The Best of 2010 - The Records

Here are some of my favourite albums of the year in no particular order.

H Hawkline - 'A Cup of Salt' (Shape)

Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (Roc-A-Fella)

Tame Impala - 'Innerspeaker' (Modular)

Yeasayer - 'Odd Blood' (Secretly Canadian)

Jonsi - 'Go' (XL)

Special Benny - 'Toys' (Proper Songs)

Foals - 'Total Life Forever' (Transgressive Records)

Voice of the Seven Thunders - 'Voice of the Seven Thunders' (Tchantinler)

And a few great compilations too.

Pavement - 'Quarantine The Past' (Matador Records)

'Deutsche Elektronische Musik' (Soul Jazz Records)

'Menagerie 2' (Tor Press/Blackest Rainbow Records)

A few other notable mentions include Sufjan Steven's 'Age of Adz' which I really struggled with initially but it's growing on me of late and Deerhunter's 'Halcyon Digest' which isn't nearly as good as 'Microcastle/Weird Era' but has my favourite song of the year on - 'He Would Have Laughed' dedicated to the late Jay Reatard.

Not sure what the fuss is with Caribou's 'Swim' - everyone's wet-tipping it and it seems to be popping up in numerous best of 2010 lists but I think it's a big dancey turd - all the more disappointing seeing as I loved the previous two albums.

I'm still reeling from the passing of Don Glen Vliet aka Captain Beefheart a fortnight ago. My friend Hugh summed it up for me with this;

"The good Captain has left us.

Our ship of fools sails on though the void a little more sadly and a little more lost."