Favourite Records of 2010

Virgin asked us to come up with a list of our favourite records and we responded by going entirely overboard and writing 1600 words. Required reading, right guys?

http://www.virgin.com/music/red-room/advent-artists-modern-superstitions/

Albums

5. Ty Segall - ‘Melted’ (LP/Goner)
Top-notch pop songs, grimey fuzz guitar, caveman (sorry, caveperson) drumming and echoey falsettos. Analysis is futile, it’s just awesome. You ought to own it, listen to it until it fuses with your DNA, then have your friends over for the best party ever. You do have friends, right? – Matt

4. Grass Widow - Past Time
Grass Widow are a three-piece, all-female post-punk group from San Francisco. Past Time is their second full-length release. It is as exciting, original, and listenable as anything I've heard all year. Bass and guitar parts bounce all over the place providing a surfy, melodic background for the most interesting part of this record, the vocals. All three members sing lead, and they mostly sing at the same time. They go from singing pretty harmonies to not-quite-harmonious, distinct parts which somehow fit together. This record is catchy as all get-out, yet because of vocal quirks, also nearly un-hummable. Past Time is a great record, and hopefully a sign of things to come from this SF trio. - Harry

3. Tame Impala - ‘Innerspeaker’ (LP/Modular)
If you’ve taken the time to click through and read this review (bless you) then you will in all likelihood enjoy this record, as everyone I’ve forced it upon has liked it. Everybody. Just give it a listen, you’ll thank me later. This sounds like the best parts of your favourite rock records from the past 40 years, reconstituted for your listening pleasure. This album is the unstoppable musical equivalent of a Frankenstein/Robocop hybrid. Enjoy! - Matt

2. ‘Lisbon’ by The Walkmen
I remember back when The Walkmen were on The OC (a formative prime-time obsession of mine). I was too young and foolish at the time to grasp what they would come to mean to me. I know now that an understanding of their sound takes a whole other variety of youth and folly and a recognition of the two as such. It was the end of this past summer when ‘Lisbon’ came out, and it collided eerily with what was, to speak with rather gratuitous grandiloquence, the dawning of a new era for me. The Walkmen’s latest album, in both sound and lyrical content, represented that change for me. It was a change that seemed difficult at first because, despite my youth (I’m only 20), I’ve a tendency toward melancholy and nostalgia; feelings this band seems to inject into each singular melody with an aching sincerity. I didn’t understand The Walkmen before this album. But, with a major shift in head-space and direction, I fully succumbed to the heart-wrenching reverb and demented rat-pack-like croon, and began to accept it as an extension of myself and who I was at the end of the summer. They’re the kind of band that makes you perceive your current situation with a new, burning clarity. And it hurts, but in a good way. - Nyssa

1. Best Coast - Crazy for You (Mexican Summer)
I first heard this record in early fall. I can’t wait to listen to it when summer comes because it sounds like a summer nights record. And really, when it comes down to it, I love it for all the reasons I love a summer night -- it’s simple, comfortable, nostalgic, inspiring yet bittersweet. In addition to the wonderfully arranged songs, the production and sonic quality of the record really grabs me. It sounds like the band is doing a soundcheck in an empty stadium, which complements the wistful transparency of the lyrics and the charming vocal melodies. I love this record because it pulls at my heartstrings, taps into feelings that everybody has, dreams that everybody wishes about, and makes me feel like a teenager again. - Ben

Singles

5. ‘Chinatown’ by Wild Nothing
I could make a whole lot of ill-informed, half-assed references to 80’s dream pop and try to talk about chill-wave or summer wistfulness in describing this song. I’m not going to. I like this song because I like twinkly sounding things with pretty melodies and good sing-along choruses. ‘Chinatown’ has all of these. I am also drawn like a moth to the light to songs about running away. Maybe it’s a desire to travel or an unhealthy adoration of Bruce Springsteen (who sings pretty much exclusively about escape). I don’t know. I just can’t help it. If you talk about running away in a song I’m all ears; so much so that I find it hard not to simply write escapist anthems as lyrics. Anyway, this song sounds like woodland fairies that smoke cigarettes, wear leather, and avoid their parents at every turn. I like that. - Nyssa

4. METZ - Negative Space/Automat 7” (We Are Busy Bodies)
As soon as the bass and drums come in on “Negative Space” my jaw drops to Texas. I haven’t heard bass tone used in this context in years and it sounds like the band is playing in your basement. The vocals sound like they’re just barely cutting through the music, giving it a sense of urgency unmatched by a lot of heavy bands these days. Having grown up listening to early late 80’s and early 90’s underground rock, the first time hearing this band was thrilling for me, and seeing them live was tantamount to a slap in the face. “Automat” sounds like what employees in Satan’s assembly line would listen to -- industrial, dissonant, and totally groovy. I appreciate that METZ can do the three minute punk song, and the six minute arty noise landscape (such as “Ripped on the Fence”) equally as well. I’m very much looking forward to what comes next from these guys. - Ben

3. Crazy Spirit - S/T 7"
Crazy Spirit are a great new punk band from NYC. This record is a collection some of the catchiest scum punk riffs I have ever heard. They have definitely been influenced by Discharge, Germs and similar, but they have created something that is more than just a sum of the bands they love. The singer sounds like a half demented cat trying to fight a racoon through a window, the drummer plays the same weird, bouncy, off-kilter beat on almost every song and the guitar and bass snarl mostly in unison. Also, my brother told me that one of them was arrested for obscene behaviour or something for eating a sandwich too sloppily/grossly in public, which is amazing, like this record. - Harry

2. ‘The Beat and The Pulse’ by Austra
I was asked quite out of the blue whether or not I wanted to be in a music video for this song. It didn’t occur to me to say no, even though I’d never heard it and I wasn’t familiar with (the singer of Austra) Katie Stelmanis’s work at all. I’m thrilled I decided to do it, if for no other reason than it serving as an introduction to the excellent gothic electro pop of ‘The Beat and The Pulse’. The shoot boasted a cast of pretty girls in old fashioned lingerie, a black-magic feel, lots of sexy dancing, weird webbed hands, and a wealth of glitter: the latter refusing to come off for days, much in the same way the song has refused to leave my head. And, every time they played the song throughout the course of the lengthy shoot, I couldn’t help but be completely drawn in. It was partly the atmosphere, the witchy vibes and scantily clad ladies, but mainly it was just the song’s hypnotic pull; it proved inescapable. After hearing the song dozens of times, I only liked it more. Instead of growing tired of it, it began to feel a part of me and all the other girls, almost like the strange mutant prosthetics worn by some of the dancers. Its occult-like means of seduction left us all completely silent during its six minute run-time, relentlessly pulling us in over and over. - Nyssa

1. Holy Cobras - ‘Feed Your Head’ (7”/Telephone Explosion)
Imagine: Joy Division and the Gories have a baby and name Gary Glitter the godfather. He kidnaps the child and tries to warp its mind with illicit chemicals which have the unintended effect of making said child inconceivably strong. It kills Monsieur Glitter, drinks his blood and grows up to be that cool kid in high school that moved away after first year, never to be seen again. Uptempo, guitar noise, bass carries the melody as the drums thunder away. FYI, the singer wears fingerless leather gloves on stage. Buy this record! - Matt