2010 End Of Year Review - Top 10 Songs

Today's End Of Year account lists the Top 10 Songs of 2010. Yeah, yeah, we've definitely forgotten all of your favourites, and some of ours too, most likely. The ol' memory just ain't what it used to be. Still, these songs are all ace, so feast your ears on some of this gravy:

1. King of the Beach - WAVVES
At its best, Wavves' Californian punk-pop lands satisfactorily between The Beach Boys and The Jesus and Mary Chain. “You’re never gonna stop me,” yells Nathan Williams (above) over the irrepressible title track of the latest album.

2. Dance The Way I Feel - OU EST LE SWIMMING POOL

Feel-good indie-dance-pop magnificence (the 'feel-good' side of which is obviously kinda poignant now). Hunt down the Blue Eyed Boy Radio Edit too. It's even better.

3. 10 Mile Stereo - BEACH HOUSE
A truly stunning moment at the back end of Teen Dream, the glorious 10 Mile Stereo has a pulsing beat that builds towards rousing, sparkling shoegazey pop and ends with a crescendo that explodes like fireworks.

4. When I'm With You - BEST COAST
Cat-loving singer Bethany Cosentino has a lovely post grunge vocal that is effortless to the point of having a reluctance to it, like it’s a real drag sometimes for her to even summon up the words. Here though, it's all about the invinsibilty of young love. "When I'm with you, I have fun," she sings over guitars drenched in reverb.

5. Cloud Shadow On The Mountain - WOLF PARADE

Spencer Krug's tense spoken-word vocal, “I was asleep in a hammock/I was dreaming that I was a web/I was a dreamcatcher hanging on the window of a mini-van parked along the water's edge/I'd say that I was all alone,” is warbled like a paranoid David Byrne before all kinds of hell breaks loose on drums and guitar. It’s as magnificent as it is tightly-coiled.

6. To The Brink - I AM KLOOT
To The Brink is the best example of the tone of I Am Kloot's latest album. “I raise a glass, a smile or two/ Well, this stuff strips the light from your bones/And I would like to leave with you/But I stay alone,” says vocalist John Bramwell mournfully over strings, like a singer in the corner of an empty bar, bowtie hanging limply around his neck. It is a magnificent song and, in its hungover introspection, plays like the bleary-eyed uncle of Pulp’s Bar Italia.

7. I Can Talk - TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB
Perky Indie-dance-pop from the Bangor trio.

8. Power - KANYE WEST
It's a shame that Mr West comes across as such an acceptance-speech-ruining douche, because, when he lets his talent do the talking, he comes up with magic like this.

9. Echoes - KLAXONS
A slightly rougher and heavier relative of Golden Skans (which, if you hadn't realised, was borrowing from Madonna's Hung Up - which itself was covering ABBA), it shows why Klaxons have always referred to themselves as a pop band.

10. Hurricane - DAVID FORD
It's our old mate David Ford again, with this epic, sweeping song which mixes the political and the personal. "God bless America, God save the Queen/God kill my enemies and keep my hands clean."


HANGING OUTSIDE THE TOP TEN: 

BEST SONG-YOU-LIKE-BUT-PRETEND-YOU-DON'T OF 2010:
California Gurls - KATY PERRY FEATURING SNOOP DOGG
At BobbySix.com we don't really believe in guilty pleasures. A song we like is a song we like. And California Gurls is as fun a slice of infectious pop as we have heard this year. Come on indie snobs... it's pretty good hey?

 

BEST OVERPLAYED-BUT-STILL-PRETTY -AWESOME DANCE SONG:

Barbra Streisand - DUCK SAUCE

Try not to ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh along. We dare you.

Ou Est Le Swimming Pool - The Golden Year

Ou Est Le Swimming Pool’s success in 2010 has been such that the release of their debut album should have been cause for celebration for the UK electro outfit. However, following the death of singer Charles Haddon at a European music festival in August, The Golden Year instead acts as a sad legacy and marks the end of a three-piece that had really only just got started. After speaking with the late Haddon’s family, the remaining band members decided that releasing the record as scheduled was the correct thing to do.

Opener You Started, with its piano and strings, is an interesting, if slightly misleading, stripped-down introduction. More left turns like this throughout The Golden Year would have been nice but, as the obligatory 80s synths arrive in the next song, it’s pretty much exclusively up-tempo, indie-laden dance from then on. But for a couple of fillers, it’s largely above-average stuff, and is punctuated by the occasional belter like the feel-good indie-dance-pop magnificence of Dance The Way I Feel and the adrenaline rush of Jackson’s Last Stand.

The Golden Year isn’t a brilliant album, but it is a solid debut with more than a couple of glimpses of the potential that Ou Est Le Swimming Pool had. It also shows the charisma and energy that Haddon brought as a vocalist. His was certainly a talent lost well before his time and the fact that The Golden Year gives off such an unabashed sense of joy and optimism makes it all the more difficult to listen to in light of the all-too-recent tragedy that hangs over it like a cloud.