Top 10 albums of 2010

10 Bruce Springsteen – The Promise

A bunch of discarded songs from a 1978 album: how could this be one of the best albums of the year 32 years later? I did have to wrestle a bit with my principles before including this in the list – normally re-issues, best-ofs, live albums, etc. are discounted immediately. However, technically this is a new release studio album, albeit of material recorded so long ago that colour TV hadn't been invented (in Scotland anyway). But then I decided, it's my list and who's going to argue?

You may know some of the story, but I'm going to recount it again anyway. After Born to Run was released in 1975 Springsteen became embroiled in a dispute with his manager, which meant that he could write and record, but not release any new material. The dispute went on for three years and by the time it was resolved Springsteen had shifted a long way from the 26-year-old 'future of rock and roll' hailed after the release of Born to Run.

Darkness on the Edge of Town, the 10-track album he chose to release as its follow-up reflected this and, although it was critically acclaimed, in commercial terms it was bit of disaster. For many fans (myself included), though it is the high-point of Springsteen's career. The 10 songs have a strength and purity that would never be recaptured and it perfectly embodies his artistic vision. As Springsteen put it himself, it was 'a reckoning with the adult world.' It was 'rebellious adult music' that tussled with the realisation that 'life is no longer wide open. Adult life is a life of compromise. And there are some essential things you don't want to compromise. And it's working those things out. There's a part of life you can never compromise with, or you lose yourself.'

The recording sessions for Darkness were paradoxically once of the most creative periods of Springsteen's career and the songs just seemed to keep coming. Some of these unused tracks were given to other artists – Patti Smith got Because the Night, her biggest hit, and the Pointer Sisters got Fire – others were reused and repurposed by Springsteen himself and many of the melodies, lyrics and phrases here have turned up on The River and later albums.

Some of the songs just didn't fit with the mood on Darkness, some would have fitted perfectly. Many have since become live favourites and some achieved near mythical status, traded on bootlegs between die-hard fans. It is fascinating to get a chance to hear all these songs at last and to get an insight into how Darkness was put together, but what is most surprising is how well this works as an album on its own terms. There is a lot more variation in style and subject matter than you would expect from hearing what was released and this has been carefully considered in constructing a running order that means you forget the roots of these songs and get lost in the story that the album tells.

The one track that appears on both Darkness on the Edge of Town and The Promise is Racing in the Street. Possibly the quintessential Springsteen song of cars and girls and fading dreams it perfectly encapsulates the reckoning with the adult world and the battles between youthful freedoms and adult responsibilities that is such a feature many of Springsteen's songs. The version on The Promise is a slightly more bombastic and epic, the original version more weary and less certain, but no less devastating in its final reckoning:

Tonight my baby and me,

we're going to ride to the sea

and wash these sins off our hands

Tonight, tonight the highways bright,

out of our way mister you best keep,

because summer's here and the time is right

for racing in the street ...

Best Albums of 2010: Not actually from 2010

Metric – Fantasies

I first heard the song Twilight Galaxy early last year and it was on a couple of playlists that I used to whittle down my favourite tunes of the year. It didn't make the final cut, being a bit downbeat and one-dimensional, but a few months ago I found the album in our local library (rock'n'roll!) and was sufficiently intrigued to pop it into the pile along with the kids books, Futurama comics and quilting titles. It turns out Twilight Galaxy isn't really that representative of the rest of the album which is mostly infectiously catchy, polished, indie-electro-pop with female vocals. A bit like MGMT fronted by a skinny Holly Valance i.e. quite hard to resist.

Phantogram – Eyelid Movies

Phantogram mine a similar seam to Metric, but come at it from a more leftfield, less polished, trip-hoppy direction. When I'm Small was on the stereo a lot last year and it did end up making it on to my 2009 best of, but for some reason I wasn't sure if the rest of the album would live up to its scratchy, languorous yearnings. Of course it doesn't, but even so it has plenty more tricks up its sleeve. From the slowed down dancefloor moves of Mouthful of Diamonds through the Portisheadesque As Far As I Can See to the gentle, piano fade out of 10,000 Claps it is an album that burrows into your brain and reveals new treasures on every listen.

The Rural Alberta Advantage – Hometowns

One of my favourite finds of 2010, The Rural Alberta Advantage are a trio who, as their name suggests, grew-up in rural Alberta. Hometowns would have been well up the list in my top 10 albums of the year if it wasn't disqualified on age. But by any measure it is a great album – the 12 tracks rip past in an unusually hasty 42 minutes, leaving you pining for more as it ends. The beautiful, cello-driven melancholia of Don't Haunt this Place first caught my attention, but pretty much every track is a gem. There are acoustic foot-stomping numbers, punky lo-fi like The Dethbridge in Lethbridge and lots of unfeasibly catchy stories of small hometowns, heartbreaks and getting out for the city.

We Were Promised Jetpacks – These Four Walls

Not sure why it took me so long to catch on to These Four Walls, but it was about two weeks too late for the 2009 best albums list. Which is a shame because it certainly would have aced it if I had been a little bit more on the ball. I don't know how they have managed it, but twenty-something years too late they have written the soundtrack to my teenage years. Obviously not the soundtrack I listened to at that time, but pretty much exactly what growing up in small town Scotland sounded like in my head. Joyous, scared, petrified, confused, uncertain, frustrated, hopeful: it is all there and it is pure genius (as I would probably have said at the time).

Best albums of 2010: Just missed the top 10

Here we are again, almost the end of another year and time to rundown the best albums (in GoH's humble opinion) of 2010. But first! As a special bonus (and to heighten the already uncontrollable excitement) I thought it would be fun to start off today with some of the albums that just missed out on the top 10. Tomorrow we'll do my favourite albums that were actually released last year, but if I had heard them earlier would probably have made the 2009 list. And then once that's out of the way we can start on Thursday with number 10 on the list, counting down one a day after that to arrive at the number 1 album at precisely 2.55pm on Christmas Day. (Although the time zones will muck it all up, that is of course the time that Top of the Pops traditionally reveal their number 1 single of the year. Do they still do that? Does Top of the Pops still exist?)

So, anyway, in no particular order here are five albums that just missed out on the top 10 albums of 2010.

Malcolm Middleton – Long, Dark Night
Malcolm Middleton – Live in Zurich!

I have to admit these haven't actually arrived yet. I think Malcolm has been snowed in or too busy watching X Factor or something to send them. Anyway, thanks to the wonders of modern technology I have listened to them both on his bandcamp page and can confidently guarantee that this will be the best full-band and solo live album package released in 2010 by any 36-year-old Scottish bloke who used to be half of a critically acclaimed but under appreciated indie duo. Or as it says on the cover of Long, Dark Night, 'Scotland's second favourite arch-miserablist.'

If that intrigues you click one of the links above and have a listen. If you are quick and order your own copy before the 25th you might even get a Christmas card from the great man himself.

Venice is Sinking – Sand and Lines

Recorded live to two microphones over five days this sounds like a band out of time, some sort of AM transmission lost in the ether from anytime over the last forty years. There is a laid-back, deep-south feel that sounds like a stately afternoon wedding reception; full of faded glamour with a wistful longing for glory days long gone. In short it is beautiful and wonderfully affecting set of songs that transport you to a different place and era, and one which you may not want to leave.

The Morning Benders – Big Echo

In the tradition of hazy west-coast American surfer pop – full of sunny hooks, big choruses and a loping easy-going rhythm backbone. It's one of those joyous albums that you put on and immediately feel better about the world. There are some downbeat and melancholy tracks lurking towards the end, but they are lovely as well and provide to balance and anchor that stop it from floating away over the sea depicted in the sunny beach scene on the cover.

Manic Street Preachers – Postcards from a Young Man

An Everything Must Go to Journal for a Plague Lover's Holy Bible? It isn't surprising that everyone has made the comparison, but it isn't quite that simple. Everything Must Go had a desperate, cathartic, need to find an escape from the gravitational pull of Richey. Postcards from a Young Man is far more at ease with their history and, although this means that it doesn't have the dizzying highs of Everything Must Go, it does sound like a band having a lot of fun, oozing confidence and happy to be still writing and playing these songs. The politics and social commentary is all present and correct, but I have always found their moody Welsh Manics versus the world works so much better when it is combined with a belting chorus and soaring string section ...

Frightened Rabbit – Winter of Mixed Drinks

It is definitely a step forwards from Midnight Organ Fight – the tendency to schoolboy, yucky lyrics are toned down, the music is more sophisticated and there is a lot more happening in these songs. There are plenty of moments of pure beauty and joy, but mostly the tempo has dropped a notch and their new-found maturity has definitely meant the loss of some of their charm. When I do put it on, I remember how good it is, but not having standout tracks like a Fast Blood or a Heads Roll Off it probably doesn't get as many plays as it should. I am not doing a very good job of selling it, but have a listen to Nothing Like You, Living in Colour or the heart-wrenching Yes, I Would if you need convincing.

Song for Sunday

Darkstar – Gold

Band/artist of the week: For a Minor Reflection
Song of the week: For a Minor Reflection – Fjara

Child 44

A serial killer is on the loose in the 1950s Soviet Union, but the authorities don't want to know. Individual police forces pin the crimes on marginalised outsiders – the mentally ill, homosexuals – or cover them up as accidents and there is no coordination between different jurisdictions. By-the-book cop falls out of favour with his superiors and gets exiled from his privileged position in Moscow to the wastelands of a factory town hundreds of kilometres to the east. Unsurprisingly he is the only person to connect the murders and, fighting against the system, he manages to unravel the crimes and find the killer.

I am being a bit unfair: there are lots of interesting aspects to the story. For example, the way the police's function is to protect the interests of the state apparatus without any pretense of protecting its citizens and the problem of reconciling the existence of crime within in a theoretically just and equitable society.

Unfortunately, too much time has been spent thinking through the twists and turns of the story, and not enough time spent on the writing. The suffering and hardship (of which there is plenty ...) doesn't feel real and the awful events don't connect emotionally. It reads like he wrote it as the screenplay for a movie. The plot and the action is all there, but the characters are lacking in depth and personality, as if waiting for the actors to add this dimension to the story.

Song for Sunday

British Sea Power – Living is so Easy

Band/artist of the week: Metric
Song of the week: Nerf Herder – Buffy the Vampire Slayer Theme

Song for Sunday

Metric – Sick Muse

Band/artist of the week: Darkstar
Song of the week: Darkstar – Gold

Song for Sunday

The Love Language – Heart to Tell

Band/artist of the week: British Sea Power
Song of the week: The Rural Alberta Advantage – Don't Haunt this Place

I play the drums in a band called okay

There aren't many good novels about rock bands: plenty of good true stories, but not many made up ones. In fact, even after consulting my shelves I can only think of one other which I would put in that category. And that isn't even really about a rock band. It is all about the band's frontman – allegedly based on Fish the ex-lead singer of Marillion (who didn't get his nickname because of his drinking habits but because he used to spend so long in the bath when working as a forester in Fochabers) – and how his life has dissolved post-band.

Published twenty-one years apart the covers are spookily similar, but they don't have much else in common. (You can see how far cover printing technology has come in that time – the embossed vinyl effect on the more recent title is a lot more convincing.)

Toby Litt's okay are a moderately successful Canadian indie band and this is their story from school-days formation up to and beyond the death of guitarist crab twenty years later. The story is narrated by the drummer – clap (the other members are singer syph and bassist mono) – who is, handily for Litt, the most sober and self-aware of the group.

Although the book manages to stay entertaining through all the overdoses, break-ups and excesses, what really makes it a great read are the two or three key moments related, which bring a depth and humanity to the story. Plenty is borrowed and modified from well-known rock myths – the fishing obsessed band member and the giving away of a suitcase of money to name two I noticed – and half the fun is spotting the ones you know, but it only really works because of the skilful way he has created a bunch of people that seem real, not like rock stars.

Also smart is the way Litt neatly side-steps the key point of what they actually sound like, letting you hear your own soundtrack. For what its worth, I thought they would sound a bit like a cross between Coldplay and Snow Patrol. (Coldpatrol or Snow Play maybe?) Horrific I know, but don't let that put you off reading the book.

Song for Sunday

Suede – Stay Together

Band/artist of the week: The National
Song of the week: The Rural Alberta Advantage – Don't Haunt this Place

Song for Sunday

The Rural Alberta Advantage – Don't Haunt this Place

Band/artist of the week: Bruce Springsteen
Song of the week: Ash - Uncle Pat

Song for Sunday

Broken Records – A Darkness Rises Up

Band/artist of the week: The National
Song of the week: Mogwai – 2 Rights Make 1 Wrong

Ordinary Thunderstorms

There is a great book in here waiting to get out. Unfortunately this isn't it. Don't get me wrong: I am a big fan of William Boyd and have read almost all of his novels. Unfortunately enjoying all the others more than this one.

My favourite of his novels is Armadillo and Ordinary Thunderstorms sounded like it came from a similar vein, so I was looking forward to this one. Literary thrillers usually work best with a certain amount of suspension of belief, but even allowing for that the plot is just too full of implausibilities and there are too many annoying little errors for it to be a complete pleasure like Armadillo.

Straight off we are confronted with the main character – climatologist Adam Kindred – behaving totally out of character. Or, to be honest, behaving totally unlike any rational person in the world would. And since the whole book flows from this one incident that is a bit of a problem. Boyd works hard and has clearly put a lot of thought into trying to justify Kindred's behaviour, but it still doesn't ring true. Things do improve from here, but there are too many convenient, clearly flagged events and situations which later turn into key plot devices and much of the plot seems forced and dependent on setting up an already mapped out narrative.

There are lots of great bits: the way he works the Thames throughout the book from the opening scene through two deaths and on to the very last pages, the Church of John Christ, Mr Quality and Adam's love interest – the (lovely) Rita, river policewoman who lives on a decommissioned navy vessel moored at Nine Elms Pier.

The innocent bystander caught in a big conspiracy and fleeing for his life isn't a new idea, but Boyd uses the contemporary London setting to bring a new slant, highlighting and raising lots of interesting points about society, politics and our global economic structures on the way. I have come to the conclusion that he isn't capable of writing a bad book, but it is a shame that the flaws and problems with this one means that it doesn't match-up to his best work.

Song for Sunday

Pavement – Here

Band/artist of the week: The National
Song of the week: We Were Promised Jetpacks – Keeping Warm

Song for Sunday

For a Minor Reflection – A Moll

Band/artist of the week: Mogwai
Song of the week: The National – Bloodbuzz Ohio

Song for Sunday

Pulp – Babies

Band/artist of the week: Mogwai
Song of the week: The Concretes – Good Evening

Song for Sunday

Phosphorescent – The Mermaid Parade (Live in Copenhagen September 20 2010)

The nine-minute full on wig-out version is also superb and, if you so desire, you can download the full track here.

Band/artist of the week: Arcade Fire
Song of the week: The Concretes – Good Evening

My holidays

 

Song for Sunday

Manic Street Preachers – Your Love Alone

This was one of the first videos on GoH way back in early 2008, but it never made a Song for Sunday. So remedying that fact and in anticipation of their new 'pop' album here it is again.

No band or song of the week because we are still at the beach, but they will be back next week.

Song for Sunday

The Concretes – Good Evening

Band/artist of the week: Arcade Fire
Song of the week: The Concretes – Good Evening

Gone

Right we're out of here. Time for the GoH early-Spring Summer holidays. It has been a long winter and everyone is in need of some time off and a bit of warm weather.

Not taking the blue shorts because they are too bit heavy, but that means that there is room for at least one hardback and two other books –

If you look carefully you will probably see us here.

Song for Sunday

Yo La Tengo – Sugarcube

Band/artist of the week: Rose Elinor Dougall
Song of the week: Rose Elinor Dougall – Carry On

Song for Sunday

The Clientele – Bookshop Casanova

Band/artist of the week: The National
Song of the week: The KLF – Build a Fire

Song for Sunday

Rose Elinor Dougall – Carry On

Band/artist of the week: The National
Song of the week: S Club 7 – Don't Stop Movin' (what happens when the offspring commandeer iTunes to help decide what their favourite song is for Show and Tell ...)

Turbulence

Giles Foden has a knack for unearthing fascinating side stories from real events and using them to construct novels and non-fiction. He's best known for his first novel, The Last King of Scotland, where a young Scottish doctor on a medical program in Africa ends up as the personal physician to Ugandan President Idi Amin.

Turbulence intrigued me for the most part, but was ultimately a bit of let-down. It is a literary thriller, based around solving one the most intractable scientific (or more specifically geophysical) problems of the Second World War: predicting the weather over six consecutive days to allow the D-day landings to be planned and executed.

Henry Meadows is a technical officer in the Met Office who is dispatched to Argyll in an attempt to retrieve crucial information from the reclusive Wallace Ryman. Ryman is an authority on turbulence whose work is viewed as crucial to aid the forecasters in providing accurate and reliable advice to the military top brass. Unfortunately Ryman is a rationalist and a conscientious objector who is indifferent to the project and whatever information he does share doesn't seem to be particularly relevant.

The first two-thirds, set in Argyll, when Henry is trying to befriend and get the information from Ryman works well. Then the story turns on a dramatic event which seems less traumatic than it should be. Henry's breakdown after isn't convincing and the book drifts off. Although events become more dramatic, they also seem less convincing and by the end very little seems to be real.

There is also the added distraction of a tacked-on, modern-day coda running throughout which doesn't shed any light on the historical events or add anything to our understanding of Henry or his actions. The final chapter is billed as an address to a conference about the forecasting for the landings and marking the fortieth anniversary. Again it seems unecessary and contrived, as if he didn't have the confidence in the core narrative and felt that it needed something extra. It is a great story and if Foden had concentrated on getting this right, ditching all the padding and authorial tricks then it would be a far more engaging book.