Albums of the Year 2010

Creating a list of your top ten albums of the year should, on the face of it, be relatively easy. The biggest enemy is time. If an album released in February is still much treasured by December there’s a fair chance it’s going to remain a favourite. An album released only three or four weeks ago is harder to judge. Sometimes no matter how much you think you love something initially, time tells a different tale. Look back through your record collection and you’ll almost inevitably find something that will make you question your state of mind at the time. That’s OK though, records are like human relationships. Some form long term partnerships from the start, some grow on you and some start in a fury of passion but quickly die out.

The next biggest enemy is order. Is it really possible to say that X album is eighth best and Y is ninth? Wake up, roll over and on the next day X may be nine and Y seven.

Against this context, over the next ten days we present our ten albums of the year. Some will be no surprise to regular readers of the blog, but some may be. This is a personal list of the records that we’ve formed the best relationships with this year – be it something deep and long lasting or something a little more heady, giddy and spontaneous that will shortly fizzle out. A number of them appear on other published lists - after all a good album is a good album, and sometimes a number of people are going to agree. Right? Then there's taste. It's a funny old thing that maybe explains why one or two of our choices may be a little different. We're possibly going out on a limb with our #8 and #2 choices for example. It's not that our taste is good or bad, right or wrong - just different to some others, sometimes.

This time next year we may think differently about some of these albums, right now that’s impossible to tell, nobody can predict the future. However, we’re damn sure that the top 3 in our list will remain as our top 3. Whilst we might internally quarrel about the relative merits and positions of the albums listed between 4 and 10, our number 1 album stands majestically above everything else we’ve heard this year – and albums 2 and 3 are also solid in their positions.

But before that, here are five acts that didn't quite make our top ten, but whom all produced fine albums this year that would have certainly featured in our top 20. There are videos from Emeralds experimental sci-fi retro synth brilliance on Does It Look Like I'm Here ? and Foals development to a more expansive sound on Total Life Forever, plus streams from Kylie's solid pop on Aphrodite, our One's to Watch 2009 Marina and the Diamond's coming up trumps with her idiosyncratic debut and London's Revere showing just what can be done in terms of dynamics with their album Hey Selim!

Then below all that we recap our previous albums of the year from 2008 and 2009. Our countdown for this year starts tomorrow around 5pm GMT.

Get Outta My Way by kylieminogue

The Escape Artist by Revere

Shampain by Marina and The Diamonds

Our 2 previous years top 10.

Albums of the Year 2009

1.Blue Roses - Blue Roses

2. The XX - XX

3. The Antlers - Hospice

4. Florence and the Machine - Lungs

5. La Roux - La Roux

6. Mumford and Sons - Sigh No More

7. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport

8. The Unthanks - Here’s The Tender Coming

9. Lucky Elephant - Starsign Trampoline

10. The Horrors - Primary Colours

Albums of the Year 2008

1. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago

2. Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid

3. Glasvegas – Glasvegas

4. Laura Marling – Alas I Cannot Swim

5. Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend

6. Scarlett Johansson – Anywhere I Lay My Head

7. Lykke Li – Youth Novels

8. James Yuill – Turning Down Water For Air

9. Duffy – Rockferry

10. TV On The Radio – Dear Science

Album Of The Year 2008 #1 - Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

Breaking More Waves album of the year is For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver. A remarkable debut, which divinely combines Justin Vernon’s haunting falsetto voice over simple but beautiful acoustic arrangements. Over the last six months this album, full of songs of solitude, has developed into the recording of the year. It is no surprise to find it perched at the top of a number of Album of the Year lists, including this one.

For the uninitiated, the well told tale of the creation of this album involves singer songwriter Justin Vernon imposing self inflicted exile on himself following a split with both his previous band and girlfriend. Living in an isolated cabin in the middle of a Wisconsin forest, he crafted and recorded these mellow melancholy songs assuming the name Bon Iver. From the very first notes, the listener can feel the sense of loneliness, the atmosphere of the surroundings permeating through the music, but also a thought that sometimes the most wonderful things come out of sad times.

This is a record that fully achieves the status of ultimate slow burner, an album that not only develops in your heart through the months, but also for Breaking More Waves has developed through experience. Probably never before has an artist played on the main stage of an outdoor music festival in the middle of the afternoon and completely silenced the audience in awe. As Justin said that day, it really was something special. From that moment, at this years End Of The Road Festival, For Emma, Forever Ago took on a whole new meaning for Breaking The Waves. It showed the power of music, not through heavy rock riffs or pumping beats but through the art of the subtlety of skilful song writing.

For Emma, Forever Ago is a musically perfect album, from the dull desolate thumping beat on Flume to Lump Sum where spacey choir vocals quickly dissolve into a pulsing cinematic acoustic sound. You can imagine this music being played over the opening credits of a film, the camera speeding above a vast ocean.

Lyrically it is obscurely personal and painful. Take Skinny Love where Justin sings “I tell my love to wreck it all, cut out all the ropes and let me fall.” On Re:Stacks “There’s a black crow sitting across from me; his wirey legs are crossed, and he’s dangling my keys, he even fakes a toss. Whatever could it be that has brought me to this loss?” It’s bleak stuff. Although the album may be a joy to listen to, it certainly hasn’t been created out of it. However, Justin finds hope at the end of The Wolves (Acts I and II) where his vocals repeat “What might have been lost,” to a gradually building cacophony, before finishing with “Doesn’t bother me.”

Words do not do this album justice, so instead Breaking More Waves asks you to listen to the music. There are no expensive record company financed videos available, as the songs breathe fully by themselves. So instead here is a film that sums up the album perfectly, a collection of images put together by a fan, to the wonderful song Blindsided.



So that was Breaking More Waves Top Ten Albums of 2008. To end here is a video of two of our top ten, Bon Iver and Lykke Li playing the Lykke Li song Dance Dance Dance. Enjoy. It’s almost time to look forward to 2009 as we gaze into our crystal ball, as well as slotting in the odd gig review before Christmas.

Album Of The Year 2008 #2 - Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid

Mercury Music Prize. There. Said it. Again. Now let’s move on.

The Seldom Seen Kid by Elbow is one of the most elegant and masterful albums produced this year. If ever record companies want proof of the value of sticking with a band and not dropping them after one album fails to make the grade commercially, Elbow are that proof. Whilst every album they have created has had its moments, this, their fourth represents a band at its peak.

Guy Garvey and his cohorts have created a rich tapestry of often sombre sounding but beautiful songs which bubble with emotion. “The violets explode inside me when I meet your eyes. Then I’m spinning and I’m diving like a cloud of starlings. Darling is this love?” he sings on opening track Starlings. These lyrics are thoughtful, expressive and read as well as they are sung. Garvey’s often wry and poetic take on the world and his ability to make the personal seem so wondrous is the skill that makes him one of the country’s best contemporary songwriters.

The Seldom Seen Kid simply oozes quality. From the bluesy crunching Grounds For Divorce, to the incredibly gentle and delicate Weather To Fly, a song so criminally good it needs arresting. Then of course there is One Day Like This, which demonstrates that Elbow also know how to produce an anthem that will appeal to the masses. A string laden song which united a cast of thousands at festivals across the UK this summer with its repeated mantra of “So throw those curtains wide. One day like this a year would see me right.” It will make you well up inside, grab hold of whoever is next to you and tell them that you love them. You might even make babies to it.

The Seldom Seen Kid is one of the most life affirming and important albums released this year, that continues to improve with every listen as we march into 2009. It was almost Breaking More Waves number 1, but that is left to the ultimate ‘grower’ of the year.....

Here’s One Day Like This at Glastonbury. Watch this right to the end and be moved. If you are not, check your pulse. You must be dead.

Album Of The Year 2008 #3 - Glasvegas - Glasvegas

Breaking More Waves third favourite album of the year is the debut from Glasvegas.

When the album finally dropped this autumn many cynics were already writing them off, simply because of the hype they had received. However it is more realistic to replace the word ‘hype’ with the phrase ‘excitement and enthusiasm’ that was generated by a vastly impressive piece of work. The cynics missed an aural treat.

This is a record full of breathtaking, chest thumping anthems formed out of vintage rock and pop sounds that are loaded with emotion and fuzzy guitars. It fulfils all of the promise shown by their early singles and then some, packing musical punch after musical punch with a shimmering wall of sound, booming drums and James Allan’s vulgar but beautiful Scottish brogue. It is an album that is intensely masculine in its delivery and yet often wears its heart fully on its sleeve.

The reference points have been often quoted and are perfectly correct. It’s Jesus and the Mary Chain meets Phil Spector and the Shangri-La’s with a Scottish gangland mentality. But over this wonderful noise there are the songs. Brilliant, uplifting, bruising songs that seem to get bigger and more mountainous with every listen. Themes of social commentary, masculinity and wasted youth cut through the lyrics. The band introduce you to Geraldine, possibly the only song to be sung from the perspective of a social worker, the incredibly sad and poignant Flowers and Football Tops, which deals with the loss of a son and Go Square Go the most joyous song you will ever hear about violence, with it’s football terrace chorus of “Here we fucking go!”

Quite simply Glasvegas by Glasvegas is a staggering record that shows that after the hype at the start of the year, the band could deliver. Here we fucking go indeed !

Unfortunately the bands record company seem to have decided that none of their You Tube official videos can be embedded in blogs, so instead here's a clip of the band playing live on Later With Jools Holland, which lacks the bass heavy atmospheric punch of the album production, but at least gives a flavour.....

Album Of The Year 2008 #4 - Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim

Alas I Cannot Swim by Laura Marling is a bold and creative folk album from a singer songwriter who has arrived without significant hype and is all the better for it. Released last February the album has grown in stature over the year which culminated in a nomination for the Mercury Music prize. It was probably just as well that Marling didn’t win, as the teenager is a shy individual, and the exposure from it may have been too much for her.

Breaking More Waves first came across Marling after hearing New Romantic, which sadly was not included on the album. It has been a love affair with her songs ever since. Subtlety and simplicity is the essence of Marling’s work to date, from the understated backing from members of Noah And The Whale and Mumford and Sons, to the lyrics which are sung in gentle maturity. “And I’m sorry young man, I cannot be your friend, I don’t believe in a fairytale end,” she sings on My Manic And I. These are not the words of your typical happy teenager full of the joys and naiveties of life. This theme of her lack of belief in the permanency of relationships is continued on Ghosts; “Lover please do not fall to your knees, it's not like I believe in everlasting love", she sadly intones.

This sadness is rooted in the country folk heritage of introspection more usually listened to by those in their older years. Yet Marling’s youthfulness has also engaged a whole new young audience more used to bouncing around a moshpit and getting drunk than thoughtful preoccupation of life and its complexities to acoustic music.

Whatever your age, and whatever your thoughts on life however, it would be almost impossible to listen to Alas I Cannot Swim and not agree that it is one of the best albums of the year.

This is the song Night Terror, just one of the many highlights.

Album Of The Year 2008 #5 - Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

In the year when the British skinny jeans indie rock boys finally ran out of steam with their one idea, it was left to cardigan wearing Ivy League graduates Vampire Weekend from the USA to show that boys with guitars could still do something inventive.

Vampire Weekend’s self titled debut album is a smart, fun, infectious and ever so slightly ridiculous kaleidoscopic mix of Afrobeat, indie-funk and post-punk that triumphs with its cocktail of forms. Of course this is not the first time that African influences have been taken so far into the mainstream, Paul Simon got there years ago with Graceland, but this album still feels highly refreshing. Vampire Weekend has energy written through its core and it is praise indeed when one can say that this album sounds unlike anything else released this year.

God knows how they will follow this one up, Breaking More Waves suspects that it is going to be difficult as their chirpy clever rhythmic pop may wear thin after a short burst, but for now in 2008 Vampire Weekend is our fifth favourite album. Here's A Punk from the record.

Album Of The Year 2008 #6 - Scarlett Johansson - Anywhere I Lay My Head

When Scarlett Johansson revealed that she was releasing an album, memories of other film stars turned rock singer nightmares rose up. The Dogstar project of Keanu Reeves anyone ? Bruce Willis doing Under the Boardwalk ? Ok, actress Juliette Lewis makes a fairly decent front woman with her band The Licks, but by and large Hollywood cool doesn’t translate well in the sonic spectrum.

Intrigue and indie credentials were added to the project with the news that Anywhere I Lay My Head would, with the exception of one self penned number, consist entirely of Tom Waits tunes and production duties had been accredited to Dave Sitek of TV On The Radio. Guest appearances with Jesus And The Mary Chain cemented the fact that Ms Johansson’s record had a strategy that was as credible and sophisticated as her best film Lost In Translation.

On release the album took very mixed reviews in the media and initially Breaking More Waves found it rather lacklustre, particularly Johansson's inexpressive vocal. However, Anywhere I Lay My Head had other ideas about itself, and was not going to sit idly at the back of the CD collection. Six months on and it sits justifiably in this list of Top Ten albums of 2008. It’s a real grower.

Johansson’s monotonous throaty alto voice may be limited but it gives the album a dark atmosphere which is then extended by the music. Full of shoe gazing droning, reverb, multi instrumentation and a backing of electronic wash, Sitek’s production has created sounds that give the recording a ghostly, hazy feel that works perfectly. There are distant backing vocals from David Bowie on the haunting Fannin Street and Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s adds guitar on a number of tracks to bolster the already impressive line up.

An impressive line up, and an impressive album that gets better with every listen. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it quenches Breaking More Waves musical thirst nicely. Here’s the song Falling Down....

Album Of The Year 2008 #7 - Lykke Li - Youth Novels

As Breaking More Waves mulled over its one to watch list for 2008, two names that were flagged up were Fanfarlo and Lykke Li. Eventually neither act made it on the list, being narrowly pipped at the post by Glasvegas and The Ting Tings. Then in January both acts played a London gig together at the Hoxton Bar and Grill with Breaking More Waves in attendance. We swooned at Lykke Li and her seductively commanding set and the album due for release later in the year became a must buy.

Youth Novels didn’t disappoint. It’s an album of well crafted idiosyncratic stripped down pop music. Unlike much of pop today, this it is an album of presence and substance that doesn’t rely on overproduction, a few hit singles and a mass of X Factor TV style exposure to lodge itself in your brain. Much of this is down to the minimalist and light touch production of Bjorn Yttling of Peter Bjorn and John fame, who leave space between the sounds to create a focus for what has been recorded. This production gives weight to Lykke Li’s cute fragile voice, her sad lyrics, the rhythmic percussion lines and simple but lovely melodies. From the obsessive love song of Little Bit to the hurting Hanging High where Lykke Li sings sadly “Oh thunder in my heart, these razors cutting sharp, leaves me with an ever bleeding scar, so soft so suddenly, so that I cannot breathe,” this is most certainly adult pop of the very best kind.

In 2008 Breaking More Waves fell in love with Lykke Li. Here is Little Bit, maybe you can see why....

Album Of The Year 2008 #8 - James Yuill - Turning Down Water For Air

Turning Down Water For Air by James Yuill combines maverick electronic beats, gentle acoustic guitars and Yuill’s massage soothing vocals to produce Breaking More Waves eighth favourite album of the year. Like a one man Radiohead who strapped his acoustic guitar on his back but left the electronic ones at home, Yuill’s album will appeal to those who enjoy a groove to Aphex Twin or New Order, but also find songwriters such as Nick Drake in their album collection. It’s an inventive and clever album that manages to capture moments of restraint and an off your face dance floor madness.

With this winning formula Yuill manages to conjure surprises throughout, such as on the single No Pins Allowed, where dirty shuffling beats gradually build and a repeated guitar loop seems to set the pattern. Then the whole thing breaks down into a segue of mammoth robotic euphoric synth sounds; Aphex Twin himself would be proud of such moments like this. One can almost imagine Yuill as a mad scientist who has taken too many drugs at the disco.

Despite these manic moments, what makes this album work so well is that despite the computerised beats, the album feels warm and very human. The fragility of songs such as the xylophone lead Head Over Heels dispense with the electronica completely and even the pulsing No Surprise leaves a lasting impression of comfort.

Turning Down Water For Air is an album of contrasts that demonstrates perfectly that opposite sounds attract. If you haven’t heard of Yuill yet, this video to No Pins Allowed shows perfectly what he is about.

Album Of The Year 2008 #9 - Duffy - Rockferry

OK, if you are a regular visitor to Breaking More Waves you may well be cringing at the title of this blog. Yes, Breaking The Waves 9th favourite album of the year is Rockferry by Duffy.

The welsh songstress has sold bucket loads of albums this year, and her music was described in the press as an alternative to Dad Rock - yep, Mum Soul. Not the greatest title admittedly, and certainly Aimee Duffy is not producing cutting edge, inventive or original music. I’m sure many Radio 2 listening housewives have purchased Rockferry whilst shopping at Waitrose, and the music police will shoot them down for their actions. How can middle aged mums have such poor taste you may ask ? Is that what happens when you reach a certain age, does all quality control go out of the window? Well this middle aged dad is right with those mums and votes that Rockferry is really a rather good album, and that the quality control is working fine. I do not seek the approval of the music police. Sorry, I can’t help what I like, and sometimes my choices and arguments will contradict each other. Consistency is boring.

Essentially Rockferry is gorgeous piece of heavily produced retro sounding pop. Sure, there are a couple of songs that are just a little lacking in balls, and arguments remain about the authenticity of a girl who once appeared on the Welsh version of X Factor. But when Breaking More Waves leaves all prejudices aside and simply listens to the music with no preconceived ideas, there are some show stopping 60’s styled classic pop songs on this album. From the epic Distant Dreamer which is quite possibly the best song Bernard Butler has produced since Suede and the McAlmont and Butler projects, to the Lulu like hit single Mercy, with its “Yeah Yeah Yeah” chorus that gets deep inside your head (even if it was a little too similar to a certain Ms Winehouse’s “No, No,No,” refrain), this is a well constructed pop album that captures perfectly the sixties soul sound.

Sorry music police. I’m right, you’re wrong. Maybe thousands of middle aged housewives are right after all. But if you don’t agree maybe my No.8 choice will be more your cup of tea ? Here's why thousands love her.....and her performance on later with Jools.

Album Of The Year 2008 #10 - TV On The Radio - Dear Science

For many albums, the realisation of its greatness comes only after repeated listens. The subtle nuances, the deeper melodies and hidden joys that grow on you, over cheap pop thrills. Yet with TV On The Radio's Dear Science it takes just one listen to the opening track Halfway Home to know that this is going to be a great album. Heavy clattering war like drums punctuated with Beach Boys style “Ba Ba Ba” vocals propel the song forwards until a moment after exactly four minutes and twenty seconds Tunde Adebimpe sings softly “ Go on throw this stone, into this halfway home” and the song musically orgasms. The pace of the drums increases, squalling electric guitar crash over in waves, the bass suddenly drives home and the “Ba Ba Ba’s” become an almost chaotic mess. It leaves you feeling wasted, spent and totally exhilarated.

But one song does not make an album, and the New York quintet have with Dear Science produced an artistically complex album, where no two songs are the same but all are equally as good. It is a fully realised, often complex piece of work, loaded with giddy slightly sixth form political and cultural references. “Hey Jackboot, fuck your war. Cause I’m fat and I’m in love and no bombs are fallin’ on me for sure. But I’m scared to death that I’m livin’ a life not worth dying for,” Adebimpe sings on Red Dress hinting at many of the issues that the United States consciousness deals with in 2008.

Some have compared Dear Science to the work of Radiohead, but musically there are very few similarities. However what both bands do share here seems to be an ideology of making challenging artistic rock records that sit outside of the mainstream. In sound alone TV On The Radio sound more like Prince funking out at his best on Golden Age and a marching band singing about breaking beds and sucking skin on the climatic Lovers Day. And that’s the picture not even one twentieth painted.

The three best things about this album are first that despite its diversity of songs, its overall cohesiveness as an album works impressively. The second is that although it is in the main not an album of simple verses and catchy choruses, it is surprisingly instant to listen to, and yet remains addictive several months later. The third is that it is one of a very small number of albums on this list that is not a debut.

Whilst you would suspect that Breaking More Waves no.9 choice tomorrow will not feature in many critics end of year polls, Dear Science probably will, and I applaud anyone that shows faith in this exciting modern rock record. It neatly balances artistic intrigue with a sense of the commercial populist in the same way that, in the past, great American bands such as REM and Talking Heads have done.



Dancing Choose from Dear Science by TV On The Radio

Top 10 Albums of the Year and One's to Watch 2009

Well it’s that time of year when it seems that everyone in the world of popular culture publishes their best of list, and here at Breaking More Waves we are no different. Since back in the 90’s we’ve been publishing yearly best of lists, be it in our old paper fanzine or now on the internet.

And as the cliché says, hindsight is a wonderful thing. In choosing Radiohead’s OK Computer and Blur’s Parklife as the respective albums of the year in 1997 and 1994 we feel well vindicated. However our selection of Baby Bird’s There’s Something Going On in 1998 now seems a little odd. And then of course two years ago our album of the year wasn’t even an album, but a My Space page. We stand by that choice though. It was the musical place where we had received the most pleasure through repeated listens in 2006 and we were trying to make a small statement about where music was at that particular year.

So grab yourself an early mince pie, a glass of sherry and begin the count down to Christmas with Breaking More Waves by reading about our Top 10 Albums of the Year and Top 10 One’s to Watch. We’ve spent the last month mulling it over before coming up with the final list. It’s a good one. Or at least we think so. Where, if at all, will the popular press favourite artists such as MGMT, Vampire Weekend and The Kings Of Leon feature? Will the debuts by artists in my previous One’s to Watch in 2008 make an appearance ? Last year I went on record saying that Adele and Laura Marling would both be nominated for the Mercury prize, before anyone had even heard their albums. I was right there, but will their albums feature in my list? And will there be some on the list that make people go “What ?”. Remember that Britney Spears has been in our Top 10 album lists the same number of times as Radiohead, with 3 each !

And as for the One’s To Watch list, this year we did very well with 90% of those acts chosen either producing decent debut albums or having commercial success. Mind you, for the first time ever the BBC Sound Of list significantly mirrored our own. This year things may not be quite as similar. As far as Breaking More Waves is concerned there are no obvious choices like last years with Duffy, Adele and Glasvegas. Mind you, at least last year we didn’t pick Joe Lean and The Jing Jang Jong which so many pundits did. Idiots. Crap band, crap name, crap music.

So from the 1st December enjoy our countdown of the Top 10 Albums of the Year, followed by our Top 10 One’s To Watch for 2009. Let's just hope we can find the time to write a blog a day for twenty days! It's a challenge !