American politics, never without contention, becomes even more heated in 2010. The Tea Party, naming itself after the inciting event of the American Revolutionary War, gains traction in the US mid-term elections with a flag-waving, populist agenda. The U.S. Supreme Court decides that corporations are equivalent to human beings and therefore deserve the same rights, ensuring that corporate lobbyists will continue to essentially fund politicians’ reelection campaigns for the foreseeable future. The decision effectively guarantees that those same politicians will still be beholden to their corporate backers rather than the voters they are supposed to represent. A government of the corporation, by the corporation, and for the corporation is alive and well in the U.S.A.
And in perhaps the most important piece of legislation in his tenure as President, President Barack Obama signs into law the Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare,” a well-intentioned (but in my mind insufficient) attempt to make health care more affordable for most Americans.
[As an aside, I have lived in Spain for the past ten years, a nation that has far better health care for the average and below-average wage-earner than the U.S. In Spain, we have a public health care system, funded by a line item in our taxes—comparable to the Social Security deduction in the U.S.—that provides good, comprehensive health care service to everyone. Almost everyone uses the public system, at least from time-to-time; for example, you must use the public system if you are going to get a baja (the legally binding equivalent of a doctor’s note) to miss work. We also have private health insurance, which most middle-class-and-above families also purchase; a typical plan for a family of four with no co-pays and no deductibles costs (you might want to sit down for this) about $250 a month. Total. That’s it. There is clearly so much price-gouging and skimming off the top throughout the American health care system that it completely blows the mind. Plenty of players are making a killing off the backs of the American people. Obamacare, which attempts to make a private health care system behave more like a public one, makes some sense, given the current U.S. political context. But if there were the competition of a genuine, functional public system alongside the private one, wouldn’t that achieve the same thing—with more choice for everyone? Implementing such a system would be beyond difficult, of course. There appears to be a large segment of the right wing in American whose main goal is to ensure that the other side’s policies fail, often at the expense of the well-being of the American people.]
Meanwhile, a British Petroleum oil spill creates a natural disaster in the Gulf on Mexico, the aftereffects of the housing crisis and crash are still felt around the globe, and the U.S.A. is still involved militarily in Afghanistan and Iraq.
As for the music scene in 2010, I have a hard time describing it, to be honest. The ‘60s were all about the British Invasion and psychedelic rock; the ‘70s were about the bloated excess of classic rock and the cleansing rage of punk; the ‘80s were the decade of over-produced synth-pop in the mainstream, with the remnants of post-punk and ragged college radio rock simmering like smoky peat throughout the American underground—and the first burst of rap music into the public’s consciousness; and the ‘90s were all about alternative rock (which of course ceased to be truly alternative once it was mainstream).
But the ‘00s and the ‘10s? I have a hard time classifying them. The best thing about these decades was the burgeoning electronic music movement. And there’s also indie-rock—which has produced some excellent music, but often feels to me a bit like adult contemporary for grown-up (or is it grown-dull?) alt-rockers.
But there is tons of excellent music being produced, nonetheless, in a wide variety of genres and styles.
My Top 6 Albums of 2010
As always, you can jump to the playlist at the bottom of each post to listen while you read.
Within each tier (Top 6, Next 6, etc.), all albums are listed roughly chronologically (all release dates from Wikipedia, unless otherwise noted).
Gil Scott-Heron
I’m New Here
Gil Scott-HeronReleased 2010/02/08
Gil Scott-Heron first appeared on the mostly excellent spoken word album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox (1970), and then made the leap to a soulful vocal jazz style on the fine Pieces of a Man (1971). The two albums featured entirely different versions of “The Revolution Will Not be Televised,” his most notable song, both versions more than worthy of canonization. He continued in that vocal jazz vein for over a decade.
In general, Scott-Heron’s jazz vocal style isn’t really my style. I like my jazz freer, and my vocals more edgy. But Pieces of a Man is definitely worth checking out, and the song “The Bottle” from Winter in America (1974) is excellent. His spoken-word stuff, on the other hand, is a fascinating precursor to rap music that is intriguing, insightful, and compelling (aside from some awful homophobia on that first LP).
Scott-Heron spent much of the first decade of the new millennium in and out of jail on drug charges, before returning with I’m New Here, his first album in 16 years (and only his second since 1982). But this album is less of a comeback than a reinvention, aided by Richard Russell of XL Records, a label known for it’s cutting edge electronic sound and overall risk-taking.
The overt politics of Scott-Heron’s earlier work has been replaced by unflinching personal introspection; his pure, soulful singing worn rough over time into the gristly growl of an early bluesman; the jazz replaced by samples and minimal electronic sounds, with only the occasional acoustic touch here and there. It’s a truly recombinant fusion of past and present, and an intensely compelling view back on a life plagued with trouble but also infused with hope.
I’m New Here is without a doubt the album of Scott-Heron’s career. I knew nothing of Scott-Heron before seeing this album on numerous best-of-2010 lists—although I’d been hearing his voice sampled in rap music for quite a while, without knowing it. But I was soon taking a deep dive back into his earlier work.
Gonjasufi
A Sufi and a Killer
GonjasufiReleased 2010/03/08
What is this stuff, exactly? Stoned mutant soul? Psychedelic trip-hop? Electronic something-or-other? I don’t know, and I don’t care. All I know is I absolutely love it. (I don’t care much for genre labels, anyhow.)
There certainly are an abundance of psychedelic Eastern sounds in Gonjasufi’s A Sufi and a Killer, and much of the music sounds pretty blunted. Everything here seems a touch off-kilter, both musically and psychologically. Basically, this shit is entirely weird, in all the best possible ways.
The organ grind and wavering raspy vocals of “DedNd” seem almost completely unhinged. On “Advice” he’s more delicately soulful, over a crack drum beat. A Turkish guitar sample (lifted almost completely wholesale from a piece by some guy named Erkin Koray) propels the hallucinatory “Klowds.” On “Sheep,” he amusingly ponders vegetarianism before plunging headlong into a whirlwind of carnivorous debauchery, buoyed by some serpentine, Indian-sounding vocals. And the bliss-out trombone slide and whispering swirl of “Made” bring the album to a transcendent, melancholy close.
Not for those with relatively normal tastes, Gonjasufi’s A Sufi and a Killer will be an unequivocal treat for those with an ear for the bizarre.
Flying Lotus
Cosmogramma
Flying LotusReleased 2010/05/03
Steven Ellison—aka Flying Lotus, grandnephew of Alice Coltrane—follows up his critical breakthrough Los Angeles (2008) with another terrific album, Cosmogramma. His blend of instrumental rap, avant-garde electronic music, and free jazz is by turns hypnotic, propulsive, humorous, and edgy.
The blend of surging orchestral melody, electronic bleeps, and throbbing beats in “Drips // Auntie’s Harp” is spellbinding. “Zodiac Shit,” uses tranquil keyboard touches, gasping breaths, and dragging beats to create a completely different vibe. And the combination of different human voices, used both as melody and rhythm, in “Satelllliiiiteee” never ceases to amuse and impress me, no matter how often I listen. He will seemingly use almost any sound, from the luxuriant sounds of his great-aunt’s harp to the bouncing of a ping pong ball.
And as fascinating as his instrumental work is, Ellison is wise enough to know that listeners crave the human voice every now and then. Cosmogramma features vocal turns from Thom Yorke, frequent collaborator Laura Darlington, and soon-to-be frequent collaborators Thundercat and Niki Randa.
His aunt’s music is a clear influence, as he often uses harp and orchestra to achieve a similar trancelike, intergalactic feel. The title of the album intrigues me, too. Does it mean ‘cosmic grammar,” as if he’s trying to create a musical language for speaking of the cosmos? (That sounds like something Alice Coltrane would approve of.) Or is it more “cosmic grandmother”? (Coltrane was his great-aunt, not his grandmother, but he seems to feel an extremely strong connection.) A quick check on Wikipedia reveals that the title is his mishearing of “cosmic drama.” And a cosmogram seems to be some sort of spiritual representation of the universe in geometrical form.
Regardless of the album title’s meaning, Ellison’s beats and mixes are engrossing and entertaining throughout the entire disc—a rare feat with electronic artists, I feel. Each piece here is unmistakably his work, and yet sounds different from the other pieces, making for a consistent yet varied listen. Cosmogramma is indisputably one of the finest examples of electronic music around.
Deerhunter
Halcyon Digest
DeerhunterReleased 2010/09/27
Writing and performing songs that are essentially about depression is a tricky business. You can’t really sing passionately about depression—you almost have to convey the emptiness of it with an absence of emotion, and with that, you risk being more boring than compelling. People want to connect with an emotion in a song, not the absence of one, myself included.
But sometimes there’s a way of making a song’s emotional expressiveness dampened in such a way that actually increases its power; it’s as if the listener makes up the difference between the emotionally neutral surface of the song and the more profound implications beneath.
You have to get the emotional detachment just so, to strike just the right balance (which may be different, even, for different listeners—you can’t reach everyone all the time). If you don’t get it right, the effect just mutes the power of the song.
My first exposure to Deerhunter was their 2007 Cryptograms album, which alternated (not so successfully, I’d argue) between propulsive, abrasive tracks that feel a bit like Krautrock crossed with Sonic Youth in a bad mood, and more gentle electronic ambient soundscapes. (In fact, the album plays brilliantly if you re-sequence it to separate the two modes; when mixed, they undercut each other.)
In the interim, the band has learned to channel the aggressive numbers into a more palatable indie-rock buzz, featured here on such acclaimed songs as “Desire Lines,” “Memory Boy,” and “Revival.” Throughout, Bradford Cox’s vocals feel both emotionally muted and musically buried in the mix. It’s almost as if he wants to disappear completely into the sound. “Coronado” sounds like the Strokes distorted almost beyond recognition.
With songs like these, Halcyon Digest would have been yet another good Deerhunter album, and nothing more. But when Cox brings his voice to the forefront on two key tracks—both of which pull back the alt-guitar fuzz in favor of lush, electronic sounds—the album becomes their very best.
In “Helicopter,” Cox takes inspiration from the story of an underage, Russian gay porn star and escort named Dima, who was later sold into sexual slavery and allegedly thrown to his death from a helicopter. Cox clearly empathizes with Dima, attempting to recreate his anxious, final moments and his weary acceptance of his dire fate. “No one cares for me / I keep no company / I have minimal needs / And now they are through with me,” Cox sings. The effect arise devastating.
The album’s crowning achievement—indeed, maybe the crowning achievement of the band’s career—is the stunning, hypnotic “He Would Have Laughed.” A tribute to punk rocker Jay Reatard, the song evokes Cox’s growing disillusionment as life goes by and one gets separated from friends and other meaningful connection. The piercing, shimmering keyboard flourishes that dance delicately over the quietly rumbling drums and ambient wash just captivate me.
Robyn
Body Talk Pt. 1 [mini-album]Body Talk Pt. 2 [mini-album]Body Talk
RobynReleased 2010/06/11
2010/09/06
2010/11/22
Originally conceived as a trio of mini-album releases to be released throughout the year, Robyn’s Body Talk ended up being released as two mini-albums (Parts 1 & 2), followed by a shorter EP (Part 3) released concurrently with a full-length CD that compiled tracks from the first two releases, plus all of the EP. (I’m considering the three releases—sort of four releases, I guess—together as one complete work.) The Body Talk releases, along with Robyn’s self-titled album (released in 2005 in Sweden and 2007 elsewhere), represent a near-perfect integration of the innovations in electronic music into the framework of dance-pop music.
Sassy, smart, and unapologetic, Robyn’s work here is some of the best pop music of the time, and some of the best dance music ever. No small feat. On one of the standout tracks, “Criminal Intent” (from Pt. 2 only), Robyn she imagines herself on trial for some smokin’ moves on the dance floor. The beats are vibrant, the grooves sick, and her verbal delivery absolutely spot-on. The song cracks me up. And on “None of Dem” (from Pt. 1 and the LP) she tosses off her clubbing ennui as a challenge to all comers, propelled by some brilliant throbbing and surging pulses of sound, courtesy of Röyksopp.
The LP, as might be expected, includes most—but definitely not all—of the best tracks from the first two mini-albums. “Criminal Intent” is missing, and the acoustic version of “Hang With Me” on Pt. 1 is much better than the relatively pedestrian dance version included on both Pt. 2 and the Body Talk LP. (Robyn also shows an odd tendency to choose some of the weakest tracks on her albums to serve as singles—although perhaps this is as much a reflection of my tastes as hers. Most pop music is pretty lame and conventional, in my mind.)
It seems Robyn may have run out of steam a little toward the end, with the first mini-album being the most clearly consistent release, and the final EP falling a few songs short of her original mini-album concept. The are a few tracks (only a few, mind you) that feel a little less fresh and innovative than the others. But this is nitpicking. Rarely has a pop artist cranked out such a diverse and engaging string of releases. Even years later, I find some of these songs popping into my mind unexpectedly. Fabulous.
Kanye West
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Kanye WestReleased 2010/11/22
Throughout the ‘00s, Kanye West was one of the most critically acclaimed rappers around, and one of the most popular, too. But I can’t say that I uniformly loved his stuff, aside from maybe a single CD’s worth of tracks. His music was some of the most inventive and accomplished in mainstream rap, but there was something about many of his songs that I found unappealing. He would use the worst stereotypes about education and college life to discredit it, seemed to consider women as nothing but hoes and gold-diggers, and in general seemed overly obsessed with wealth and materialism. In a genre filled with boasting and ego-tripping, Kanye West took it to another level. (Little did I know he’d be taking it even farther!)
With 1998’s intriguing but deeply flawed 808s and Heartbreak, West changed his musical approach, taking a crucial step toward something completely unique, which reaches its fruition in the brilliant My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
I consider 808s to be a failed breakup album. A good breakup album should make the listener feel a loss in the failure of the relationship, in the promise the relationship once held, in the complexities of the relationships that lead to their downfall, and in the sorrow when everything fall apart. But 808s just makes everyone involved look like an asshole to me, especially Kanye. West comes across as arrogant and condescending and egotistical in the way he blames the woman for everything. To be sure, she doesn’t come across too well, either. I leave the album with the conclusion that both are better off without the other. No loss.
But My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is something else entirely.
What West did with the music of 808s was impressive. He slowed it down, played it mournful, worked in more electronic sounds, and AutoTuned his voice in such a way as to give it a distorted, melancholy grandeur. And on the best tracks of Fantasy, West continues in this vein, incorporating that technique into the weave of his already-elite musical palate. And on the last five tracks of the album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy reaches the level of brilliance, 30 minutes of the most powerful music of the year.
On “Hell of a Life,” backed by a faux-holy choir of singers, West expresses his jaded cynicism at modern celebrity romance (with a porn star, no less). It’s set in a dance club—marriage in the bathroom, honeymoon on the dance floor, divorce by the end of the night. Cue the cheesy electronic keyboard noodling and piercing, melancholy Gary Numan synths—somehow the combination works brilliantly to create a feeling of sorrowful disillusion. “Grab my hand,” West sings; “Baby, we’ll live a hell of a life…. “ Indeed.
On “Blame Game,” he expands on one of the best songs on 808s—“Bad News,” in which he hears of a breakup second-hand—but in this case, he gets salt rubbed in the wound via an accidental butt-dial into a conversation between his ex and an old flame (with an edgy, amusing cameo by Chris Rock). Finally, West acknowledging the faults of 808s—that he spent the entire album blaming his ex for their split, without looking closely enough in the mirror. “Let’s play the blame game,” he sings, “Let’s call out names.” He alternates his couplets with “I love you more” and “I hate you more.” The last half of the song—with Chris Rock playing the role of another man—rubs salt in the wound.
West blames himself even more on “Runaway,” in which he encourages women to run from him, because he’s an asshole. The song starts with a few solitary plunked piano notes that run throughout, and in the back half of the song West distorts his vocals so much that for a while I can’t even tell it’s human voice at all. The sound of it is pure anguish. Of course, West throws in a semi-sarcastic toast to himself in the process. His ego is never completely held in check, even in his most self-critical moments. Yet his bitterness is palpable.
The last two songs, “Lost in the Worlds” and “Who Will Survive in America,” are musically compelling, a nearly perfect ending to a fascinating listen of an album. I’m not sure West quite succeeds in the leap from his personal struggles to the overarching statements about race he tries to make with his sampling of Gil Scott-Heron. (Who made much more profound statements about growing up black in America on his own release of the year, the comeback career-highlight I’m New Here.) But the music is transcendent, from the use of Bon Iver’s luxiuriant voice to the last protests of Scott-Heron.
Taken as a whole, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a fascinating, compelling, and at times disturbing exploration of celebrity ego and excess, of hedonism and power, of doomed relationships and self-loathing. This is as close as I want to get to the lifestyles of the rich and famous—even in its emotional complexity, the album’s characters come across as shallow, vain, materialistic, attention-and-power seeking jerks. But the album’s strength is undeniable.
Here’s the 2010: The Year in Review playlist for you—three tracks per album.
I’ll be building the playlist as I go, adding to it as I complete different tiers of commentary. By the time I finish all Year in Review posts for 2010, the playlist will be complete!
Enjoy!
More 2010, The Year in Review
More Years in Review of the 2010s…
Cover Art Citations:
- I’m New Here: By The cover art can be obtained from XL Recordings., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26149029
- A Sufi and a Killer: By http://cdn.pitchfork.com/media/2714547.jpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26750535
- Cosmogramma: By May be found at the following website: http://warp.net/records/releases/flying-lotus/cosmogramma, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27081495
- Halcyon Digest: By http://is5.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Music/v4/cd/24/27/cd2427cb-0225-c3ed-3048-23bd123957fe/source/10000x10000bb.jpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49610639
- Body Talk: By The cover art can be obtained from Konichiwa Records., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47883678
- My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy: By The cover art can be obtained from Def Jam Recordings., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37180912
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