In 2010, music industry pundits again and again predicted the demise of the conventional album. But for the stubborn traditionalists among us, this past year bore a bounty of wonderful full-length records. Here are the top pop albums of the year as chosen by Canadian Press music writer Nick Patch.
1. Big Boi -- "Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty"
So innovative is this otherworldly debut from the Atlanta MC -- of course, one half of Outkast -- that I'm not sure if this is the album of 2010 or 2020. The countless highlights -- sparkling future-funk stomper "Shutterbugg," the knock-kneed strut of "Daddy Fat Sax," sun-baked party-starter "Shine Blockas" -- are weightlessly effervescent enough that it's easy to miss the intricate craft at work beneath the surface. Same goes for Big Boi's nimble rhymes, by turns proudly profane or subtly wizened, his mischievous wit shining through over-the-top tales of decadence. And even as he raps tirelessly about his exploits, one gets the sense that Big Boi is less interested in indulging his own vices than facilitating a good time for the rest of the party.
2. Beach House -- "Teen Dream"
This Baltimore duo has always crafted alluring, fully realized dream-pop, and their previous pair of records never seemed particularly inaccessible. And yet "Teen Dream" still somehow amounted to a sizable step forward. Maybe it was in the slightly cleaner production, which finally granted the group a little sonic breathing room, or in the songs themselves, the group's most heartbreakingly gorgeous yet. But with the woozy, wistful "Teen Dream," Beach House somehow burrowed further into its very specific groove while at the same time transitioning into the kind of band that any discerning fan of pop music should cherish, almost regardless of personal taste.
3. Shad -- "TSOL"
It's been a while since socially conscious rap inspired something other than eye-rolling, with various opportunists peddling positivity and shallow messages of social awareness the way other chart-targeting rappers boast about phantom felonies and gleaming Glocks. But Shad's hard-earned earnestness is a different beast entirely, his rhymes thoughtful enough to penetrate the defences of the most hardened of cynics. When the London, Ont., product raps about the lack of female voices in hip hop ("Keep Shining") or his familial legacy ("A Good Name"), he does so with an intelligence and sensitivity that elevates the proceedings well above mere sloganeering. And yet he retains an edge, as with this choice "Rose Garden" rhyme: "I weigh two bucks and if I had two slugs to spray/ Like raa raa, Glenn Beck better duck like foie gras/ Make shots poke his face like Gaga/ But mama says forgive, so I give him that bar like a Mars then let him live." Never tumbling over his tricky thickets of internal rhymes, Shad has provided further proof with "TSOL" that he's probably the most talented rapper Canada has ever produced.
4. P.S. I Love You -- "Meet Me at the Muster Station"
It's natural to draw comparisons between P.S. I Love You and that other youthful, smothered-in-fuzz Canuck duo, the Japandroids. But where the latter shaggy-dog pair tackles messy rock and roll with carefree aplomb, P.S. I Love You has chosen darkness. Frontman Paul Saulnier said in an interview earlier this year that lyrics weren't really important to him, and while his howls are largely unintelligible, they're stricken with such taut anxiety to speak volumes. And of course, it's his expressive guitar playing that really sings, again and again delivering catharsis to his tightly wound tunes. The searing "Facelove" isn't only the album's best-known highlight, it's also a representative sampling of what the band does so well: a stomping drum beat and frustrated, gale-force vocal gusts that soon build to a seething, spiralling guitar solo. The obvious reference point is late-80s Dinosaur Jr, another band that fused guitar heroics and paralyzing alienation, yet "Meet Me at the Muster Station" is too urgently delivered to feel anything less than fresh.
5. Curren$y -- "Pilot Talk"
In keeping with the flight metaphors of which he's so fond, this New Orleans rapper is definitely a stealth bomber. With his stoned slur, he perpetually sounds as if he's just been roused from an afternoon nap. At first blush, the real star of the show is Ski Beatz's lush, innovative production, both varied and remarkably coherent, with oft-live instrumentation languidly filling a room like tufts of smoke from a stick of incense. But "Pilot Talk" (as well as its excellent sequel, released only months later) is a grower, and it's mainly because Curren$y is so understated. His sly wit and deceptively complex, liquid flow only become obvious with time. But once you've got it cracked, his charmingly off-kilter everyman point of view keeps his raps about weed and women from becoming boring, and it's pretty impossible to root against anyone dropping lines like this: "Upstate New York, Woodstock, Saugerties/ The view from my rocking chair, you would not believe."
6. Kanye West -- "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy"
Judging Kanye West's fifth album on its own merits is a challenge. You have to put aside West's award-show gaffes, Twitter tantrums and supposedly outsized ego (as if all pop stars aren't saddled with such things), and, on the flip side, you also have to look past the heaps of hyperbole initially lavished upon this record, masterfully orchestrated by West's hype-hoarding marketing strategy (new tracks every Friday? Performances at Facebook headquarters? "Saturday Night Live" stagecraft unlike anything the venerable sketch show has seen?). Once you're past all that, "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" is just another perfectly imperfect effort from the most exciting (and occasionally frustrating) artist in pop music. And if he can't quite top the skyscraping grandeur of early singles "Power" and "Runaway" -- well, neither could anyone else in 2010.
7. Gorillaz -- "Plastic Beach"
This is the first of the hip-hop collective's three records not to hinge on the weight of one titanic song. And somehow, the lack of a monumental single along the lines of "Clint Eastwood" or "Feel Good Inc" helps render "Plastic Beach" the group's most cohesive record yet, something more than the sum of its parts. Damon Albarn retreats further into the background as guests including Snoop Dogg, Lou Reed and De La Soul take turns in the spotlight, admirably acclimatizing to the Gorillaz's unique environs. And from the dystopic din of "Rhinestone Eyes" to the bubbling beauty of "On Melancholy Hill," "Plastic Beach" indeed occupies a world all its own.
8. Janelle Monae -- "The ArchAndroid"
Though Kanye's latest record was the one feted for its brash ambition, Janelle Monae's debut record is just as absurdly audacious. Spanning R&B, new wave, psychedelia, orchestral pop, rap, folk, glam, robofunk and spy film scores, this sprawling 70-plus-minute collection features a throwaway conceptual story arc (ostensibly about a dancing cyborg), two suites and an insistence on boundary-busting freshness that brings to mind fellow Atlanta innovators Outkast (Big Boi serves as executive producer and lends a breezy verse to the highwire highlight "Tightrope"). But while the eccentric eclecticism lends this record its bolt-from-the-blue specialness, it wouldn't work without Monae's energetic vocal performance. Sure, "The ArchAndroid" occasionally feels overstuffed and overlong, but also long overdue: a wilfully strange debut from a major avant-soul talent, a charismatic chameleon with the chops to realize her lofty ambition.
9. No Age -- "Everything in Between"
In the context of music reviews, "mature" has long been a polite shorthand for "boring." Yet this Los Angeles duo's third long-player is an exception. Since the 2008 collection "Weirdo Rippers" -- which was occasionally brilliant but also fairly inaccessible -- No Age has carefully refined and expanded its sound, allowing the pair's pop songcraft to wiggle ever-closer to the surface without sacrificing the ramshackle racket of their earliest lo-fi recordings. "Glitter" juxtaposes handclaps and a head-nodding drumbeat with searing guitar noise while "Common Heat" is an infectious acoustic sing-along that wouldn't have been out of place on Husker Du's mid-80s opuses. Album-closing marvel "Chem Trails" whooshes through accompanied by the sound of cheap fireworks, an appropriate touch for a record that deserves to be celebrated.
10. Caribou -- "Swim"
Caribou's previous record, the Polaris Music Prize-winning "Andorra," found the Dundas, Ont., producer exploring '60s psychedelia with more sure-handed songwriting and singing. But if that record -- interesting though uneven -- was a step forward, "Swim" is an even more impressive accomplishment. Flipping the script once again, Dan Snaith here escapes into downcast dance music, layering his soft vocals (significantly improved in the years since "Andorra") over meticulously textured tracks. The title appropriately hints at a liquid feel that flows throughout, from loose-limbed standout "Odessa" (underwater house, accented with flute and clattering percussion) to the haunting "Jamelia."
11. Black Milk -- "Album of the Year"
No, the title isn't the most brash of 2010 -- it's meant to refer to the amount of time the indispensable Detroit producer spent crafting this record. And it was a tough year for Black Milk (nee Curtis Cross), who endured the death of Slum Village MC and close friend Baatin and saw his manager, HexMurda, suffer a stroke ("The past year, no, I wasn't in my right mind/ '09, the hardest year in my lifeline," Cross raps on opening track "365"). And while the beats are as exceptional as ever -- he spins such dense, sticky webs of organ, bass and unconscionable drum grooves that you won't begrudge his letting the tracks roll on long after he's finished rapping -- it's the newfound clarity and intensity of Cross's struggle-born rhymes, expertly stitched into the head-knocking production, that renders this the standout of an outstanding young career.
12. Free Energy, "Stuck on Nothing"
Sometimes I feel like a philistine due to my inability to appreciate LCD Soundsystem. But while their critically lauded "This is Happening" left me cold, LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy did produce this retro gem by Philadelphia five-piece Free Energy. With a huge debt to T. Rex's stripped-down glam, the band specializes in caffeinated throwback rock tunes, spiked with chunky guitar chords, bright solos and frontman Paul Sprangers' laconic vocals. But the shaggy charm wouldn't mean much if not for the rock-solid songwriting -- depending on your own age, these cruise-all-night party jams will either provide the soundtrack for your carefree youth or transport you right back to it (in a vintage Pontiac Trans Am, no less).
Honourable mentions: Das Racist -- "Sit Down, Man"; Arcade Fire -- "The Suburbs"; Male Bonding -- "Nothing Hurts"; Deerhunter -- "Halcyon Digest"; The-Dream -- "Love King"; Surfer Blood --"Astrocoast"; Wavves -- "King of the Beach"; Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti -- "Before Today"; Local Natives -- "Gorilla Manor"; Women -- "Public Strain"
