Ants albums of the Year 2010

LP | CD

"The National should give faith to anyone who has become disillusioned with indie music, anyone who misses a time where it didn't seem like all the musicians thought they were better than you and you could actually relate to the damn words they were singing. High Violet is another batch of cement to further supplement The National's already unshakable concrete career." -Sputnikmusic

693/25/8662.5/8

#3

The Tallest Man on Earth- The Wild Hunt

Pitchfork: 8.5 (BNM)

Metacritic: 79

Pitchfork: You know exactly what Pitchfork's score was. (BNM)

LP | CD

"Ultimately, The Wild Hunt's stumbles are too little to mask what could be Matsson's finest hour. He may act as if he's the tallest man on earth, but he may very well literally be a talent of Goliath proportions." -No Ripcord

545/23/6267.5/1

#4

Kanye West- My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Metacritic: 93

LP | CD

"The end result is a body of work that pushes hip-hop in a bold new direction and puts Mr,. West back at the forefront of the culture once again." -XXL

551/20/5510/3

#5

Sufjan Stevens- The Age of Adz

Pitchfork: 8.4 (BNM)

Metacritic: 81

LP | CD

"If the point of music is for us to take something from it - whether it be an emotional response or a change in mindset or any sort of inspiration - then The Age Of Adz is the most selfless album ever recorded, and Sufjan is the most giving composer." -Sputnikmusic

446/19/4237

#6

The Black Keys- Brothers

Pitchfork: 7.7

Metacritic: 82

Allmusic: 4.5/5

LP | CD

"Everything fits in place to up the game of something else, and no part of these finely made blues and soul creations gets a pass on pulling its weight. That's just how it works for Brothers." -Urb

375/21/3937.5/2

#7

Vampire Weekend- Contra

Pitchfork: 8.6 (BNM)

Metacritic: 81

LP | CD

"Contra establishes that his band has chosen another path, celebrating the world's contradictions, contraindications, and contradistinctions with a new pop sound made up of old pop sounds that aren't the same old pop sounds." -MSN

370/19/3515/1

#8

Deerhunter- Halcyon Digest

Metacritic: 86

LP | CD

"We'll never be able to parse every lyric or tease out every technical intricacy - though somebody will probably try - but that is what Halcyon Digest is all about: nostalgia not for an era, not for antiquated technology, but for a feeling of excitement, of connection, of that dumb obsession that makes life worth living no matter how horrible it gets." -Pitchfork

420/14/2940

#9

LCD Soundsystem- This Is Happening

Metacritic: 84

LP | CD

"Murphy once again shows off his encyclopedic knowledge of all things post-punk and zip-tight. But he's also swimming up some serious stuff himself, including Eno and David Bowie's sacrosanct Berlin trilogy. And against his own prediction, it's far from horrible; it's actually pretty perfect." -Pitchfork

419/13/2723.5

#10

Beach House- Teen Dream

Pitchfork: 9.0 (BNM)

Metacritic: 82

Allmusic: 4.5/5

LP | CD

"Teen Dream sheds the uncertainties evident in past Beach House albums--each melodic turn (and there are many) balances the force of confidence with the momentum of curiosity." -The Phoenix

353/15/2647.5/1

#11

Frightened Rabbit- The Winter of Mixed Drinks

Pitchfork: 6.6

Metacritic: 78

LP | CD

"Musically, too, there's a definite sense of progression. These tracks have a richer and warmer sound than anything the band have previously released, and rather than standalone expressions of emotional dysfunction, they feel very much connected, bound together by their complex arrangements and sumptuous yet subtle production." -Dotmusic

290/16/2320/1

#12

Sleigh Bells- Treats

Pitchfork: 8.7 (BNM)

Metacritic: 84

Allmusic: 4/5 (AMG Pick)

"Even though it's as ambitious an exercise in freeform genre-splicing and pure, amp-blowing volume as has been attempted in the past few years, it's always at least as fun as it is smart, taking the three great pillars of guilty-pleasure music (deafening arena-rock swagger, sugary pop hooks, and delirious dance beats) and rolling them together into a singularly appealing cacophony." -Slant Magazine

304/12/1824

#13

Wild Nothing- Gemini

Pitchfork: 8.2 (BNM)

Metacritic: N/A

Allmusic: N/A

LP | CD

"Gemini finds Tatum constructing a striking, solitary monument to just about anyone who moped, sulked, or bedsat their way through the 1980s. His love of dreamy, fuzzy, handcrafted guitar-pop isn't far removed from the Radio Dept. or the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, but he displays a more comprehensive and widespread commitment to classic indie pop sounds." -Pitchfork

327/10/1635/3

#14

The Walkmen- Lisbon

Pitchfork: 8.6 (BNM)

Metacritic: 83

LP | CD

"Lisbon is like a treatise on the untapped power of the have-nots, delivered by the kind of people who could turn a raw potato, a cup of water, and a pinch of salt into a five-star dish." -The Onion A.V. Club

286/11/1573

#15

Yeasayer- Odd Blood

Pitchfork: 6.1

Metacritic: 78

LP | CD

"Odd Blood is every bit as dense as its predecessor, with every inch of space teeming with exhausting polyrhythmic detail and time-warped synth sounds." -The Onion A.V. Club

223/13/1449.5

#16

Gorillaz- Plastic Beach

The cover of the third Gorillaz album "Plastic Beach". An artificial island rests on the ocean during a sunset. Apart from the base, it is mostly mushroom-shaped. It contains a few palm trees and small buildings. At the very top is a large white building with many windows. Other objects in and around the island include a ship, a buoy, a lighthouse and a crate. The view shows the opposite side of the island from the "Experience Edition" cover. In the lower left corner are the uppercase words "Gorillaz Plastic Beach" on separate rows. They are white and in a thick, wavy font.

Pitchfork: 8.5 (BNM)

Metacritic: 77

LP | CD

"Only behind such a distracting smokescreen could Damon Albarn get away with conducting a project as sprawling, daring, innovative, surprising, muddled and magnificent as Plastic Beach: not just one of the best records of 2010, but a release to stand alongside the greatest Albarn's ever been involved with and a new benchmark for collaborative music as a whole." -BBC Music

212/13/1378

#17

Sufjan Stevens- All Delighted People

Pitchfork: 7.6

Metacritic: 63

LP | CD

"It's a staggering return from his alleged creative crisis, a terrific addition to his discography, and a wonderful addition to an already fantastic 2010." -Sputnikmusic

246/10/1230

#18

Big Boi- Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty

Allmusic: 4.5/5 (AMG Pick)

Metacritic: 89

LP | CD

"On Sir Lucious Left Foot, Big Boi does something even more difficult: He gives us a great album that sounds nothing like any of the great albums he's already given us. From where I'm sitting, that's an even greater achievement." -Pitchfork

270/9/1215

#19

The Tallest Man on Earth- Sometimes the Blues Is Just a Passing Bird (EP)

Pitchfork: 7.8

Metacritic: 84

Allmusic: 3.5

LP | CD

"With Sometimes the Blues Is Just a Passing Bird EP, he does more than just add to his collection of tunes--he reaffirms his commitment to expressing the human spirit. And as identifiers with that spirit, we lean forward, eager to hear more." -Absolute Punk (Staff)

201/12/1206

#20

MGMT- Congratulations

Pitchfork: 6.8

Metacritic: 72

Allmusic: 4.5/5

LP | CD

"From the opening moments of the sublime "It's Working" all the way to the titular closer, Congratulations is an incredible follow-up from a band that is still maturing into some unknown entity." -Allmusic Guide

190/10/950

#21

Menomena- Mines

Pitchfork: 8.2

Metacritic: 74

LP | CD

"The starburst drum-fills, the jackknife stabs of guitar, the vocal melodies bronzed with catchiness-all of it soars, nodding at vitality, as though the aesthetics of joy might, if stressed enough, smother sadness until it's finally gone for good." -cokemachineglow

269/7/941.5/1

#22

Jónsi- Go

Pitchfork: 8.1

Allmusic: N/A

LP | CD

"What's really satisfying about Go is the way the soaring architecture of symphonic hipster du jour Nico Muhly's compositional work looms just as large on the more effervescent numbers as it does in these quieter spots - it really drawing everything together into a wonderfully coherent whole, despite the record's ever-shifting tides and Birgisson's violently affecting knack for distilling every emotion known to humanity into a single echoing chord change." -Drowned In Sound

173/10/865

#23

Wolf Parade- Expo 86

Pitchfork: 7.5

LP | CD

"This is a typically odd, zany album, but that's precisely what makes it so good -- because Wolf Parade's twisted, crazy, surreal world becomes yours, and it feels both absolutely normal and absolutely right." -BBC Music

238/6/714

#24

The Hold Steady- Heaven Is Whenever

Pitchfork: 6.2

LP | CD

"With Heaven is Whenever, the most consistent band in rock and roll remains reliable, as The Hold Steady give their sound a fresh update while not straying too far from what makes them so endearing." -Absolute Punk (Staff)

187/7/645.5

#25

Spoon- Transference

Pitchfork: 7.8

Metacritic: 80

LP | CD

"Transference features immediately winning songs like "Who Makes Your Money," "Written In Reverse," and "Got Nuffin," all thickly groovy in the classic Spoon style, and it breaks some new ground on the aching, twangy "Out Go The Lights," which finds Daniel paying homage to Factory Records." -The Onion A.V. Club

163/8/652

#26

The Dead Weather- Sea of Cowards

Pitchfork: 7.8

Metacritic: 70

LP | CD

"The group's debut oozed with chemistry, and that musical empathy has just grown stronger and tighter here. And both in songwriting and musical execution--the operative word throughout here--the Dead Weather has crafted the equivalent of a taut, expertly directed movie thriller." -LA Times

179/7/626.5

#27

Free Energy- Stuck on Nothing

Pitchfork: 8.1

LP | CD

"For a debut album oozing with influences, Stuck on Nothing is doubly impressive in the way that it not only makes a definitive mission statement for a truly exciting new band but also manages to keep such a strong sense of itself in spite of itself." -Prefix Magazine

153/8/612

#28

Joanna Newsom- Have One On Me

Metacritic: 85