The Top 10 Albums of 2010 (As I see Them)

1. Jeff Beck-Emotion & Commotion
2. Robert Plant-Band Of Joy
3. Sade-Soldier Of Love
4. John Mellencamp-No Better Than This
5. Iron Maiden-The Final Frontier
6. Neil Young-Le Noise
7. Bruce Springsteen-The Promise
8. Phil Collins-Going Back
9. Taylor Swift-Speak Now
10. Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers-Mojo

I counted The Promise since, though recorded thirty-plus years ago, the material was entirely or almost entirely unreleased. The Jeff Beck is the new album that I played the most this year, and while he always has some good stuff mixed with filler, this time out he made an even more consistent album. Robert Plant and John Mellencamp have both been very impressive of late with their career turns toward tackling Americana. Mellencamp’s career has always been strongly informed with old style Americana music but lately his albums have no trace of modernity and could have been recorded in the fifties or sixties. Iron Maiden always impresses me with their consistency. They are one metal band that continues to be at or almost at the same level they were at their peak. I liked their last album, A Matter of Life And Death more than The Final Frontier but the new album is still very good and has some excellent tracks that make fine additions to the Iron Maiden catalog.

Current pop music is no where near as interesting to me as pop from, oh say the ‘80s. Too much relying on Autotune, too many songs that try to be catchy and simply end up annoying, listening to a Top 40 stations these days requires a bottle of aspirin nearby. That said, I have been very impressed with Taylor Swift. Although there are some modern production touches on her album, the songs could have come from a good country/pop singer in the late ‘70s and “Mine” is one of the rare recent pop hits that I can’t get out of my head and don’t mind that fact. Phil Collins makes the cut with a respectable album of Motown cover tunes and this album is certainly better than his Testify album from 2002. He brought out some of the Motown players like bob Babbitt for authenticity and the whole thing works as well as covers albums go.

This is the first year in a few years where I was able to come up with a Top 10 new release list with a full ten releases. The last few years I struggled to come up with even seven or eight choices. I’ve bought a lot of music but it’s always stuff from prior years. In fact, I left one purchase off, the Michael Jackson outtakes album, that I guess counts as being number 11. It has a few decent songs but too many appearances from lame performers like Akon and too much Autotune gave the album a less than stellar impression.

Also, there are some albums that would most likely make the list but I never got around to picking them up like the new Joe Satriani and Steve Lukather had a solo album that I wouldn’t mind checking out but didn’t get in 2010. I am sure the Satriani would have made the list.