Anatomy of a year-end list

By Spencer Patterson

Thursday, Dec. 30, 2010 | 7 p.m.

I take year-end lists pretty seriously, probably because a) I’m a big list guy in general and b) as a kid, I relied on year-end lists to help me discover good music beyond the parameters of my limited radio dial. This year, I’m contributing 2010 top 10s for Las Vegas Weekly and Pazz & Jop, Village Voice’s annual critics poll, in which I’ve voted since 2005.

Some years, the toughest part of the process is picking my Album of the Year, the record (yes, I still like calling them records) that will anchor the list from its No. 1 position. Not an issue this time. Joanna Newsom’s Have One on Me has been my clear pick since I first heard it in February. When I enjoy an album 10 months later as much or more than I did initially, I take it as a pretty good sign I’ll still cherish it 10 years from now. I like everything about Have One: its sprawling format (three discs, 18 tracks, 124 minutes), the variety of its compositions, the way Newsom powerfully harnessed her unusual voice this time out. I found 2004’s The Milk-Eyed Mender intriguing, and even though 2006’s Ys has always felt severely overwrought to me, it does contain moments of brilliance. Yet I’ve surely already listened to Have One more than both of those combined. If you haven’t heard it, I suggest giving the next four minutes of your life over to this.

Okay, next step in the list-making process—identify other definites. I count four: Superchunk’s shockingly tight comeback rocker, Majesty Shredding; Liars’ latest creepy art-rock masterwork, Sisterworld ; Xiu Xiu’s challenging yet ultimately irresistible electronic/indie smorgasbord, Dear God, I Hate Myself; and an ambient must-have from Ohio trio Emeralds, Does It Look Like I’m Here?. Tough to put one ahead of another, but I’ll go Superchunk/Emeralds/Liars/Xiu Xiu for Nos. 2-5. Five spots to go.

One useful tool these days: the iTunes play-count column. Sure, it doesn’t account for spins in my car or in my living-room stereo, but until someone invents a device that tracks every sound that hits my tympanic membrane, it’s a good way to look back on my listening habits. And this year, as is usually the case, my listening habits included heavy doses of Robert Pollard. In addition to reuniting with his “classic” Guided By Voices lineup for some rather unexpected touring (including a gig at October’s Matador at 21 festival in Las Vegas), “Uncle Bob” also managed to release four full-length records in 2010. Two really caught my ears, solo album We All Got Out of the Army and Our Cubehouse Still Rocks, the newest installment from Pollard’s “other” band, Boston Spaceships. The Spaceships’ Brown Submarine made my 2008 year-end list, and I kick myself regularly for failing to hear last year’s outstanding solo LP Elephant Jokes until my ’09 picks had already been submitted. I’m not making the same mistake twice—Army makes my 2010 year-ender, slipping past Cubehouse on the strength of its consistent 17-song tracklist and the sheer force of its best numbers (“Silk Rotor,” “How Many Stations,” “I Can See,” the title cut).

Another personal favorite in 2010, my iTunes reminds me, comes from Vegas’ own A Crowd of Small Adventures. I waited a long time for songwriter Jackson Wilcox and his band to finish A Decade in X-Rays, and it didn’t let me down. Opener “Ancient Giants” and closer “Fast Travel” both rank among my 30 most-listened for the year, and the tunes that run between them aren’t far behind. From what I’ve seen, most list-makers show an unwillingness to include “local” bands in year-enders. I say, the songwriting on Decade stands up to anything I’ve heard from the “pros” around the world in 2010, so I’m saving it a spot.

That makes seven, and that’s where it gets really hard. Not because I don’t know what else to consider, but because I’m considering way too many albums for the final three slots. The difference between No. 10 and No. 11 is, after all, the difference between making the list and just being another album released in 2010.

The main contenders: LCD Soundsystem’s This Is Happening, Sufjan Stevens’ The Age of Adz, The Walkmen’s Lisbon, Pantha du Prince’s Black Noise, Abe Vigoda’s Crush, Women’s Public Strain and The Books’ The Way Out. Back in the spring, LCD looked like a shoe-in to make my top 10—maybe even my top 5—but as I listen to it now, I’m starting to think I’ve gotten everything I’m gonna get out of those tunes. They’re fun and catchy and I’m sure I’ll spin This Is Happening now and again for years down the line, but as far as gaining in enjoyment, I just don’t see it happening.

Which brings me to Sufjan. The Age of Adz is a challenge, no doubt, especially 26-minute finisher “Impossible Sand,” a shapeshifting monster that even finds the gentle-voiced Stevens dabbling in Auto-Tune. And yet, every time I delve into Adz, I hear more, get more, feel more. Increasingly, my gut tells me this music will more legs than anything this side of Newsom, so to leave it out of my top 10 now feels plain wrong. So that’s eight.

The Walkmen and The Books put out great records this year, but neither Lisbon nor The Way Out is my absolute favorite by its respective creator. And in a year with this much competition, I’m reticent to include a band’s third-best album in my top 10.

When I really think hard about my last year of listening, I’m struck by how much ambient-type music came through my speakers—while I wrote and edited, while I slept, while I played board games with my daughter. I played the hell out of Emeralds, Stellar OM Source, Forest Swords, Radio People, Outer Space, Mist and solo releases from Emeralds man Mark McGuire. I’ve got Does It Look Like I’m Here in my top 5, but that alone doesn’t really tell the story of my 2010. Black Noise, a minimal techno masterstroke from Germany’s Hendrik Weber (aka Pantha du Prince), was a consistent source of electronic magic for me this year. In it goes.

So, Abe Vigoda vs. Women for No. 10. Interestingly, those albums produced two of my top five songs from 2010, Women’s “Eyesore” and Abe Vigoda’s “Dream of My Love (Coming After You).” The Vigoda record was a stunning departure—imagine Gang of Four morphing into Depeche Mode—and I dug the new direction as much as the old. I’d love to reward the band’s willingness to experiment, but as the year comes to a close, Public Strain is charging hard. It’s the dreaded late contender, something I heard with the year winding down, which makes it tough to know how the Canadian art-rockers will hold up over time. But as I listen to “Eyesore” for the 42nd time this month, I’m confident, deep in my heart, its shimmery charms will glow just as brightly in 2011 and beyond. And so, until next December, here you have it:

1. Joanna Newsom, Have One on Me

2. Superchunk, Majesty Shredding

3. Emeralds, Does It Look Like I’m Here?

4. Liars, Sisterworld

5. Xiu Xiu, Dear God, I Hate Myself

6. Robert Pollard, We All Got Out of the Army

7. A Crowd of Small Adventures, A Decade in X-Rays

8. Pantha du Prince, Black Noise

9. Sufjan Stevens, The Age of Adz

10. Women, Public Strain