Albums and Artists of the year -- 2010, preface

OK, so for the past couple years I’ve done my favorite artists and albums of the year. This year will be no different. I have to preface these lists by saying that these are just the albums that I enjoyed the most over the past 12 months. There were likely two week spans for each of them where I literally listened to them nonstop. That is one of the defining criteria for me for an album or artist of the year – I kept on coming back to them.

I love music and sports. I can’t get enough of them. Honestly, it’s all I can do to keep up with both of them. I’ve been told that I hyperfocus on these things. At this point, I just embrace it. I understand that it impacts other areas of my life, but the hedonistic side of me leads me to indulge in these pursuits. I swear, I can’t help it!

Over this past year, there were some interesting trends. Rap that didn’t sound like rap (see Diddy Dirty Money’s “Last Train to Paris” [which is not one of my albums of the year, but certainly provoking]), house music that didn’t sound like house music (specifically, “witch house” [see oOoOO’s self-titled album]), and dubstep that didn’t sound like dubstep (see Jack Sparrow’s “Circadian”). These past two albums ended up on my honorable mention list. I won’t go into detail about them here, but there’s definitely some good music there. I also liked “Down There” by Avey Tare (member of Animal Collective), as well as Four Tet’s “There is Love in You.” I had to mention these artists, but they did not make my final cut.

Also, this year I chose to submit three, not two lists for your review. This year I’m going to do a Top Ten Albums of the Year, a Top Five Hip-Hop Albums of the Year, and a Top Ten Artists of the Year. All of these lists are in no particular order.

The final artists of the year list may prove to be somewhat controversial. Some of these artists are polarizing, some of them did not even release albums, and some of them may have only released a few songs that were just such bangers that I had to mention them.

For me, there are a couple iconic songs of 2010. Gyptian’s “Hold Me” is one, Chris Brown’s “Deuces” is another, and Big Boi’s “Shutterbug” is the last. These are all excellent sings that I’ve probably listened to hundreds of times over the past 12 months.

Wow, I can’t stop blabbing about all this music. Well, I’m going to put the finishing touches on my list, and I will be submitting it here over the next week.

Talk to you soon, and thanks for listening, Dave