Sooo....it's December...the season of best-of lists!!

It's finally December and I can now officially accept all the Christmas malarky going on everywhere.

I must say I struggled a bit when I first started compiling my favorite albums of 2010 list. It felt like it had been a pretty quiet and boring year. Then I realised I've just been so so busy this year, that releases from February might as well have been released ten years ago and I had just forgotten all the great records that had been released. So, I went back and had a look at the albums I'd bought and loved and suddenly I found myself with quite a large list. It took quite a while, but finally I had it all narrowed down to 27 albums. But, you can't do a top-27, can you? It has to be 10 or 20, 25 even. But not 27. Oh no. So, in the end I opted for a top-10, with 17 honorable mentions sharing the 11th place, in no particular order. Lazy? Possibly.


So, here goes. The most surprising album on the honorable mentions list I guess is the above receord, Allo Darlin's debut album. Of course it should be in my top-10. But, at the same time I feel I can't really include it there. I've been too personally involved in the making/promoting/touring of this album. I designed the artwork for the album and the four singles, I've taken most of their photos (both for artwork and for press), made two music videos, been on two US tours and one European tour (all in all I've seen the band more than 30 times this year) and mentioned them in many, many, many blog posts. That is why I made the decision to leave it off my top-10 list. It just feels wrong, almost like putting my own release in a best-of-the-year list and that's not on, is it? It's an amazing record and by far the one closest to my heart. It wins that prize without any competition whatsoever. So there.

OK....after much thought and headache...all absolutely great and in shared 11th place:

11. Allo Darlin' – s/t
11. No Age – Everything In Between
11. Bonnie "Prince" Billy & The Cairo Gang – The Wondershow Of The World
11. Best Coast – Crazy For You
11. Shrag – Life! Death! Prizes!
11. Wavves – King of the Beach
11. Male Bonding – Nothing Hurts
11. Dum Dum Girls – I Will Be
11. Blonde Redhead – Penny Sparkle
11. Les Savy Fav – Root For Ruin
11. Darren Hayman & The Secondary Modern – The Essex Arms
11. The Radio Dept. – Clinging To A Scheme
11. Love Is All – Two Thousand and Ten Injuries
11. Adam Green – Minor Love
11. Quasi – American Gong
11. Avi Buffalo – s/t
11. Caribou – Swim

My top-10 will (probably) be revealed tomorrow. [EDIT] at some point [EDIT 2]at the weekend before the end of the year. Been too freaking busy.