Top Music 2010

My top of 2010

Aright, hop hop hop, I’m going to go quickly. I’ve already written about half of these groups on Dead Rooster or will be talking about them in the near future, so let’s not delay. My top 10 (and a ½) of the year are the following:

Special Mentions:

The “Soledad Brothers” Prize for Best Concert: The National, Yann Tiersen, and Arcade Fire (how about that!)
The “Fredo Corleone” Prize for Biggest Let Down: Of Montreal (a 2008 winner), MGMT
The “Badly Drawn Boy” Prize for Biggest Let Down in Concert: Dum Dum Girls
The “Sheetah & les Weissmuller” Prize for Best Name: The Phoenix Foundation, Com Truise, Dumbo Gets Mad
The “Sonic Youth” Prize for That Group That Everyone Loves But I Don’t Really Get It: Joanna Newsom, Sufjan Stevens, Gorillaz
The “Andrea c’est toi” Prize for Humor in a Song: Katerine, obviously
The “Jean Rochefort” Prize for Veterans that Never Let Down: Belle and Sebastian, Interpol

The First Place spots for 2001 to 2009 are all taken. The National is therefore the last group to join the clan of the top of the 00’s¹, which as a brief reminder, is the following:

2001. The Strokes - Is This It
2002. Nada Surf - Let Go
2003. Hot Hot Heat - Make Up The Breakdown
2004. Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand
2005. Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
2006. The Strokes - First Impressions Of Earth
2007. Interpol - Our Love To Admire
2008. She & Him - Volume One
2009. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
2010. The National - High Violet

The Big Picture

Aright, let’s talk about it. You might be asking, “Is it vain to put together top of the year lists?”, to which I will respond, “Probably Yes…- But who cares, cause it’s fun!”. Now, so that things are clear, let’s face it: all music sites and magazines take advantage of the end of the year period to assess and synthesize in one post 52 hard weeks of musical analysis. To think that we as readers wasted our time reading up in real time this whole time…

That being said, these lists are often useful because they remind us of all the interesting and varied music we’ve encountered over the past year, especially by reviewing various sites. So, how to start? And am I going to forget an important site/list/song? Don’t panic kids, daddy is here and will provide a detailed Excel file – no, I’m not kidding – to show the complete analysis of the top music of all the sites that he likes.

The Method

I started with the top music of the following sites:

Pitchfork: The Bible of the US, at the same time covering mainstream and eclectic and unknown, you can find as much new music as you can articles about Bruce Springsteen and Weezer
Stereogum: also an American source, a bit more alternative in spirit, but pretty similar to Pitchfork
I Guess I’m Floating: my favorite US “pre-hype” blog, they have their small network and they often discover really interesting treats
Les Inrocks: The essential French source
Ground Zero: a Parisian record shop
Bon Pour les Oreilles: a blog by Swiss Christophe Schenk
Top Blogueurs français: several french blogs combined their selections to have a more robust list
Rolling Stone Magazine: for mainstream US
NME: for mainstream UK

Then, I attributed points to groups nominated by each site depending on the site and the group’s ranking on the site. Each site has a maximum number of points that I assigned, which is completely partial and undoubtedly unfair,… but who cares. In any case, the analysis was pretty quick and it was really fun for me to conduct my own “American Idol” (“Eurovision”):

DAVE - Les Inrocks are about to announce number 13 on their list. Pay attention…

LES INROCKS - The Coral, 76 points!

DAVE - Ah, the English finally get some points, it’s madness at the group’s table. James Skelly is jumping of joy and is kissing his drummer.

The Verdict

The verdict comes without surprise. At the top of the final ranking, 5 artists are clearly without contest. Drum roll please… here is the top 10 essential artists of 2010 according to my media sources:

Arcade Fire
Kanye West
Beach House
Deerhunter
LCD Soundsystem
Vampire Weekend
The National
Janelle Monáe
Robyn
Sleigh Bells

The Analysis

Arcade Fire’s victory comes as no surprise. Despite a second disappointing album which made me expect the worst, The Suburbs realigned all pendulums and confirmed Arcade Fire as THE major group of the year… and even of the decade if we look closely. The presence of LCD Soundsystem, The National, and Vampire Weekend were also predictable.

It makes me really happy to find Beach House in the top 10. The group was a complete unknown at the beginning of 2010 despite two existing disks – how could this small unknown make it so boldly to the pantheon of 2010? Without doubt due to good press of their new sing Norway. Also just goes to show you, a good single can completely influence the scores.

I shutter at the fact that Kanye West and Robyn appear so high on the ranking. A bit less about Janelle Monae, who I find interesting. Well, that type of music is not my cup of tea so no need to go on and on about it.

I raise an eyebrow at the presence of Deerhunter and Sleigh Bells. I definitely remember seeing their names over the course of the year and having listened to some songs, but nothing that made me think twice. I’ll have to listen again.

The complete list

The details of the complete ranking are shared using this Google Doc.

Here is also a big tagcloud of all the artists listed in the survey. Don’t be afraid to explore, that’s what it’s there for.

Bonus

As a bonus of all the information, I present you three mix tapes ~~that you can download~~ at the following addresses:

See you soon for the top films of 2010 which will be much more concise.

Some people think the decade runs from 2000-2009, not 2001-2010… But it’s false. ↩