2010 was a bad year for releases from bands I already liked. Only two managed to produce something comparable to their previous releases – Spoon and Vampire weekend – and only a couple other bands (that I’ll get to in future posts in this series) created something bigger. I’ve separated the less than stellar albums into three shades of disappointment: expected, slight, and HUGE. In all categories, excluding expected, these are actual albums in my car purchased on a physical cd, because I still live sometime between the late 90’s and early aughts.
Expected dissapointment:
Weezer – Hurley. It has been cool to be down on weezer for at least a decade now. Depending on how cool you were you stopped being a fan early when the band lost matt sharp (post pinkerton) or later after the dismal maladroit (even a muppets music video couldn’t save that album). I hung on long enough to find a few good tracks on make believe (neither of the singles, mind you), but red was terrible, rattitude wasn’t even on my radar, and the only remotely cool piece of this new album was hurley from lost on the cover. WHY WON’T THIS BAND DIE?
This would have been a better idea.
Slight disappointments:
Of Montreal – False Priest. I really wanted to like this album, just like I really wanted to like the previous album, skeletal Lamping, but none of them have a leg to stand on compared to 2007’s hissing Fauna Are You the Destroyer, which I now have on vinyl. (thanks Megan) I wasn’t expecting the new album to blow me away, I think Kevin Barnes and I are on different wavelengths in the years since hissing fauna, still their live shows are amazing, and I’m really sad I missed them when they came to numbers back in November (SIlly space station).
Jakob Dylan – woman and country. I really enjoyed Walflowers bringing down the horse and had heard good things about the other albums, and his first solo album, but I haven’t heard any of them. There really was nothing remarkable about this album, none of the songs were catchy, and the sonic qualities were absolutely undiverse.
Ok Go – Of the blue colour of the sky. I initially had this on huge disappointments, because it was too ambient, and boring compared to their last two high energy, catchy albums. but the videos they released were so awesome that I can’t kick them too much.
HUGE disappointments:
Gorillaz – Plastic beach, nothing stuck out on this album, absolutely nothing. I think I listened to it twice and completely lost interest. I thought the gorillaz were on a pretty good trajectory before this album, a couple hits on their first album, a killer sophomoric effort with Demon Days, and some great live performances, but alas for me at least this was a nose-dive and a waste of 12 bucks.
MGMT – Congratulations: I wasn’t intending on giving a worst album of year award for 2010 (I never have in previous years) This album forced my hand. During this cd’s tenure in my 6 changer, I consistently listened to about a minute of the first track and then swaped cds, at one point I wasn’t paying attention and I found myself a few tracks in, which upset me so much, that I ejected the cd and threw it across my car. MGMT attempted a new vaguely surfer rock direction on this album, which not only bears nothing in common with their very successful previous album, but brings nothing exciting or fun or enjoyable to replace it. The entire album is a drag, not one redeeming aspect. Incidentally MGMT was the worst band I saw live this year. The singer absolutely does not have the voice we all heard on oracular spectacular, he doesn’t have the range or the tonality, that was all manufactured in post production. EPIC disappointment all around.
Sorry for all the negativity, this should help make up for it: First Listen: The Decemberists, ‘The King Is Dead’
Stay tuned for thorough reviews of my favorite (and potentially the best) albums of 2010. The sooner I can get them posted, the sooner I can actually read SPIN’s best of 2010 which is currently under a necessary quarantine in my living room.
