James

2010, in many ways has been the worst year of my life. Never before have so many things went wrong, one after the other and often I felt like I was being crushed by my emotions. However, when things were getting to tough and I felt there was nobody to turn to, music was there for me and could make me feel better. In early Spring when my mum had a heart attack and I stayed at my sister's house for a while, the radiant tones and soothing heart tones of Joanna Newsom were there to calm me down and stop my worry. During summer, my laziness finally took it's toll as I failed my english exam and didn't make it into higher, but the beautiful lyrics and wonderful piano music of The National's High Violet helped to reassure me that it wasn't the end of the world. Then through into the colder months, when my friends disappeared one by one like the leaves on the trees, the relationship between me and my mother deteriorated and I felt like I was alone in the world, the music of Kanye West, Agalloch, Deerhunter and Envy comforted me in the fact that somewhere out there were people like me, who can appreciate the same things such as the wonderful music on my iPod.

2010 has been a big year for music, not just for me but for the whole world. Many musical legends have passed away, leaving hundreds of fans upset or even in tears. The loss of Alex Chilton especially affected me, I consider Big Star to be the best band to come out of America and the crafters of the best type of Pop music. He was a real tortured soul and it's fascinating how he could write both upbeat pop classics like September Gurls as well as heart wrenching dark classics like Holocaust and Nightime.

Jay Reatard is also one of my favourite musicians now and I'm really disappointed that I didn't really discover him until his death, he knew how to have fun while making music in a time when a lot of bands take themselves far to serious. Blood Visions may even be a five star album from me, it's just full of pop anthems.

Mark Linkous or Sparklehorse was another sad loss and another great troubled musician lost to suicide. His brand of mellow, emotional songs are masterful with his song Piano Fire being one of my favourite collaborations of all time and Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot maybe even being my favourite acoustic indie type album. The song Cow somehow manages to go on for over seven minutes without changing an awful lot, but still leaves you hanging on for more.



Some other musicians who are sadly missed:Ronnie James Dio was of course an icon, I admire his work with Rainbow, Black Sabbath and his solo stuff, especially Holy Diver. I didn't listen to Dio much, but he has my respect, and I cannot deny that his music is of a high quality. Eyedea and Nujabes are other artists I was sad to here about dying but didn't listen to much in their lifetime, after their deaths I revisited their work and now I see them for what they were, immensely talented rappers who were one in a million. Ari Up from The Slits was a great frontwoman and Cut is one of the most unique and interesting albums from the early punk bands. Peter Christopherson from Coil and Throbbing Gristle is another sad loss, the man made some of the greatest experimental music around. If I have forgotten any other fantastic musician I'm sorry, I had to rely on memory.




As for the big releases of 2010 there have been plenty of brilliant and important releases. I will cover some of the big, well known releases now and cover others in my future entries "Hidden Gems of 2010".


Kanye West probably released the biggest album of 2010 with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, a unique take on Hip-Hop with a sound we'll come to hear a lot of in the next few years. Runaway may be the best song I've heard all year, Kanye West is realising his bad behaviour and a tinge of regret can be heard. The long tracks and incredibly complicated production works perfectly with the album and more and more hip-hop artists will be seen putting longer tracks into their albums and maybe even releasing them as singles like with the aforementioned Runaway.

Agalloch's Marrow of the Spirit is another big album from 2010. Agalloch have probably been the most consistent Metal band of the 00s, with this release they showed they still had the talent, changed their sound slightly and released in my opinion their best album yet. The album is compellingly atmospheric and it's perfect for lying down and reading to.

Joanna Newsom is the most interesting artist of the 00s and with Have One On Me she released her biggest album yet. The triple album lacks some of the charm of my personal favourite The Milk Eyed Mender or the fairytale, whick you away element of Ys but it's still fantastic and is a lot more mature than her other albums. It's bursting with high quality songs especially '81 which would be in my top five Joanna Newsom songs. Her harp playing is better than ever, the harp is infamously hard to play and it's great how she seems to play the harp so perfectly while singing in her trademark high pitched beautiful style.

The National are my favourite "Indie Rock" band by far. Alligator is a five star album from me. Matt Berninger's deep voice can carry such emotion through his almost perfect lyrics. High Violet is a great album and it seems to have finally got The National the praise they deserve. I attempted to buy tickets to see The National last month but they were sold out, this in my opinion shows that their brilliance has finally been realised. England is one of the most beautiful songs they've ever written, at just over five minutes it leaves me in absolute awe.

Other important mainstream releases this year have been; Pink Friday by Nicki Minaj is packed full of catchy pop songs, even the inclusion of Will.i.am on Check It Out can't ruin it's potential as a catchy pop classic. Nicki Minaj has a really unique and interesting personality and take on music. Janelle Monae released her debut album The ArchAndroid, personally the best and most experimental RnB album I've ever heard. Deerhunter released Halycon Digest, their most straightforward release yet but still enjoyable. Swans came out with their first album in a long time showing that after 30 years, they are still a force to be reckoned with.


I've missed a few, but I don't want to just list every big release, that would be mundane. I've came to the conclusion that 2010 is the best year in music so far. When you think about it music just gets better by the year, with new genres and movements forming constantly. Never before now has there been such a large amount of genres on offer, and in 2011 there will be even more. Sure you can have a favourite year, if some favourites of yours were released then but you can't truly argue that said year had more to offer than the present.





Coming Next:Five Hidden Gems of 2010