Best of 2010 Music

Best Music of 2010

Sure it sounds easy to crank out a list of music no one else has heard, that no one else cares about and of course that...twangs. BUT IT IS NOT! It is hard... it is DAMN HARD to quote Wesley Snipes in “White Men Can’t Jump” but yet hear I am again. Another year... another failure to review a diner. But I want to tell you, I think there was a lot of great music this year. While listening to all this music I read the blog of Bob Lefsetz and internalized his rants about how cashing in does not matter, only loving music, being talented and working hard. How there has never been so much good music out there but there is so much that counter intuitively... it is hard to find. That now what matters is the filters, the trusted sources for recommendations. I am NOT one of those.

Hollerado: “Record In A Bag”. Damn this was fun. It is an unlikely choice for me. Straight ahead rock n roll with a driving guitar and drums. This band is Canadian (Manitck Ontario) and decided that they were going to make it on their own. They hopped in a car from somewhere up there and went as far as their gas money would take them. They then went to bars and offered to open, or to play before the opener... for nothing. Each morning they went to Best Buy and bought a CD burner and burned a bunch of CD’s and then returned it that afternoon. That evening at whatever show they played they sold the discs in ziplog bags. And they survived. It is more then a story. This is good music. Download the song Juliette. Do it now. You will smile. http://www.hollerado.com/

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Frightened Rabbit: “Living In Color”. WHo would of thought a Scottish band? I would have thought that little block of land was played out. But this band grabbed me with this CD. Lots of good songs and it rocks. The title track, the uplifting suicide song “Swim Until You Can’t See Land”, “Nothing Like You” and “Not Miserable”. Dense arrangement and the pained, pained Scottish lilt. For me this CD was a departure from my normal tastes but it was just so well done and it grew and grew on me... like a fungus.

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Elizabeth Cook: “Welder”. Best CD of the year and right in my wheel house. It grabbed me at first with an obvious painful song, “My Heroin Addict Sister” and then made me smile with “El Camino” but pretty soon I found myself listening to the whole CD over and over in my car when traveling. “Follow You Like Smoke”, “Its Not California”, “Girlfriend Tonight” and the painful hilarious (for me) “When you say yes to beer you say, no to booty”. I heard that. her voice is just awesome. She looks like a little girl but i would place her at 40 and her guitarist husband Tim Carroll is an old alt country favorite. If you like shit like Lucinda WIlliams... and I do, you will love her. This is my gift to you. And you owe me.

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Joe Pug: “Messenger”: I got hooked on him last year. This CD is better. His song writing is poignant and probing and often painful. Of the group this year I think he is the best song writer. far and away. The CD is good, song after song but the high spots for me are and were “Messenger”, “The Door Was Always Open” and “Speak Plainly Diana”. This good good stuff. This guy will be one of the greats over time and the questioning religiousity of many of his songs speaks to me like almost no one else.

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There was other interesting stuff:

Ben Wilkins does Ben Folds" Whatever and Ever Amen" sound as well as Ben ever did. This is really a nice EP and you should listen to it.

Costello's new CD "National Ransom" is another winner and essential for someone who loves his body of work (like me).

Arcade Fires new CD is on everyone's best of list. I know it is good but I just cannot like it that much. Still I keep listening.

Avett Brothers: They continue to develop their sound and their following. "And I love You" is really solid and for an alt-country fan like me is essential but....

Elizabeth Cook...Welder. Buy it. Thank me later.