My Favorite 25 Albums of 2010: 10 – 1

And now, Part 2 of the best albums of 2010:

My Favorite 10 11 Singles of 2010

In this musical day and age, the single has once again become the most important item to further an artist’s career. It started off as the single, in the 60s when bands were forced by their record companies to put out a new single every few weeks. Then we moved to the golden age of the album, where bands were allowed the creativity and given the time to properly craft entire musical theses, instead of mere thoughts. Then we moved to the music video, and now, in the age of the internet, mixtapes, and iTunes downloads – the single is the most powerful musical item once again.

While I prefer albums, I must admit that as a blogger, singles are my bread and butter. Leaked albums are few and far between these days, so single releases or leaks are what I’m able to hear, share, and write about the most. And so, I present to you my favorite 10 11 singles of 2010:

The National – Wake Up Your Saints

From the recently released High Violet Reissue, check out this new National tune. This one have a very different sound; it’s actually upbeat with a bit of a ragtime piano feel to it. I’m quite liking it, and you should too.

The National – Wake Up Your Saints

The Best 10 16 Albums of The 1st Half of 2010

We’ve just about reached the halfway point of the year, and with it comes the time for us to take a gander back at all the amazing new albums released this year. We had some great debut albums and  myriad later releases, in a year that has so far released few of the albums I was excited about (Radiohead, The Strokes, Arcade Fire) but still has managed to keep me highly entertained.

So here it is: my list of the best, the most interesting, the quirkiest, and the stuff I just love to listen to; all combined into a no-order-necessary and no-nonsense list. Check out the tracks, buy the albums, and as always – enjoy the music.

The National – Live at Bonnaroo 2010

To start off the Bonnaroo bootleg week we’re going to go with The National. This band is getting huge press these days, just tore down Radio City Music Hall, and of course I just reviewed their latest album High Violet last week. The fact that this boot is stellar audio quality only adds to the reasons that this is concert is a must hear.

[Note: My file host is giving me problems again, so I’m using a different site where I have less bandwidth, and thus the single mp3 files have limited downloads. If you’re interested in listening to the whole show, download the zip file and save the bandwidth for those who just want to stream or DL a few tracks. Thanks!]

Download the entire show here.

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The National – High Violet

This has been the year that I’ve been making an effort to listen to as much new music as possible. And one of the awesome things about that is discovering bands that don’t just have amazing new albums, but an awesome back catalogue. The National is one of those bands.