townx

Continuing my "end of year round up", I like to compile a list of favourite music for the year. Here is my list of top tracks for 2010.

My favourite artists of the year in order (pretty much identical to last year's, probably; at least I'm consistent):

1. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - I went to see them live for the first time this year (enjoyable, though Andy McCluskey's dancing is off-putting); I should mention that I pretty much hate their music after The Pacific Age, so the fact they're my number one band is based on about half of their output.
2. The Fall - I got Your Future, Our Clutter for my birthday, which I really enjoyed
3. The Divine Comedy - very middle class, yes; the latest album Bang Goes the Knighthood came out this year, which I thought was one of their best for ages
4. Autechre - a new album and EP this year; both very good
5. Hot Chip - a recent addition to my taste; this year I bought The Warning as well as their most recent album
6. Wire - of course
7. The Residents - probably largely because I use random play a lot, and I have practically everything they've ever recorded over the last 40 years
8. David Bowie - the man
9. Cocteau Twins - I remembered I had a CD of Victorialand (a tape copy of this was the first album I bought when I was about 16) which I'd neglected to rip, and then proceeded to rip it and listened to nothing else for about a week
10. The The - everyone feels maudlin now and then

Others which don't appear in this list but I listened to quite a lot: Tortoise, Future Sound of London, Joanna Newsom, Flying Lotus, Stereolab, Super Furry Animals. It's not a radical list, is it? In fact, I was listening to most of those artists 20 years ago. Must be getting old.

I went to see OMD, Silver Apples and Heaven 17 (they were surprisingly good) live this year: 3 bands in one year is probably the most I've managed since the children were born. I'm going to try to see some more next year (starting with Seefeel in May).