music of 2010

It has been a good year for me in terms of music, especially discovering new bands/artists which would take wwaayy to much space to name them all here.

I also need to get around to buying a few albums, like Arcade Fire's latest "The Suburbs" and I haven't included albums that came out in 2009 but I bought this year. Such as 30 Seconds to Mars and Paramore.

Anyways, below is a selection of the CD's I have bought/received this year and how I rate them out of 10. One being the worst and 10 the best working through the year.

You me at Six - Hold me down.
Released in January this year it's the bands second studio album and I found it decent, especially the track "Underdog" but while it justified me spending the money on it, the album was not a classic and it was I probably won't listen to that often in the future. Verdict 6/10

Vampire Weekend - Contra.
Again a second album released in January and I got what I expected with Vampire Weekend, they are a little bit different and they are sticking to it so fair play. More of a summery sound and nice to listen to. "Cousins" and "Holiday" were probably the pick of my played tracks but don't beat "A-punk" and "Oxford Comma" of their first album. Verdict 7/10

Lost Prophets - The Betrayed.
A friend introduced me to this band a few years ago now and I especially liked their song "Rooftops" and while this album has a few gems "It's not the end of the world, but I can see it from here" and "Streets of nowhere" it's not a keeper from my point of view. I gave it a couple of listens and it might come out of the cupboard but for now it has been banished. Verdict 5/10

The Courteeners - Falcon
Band from where I am from and top draw sound. First heard of them through "Not 19 forever" and loved this album. Track 3 and 4 ("Cross my Heart and learn to fly" and "You overdid it doll") were the picks but definitely an album to buy if you haven't got it already. 12 tracks and while one or two are skippable the rest are just what I wanted to hear. Verdict 9/10

Gorillaz - Plastic Beach
I like Gorillaz, their sound and the whole idea behind it all but maybe, just maybe, it has ran its course now. In the early days it was great to listen to but now, or at least this album, didn't get me overly excited and this has been put aside in favour of the 2005 album "Demon Days". Verdict 5/10

Linkin Park - A thousand Suns
Ahh take it away, take it away! A different direction is one thing but this was horrible, absolutely nothing positive to say from my point of view about this album. I hope they go back to their older stuff in the future which was pretty good from my viewpoint. Verdict: can I go lower than 0/10. No? Well, I'll be generous and give it 2/10. Someone, somewhere must have liked it . . .

Kings of Leon - Come around sundown
After such a good album last time around I always felt it was going to be hard to top it or even match it for KoL. And so it proved because although this album is ok and has its moments "Only by the night", their previous album is my pick if you want a bit of Kings of Leon. Not easy to give a verdict for this when I'm comparing it to something I loved last time but... Verdict 7/10

Dirt River Radio - Beer Bottle Poetry
A band I went to see in Australia a number of times. I have sort of cheated here as this was a 2009 album release in Australia and not seen anywhere except in my possession in the UK. And the verdict is so high as it reminds me of my time over there which is always going to bring back good memories, so the sound as well as the images it reminds me of accounts for the score!
They were unsigned which was hard to believe and still might be but with tracks like "All my Friends" and "The boys in the public bar" this is what music should be. Pure good sound without commerical influences. Verdict 10/10