musicOMH's Top 50 Albums Of 2010

Original Source →

50.

October 12, 2010
Critic Score
77
23 reviews

49.

October 26, 2010
Critic Score
68
26 reviews

48.

March 9, 2010
Critic Score
78
30 reviews

47.

February 9, 2010
Critic Score
77
38 reviews

One Life Stand feels English in the best possible sense: it’s cosmopolitan, unassuming and ever-so-slightly eccentric.

46.

August 27, 2010
Critic Score
78
14 reviews

When it comes to a group like Everything Everything, being taken aback is par for the course.

44.

May 25, 2010
Critic Score
77
15 reviews

Music tends to follow the general rule of thumb that if you can get three examples of something then it can be called a trend. Only in music it's called a genre, and it usually ends up slowly ruining the thing it's supposed to be defining. You get the feeling that as 'chillwave' slowly becomes shorthand for everything vaguely summery or a little bit hazy, that in amongst the shimmering keyboards and padded drums you can make out the death knell.

42.

Nedry - Condors
April 20, 2010
Critic Score
75
8 reviews

41.

January 18, 2010
Critic Score
83
29 reviews
Pretentious? Undoubtedly. Overblown? Yes, of course it is, but we expected nothing less.

40.

Allo Darlin' - Allo Darlin'
June 7, 2010
Critic Score
72
10 reviews

39.

September 14, 2010
Critic Score
79
31 reviews

38.

May 11, 2010
Critic Score
83
38 reviews

Weighing in at just 32 minutes, Treats can hardly be accused of outstaying its welcome. In fact, its brevity is its strength – too much aural pummelling could be too much. As it is, as soon as the album finishes, you’ll want to put it on again straight away.

36.

March 9, 2010
Critic Score
81
29 reviews

35.

The Irrepressibles - Mirror Mirror
January 11, 2010
Critic Score
77
6 reviews

34.

October 5, 2010
Critic Score
78
19 reviews

It all adds up to Stern's most fully realised, most rounded album yet, and a huge step in her evolution as an artist.

33.

April 23, 2010
Critic Score
73
30 reviews
It’s a bold, dramatic, more than a little screwed-up and stunningly exciting statement. In short, it’s an album worth not having to wait an extra 30 days to hear. Or read about.

32.

May 11, 2010
Critic Score
75
25 reviews

This fourth album from Matthew Houck's Phosphorescent project originally came out in May but is being reissued so soon simply to tie in with Houck's early September UK tour. As its title might imply, it's not exactly the most radical or original of 2010 releases. However, its handling of various Americana and alt-country tropes is so assured and lush that it certainly deserves a second push.

28.

Bellowhead - Hedonism
October 4, 2010
Critic Score
87
3 reviews

27.

Jaga Jazzist - One Armed Bandit
January 26, 2010
Critic Score
79
14 reviews

26.

February 9, 2010
Critic Score
80
31 reviews

23.

September 14, 2010
Critic Score
81
28 reviews

For what it sets out to do, it's damn near perfect, and what higher praise is there than that?

21.

July 27, 2010
Critic Score
76
25 reviews

Portland, Oregon trio Menomena take a lot of disjointed loops and tear them apart, spin them round and reconstruct them. It's a bit of musical puff-puff-pass, with each band member contributing something and feeding the data into a band-built looping computer program. Sounds alarmingly avant garde, right? And perhaps it is, in theory, but Menomena come across as surprisingly accessible and pop-oriented, even in the midst of all their computerised hyperactivity.

20.

February 16, 2010
Critic Score
76
22 reviews
This is a record built on the dependable building blocks of guitar, bass and drums, albeit arranged and (presumably) Pro-Tooled into exciting, original new formations.

19.

January 19, 2010
Critic Score
75
23 reviews

18.

September 13, 2010
Critic Score
74
16 reviews

17.

February 23, 2010
Critic Score
85
34 reviews

Have One On Me is winding, long-winded, densely poetic, and often challenging; but never tedious or self-indulgent.

16.

January 11, 2010
Critic Score
79
37 reviews

There are some mis-steps – California English employs Auto-Tune about two years too late – but overall this is a fine follow-up to their successful debut.

15.

October 26, 2010
Critic Score
77
31 reviews

While not perfect, The Fool is a very promising début that grows in stature on every listen. If you're willing to put the time in, this could easily live up to the hype.

14.

April 6, 2010
Critic Score
80
34 reviews

13.

February 9, 2010
Critic Score
78
37 reviews

Yeasayer’s wit and inventiveness always manages to avoid any kind of descent into cliché.

12.

November 22, 2010
Critic Score
91
45 reviews

After a goofy intro on Dark Fantasy, ‘Ye takes it all back to his fantasies in Chicago, when he was producing beats and managing artists with a dream of making it big.

11.

March 3, 2010
Critic Score
82
40 reviews

Its real strength lies in the fact that it implores you to return for repeated visits to a world riddled with other people’s cast-offs. Ironically, it recycles nothing; everything here is box fresh.

9.

January 26, 2010
Critic Score
83
34 reviews
This is effectively Hebden's Balearic album, and while it may not please everyone with its relatively conventional outlook and lack of experimental tendencies, few will be able to deny it as a thing of beauty.

8.

May 10, 2010
Critic Score
78
28 reviews

7.

September 28, 2010
Critic Score
83
37 reviews

Halcyon Digest is a triumph of multilayered nuance, and repeated listens reveal its genius buried just beyond the obvious.

6.

May 18, 2010
Critic Score
83
38 reviews

This Is Happening suffers no shortage of really great songs. Each track is a well-executed study in the finer points of the long form, each thumping and building, wavering and shifting in the haze of its own self-contained ecosystem.

5.

January 26, 2010
Critic Score
83
36 reviews

It’s an incredibly rewarding listen, even if the self-observing anxiety that’s writ large throughout means it doesn’t quite reach the lofty heights to which its creators have bravely aspired.

4.

April 20, 2010
Critic Score
82
35 reviews

3.

May 18, 2010
Critic Score
86
33 reviews

One can but marvel at the impressive range, ambition (realised) and detail of this deeply polished, professional yet utterly, brilliantly bonkers album. An album destined, surely, to take its place among the classics of its age.

2.

August 3, 2010
Critic Score
88
43 reviews

Arcade Fire have never been a band shy of tackling big themes. Their momentous debut album Funeral addressed death, somehow making it seem invigorating and inspiring, as well as tragic, epic and heartrending, while 2007's Neon Bible melded religion and natural disasters (the tsunami, the New Orleans floods) in a portentous, unsettling blend of pomp and darkness.

1.

May 10, 2010
Critic Score
84
37 reviews

If all of the band’s records had a loose thematic core running through to them, High Violet is the band’s most grown up record – mirroring the now late-30something group’s outlook on life.

Original Source: http://musicomh.com/music/features/2010-top-50-albums-50-41_1210.htm
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