The Radio Dept. “Never follow suit” from Labrador Records on Vimeo.

The moody, ska-influenced track from 2010′s album of the year gets some nice vignetting. It’s also on the Radio Dept.’s upcoming singles/b-sides collection Passive Aggressive (details here), which will be available on vinyl only from Insound.

The Radio Dept. – “Never Follow Suit”: mp3

As always, friends, I’d like to thank you for reading this year — it’s been the absolute best year I’ve had doing Rawkblog and as a music writer and photographer in general. Here’s a summary of this year’s essential and most popular posts.

Best of 2010: Albums of the Year | EPs/Singles | Songs | Concert Photos | Rawky Awards
Mid-year lists: Albums | Songs

2010′s most popular posts:
* 2010 Album Release Calendar
* Preview: Ryan Adams & The Cardinals’ III/IV
* Best of the 2000s: Top 100 Albums of the Decade
* Kanye West’s new album maybe just leaked (surprised nothing came of this, actually…)
* 2010 Bands You Can Ignore: An Exhaustive List
* Ryan Adams prepping III/IV, Black Hole
* A Michael Jackson Story, May 1985
* Bootleg: Joanna Newsom – 1.18.10 Sydney Opera House, Australia
* Mixtape: Only In Dreams
* First Look: Paramore – Brand New Eyes

My personal favorites/essential reads:
* Interview: Todd Goldstein of Harlem Shakes/ARMS
* Rawkblog.tv: The Beachwood Sparks – “Canyon Ride”
* Deeper Into Movies: The Room
* SXSW: Complete Coverage | 50 Bands to Watch
* Live: Slumberland 20th Anniversary Show
* Rawkblog is 5 :: New Theme Song!
* First Look: Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Before Today
* Interview: Miles Kurosky
* Sufjan Stevens Announces 50 States “Tex-Mex” Album
* Kicking Television: The Lost Series Finale | Saying Goodbye to Lost
* First Look: The National – High Violet
* R.I.P. Will Owsley
* Podcast: In The City: Blogging the U.S.A. Panel
* Spaceland, 1993-2010
* Elliott Smith: A Proper Introduction
* Critical Backlash: Best vs. Favorite, Year-End Lists and the Perils of Consensus

Best of 2010: EPs/Singles | Songs | Albums | Rawky Awards

Since I’ve already made my feelings about rankings, best-ofs and lists in general clear, here are a few things you need to know about 2010: For those of us nerdy and foolhardy enough to keep up with Internet indie culture, there were more “relevant” albums to listen to than ever before. Thanks to a blogosphere in which any band with an MP3 can find someone to like them (and in which I caught a lot of shit for saying a few bands sucked without paragraphs of justification ), I spent nearly as much time investigating bullshit trends as I did attempting to listen to albums that were actually good. Making matters worse was the embarrassing coincidence of indie heroes from the Arcade Fire to James Mercer’s Broken Bells to Broken Social Scene to the Hold Steady — the Hold Steady! — making the most average, unexciting albums possible. And finally, while release dates have been a joke since Kid A leaked a decade ago, in 2010, a number of bands decided to start dropping albums on Bandcamp or Topspin or whatever whenever they damn well felt like it — which is great and progressive but also means I was stumbling into really good new records (Mighty Clouds! Summer Fiction!) days before putting this thing together. (it is also presumably the reason why the Dirty Projectors/Bjork mini-album did not blow everyone’s minds.)

All that said: If you like music, every year is a good year for music, and I’m happy to have sorted through a considerable amount of witch house, garage fuzz and indie R&B (pro tip: coming from Minneapolis does not make you Prince) to arrive at this very worthy top 50. One more word on rankings: this list is basically tallied by “How much do I want to listen to this album again when it is not actually on?,” a measure that skews toward three-minute pop songs and away from Sufjan Stevens and Joanna Newsom ‘s occasionally brilliant self-indulgence marathons. Sorry, folks. O.K., enough preamble: here we go.  Read the rest of this entry »

Best of 2010: EPs/Singles | Songs | Albums | Rawky Awards

In the five years or so I’ve been doing this, I can’t remember a better year for songs. I actually spent most of Saturday ordering a top 100, went a little crazy and decided nobody needed me to rank seven hours of tracks. So here’s a top 50. Every single one of these tracks is incredible, and yes, even Ke$ha. For the record, I allowed two songs per band in a few special cases because not including both Sally Seltmann jams would be a lie (though I did cut two Best Coast songs). Also, No. 51 is Lady Gaga (“Telephone”) and if Nicki Minaj had done all the verses on “Monster,” it’d be No. 1 (but you already knew that). Have at it: Read the rest of this entry »

I always assume my readers mostly agree with me or they wouldn’t be here, but that’s not always the case — sometimes, Britney Spears is your most anticipated album of 2011. All the absurd glory of the 2010 Rawky Awards after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Best of 2010: EPs/Singles | Songs | Albums | Rawky Awards

The album isn’t dead. But, like the dinosaurs, it may not outlast its smaller, warm-blooded colleagues. In 2010, the EP became something more than a tour curio or a year-end reminder of a band’s existence. For bands unable or unwilling to make the artistic and financial investment of a full-length release, the EP became the perfect format: long enough to showcase what a band could do without being too short to pass off as a one-MP3 wonder and just right for self-releasing and giving away free, as so many groups chose to do this year. For this Twitter-addled writer, sub-20-minute run-times meant I ended up reaching for EPs and singles, for the first time, much more often than I did albums. Though the year’s best handful of statements did come in LP form, I consider this list nearly interchangeable with my album of the year list and hope you will, too. Making an album is always a gamble, but for the bands on this list, going short was a sure thing. Read the rest of this entry »

I have mixed feelings about Laura Marling’s sophomore album. It’s more assured and confidently arranged and performed than her winning debut, but, like Midlake’s latest album, its sense of joy seems missing in action. She’s never been the most optimistic performer, but things seem dimmer here than on Alas I Cannot Swim. Rays of sunshine do land in “Darkness Descends” (oddly enough) and the self-assertion ballad “Goodbye England”; it’s all utterly lovely, her beyond-her-years vocals hovering over acoustic guitars and string sections as her lyrics chase after Dylan and Van Morrison’s mythic journeys. After Joanna Newsom, it’s probably the folk album of this slight (for the genre) year, frankly. Still, the underlying good feeling of Alas I Cannot Swim would’ve been a nice addition (not to mention its sharper hooks). LP3 awaits.

Laura Marling – “Goodbye England”: mp3

(I Speak Because I Can is out now)

In a year deluged with jangling guitars and vocals drowning in enough reverb to kill a Olympic swimmers, please summon the strength to listen to Crushed Stars’ Convalescing in Braille with fresh ears. Like The Radio Dept. or, before them, Yo La Tengo, the band’s lonely pop places craft first. Even its simplest moments seem examined for maximum headphones richness: how the lightly clipping drums of “Spark” contrast with singer Todd Gautreau’s distant, wounded vocals; reaching the bottom of of the 10-foot-deep cymbals of “Black Umbrellas”; the firmness of piano keys against warbling synthesizers on “A Day Without You.” It’s less treble-heavy and propulsive than the Radio Dept.’s latest efforts, but the songs also explore feelings of landlocked loneliness. “You look at me that way again / and I will fall,” Gautreau sings on “Fall.” In love, we can only assume, but few have ever sounded more beautifully miserable at the prospect.

Crushed Stars – “Eyeliner”: mp3

(Convalescing in Braille is out now)

Previously: Interview: Crushed Stars