SDU's Top 11 Albums of 2010! (#1)

Well, this is it. The final installment of Second Drawer Up's "Top Eleven Albums of 2010". I have to admit I'm a bit sorry to see it finish. Mayhaps I'll hit some of the albums that came close to making my list sometime in the near future (Kele's debut solo record The Boxer springs to mind); I think that would be quite fun. But -- yeah -- this is the final installment. And once again I'd like to remind the reader that these have in no way been listed in a preferential order ... though I have to admit that this record I'm about to put down is certainly one of my all-time favourites. So here it is!

1.

GORILLAZ

PLASTIC BEACH

On the 9th of March last year, Gorillaz released their third (and perhaps final) album, Plastic Beach. A cartoon band created by Damon Albarn (of the late, great Blur) and realized by Jamie Hewlett (who was responsible for the great comic series Tank Girl), Gorillaz consists of part-time Satanist Murdoc Niccals, the pint-sized and impossibly skinny 2D, half-robotic assassin Noodle, and the hulking behemoth Russell Hobbs. 

Their self-titled debut was released in 2001, featuring the classic tracks "Clint Eastwood" (featuring Del tha Funkee Homosapien - which in itself was rather ideal) and "19-2000" (with Miho Hatori and Tina Weymouth). 2005 brought us the more fully-realized Demon Days, with the most awesome electro-disco single "Dare" and their pairing with Neneh Cherry, "Kids With Guns". And now, we are blessed with the singularly epic sprawling masterpiece that I'm talking about right now at this very moment. As a matter of course, the cartoon characters have been somewhat sidelined by a very large coterie of flesh-and-blood musicians and guest vocalists -- but their spirit still lingers strongly in the world of Gorillaz' third LP. Set on the titular piece of real estate, somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean, this rollicking piece of work finds itself reveling on chunks of plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch that have somehow manifested themselves into an island where the Gorillaz have set up their home. And, boy, I've got to tell you - they have some seriously awesome guests. Here on Plastic Beach we have musical compositions (ranging from dub, raggae, hip-hop, techno, and - yes - electronica) with such luminaries as Snoop Dogg, Bobby Womack, Mick Jones and Paul Simonen from The Clash, Mark E. Smith, Lou Reed (!), Mos Def, and De La Soul. Eclectic? For sure! And that's one thing (of many) that makes it so special - you can't pin it down. Based on what I've heard, I heartedly recommend it to anybody. Pardon my French, but it's fucking magical.

Probably the most searing, awesomely scorching track off of Plastic Beach has to be the rollicking "Stylo," with vocal performances from Damon Albarn, Mos Def, and the gorgeous soul voice of the one and only Bobby Womack. The accompanying video is something special as well. It features three of the cartoon characters speeding through the desert in their car after some kind of shootout. It's a car chase! Guns blazing! A fat cop with donuts! Bruce Willis chasing them with a humongous gun! Noodle the cyborg with a hole in its head! It freaking rocks.

SDU's Top Eleven Albums of 2010! Numbers 11 & 10.

SDU's Top Eleven Albums of 2010! Number 9.

SDU's Top Eleven Albums of 2010! Numbers 8 & 7.

SDU's Top Eleven Albums of 2010! Numbers 6 & 5.

SDU's Top Eleven Albums of 2010! Numbers 4 & 3.

SDU's Top Eleven Albums of 2010! Number 2.

Thank you all so much for reading! If you like what you're reading at all, then help spread the word for me -- share a link, like on Facebook, re-Tweet, yeah, all that sweet-ass shit. Peace out, and can't wait to hear from y'all again!

SDU's Top 11 Albums of 2010! (#2)

Well, here we are. The final two of eleven albums of 2010 that made Second Drawer Up's cockles warm up. Here's number two (though once again I'd like to remind everybody that this list has in no way been in any preferential order) -- an outstanding surprise released by a band who I was beginning to believe wouldn't release anything else at all...

2.

MASSIVE ATTACK

HELIGOLAND

Seven years. Seven long, long years. That's how long ago Robert "3D" Del Naja and Grant "Daddy G" Marshall, better known as Bristol duo Massive Attack, released their fourth official album 100th Window. Seven years. I really was under the impression that they'd laid Massive Attack to rest; content to noodle about here and there with other musicians and eschew the limelight. 


But they never sat on their laurels, did Massive Attack. They were busy as bees, working on film soundtracks, engaging in fundraisers for the benefit of Palestinian children, and curating festivals in London. Del Naja and Marshall were also taking their time, getting together from time to time and writing bits and pieces of what was then only known in blogs and rumours as "LP5". But it was when they went to hang in Damon Albarn's (of Gorillaz) studio that music began to flow -- enough for an EP they released in 2009 called Splitting The Atom. And after that, it all came together and coalesced into a finished "LP5" -- featuring three of the songs off of Splitting The Atom, "Splitting The Atom," "Pray For Rain," and "Psyche." The LP was subsequently titled Heligoland, after the German archipelago where Werner Heisenberg first formulated the idea of quantum mechanics in the 1920s. (You see, Heisenberg suffered from tremendous allergies. Heligoland doesn't have any trees or pollen to speak of, so he felt comfortable there.) Don't know if that's the particular reason Del Naja chose Heligoland, but that's my favourite guess.


So! Was the wait worth it? Fuck yeah, it was worth it. What I've always liked about Massive Attack has been their intense and unwavering feel for experimentation. From their 1991 debut Blue Lines to '94s Protection to '98s immense (and my favourite, I must add) Mezzanine there's always been a deliriously feel of immersion in the listening experience. And yeah, I mean it when I say "experience". 'Cos that's what listening to a Massive Attack record is like -- it feels as if you're in another place and time while those squelchy beats, string arrangements, and numbing basslines wash over you. Heligoland is no different. Written with a host of other musicians and featuring vocal work by Horace Andy, Hope Sandoval, Tunde Adebimpe, Guy Garvey, and Damon Albarn his own bad self, this record is like a treasure trove of musical wonder, coming at you from every direction. There's the gleeful menace and atmospherics of "Girl I Love You," complete with Andy's powerful voice backing shit up. "Rush Minute," one of the few tracks featuring Del Naja's scratchy and moody voice, slowly builds in intensity over staccato drums and guitar and an unrelenting beat. The beautiful Hope Sandoval's breathy vocals preside over "Paradise Circus." And then, closing shit out, there's the demented animosity of "United Snakes," which seems to evoke a nightmarish world of intrigue and dishonesty that exists ... underwater. It's all so awesome and thrilling; and I'm happy that Massive Attack is back -- in a huge way. Yo, check it.


Here's "Girl I Love You" from the album. Brilliant!

And here's a link for the video "Paradise Circus." It's amazingly pornographic and is unsuitable for work! I mean it -- it's truly NSFW and if you click to the right link, the video will start immediately. Two words: Seventies Porn.  CLICK HERE. 

SDU's Top Eleven Albums of 2010! Numbers 11 & 10.

SDU's Top Eleven Albums of 2010! Number 9.

SDU's Top Eleven Albums of 2010! Numbers 8 & 7.

SDU's Top Eleven Albums of 2010! Numbers 6 & 5.

SDU's Top Eleven Albums of 2010! Numbers 4 & 3.

SDU's Top 11 Albums of 2010! (#s 6 & 5)

Chugging right along. Second Drawer Up's Top Eleven Albums of 2010 continues, resembling a steaming locomotive loaded with nothing but the dandiest electronic goodies this side of Pluto (which is still a planet in my book)! Here are numbers 6 and 5 -- and remember, kiddies, that none of these albums are in any preferential order! Shall we?

6.

MIDNIGHT JUGGERNAUTS

THE CRYSTAL AXIS

Melbourne, Australia's own Midnight Juggernauts dropped their sophomore album The Crystal Axis May of last year, and frankly I feel as if they dodged what many consider to be the "dreaded sophomore curse". Any doubts about Vincent Vendetta, Andrew Szekeres, and Daniel Stricker being able to maintain their glistening prog-rock-meets-Vangelis sound were quickly dispelled by the opening number, "Induco", an instrumental introduction that would surely feel at home in an early-'80s science fiction film about a dystopian future. Here's what I wrote last year after having seen Midnight Juggernauts at the Lovebox Festival in London: "[It's] a hypnotic and soulful hybrid of 70s glam, soaring Ennio Morriconesque soundscapes, and spacey synths that would fit quite comfortably in anybody's music collection." Songs such as "This New Technology," "Cannibal Freeway," and (my favourite) "Winds of Fortune" really take their debut record Dystopia's musical direction further along this road lined with so much psychedelic lustre. It's fun, it's danceable, and above all it takes the listener to a dynamic, mythological place with (to quote Bryan Ferry) a rhythm of rhyming guitars. Excellent stuff, indeed. Now, here's "This New Technology" for your listening pleasure, gentle readers.

5.

LCD SOUNDSYSTEM

THIS IS HAPPENING

There's a moment, three minutes and six seconds into the opening track "Dance Yrself Clean", that's a lot like the curtain effect at certain rock shows -- you know what I'm talking about; when a song builds and builds and builds, ratcheting up the anciness and expectations and potential bust-a-movers ... and then when that final note hits, then POW! it all begins in earnest and the beats kick in and the volume goes up ten-fold and the crowd goes fucking apeshit and the curtain that had previously concealed the band falls down to the stage with a crash and the lights go wild. So ... yeah, 3:06 into "Dance Yrself Clean" that happens. And once those cards are thrown down by James Murphy of DFA fame, then all bets are off the table. For here's his third (and, unfortunately, probably his last) album under the LCD Soundsystem moniker -- and he's going out with a bang, motherfuckers.

There is so much good on this album. There's the delightfully cynic track "I Can Change" ("... And love is a curse shoved in a hearse/Love is an open book to a verse of your bad poetry/And this is coming from me."), flowing along effortlessly and -- while it's at it -- bringing to mind the Eurythmics' classic "Love Is A Stranger"; the punk-rock late-'70s boisterousness of "Drunk Girls"; "Pow Pow", which takes its usage and fetishism of cow-bells to dizzying heights; and "Home" which sounds like the soundtrack from an alien production of a western -- yet the film-making ETs were all on angel dust.

So. This Is Happening. Will it truly be James Murphy's last album as LCD Soundsystem? I certainly hope not, but if it is indeed true, it's not like he's going away, or anything. I picture him heading back to his producing chair in NYC's DFA HQ -- making fucking kickass music no matter what name he's doing it under. Thanks, James -- for going out with some class!

Here's "I Can Change", track five off of the aforementioned album. Enjoy!

SDU's Top Eleven Albums of 2010: Numbers 10 & 11.
SDU's Top Eleven Albums of 2010: Number 9.
SDU's Top Eleven Albums of 2010: Numbers 8 & 7.

SDU's Top 11 Albums of 2010! (#s 8 & 7)

And the ball keeps moving on Second Drawer Up's Top Eleven Albums of 2010! Let's jump right in, shall we? Numbers 8 and 7 were chosen through Facebook when I asked some friends to give me two numbers. Simple shimple, easy schmeasy peasy!

8.

RöYKSOPP

SENIOR

When Torbjörn Brundtland and Svein Berge recorded their ebullient Junior in 2009, featuring a multitude of guest vocalists, soaring synths, partying beats, and, yes, a singular sensation of being young and carefree, they'd also put down on tape some more introspective and multi-layered instrumentals that really had no place on such a festive album. So they released in 2010 the followup to Junior: Senior. The Norwegian electro-artistes stated on their website:

"The two albums (’Junior’ and ‘Senior’) have a kinship, in that they represent Röyksopp’s two very different artistic expressions. ‘Junior’ – with emphasis on vocals, accessible melodies and harmonies, has the energy, the inquisitive temper and confident 'hey-ho, let’s go!'-attitude of youth, whereas ‘Senior’ is the introverted, dwelling and sometimes graceful counterpart – brimfull with dark secrets and distorted memories, insisting 'I’m old, I’ve got experince…'. Senior’ is furthermore an album about age, horses and being subdued – with devils breathing down your neck."

And here's what I wrote last year: "Flowing nearly seamlessly over nine tracks and 48 minutes, this entirely instrumental work shines with a languid and chill-out beauty. Hypnotic, meandering, and in no hurry, Senior would make a fantastic soundtrack to an imaginary sci-fi spaghetti Western film with lots of dramatic silences and speculative ennui."

Terrific album; very mellow, it plucks the heart's strings in just the right places, and -- even better -- it's a bit like brain food; Senior takes your mind to a fantastical place, like a spa, and massages your grey matter with tones and moods and feelings. It's just ... right.

Taken from the album, here's track 4, "Senior Living." My Gosh, it's a gorgeous song.

7.

SCISSOR SISTERS

NIGHT WORK

Featuring a cover depicting Robert Mapplethorpe's 1980 photograph of ballet dancer Peter Reed's well-toned ass, and literally chockfull of sharp and edgy disco-saturated shenanigans, Scissor Sisters' third full-length, Night Work, was a direct result of a wholesale scrapping of eighteen tracks, that the band just couldn't coalesce behind. Lead singer Jake Shears fled to Berlin for a few months to "readjust" and it was there, in the sex clubs, cabarets, discotheques, and the music scene in general that a fire was lit in his imagination. Voilá -- a brilliant album was born. Taking its cue from the halcyon days of gay sex and partying before the spectre of AIDS reared its ugly head, Night Work straddles (ha) the fine lines separating pleasure and pain, love and death, joyousness and sadness, and the trials and tribulations of hooking up with strangers after a sweaty night out. The disco sensibilities they explored on their self-titled debut are all here, but turned up to 11. Title track "Night Work" sets off the proceedings with style and flair, complete with buzzing guitars, throbbing rhythms, and Shears' and Matronic's vocals overlaid on the catchy-as-fuck chorus. "Running Out" is probably my favorite song off this record, and my nominee for the next single! I'm telling you - this song soars, man. It's an incredibly, impossibly catchy piece of pop confectionary that seemingly has it all: sharp indie guitars courtesy of Babydaddy and Del Marquis, a fantastic disco beat, and chirping, swooping synths that bring to mind some of the best stuff that late 70's/early 80's Krautrock had to offer. Then on the darker side of things, there's the spooky "Sex And Violence," told from the point of view of a serial killer who kills gay men, trailing his next victim and singing how he's going to do the deed. Chilling. Ana Matronic has a solo song, "Skin This Cat" as well. Featuring a deep, progressive throbbing bass-line throughout with a fantastically fun 8-bit keyboard flitting about like a stoned butterfly, it's something of a turn-on when she purrs, "Here, kitty kitty, let's skin this cat." 

Night Work. Simply divine; it's a monumental work.

SDU's Top Eleven: Numbers 11 and 10.

SDU's Top Eleven: Number 9.

SDU's Top 11 Albums of 2010! (#9)

Did you really think I wasn't coming back? Well, here's your #9 on the "Second Drawer Up's Top Eleven Albums of 2010" list. Oh, and it's a freaking doozy! I'm speaking of mash-up artist and party soundtrack maestro Girl Talk and the startlingly awesome piece of work he dropped in November, All Day.

9.

GIRL TALK

ALL DAY

What do you get when you take 373 songs from every different spectrum of popular music, and then painstakingly overlap them -- and, in doing so, manage to create a veritable masterwork of mash-up heaven at the same time? Well, when Pittsburgh DJ and producer (there's a lot of those on my top eleven list, aren't there?) Gregg Gillis -- better known as Girl Talk -- did just that, he created what is quite possibly the ultimate party track of all time: a sprawling, loopy, demented, and thoroughly booty-shakealicious 72-minute track All Day. Holy crap, what else can I say about Girl Talk's 5th album, except to say that it fucking rocks? Featuring a stunning 373 samples (a full list can be found here) from acts that run the spectrum from 2 Live Crew to U2, to Depeche Mode and Flock of Seagulls, to Black Sabbath and Ludacris, and Cyndi Lauper to Bruce Springsteen to 50 Cent, All Day simply does not stop. It just goes and goes and goes -- and frankly my advice to you is to put it on at a party. That'll do it. And due to the fact that Gillis didn't ask permission to use any of the sampled tracks on this, All Day is available for a free download. Yep, you heard me. Free. There's no excuse to not have this in your collection, so go on down to Mr Gillis's production company Illegal Art's (ha) website and download it, already! Do it. You'll thank me later. Once again, with feeling: It's free.

Here's the first segment of All Day, featuring Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" delivered with Ludacris' "Move Bitch (Get Out The Way)". Holy crap, this album is fucking amazing.

SDU's Top 11 Albums of 2010! (#s 11 & 10)

Hey there boys and girls -- the year 2010 is off like a cheap prom dress, and now is about the time to begin discussing important things like the best albums that have graced our eardrums here at Second Drawer Up HQ. It's been a bumper year for exquisitely exciting electronic music releases, and after a veritable shitload of listening, judging, and making up rules as we go along, we've finally chosen eleven (why eleven? because it's 2011, that's why) albums that really got us moving, thinking, feeling, and humming. Please note that these are in no particular order. I just wrote them on a pad of paper, numbered them, and then asked my wife to give me two numbers at random. Voilá -- SDU's complicated voting system finally revealed! So. Without any further ado, here are numbers 11 and 10 on my list. Enjoy, and check back often; I'll be plowing through this list throughout the weekend. Cheers, my lovely readers, and I hope you had a lovely and safe New Year's celebration!

11.

PANTHA DU PRINCE

BLACK NOISE

The first thing you might become aware of whilst listening to Pantha du Prince's stunning third full-length Black Noise is, that even amongst all the synths, drum programming, and samples that are on display, how bloody organic it sounds. Born Hendrik Weber, the Germany-based DJ and producer had long possessed an affinity for the mountains and the snow. After learning about subtle sounds on a register far too low for humans to hear -- black noise, as opposed to the white variety -- and how an avalanche can be caused by them. Maybe, he posited, black noise can also be a warning, as well? Black Noise began to be pieced together in the high-altitude atmosphere of the German Alps. Using samples of natural phenomena, and synthesizing the sounds of ice crystals, pressure, swaying trees, and the incidental noises of a sleepy alpine town unaware of the danger silently swooping down from above, Mr Weber has created a gorgeous, delicate, and infinitely serene piece of electronic music that is guaranteed to massage the mind, as well as the ears. From the achingly beautiful opener "Lay In A Shimmer" to the somewhat menacing "Stick To My Side" to "Welt am Draht" ("World on Fire", also a 1973 German science fiction flick directed by Rainer Werner), which turns up the urgency, Black Noise is one of those albums that rewards one through repeat listens from beginning to end. Putting it on shuffle doesn't work for this record. It's beautiful, it's a bit chilly, and it's majestic -- a mini-universe in its own right. Check it out. Now, here's Pantha du Prince's "Stick To My Side". Accompanied by Panda Bear from Animal Collective!

10.

CRYSTAL CASTLES

CRYSTAL CASTLES II

Oh, those tricksters from Toronto, Alice Glass and Ethan Kath! In May of 2010 they dropped their second full-length which, like their debut in 2008, is also entitled Crystal Castles. Formed when DJ and producer Kath witnessed the willowy Glass screaming her vocals at an audience at a punk show (she was in a band called Fetus Fatale), and then inviting her to record some vocals over some music he was putting together, Crystal Castles (not named after the video game, but rather the fortress She-Ra hang out in in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe) embraces a slew of different facets of electronica. There's the jagged edges of pure, unadulterated noise, accompanied with the shrieking yelps of the hyperactive and vicious Glass (opener "Fainting Spells") that acts a bit like the drill a dentist might wield, except instead of grinding away at your teeth, it bores a hole in one's cranium with no mercy. Then there's the soaring '90s-style synths and house rhythms of "Baptism" sampled with 8-bit video-game sound effects. "Violent Dreams" moves like a disturbing fairy-tale one might read to a child to give it bad dreams, and then there's "Not In Love", which is as close to Chris & Cosey as you can get, I think (and, I'm pleased to add, has been re-released with vocals by the one and only Robert fucking Smith of The Cure!). Crystal Castles II is an album fraught with danger; all sharp edges and uncomfortable moments. It's certainly not a safe album -- in fact, I'd go so far as to say that Crystal Castles have managed to place their electronic fingers on the bridge of the psyche that exists on a plane somewhere between regret, guilt, violent thought, sadness, and anger. It's an emotional roller-coaster, to be sure, and it's fucking magnificent. I can listen to this shit all day. Here's "Violent Dreams" -- enjoy!

So! There are numbers 11 and 10 from SDU's "Top Eleven Albums of 2010". Please stay tuned; there are still nine more to go! Will your favourite make it to the list? Do you have any comments or complaints? What are some of your favourites? Let me know -- I'd love to meet some of my readers. Take care, and talk soon. Numbers 9 and 8, tomorrow! Peace out.