanely fucking delightful. The songs are top-notch, the polyrhythms work, the Paul Simon-copping vocals of Ezra Koenig charm unstoppably, and all ten cuts deliver beauty and charm in spades. Sometimes stuff is popular because it's, I dunno, good?
Best cuts: "Diplomat's Son"; "Run"; "Giving Up the Gun"


Arcade Fire: The Suburbs (Merge)
More varied and looser than either of its predecessors, The Suburbs is a fascinating LP that reveals much of the true character lying behind the initial rush the Arcade Fire worked so hard to provide -- although there's plenty of visceral chutzpah here if you're into that. Exploring the outer limits of their persona, riding on observations of a world they'll never again occupy, the band reveals the strength and virtuosity at the core. They also overwhelm any alternative distinction, making this one of the most commercially viable records in the history of indie rock. All they need is a good editor.
Best cuts: "Sprawl II"; "Suburban War"; "Month of May"
[Full review]


Crystal Castles (Motown)
Channeling the aggression of their earlier work into a beautiful but biting trance sound, this presents some of the most relentless and addictive dance music of recent years; ever so slightly off center, the songs worm their way into consciousness and refuse to leave. Even if it takes some time to win you over, by the second or third listen this will have you moving your feet and diving ever further into its hard-hitting but oddly satisfying noise.
Best cuts: "Year of Silence"; "Empathy"; "Celestica"
[Full review]


Gil Scott-Heron: I'm New Here (XL)
Scott-Heron doesn't make a big deal out of his return to recording after an absence of a decade and a half. For him, it's just a chance to jot down some thoughts, cover a few songs, sing a bit, philosophize a bit more. What we end up with is a half hour of hypnotic lecturing from a fascinating man with a creative writing degree having a public dark night of the soul. The rabble-rousing is absent, but this particular professor is quite a case study. He's willing to be old and resigned now, funny and miserable, cool and terrified, unfailingly honest. That's why he's still so goddamn dangerous.
Best cuts: "New York Is Killing Me"; "I'm New Here"; "I'll Take Care of You"


Male Bonding: Nothing Hurts (Sub Pop)
This triumphant young UK band makes melodic hay out of shoegaze and punk elements, crafting durable songs that bop and drive persuasively with walls of guitars that mask the shimmering vulnerability underneath. This is a sleeper in the classic sense, a record that grows more compelling with each listen. The drums really cook, too, but the band comes off just as strong when they unplug. One to watch, for sure.
Best cuts: "Franklin"; "Worse to Come"; "Year's Not Long"
[Full review]


Curren$y: Pilot Talk (Def Jam)
What makes the jazz hooks on this weird, wonderful LP so immediate and enticing is their confidence. Curren$y's low-key delivery is just casual and drawling enough to keep you from growing overawed at the miracles Ski-Beatz is conjuring up on unbelievably lovely and economical jams like "Breakfast." Owing as much to Sketches of Spain as Illadelph Halflife with plenty of winding, tricky rhymes and gags on top, this is a harbinger of excellently understated adventure to come from Curren$y. Check out the sequel while you're at it.
Best cuts: "Breakfast"; "The Hangover"; "Chilled Coughphee"
[Full review]


MGMT: Congratulations (Columbia)
Somehow this baffling, wondrous nod to Love's Forever Changes, pastoral British folk, and prog rock seems more focused the more you live with it. The audaciousness of a promising young commercial band on a major label making a turn this radical for their sophomore album is the kind of thing we've not seen in a while, but what's more compelling than the NPR Marketplace angle that dominated virtually all press about the LP is how MGMT's adoration of their influences (one song called "Brian Eno" laments how "we're always two steps behind him") becomes a story in itself. They know their way around a charmingly weird epic production, too; if this came out in 1967, it'd be a benchmark, but then we wouldn't have the Lady Gaga references. Incidentally, this one needs to be heard on vinyl; the digital version is horrendously mastered, the vinyl breathes across four luxurious sides.
Best cuts: "Siberian Breaks"; "I Found a Whistle"; "It's Working"


Tame Impala: Innerspeaker (Modular)
One of many top-tier throwbacks out this year, this one a spaced-out, stoned-up psychedelic Beatles tribute with killer songs and not too much sonic rambling. These young Aussies are in love with the sound of their favorite dusty late '60s records and they come on like thrill-seeking young Roky Ericksons or Arthur Lees with all life's dangers and terrors and thrills ahead of 'em. And then you realize it's not even just heavy rock's youth they're visiting, it's everybody's.
Best cuts: "I Don't Really Mind"; "Lucidity"; "Solitude Is Bliss"
[Full review]


The Apples in Stereo: Travellers in Space and Time (Yep Roc)
Following a decade in which he brought us one classic, one mediocrity, and one serviceable distraction, Robert Schneider comes screaming back to life with an unexpectedly emotional disco record, the great secret of which is that in all the sci-fi noise he makes about "the future," it's his own he's talking about. Beneath the surface of these entirely invincible pop songs is a frailty, a resistance to tragedy and aging and loss, that sometimes aches with isolation: "The dance floor is unbearable, but my body's still moving." The few songs that aren't bangers are Monkees and ELO tributes that range from mildly fun to ingenious. Schneider's voice comes across as the squealing, unkempt humanity of it all. He's created a thirty-or-fortysomething party album that dares to look around at the world today and not like what it sees, but commits itself to dancing the night away all the same.
Best cuts: "Hey Elevator"; "Dance Floor"; "No One in the World"


Midnight Juggernauts: The Crystal Axis (Siberia)
It's like a guilt-free version of Muse or the Killers -- schlock in the vein of Depeche Mode or the Shangri-Las delivered with cheekiness and a joyful sense of absurdity. Having already proven themselves major space-synth figures with their 2007 debut Dystopia, the Juggernauts here make their irresistible heavy rock move. It's over the top, deadpan, melodic, and fiendishly fun.
Best cuts: "Lara vs. the Savage Pack"; "Winds of Fortune"; "Vital Signs"
[Full review]

***

OTHERS I LIKED IN 2010
Roky Erickson & Okkervil River: True Love Cast Out All Evil (Anti-)
Local Natives: Gorilla Manor (Frenchkiss)
The-Dream: Love King (Def Jam)
Owen Pallett: Heartland (Domino)
Matthew Dear: Black City (Ghostly)
Big Boi: Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty (Def Jam)
Twin Shadow: Forget (4AD)
Robyn: Body Talk (Konichiwa)
Das Racist: Sit Down, Man (Mishka)
Charlotte Gainsbourg: IRM (Elektra)
The Roots: How I Got Over (Def Jam)
Wild Nothing: Gemini (Captured Tracks)
The Magnetic Fields: Realism (Nonesuch)
Belle & Sebastian: Write About Love (Matador)
Delorean: Subiza (Matador)
The New Pornographers: Together (Matador)
Curren$y: Pilot Talk II (Def Jam)
Four Tet: There Is Love in You (Domino)
The Extra Lens: Undercard (Merge)
The Morning Benders: Big Echo (Rough Trade)
ceo: White Magic (Sincerely Yours)
Wavves: King of the Beach (Fat Possum)
Chatham County Line: Wildwood (Yep Roc)
Best Coast: Crazy for You (Mexican Summer)
Broken Social Scene: Forgiveness Rock Record (Arts & Crafts)
Julian Lynch: Mare (Olde English Spelling Bee)
Kaki King: Junior (Rounder)
She & Him: Volume Two (Merge)
Spoon: Transference (Merge)
Matt Pond PA: The Dark Leaves (Megaforce)
The Radio Dept: Clinging to a Scheme (Labrador)
Gorillaz: Plastic Beach (Virgin)

EP'S I LOVED IN 2010
The Tallest Man on Earth: Sometimes the Blues Is Just a Passing Bird (Dead Oceans)

EP'S I LIKED IN 2010
Sufjan Stevens: All Delighted People (Asthmatic Kitty)
Girls: Broken Dreams Club (Matador)
Hot Chip: We Have Remixes (astralwerks)
Yo La Tengo: Here to Fall Remixes (Matador)

***

BEST SONGS OF 2010
Limiting to one song per album, but not per artist (thus, multiple tracks by Sufjan, Curren$y, and Tallest).

1. Arcade Fire "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)" [The Suburbs]
2. Kanye West "Runaway" [My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy]
3. Love Is All "A Side in a Bed" [Two Thousand and Ten Injuries]
4. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti "Round and Round" [Before Today]
5. Belle & Sebastian "The Ghost of Rockschool" [Write About Love]
6. Girls "Thee Oh So Protective One" [Broken Dreams EP]
7. Midnight Juggernauts "Lara vs. the Savage Pack" [The Crystal Axis]
8. Surfer Blood "Take It Easy" [Astro Coast]
9. Beach House "Norway" [Teen Dream]
10. The New Pornographers "Crash Years" [Together]
11. The Apples in Stereo "Hey Elevator" [Travellers in Space and Time]
12. The Tallest Man on Earth "Love Is All" [The Wild Hunt]
13. Joanna Newsom "Occident" [Have One on Me]
14. Pantha du Prince "Stick to My Side" [Black Noise]
15. The Walkmen "Stranded" [Lisbon]
16. Titus Andronicus "The Battle of Hampton Roads" [The Monitor]
17. Tame Impala "I Don't Really Mind" [Innerspeaker]
18. Deerhunter "Basement Scene" [Halcyon Digest]
19. Chatham County Line "Blue Jay Way" [Wildwood]
20. Hot Chip "Hand Me Down Your Love" [One Life Stand]
21. Owen Pallett "The Great Elsewhere" [Heartland]
22. Janelle Monáe "Cold War" [The ArchAndroid]
23. Curren$y "Breakfast" [Pilot Talk]
24. LCD Soundsystem "Can Change" [This Is Happening]
25. Vampire Weekend "Diplomat's Son" [Contra]
26. Robyn "Dancing on My Own [Body Talk]
27. The Tallest Man on Earth "The Dreamer" [Sometimes the Blues Is Just a Passing Bird EP]
28. Twin Shadow "Shooting Holes in the Moon" [Forget]
29. Old 97's "You Smoke Too Much" [The Grand Theatre, Volume One]
30. The-Dream "February Love" [Love King]
31. Kaki King "Sloan Shore" [Junior]
32. The Magnetic Fields "The Dada Polka" [Realism]
33. Gorillaz "On Melancholy Hill" [Plastic Beach]
34. The Tallest Man on Earth "Graceland" (Paul Simon cover) [King of Spain b-side]
35. Crystal Castles "Year of Silence" [Crystal Castles]
36. MGMT "Siberian Breaks" [Congratulations]
37. The Roots "Right On" [How I Got Over]
38. Gil Scott-Heron "New York Is Killing Me" [I'm New Here]
39. The National "Lemonworld" [High Violet]
40. Male Bonding "Franklin" [Nothing Hurts]
41. Curren$y "Montreux" [Pilot Talk 2]
42. The Extra Lens "How I Left the Ministry" [Undercard]
43. The Radio Dept "David" [Clinging to a Scheme]
44. Sufjan Stevens "Age of Adz" [The Age of Adz]
45. Big Boi "Back Up Plan" [Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty]
46. Goldfrapp "Believer" [Head First]
47. Wavves "Mickey Mouse" [King of the Beach]
48. Eels "Gone Man" [End Times]
49. Matthew Dear "Soil to Seed" [Black City]
50. Blur "Fool's Day" [Record Store Day 7"]
honorable mentions:
Delorean "Warmer Places" [Subiza]
Sufjan Stevens "Heirloom" [All Delighted People EP]
Broken Social Scene "All to All" [Forgiveness Rock Record]
Matt Pond PA "Running Wild" [The Dark Leaves]
She & Him "Over It Over Again" [Volume Two]
Four Tet "Circling" [There Is Love in You]
Best Coast "When I'm with You" [Crazy for You]