In a truly great year for music, Bigger Than the Sound narrows it down to records by Vampire Weekend, Rick Ross and more. By James Montgomery Bigger Than The Sound’s Best Albums of 2010 Photo: MTV News As we close the book on 2010, one thing becomes apparent: It may very well have been the best year for music in a long, long time. Major-label artists went insane, indie-rock acts topped the Billboard albums chart, and Kanye just kept being Kanye. The end result was 12 months positively brimming with excellent albums, to the point where making a list of the 20 best was darn-near impossible. Still, I tried. It’s my job, after all. So here are my picks for the 20 Best Albums of 2010. Rock, hip-hop, pop and electro records — from artists big and small — that managed to stick with me through the entire year, which was no small feat. Looking at it now, there are at least a half-dozen other albums I could’ve included. It really was that good of a year. That said, I’m sure I left a few off my list, so I’m counting on you to remind me of anything I might have missed. Let me know in the comments below, and here’s to a truly great 2010. 20. Linkin Park, A Thousand Suns The year’s most ambitious major-label rock album was also the most controversial, an icy, chilling listen that alternately thrilled and thinned LP’s substantial fanbase with its vast swaths of sonic sprawl (and overall lack of guitar solos). A Thousand Suns may be Linkin Park’s Kid A or it may just be a colossal misstep, but either way, there’s no denying the dense, dark power it packs. 19. Villagers, Becoming a Jackal The similarities between Conor O’Brien and Conor Oberst go a lot deeper than just a few letters, a pair of dewdrop eyes and a general lack of height. For proof, I present Becoming a Jackal, an expansive, haunting and largely self-produced debut that rivals Oberst’s Lifted … in terms of ambition, scope and sonic palette. The potential on display here is truly staggering, and I can’t wait to hear what he does next. So long as it’s not Digital Ash in a Digital Urn. 18. The Black Keys, Brothers An unlikely — though well-deserved — breakout for Akron, Ohio’s hardest-working blues hammers, Brothers bears the fruit of everything that came before it (the team-ups with Danger Mouse and Dame Dash, frontman Dan Auerbach’s solo album) and boils it down into a staggering, swaggering mash. The tunes are raw and ribbed, and there’s a snarling — dare I say sexual — streak that runs through them all. Required nocturnal listening, even during the day. 17. My Chemical Romance, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys It’s not a concept album; rather, it’s an “allegory” for the sad state of the music industry, a heat-seeking “missile” aimed at the barely fluttering heart of rock and roll. In short: It’s a positively vital album. On Danger Days, MCR are out to save the world, and they do it by ditching the theatrics (and Liza Minnelli cameos), reinventing themselves as dusty, DayGlo outlaws and harnessing the sheer power of rock. It may seem silly, but it’s also a battle someone needs to fight. 16. Beach House, Teen Dream Forget Katy Perry; Baltimore’s Beach House wrote 2010’s best soundtrack to teenage melodrama. Teen Dream is full of gauzy harmonies, sun-dappled guitars, swoony histrionics and songs like “Zebra” and “Walk in the Park” that just keep opening up, until they gently burn out and fade away. I’d like to hear them take on “California Gurls” next. 15. Eminem, Recovery Three million Eminem fans can’t be wrong. There’s a reason Recovery is the best-selling album released in 2010, one that has as much to do with our love of comeback stories as it does the undiluted strength of Eminem himself, who, clean and sober for the first time in years, lets it rip, tackling subjects both old (celebs) and new (himself) with a renewed vigor and venom. Shoot, at one point he even manages to work “antidisestablishmentarianism” into the mix. When he raps “I am the American Dream,” he’s not boasting; he’s just telling the truth. After all, he’s been to the bottom, and with Recovery, he’s pulled himself back up to the top by his bootstraps. 14. Deerhunter, Halcyon Digest A haunting (and haunted) recollection of the claustrophobic past and the agoraphobic present, Halcyon Digest is Deerhunter at their most woozy, weary and wispy, which is to say it’s also them operating at the absolute peak of their abilities. An album brimming with ideas and gauzy expanses, vespertine ghosts and floating embers, Halcyon Digest is the musical equivalent of prying open the attic and feeling the warm gust of dusty breath that greets you. Sometimes it comforts, but most of the time it just gives you chills. 13. Rick Ross, Teflon Don Big Meech. Larry Hoover. And about a million other characters, both real and imagined. Teflon Don is Ross’ most thrilling listen, alternating between blunt-force braggadocio ( “B.M.F.” ) and silk-suited swagger (the flossy, glossy “Super High” ) with a deftness that belies his general ginormitude. You can debate the authenticity of his words, but you cannot challenge his storytelling abilities. Hollywood doesn’t make movies this big, let alone Miami. 12. Sleigh Bells, Treats Sounds like: cheerleader camp, power tools f—ing, the “level-up” music on any NES game (circa 1988), a really sh—y Sanyo boom box, double Dutch, hyperspace, hellfire, hurricanes, a more polite Mot
