20. Zola Jesus Stridulum II
I loved the song “I Can’t Stand” off this record so much that I had to add it to this list. Despite only having two or three other songs I thought were as strong as “I Can’t Stand,” Stridulum II was a good occasional spin.
19. Yeasayer Odd Blood
I like a lot of Yeasayer’s last album; the moody and dark All Hour Cymbals but the danceable beats of Odd Blood were much more infectious and fun. It was the perfect soundtrack to the past summer. “O.N.E.” is my jam.
18. Vampire Weekend Contra
How about Vampire Weekend replacing their sweater vests with jean jackets? Contra sounded so much more punk to me than any of the band’s previous work. I love the riff and guitar tone on “Holiday.”
17. Sleigh Bells Treats
Speaking of punk, Treats is about belligerence in their noise attack. This record is crazy loud and wins the “Most Compression” award of 2010. Two favorites: “Tell ‘Em”, and “Infinity Guitars”.
16. Ra Ra Riot The Orchard
I like grouping records into seasons, and I described Ra Ra Riot’s The Orchard at the time as the “sound of zipping up your jacket & breathing deep the brisk air. Scent of a tended fire. Fine, fall music.” Still holds true. “Too Dramatic” and “Foolish” both made some of my mixes this year.< br/>
15. Local Natives Gorilla Manor
“Airplane” is my song of the year hands down. Fantastic melody, harmonies and lyrics. Totally catchy. The record suffers a bit from being too long. 12 songs, 1 of which is a Talking Heads’ cover, and most of which push 4 minutes or more. Trimming the fat would’ve pushed this record higher up the list.
14. Colour Revolt The Cradle
I heard Colour Revolt’s self-titled debut EP about 5 years ago and have followed the band ever since. 2008′s Plunder, Beg, And Curse was fantastic and I highly anticipated The Cradle. The wait was worth it. Colour Revolt’s sound took a bit of a left turn by toning down their heaviness with some 90s alternative pop/rock. Melodies with a bit more sparkle, drums with a bit more back beat; “Heartbeat” is a perfect example of this.
13. Peter Gabriel Scratch My Back
I wrote a track-by-track review of this record while it was streaming over at the Guardian earlier this year. I was blown away by it. I tend not to enjoy covers because often they aren’t reinterpretations of the original but Scratch My Back takes the road less traveled. Gabriel’s reinterpretations are gorgeous; piano, strings and his amazingly powerful voice.
12. The Roots How I Got Over
This record made a late run into this list. I didn’t listen to it until last month, and I really liked how open a lot of the songs were. None of the songs suffer from suffocating production rather each instrument is given plenty of space. “Dear God 2.0″ and the title track are my two favorites.
11. Charlotte Gainsbourg IRM
I remember thinking when I first heard this record that it sounded like a female version of Beck. I was then informed that Beck actually produced and wrote most of the songs on the record. Quirky, cutesy, funky pop rock sung by a quirky, cute (and funky?) Anglo-French actress. What more could you want?

And finally the top 10:
10. Goldfrapp Head First
“Rocket” is my 2nd favorite song of the year, and when I first heard it I couldn’t stop laughing. With lyrics like “I’ve got a rocket/you’re going on it” on top of dance club beats and 1970s “futuristic” sounding synths; my mind was in the gutter. Much like Yeasayer’s “O.N.E.” I felt I accidentally walked into a club which entrance is marked with a rainbow flag. However, by the second track and through the end of the record my smile was out of only sincere enjoyment.
9. Laura Veirs July Flame
July Flame was a slow grower for me. I found “Carol Kaye” and “Sleeper In the Valley” online and immediately liked them but the rest of the record took a few spins to really take. Veirs is a fantastic songwriter and her back up band is incredibly talented too. She’s also quite good live.
8. Wye Oak My Neighbor / My Creator
Wye Oak were another band I saw live this year. Once in St. Louis, and once in Columbia and they were awesome both times I saw them. They’re a duo, but their drummer also plays the keys while drumming. Pretty impressive to see pulled off live. Their singer/guitarist also plays cool chords and fills out the sound quite well being the only rhythmic/melodic instrument. Oh, and they write good songs. That always helps.
7. Mumford & Sons Sigh No More
Another band I saw a few times live. I really liked this band when I first heard them and especially once I memorized the lyrics (which I seldom do which should tell you how many times I listened to this album). Their melodies are catchy and infectious; I can’t help but sing along every time. I have a hard time imagining they’ll follow up Sigh No More with as strong a record, but if they did it on their first outing, who knows?
6. Jónsi Go
I was very surprised by this record. I didn’t really dig Sigur Rós last album too much so they weren’t much on my rader which is why I didn’t know Jónsi was working on a solo record until it was out. “Go Do” is the perfect spring song, as well as the perfect kick in the ass if you’ve ever felt sorry for yourself. My favorite song, however, is “Hengilas.” It’s a slow burner with a beautiful melody and string accompaniment. It’s funny how Jónsi sings in english quite a bit on this record, and my favorite song is in another language.
5. The National High Violet
This album fell a few spots since I first started making this list. When it was released I couldn’t get enough of it and neither could any of my friends. The National’s vocalist Matt Berninger writes fantastic lyrics and I really dig the subtlety of his delivery and melodic range (partly because of the limitations of his range, partly by design.) I think the album fell because I burned it out a bit. I haven’t listened to it yet in 2011, but it’s still really great.
4. Beach House Teen Dream
I really dug the first several songs on this record when it first came out, especially “Zebra” but the rest of the record didn’t really sink in until late in the year. Most of Beach House’s previous efforts have been good, but with several standout songs. Each time I listen to Teen Dream now, every track has an “Oh, yeah! This track is awesome!” reaction. Victoria Legran’s low alto has a gender-neutral quality and her abstract lyrics really allow the listener to make up whatever meaning each song has for themselves. I like this phenomena in music in general, but I think it suits Beach House quite well because their whole aesthetic feels very undefined, nebulous and up for interpretation in the ringing guitars, spring reverb, boomy drums and lingering Fender Rhodes key strokes.
3. Arcade Fire The Suburbs
What other rock band this year put out a more controversial album in terms of sound rather than content? It seemed every one who did not like The Suburbs this year did not like it because it did not sound like the big, grandiose, barn-burning, epic Arcade Fire they were used to hearing on previous efforts Neon Bible and Funeral. I thought that very difference was why The Suburbs was so great. The band surprised with understatement. Perfect examples of this would be the build in “Modern Man” that doesn’t explode but subsides back into the chorus of the song that says repeating the same thing over and over doesn’t make any sense. If the haters had waited until “We Used To Wait” they would’ve gotten that explosion they desired, but it’s their loss.
2. Titus Andronicus The Monitor
The Monitor is Titus Andronicus’ The Ugly Organ. It’s a nerdy combination of U.S. history and personal history and, of course, the shit of humanity and the self filtered through ProCo Rat’s and a ton of expletives. I wonder if there is a 7 year cycle of amazing and amazingly self-aware concept rock records. What came out in 1996 that fits that description? Or 1989? Anyone have any ideas?
1. Sufjan Stevens The Age of Adz
It’s Sufjan’s best work hands down. Listen, I love Illinois for reasons beyond having attended college in Illinois when the record was released. I lived less than 15 minutes from Highland, which is described in track 2. I have been to Metropolis and seen the giant statue of Superman. The Age of Adz is Sufjan’s most personal work ever and it gets into all the crap one gets into in relationships and a specific relationship that didn’t work out. It’s brutal in its honesty, its tragedy and it has some pretty sweet boops, beeps and beats. I heard Sufjan say that the electronic sounds were supposed to be like what is happening inside his own body much like the content of the music is describing what is going on inside himself as well. That revelation really broadened the album for me and helped draw me in. The boops and beeps and electronic noisy things sounded much more like bodily functions after that fact was known and were much less a distraction as they first were. One of the things I really love is how long a lot of the songs are in how they often start off in one way, be it loud, dark and noisy and will subtract to the most simple melody accompanied by an acoustic guitar and Sufjan’s soul. Utterly amazing through and through. Sufjan is truly a genius and even if he doesn’t get back to making concept records about any other of the 48 remaining states I’ll be happy with autobiographies. He obviously has enough material to work with.

Honorable mention:
Eminem Recovery
I technically didn’t even listen to this 2010 release until January so it couldn’t count for my top 20 of 2010 but it’s incredible. I love records that seem either difficult artistically or are a result of a difficult experience or time in the artist’s life. Recovery is about Eminem literally recovering from prescription drug addiction and the resulting fallout. Despite still having some rather violent bits of lyrics, the self-flagellation is impossible to turn away from. Em is completely exposed and the shit he lays on the table draws the listener closer rather than repulses. There are quite a few catchy choruses and tasty beats too but this album is a mammoth achievement for the Detroit native as well as a harrowing journey of rehabilitation. And it’s way better than Kanye’s album.

1. “Heroes” originally performed by David Bowie
I’m not going to lie, I first heard this song on the Godzilla soundtrack as performed by the Wallflowers. I’ve since heard the David Bowie version, which is a thousand times better (though the Wallflowers one isn’t bad by any stretch) but I really LOVE Gabriel’s version of this song. I’m not really sure why. Maybe it’s how intimate his vocal performance sounds to me. The closeness of the mic placement, how quietly he begins the song to how epic it becomes later. I love the loop-like nature of the string arrangement. I also like the idea that loving your partner is heroic. I also love how the higher register singing Gabriel does reminds me of my favorite college professor (which is a huge reason I like this record as much as I do, and why I like “Everything That Happened Will Happen Today” by Brian Eno and David Byrne.) This song is just epic and Gabriel treats it as such.

2. “The Boy in the Bubble” originally performed by Paul Simon
“The Boy in the Bubble” begins pretty plain but is surprising towards the middle and end. The lyrics are visuals. Each line puts a picture in your head and associates with a memory. I really like the line “these are the days of miracle and wonder” and how it is in reference to the advances in technology in the modern age and they can be used to keep people connected.

3. “Mirrorball” originally performed by Elbow
At first I thought this was a cover of that Sarah McLachlan song “Mirrorball” but as it turns out, Mirrorball was just the name of her live record and wasn’t actually a song she penned. Anyway. I like this song’s placement before “Flume.” The line “we made the moon our mirrorball” and “everything has changed” and how confrontational the song seems to be to the singer’s former lover. A “screw you” kind of break up song. Fantastic, soaring arrangement in the strings this song, particular during the “life off love” section. Gabriel’s vocals are in top form.

4. “Flume” originally performed by Bon Iver
I was very affected by Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago when it came out in 2007. I caught a Bon Iver live set on an NPR All Songs Considered podcast and was blown away by the fragility and power present at the same time in Justin Vernon’s voice.
Gabriel’s take on it somehow makes it even more frail and heart breaking. From the slow start with piano and vocal, to the crescendos in the choruses both in the string section and Gabriel’s voice. The moon comes back, but I get the impression it is a different moon than in the Elbow cover, and this is one colored with regret. There are various interpretations of the lyrics out there but the one I identify with the most is feeling isolated and different from your surroundings. An extra layer of sadness is applied to this interpretation when you put the words in Gabriel’s mouth who is twice Vernon’s age which make them particularly potent. The extra refrain of “she’s the moon” at the end also lead to an interpretation that this is being sung as a tribute to the singer’s mother, who may have died.

5. “Listening Wind” originally performed by Talking Heads
Despite the fact that this song is just Gabriel’s voice and strings (and maybe a flute too,) it makes me move. I feel my body sway back and forth, my head keeps the beat and the emotion of the song finds its way inside. The lyrics “he feels the presence of the wind beside him” are perfectly transformed into the string arrangement. The rising, scalar nature of the lead melody in the violin balance the jumping violas and bass and run contrary to Gabriel’s melodies which generally start at the top and find their way down the scale. Similar to the movements of a tree wrestling in the wind, the movement of each individual branch is seemingly cacophony, but the wind is blown with a steady beat which keeps me listening, and swaying.

6. “The Power Of the Heart” originally performed by Lou Reed
Building slowly like most of the tracks on this covers album, one can imagine being in rehearsal space or a large living room with Gabriel at the piano and a string quartet in front of him. Pretty simple verse, chorus, bridge arrangement and dynamics. The arrangement’s understated nature may by the opposite of what the lyrics intend, but that also could be the point. The lyrics say it without any help from the instruments. “All around the world just to bring you back, it was the power of your heart.” Even the rise at the end of the song underpin the fact that with or without the bombast the power in the song is not the music.

7. “My Body Is a Cage” originally performed by Arcade Fire
The main refrain of the song, “my body is a cage,” makes me wonder if the lyric is sung with the thought of inevitable death from age in Gabriel’s mind. Being 60, I can’t imagine he can move around in the same way anymore. The string and horn arrangement build to claustrophobic levels and overwhelm the singer even at the top of his range. Despite the physical decline the line “the mind is the key” is repeated over and over towards the end of the song with an angelic choir in the background.

8. “The Book of Love” originally performed by the Magnetic Fields; a duet sung with Melanie Gabriel
This song is Nicole Krauss’ “The History of Love” in nearly four minutes. Love is a bitch. Love is painful. Love is dull. Love is beautiful. Love is worthy. Love is enthralling. Love is idealized by the young but understood by the old. Love is selfish and sacrificial.

9. “I Think It’s Going To Rain Today” by Randy Newman
Randy Newman will best be remember by me for his songs in Toy Story. That was the first time I noticed him and have a hard time taking his non-Disney-approved songs very seriously. Gabriel conjures his best Cash on this version of “I Think It’s Going To Rain Today.”

10. “Après moi” originally performed by Regina Spektor
Gabriel slowed down Spektor’s “Après moi” to a tempo fit for a funeral march. While Spektor’s version of the song is manic, scattered and almost comical, Gabriel’s is comical in it’s utter seriousness. The lyrics seems to be about fear of totalitarian theft or a crazy delusion that there are lame people out there trying to steal your legs. Be afraid for what you have because someone may steal it. I may be missing something that would tie it all together, but this cover is my least preferred thus far.

11. “Philadelphia” by Neil Young
I can identify with this song and feeling afraid of being rejected by your community. Having been pushed out to sail without a map it’s been an interesting couple of years since graduating from college. Trying to figure out what it is I’m “supposed” to be doing with my life, learning how to be married and how to love unconditionally, taking care of stupid details and bills. I really like the line “I will not be ashamed of love.” It resonates on a couple levels: not being too concerned about the way people think of me, in other words, by myself; not being afraid of really getting in depth in to what I love, mostly metal and hardcore; and to love my friends without self-consciousness as they deserve to be loved.

12. “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” originally performed by Radiohead
The change of the constant guitar arpeggios to slowly outlined piano 9th chords transform the song that originally (and brilliantly) ended Radiohead’s “The Bends,” to a formless entity somehow bleaker than the original. Out bleak-ing Radiohead is a tremendous feat in and of itself. The arrangement of the song slowly pulls the listener down the drain unaware but the real magic is in Gabriel’s choice to mimic Yorke’s vocals. Cracking, tearing his vocals all through the “ohs” and “fade out again” perhaps better than the original recording, or perhaps how Yorke would record the song now. On top of this, the ending is fantastic. In the last few seconds, Gabriel slides into chords foreign and beautiful despite their darkness. Much like the ending of Radiohead’s Kid A with the orchestra tuning that crescendos to heaven’s pearly gates Gabriel’s slide transports the listener from a place of despair to euphoria but one must wonder if the euphoria is heavenly or perhaps we’re feeling warm because we’re about to freeze to death.

Listen to the full album at the Guardian and at Lala
Scratch My Back at Wikipedia