Christgau's 2010 Dean's List

Christgau's list of best albums of 2010:

http://bit.ly/eV8xYy

2010 Magazine's Albums Of The Year Thread For Posting Lists and Discussion

that said, xgau's essay def. worth a read

the Deerhunter love is a shock.

i dunno, i preferred his old year-end wrap-ups. this one's too much Xgau; not enough P&J for me. kinda wish he'd waited a week before posting.

xp

Taylor Swift made the A-list.

*impotently shakes fist at Alfred*

You're welcome.

bah!

From that bigger list thread:

no way is nicholas payton 23
― ich bin ein ilxor (deej), Wednesday, 12 January 2011 22:20 (Yesterday) Permalink

He's saying Payton was 23 in 1997, when he made the album with Doc Cheatham (which looks about right, if Wiki is.)
― xhuxk, Wednesday, 12 January 2011 22:28 (Yesterday) Permalink

does xgau usually put old stuff in his list? there's a bunch of 2009 albums there, and his #8 single is from 2006.
― lex diamonds (lex pretend), Wednesday, 12 January 2011 22:30 (Yesterday) Permalink

He often applies the Pazz & Jop "Year Of Impact" rule (so do I), when it comes to releases he connected with the year after they technically came out. Though 2006 might be pushing things. (He's pushed things more in the past, though; i.e., naming the Clash's 1982 "Rock The Casbah" his #1 single of 2001.)
― xhuxk, Wednesday, 12 January 2011 22:42 (Yesterday) Permalink

yeah i get the year of impact thing, though it makes way less sense for albums. what impact did lil wayne or nicki minaj's old mixtapes have in 2010?! and the 2006 single certainly didn't have any greater impact than this year than in the four previous.
― lex diamonds (lex pretend), Wednesday, 12 January 2011 22:58 (Yesterday) Permalink

Well, it apparently had more impact on him, which it what matters, since it's his list. (Not defending the 2006 choice, which I know nothing about. But also, I don't get how "late impact" can't happen just as much with albums as with singles -- especially, say, November or December releases that wind up breaking a couple hits the following year, or barely distributed albums on tiny labels that everybody ignored the year before. Not all critics feel the compulsion to hear albums the day they come out, thank God.)
― xhuxk, Thursday, 13 January 2011 00:05

Instead I see in the numbers a hip-hop resurgence. I don't pretend to project the future from such statistical "trends," which usually involve too much happenstance, such as the simultaneous return to form of Eminem, Big Boi, and Kanye West. Clearly more momentous than the 2009 tokens by Mos Def and Raekwon even if they're slightly overrated, these three faves are the latest and most decisive proof that hip-hop has supplanted rock as popular music's most aesthetically fruitful genre

i don't understand this at all. my first reaction is to think: maybe ten+ years ago (meaning pop at its most publicly visible levels).

16. Care Bears on Fire: Girls Like It Loud

I was really hoping that was an actual Care Bears release, like the one I was forced to play over and over for my one of my niece's a couple decades ago ("yeah yeah yeah we're the care bears").

Maybe I should listen again to his 2nd favorite to the Roots, Elizabeth Cook. Her cd Welder struck me on the first few listens as well-crafted country and roots rock but missing something. Christgau says:

Nashville-based singer-songwriter and Sirius Radio morning jock Elizabeth Cook, who at 37, after four fairly good albums, strung together 14 fairly perfect songs about such country things as love, marriage, sex, rock and roll, farming, and her sister the junkie.

It's a terrific album whose durability surprised me. I had no trouble placing it in my top fifteen.

they're really good songs that could stand to be redone better/stronger performers imo. as an album, i liked it way better than Speak Now myself, but i'm probably in the minority here.

xp

yeah, i'm def with Alfred there.

er, by, even

xp

I count one really really good song ("El Camino," Xgau's #2 single) and 13 fair-to-good ones on Welder, but thought the album wasn't nearly consistent enough to make the Top 10 country albums list I put together for the Nashville Scene poll (probably would've made my country Top 20), but ears differ. Do agree it's Cook's best album. Here's how I reviewed it for Rhapsody:

http://www.rhapsody.com/elizabeth-cook/welder#albumreview

Actually prefer her husband Tim Carroll's All Kinds Of Pain album from 2009, which did make my Nashville Scene ballot that year, to be honest. (And not just because he used to be in great Southern Indiana frat-punk band the Gizmos.)