2010

Robyn knows that a dancefloor can be the loneliest place in the room. On Body Talk, hard-edged synthesizers carry extraordinarily clear feelings: jealousy, generosity, defiance and the determination to keep moving. Its pop directness is a triumph, not a concession, even if this assembled album contains a few less essential detours.

Janelle Monáe's android saga succeeds because the songs are more thrilling than the premise. Her voice can snap into funk-band command, break into wounded urgency or float through an intimate ballad, all on the same sprawling record. The spectacle is huge, but an unusually expressive human presence holds it together.

Kanye West makes a record of almost absurd musical scale, then repeatedly lets insecurity puncture the pageantry. Towering beats, choruses, guest verses and extended codas would be empty extravagance without the songs beneath them. Here they give rap, pop and soul a run of startlingly distinct climaxes, even when the self-mythology grates.

James Murphy can turn a long dance groove into a confession without stopping anyone moving. This Is Happening finds comedy, embarrassment, romantic need and bodily release inside patient electronic repetition. Its strongest songs arrive like entire nights unfolding; even when the references are obvious, the loneliness and exhilaration feel unmistakably human.

Cosmogramma is a breathtakingly animated universe of jazz, hip-hop beats, strings and digital fragments. Flying Lotus makes abrupt changes feel like movement through a living place, with bass lines and rhythms constantly revealing new paths. It dazzles not simply through invention, but through the physical pleasure of getting lost inside.

Big Boi's solo album is a feast of elastic rapping and constantly changing grooves. His conversational flow skips through funk bass, brass blasts and futuristic beatwork with seemingly effortless command. Under all the swagger sits an astonishing number of fully formed, exuberant songs worth returning to.

Sufjan Stevens replaces his familiar delicate scenery with bursting electronics, horns and bass, but keeps the wounded human voice at the centre. The Age of Adz can be crowded and alarming; its astonishing reward is how intimate confession eventually becomes a huge, joyous invitation to sing together.

Halcyon Digest makes memory sound both inviting and impossible to hold. Deerhunter move between intimate, oddly faded songs and enormous melodic releases, finding joy and grief in the same guitar shimmer. Its long crescendos turn a collection of fragile impressions into a beautifully affecting album journey.

Plastic Beach turns an island of discarded things into a surprisingly inviting pop holiday: bright synthetic surfaces, comic cameos and songs of real loneliness. Its finest moments keep changing shape, from elastic funk to hushed melancholy. The crowded guest list sometimes interrupts the journey, but rarely exhausts its pleasures.

Flockaveli is rap engineered for collective impact: Waka's hoarse calls, shouted replies and chest-thumping drums hit like the sound of a whole room joining in. The relentless force of “Hard in da Paint” and “Grove St. Party” matters more here than intricate verbal display.

A nearly two-hour album sounds forbidding until Joanna Newsom's stories start making room for you. Harp, piano and a more supple singing voice carry affection, pride, separation and regret through unusually generous songs. Rather than saving its best moments for the beginning, Have One on Me keeps revealing emotional peaks across three discs.

Teen Dream turns a soft-focus sound into ten immense, aching songs. Victoria Legrand's voice and Alex Scally's luminous guitar make longing feel both sheltered and exposed, with choruses that keep opening wider. Its emotional force accumulates patiently, then finds extraordinary tenderness in the final stretch.

Swim makes electronic dance music feel flooded with private feeling. Dan Snaith's liquid percussion, elastic bass and half-submerged singing turn “Odessa” into something simultaneously exhilarating and uneasy. The beauty is not just in the first rush: later tracks carry the pulse toward grief and release.

Caitlin Rose's debut is a rare abundance of country-pop songs that reveal more character with each turn. Her clear, unforced singing makes regret, defiance and affection feel close, while pedal steel and bright band arrangements keep the melodies moving. It charms without having to hide its bruises.

Treats blasts cheerleader chants, guitar riffs and pop hooks through a deliberately blown-out speaker cone. Sleigh Bells make distortion feel giddy rather than forbidding, then surprise with the gentler sway of “Rill Rill.” Its short, explosive shape makes the sheer excess part of the fun.

These Chilean synth-pop songs make yearning feel gloriously danceable. Javiera Mena rarely needs to push her voice: the directness of her melodies sits beautifully against shining strings, programmed beats and restless disco movement. Nine songs give the record enough room for tenderness and elation without burying either under concept or display.

Subiza catches the rush of dancing with people you love and somehow preserves its private ache. Delorean pile buoyant piano, cut-up voices and surging beats into songs that feel weightless without being empty. Across nine tracks, euphoric repetition becomes a surprisingly tender language of connection.

Owen Pallett's orchestral fantasies are full of someone very human trying to sing through them. Violin runs, strings, drums and electronic details follow a fictional character's revolt against his maker, but the dramatic reward lives in the exposed melodies. Heartland is grand and sometimes fussy, yet unexpectedly touching at its centre.

Before the stage phenomenon, Hadestown was already an arresting studio folk opera. Anaïs Mitchell's songs make an old myth startlingly human, gathering blues, gospel and country sounds around an expressive cast of voices. The drama matters because the melodies, arguments and heartbreak work so powerfully as music.

A guitar and a kora seem to finish each other's thoughts on this exquisitely patient Malian collaboration. Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabaté favour tiny rhythmic shifts over showmanship, revealing the pleasure of two remarkable players responding to each other. The quietness makes every answer feel personal.

Seven songs, several languages and a remarkable range of yearning: A. R. Rahman's Tamil soundtrack stands beautifully on its own. Wedding exuberance, intimate guitar lines and searching voices keep changing the emotional weather. Its melodies invite affection long after the film's story has faded from view.

Fiddle, banjo, jug and three vividly different voices make Genuine Negro Jig burst with life. Carolina Chocolate Drops reconnect Black string-band music with the present through irresistible playing, humour and sudden sorrow. This is not valuable merely as cultural recovery: its rhythms and performances are exhilarating in their own right.

Bilal sings as though every feeling might change shape mid-phrase. On Airtight's Revenge, jazz-rooted soul, restless funk and guitar-driven urgency serve an unusually fearless vocal performance. Tenderness and anguish arrive together; even the record's darker passages carry the thrill of hearing a remarkable singer take risks.

This jazz quintet makes complicated music feel like a set of living conversations. Threadgill's saxophone and flute, twisting guitar, brass and restless rhythm section tug at one another without losing the pleasure of playing together. Across five pieces, the music gathers surprising warmth and physical momentum, not merely intellectual intrigue.

Sakanaction turn the restless sounds of city life into remarkably melodic guitar-and-synth pop. Dubwise space, club propulsion and Ichiro Yamaguchi's searching voice never crowd out the songs: the pulse of “アルクアラウンド” eventually gives way to the sweeping emotional arrival of “目が明く藍色.”

Hedonism is a boisterous English folk celebration with an astonishing sense of movement. Brass, strings, percussion and voices make old songs feel crowded with new possibilities, yet the band knows when to turn theatrical frenzy into hush. Its great pleasure is hearing so many musicians play as one unruly organism.

Khaira Arby sings as if the whole band must answer her. Interlocking Malian guitars, ngoni, fiddle and chorus rise to meet a voice capable of fierce declaration and remarkable tenderness. Timbuktu Tarab has the thrilling density of people making music together, with enough shifts in tune and rhythm to sustain its heat.

Five acoustic players make Antifogmatic surge with the scale of an electric band while preserving every fiddle, mandolin and banjo detail. The strange vulnerability of “You Are” and exuberant lift of “Rye Whiskey” prove that virtuosity here is most thrilling when it becomes an emotional event.

Mount Kimbie build a tiny, welcoming electronic world from scraps of voice, soft pulses and sounds that seem borrowed from ordinary rooms. Crooks & Lovers avoids the obvious grand drop; its melodies arrive in curious, intimate shapes. At thirty-six minutes, the sequence makes its small scale feel like an advantage rather than an apology.

On Public Strain, distorted guitars hang like bad weather until a melody suddenly comes into focus. Women make unease strangely companionable: the fractured motion of “Drag Open” and spectral beauty of “Venice Lockjaw” prepare the way for “Eyesore,” a closing release of extraordinary warmth.

The Monitor turns battered punk songs into enormous communal singalongs without sanding away the bruises. Patrick Stickles sounds desperate, funny and defiant as guitars, horns and gang voices climb toward release. Its Civil War imagery is memorable; the deeper appeal is how fiercely the music makes loneliness feel shared.

On Undeniable, Terror Danjah makes grime instrumentals behave like vivid, unpredictable songs. Jagged bass pressure gives way to soulful hooks, stripped-back tension and strange bursts of colour. The long “S.O.S.” is a particular thrill, gradually loosening an abrasive pulse into something unexpectedly danceable and fluid.

El Juidero is a Dominican dance record with teeth: merengue propulsion, rock abrasion and Rita Indiana's unmistakably theatrical delivery carry stories of fear, migration and pleasure. Its rhythms are irresistibly sociable without smoothing away the unease beneath them. The songs keep finding fresh ways to be funny, furious and moving.

Kvelertak make extreme metal feel like an unruly roomful of people discovering a great rock riff together. Three guitars pile black-metal abrasion onto punk drive and hard-rock hooks, but the excitement comes from those instantly graspable shapes. The original Norwegian eleven-track debut is relentless without relying entirely on speed.

Écailles de Lune lets enormous guitars and fragile singing inhabit the same dream. Alcest's two-part title piece rises from yearning into a storm; “Percées de Lumière” makes the heavier surges glow with melody. The closing clean-voiced “Sur l'océan couleur de fer” supplies a tender, necessary homecoming.

Caracas band La Vida Bohème make Nuestra sound like an invitation to run, dance and shout together. “Radio Capital” and “Cigarro” carry irrepressible guitar momentum; “Flamingo” reveals an unexpectedly open-hearted melodic centre. Its excitement comes from the changing songs and collective performance, not a claim to invent rock.

Jahdan Blakkamoore's voice is the real shape-shifter here: one moment stern and rhythmically pointed, the next soaring with unguarded melody. Babylon Nightmare moves between roots reggae, dancehall and hip-hop without abandoning the singer at its centre. Spacious roots pulses and sharper electronic edges give his melodies room to stretch and surprise.

Gappy Ranks sings across classic reggae grooves with a warmth that makes familiar rhythms feel newly inviting. “Mountain Top,” “Heaven in Her Eyes” and the title song overflow with melody, while later cuts keep revealing his gift for intimacy. The record's charm resides in a living voice, not retro decoration.