Favorite music releases of 2010

In making this list I realized that 2010 was a great year for music. Several follow-up CDs either met or exceeded expectations, many bands settled well into new sounds, and other awesome new bands arose. Below is a list of some of the new releases I heard this year. Unfortunately I couldn’t list more due to time constraints, but these were the most prominent releases of the year for me.

Top 20 Favorites

1. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest
2. Tame Impala - Innerspeaker
3. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
4. Yellow Swans - Going Places
5. Beach House - Teen Dream
6. Fursaxa - Mycorrhizae Realm
7. Laura Veirs - July Flame
8. Joanna Newsom - Have One on Me
9. Caribou - Swim
10. Eluvium - Similies
11. LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening
12. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti - Before Today
13. Swans - My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky
14. No Age - Everything in Between
15. Toro y Moi - Causers of This
16. Adam Green - Minor Love
17. Local Natives - Gorilla Manor
18. The Hundred in the Hands - The Hundred in the Hands
19. Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record

Runners-up

1. The Black Keys - Brothers (way talented and catchy, but not quite my style)
2. The North Sea - Bloodlines (growing on me)
3. Delta Spirit - History from Below (great CD, but for some reason quickly fell out of my playlist)
4. Sufjan Stevens - Age of Adz (maybe it was bad timing for me, but I never really got into it, sadly…)
5. The Books - The Way Out (just discovered this today and loved it, but not enough times to put in top 20)
6. The Roots - How I Got Over (only had a chance to hear it once and it was great, but couldn’t put it in top 20)
7. The Magnetic Fields - Realism (good, not great)

Releases others loved but I was more ambivalent toward

1. Yeasayer - Odd Blood
2. MGMT - Congratulations
3. Girl Talk - All Day

Releases I wanted to hear but haven’t had a chance yet

1. Kurt Vile - Square Shells
2. Horse Feathers - Thistled Spring
3. Gaslight Anthem - American Slang
4. Brian McBride - The Effective Disconnect
5. Tristeza - Paisajes
6. Rafael Anton Irisarri - The North Bend
7. Ratatat - LP4 (Thanks for the tip, Matt!)
8. The New Pornographers - Together (same as #6!)