2010: Your Best-of List

[Eliminator Jr.]

FAVOURITE MEDIA RELEASES OF 2010

2010 was the year of... okay I'm trying to think of something interesting/cool to write here and so far all that's coming to my head is the year of biodiversity speech from the English exam I sat today. Anyway, point is, whether you love it or loathe it (it being... I really don't know where I'm going with this XD) 2010 has had some pretty cool releases in all fields of media.

The point of the thread is simple - post your favourite media releases of 2010. For an example, look at last year's thread here.

If you like, you can add sections of your own (eg. "Best Newcomers", "Albums I'm Looking Forward to in Nov/Dec"). And yes, this is a bit early, but 2010 is such an exciting year that I just couldn't hold it in any longer.

* * *​

BEST ALBUM

Cloak and Cipher by Land of Talk

2010 was so good a year in music that it was borderline impossible to make this decision. There were a number of four and five star albums released and to be honest the deciding factor that drove me to choose Land of Talk's new album as my favourite of the year is beyond me. They're a Canadian indie-rock outfit with a female vocalist whose voice sounds like a cross between Emily Haines of Metric and Lisa Mitchell, and have very catchy songs. The album kicks off with a very catchy title track and then an equally pop-style tune in Goaltime Exposure. Quarry Hymns was the first song I heard by Land of Talk but strangely enough it's the least played of all of the songs on the album - when I first heard it I was amazed, but the rest of the album blew me away as well. If I had my choice I would have made Swift Coin (track 4) the single from this album. It's definitely the catchiest song on the album. Color Me Badd is a pretty sad song and it gets to me every time I listen to it. Some of Land of Talk's lyrics I find hard to interpret, but this song is pretty clear :( But if anything can get me out of temporary depression it's more Land of Talk - The Hate I Won't Commit is an amazing song and a nice contrast to the track before it, especially the second half where it goes into a heavy-ish math rock breakdown sort of thing. At first I payed little attention to Hamburg, Noon, but just the way the drums go from quiet and backgroundish into a regular beat along with the lyrics "I wasn't following you" just change the entire song. Very catchy. Okay, I'll try and finish this off quickly (I'd be surprised if anyone is still reading): Blangee Blee is a nice song. The least-good song on the album, but still miles above most of my music library. Playita is great, and has a great feel, same goes for the album closer Better and Closer.

Ahhh. Done. tl;dr the album was good.

Very Honourable Mentions:
Beach Fossils - Beach Fossils
Crystal Castles II - Crystal Castles
Past Time - Grass Widow
Nothing Hurts - Male Bonding

A lot of other bands deserve mentions (Black Keys, Foals, Blonde Redhead) but the albums above were the best ones.

BEST SONG

Hard to pick, but my top three of 2010 are probably "Doe Deer" by Crystal Castles, "All Things Come To Pass" by The Babies, and "Colour Me Badd" by Land of Talk.

BEST NEWCOMERS

Without a doubt Beach Fossils win this category for me. I know they were around in 2010 but their first album came out this year so I'm including them in 2010.

BEST MOVIE

Inception wins this hands down. Aside from The Bucket List, this is my favourite movie of all time and definitely the best movie I've ever seen in a cinema. Because of Year 12 I've been out to the movies relatively little this year, however Remember Me was surprisingly great (features the guy who plays the vampire in Twilight, which instantly lead me to believe the movie was bad but it was actually good).

BEST TELEVISION SERIES

I'll have to go with either How I Met Your Mother or Curb Your Enthusiasm here. Mainly because I've been watching a lot of both shows recently but also because they're great.

 

[Prometheus]

Best album? Tough choice, I'd say...........Lady Gaga.
Best song: That is freaking tough! I'm sorry Jay-Z but, Its gotta be if we ever meet again.
Best newcomers: Ellie Golding.
Best movie: Hangover.
Best T.V series: Modern family / The middle.

 

[Demigod]

Album - Somewhere in time
Song - 2 minutes to midnight
Newcommer - Runner Runner
Movie - can't decide but I'll say Scream
Series - Too many.. shippuden, nhk, death note, lost..

 

[Rogue planet]

Beat me to it. I hate you.

Favourite Album

The ArchAndroid by Janelle Monáe

An easy choice for me. As this isn't just my favourite of 2010, it's one of my all time favourites. Funk, hip hop, soul, classical, jazz, rock, all in one album, and still manages to sound great. The album is far more creative than any other in the genre, Janelle's singing is brilliant, the instrumentation is interesting throughout. Every song on the album is unique due to it's diversity, yet they still manage to tie in to each other instead of sounding like a compilation album full of different artists. The result is a very well presented and interesting concept album. I'm sure she's the best thing that's happened to soul music since Stevie Wonder. Even my least favourite track on the album (Tightrope) is very good. The lyrics are wonderful despite their simplicity, she shows that you can make a creative album whilst still staying in the pop music category. For lack of a better description, it's intricately simple. The first half of the album is an upbeat, politically themed dance music section, the second being a much more relaxed, love themed finale. I won't evaluate every single track because I'd be here forever, but anyone who likes either R&B, soul or funk, listen to this album!

Honourable Mentions:
Pins and Needles by The Birthday Massacre: Generic synthpop + generic emo hard rock = awesome synthrock. Love the singing, love the synth. The guitars are simple and dull, but I'm too busy listening to the other aspects to even care.

Belus by Burzum: One of the few people that does black metal properly.

Écailles de Lune by Alcest: Shoegaze metal, brilliant album. My 2nd favourite of 2010.

The Blood of Heroes by The Blood of Heroes: Justin Broadrick never fails to make something great. Industrial + D&B.

Sea of Cowards by The Dead Weather: This was actually a disappointment seeing as their debut was excellent. I still like it a lot, I don't think Jack White can even make something that's bad, but it just didn't meet my high expectations.

Scratch My Back by Peter Gabriel: Gabriel actually makes a cover album that's good, because he uses an orchestra and puts his own unique spin on the songs rather than trying to sound like the original. Probably because they're all such good songs that can't possibly be topped, but he does something original and enjoyable rather than butchering the songs. I love his voice, so I enjoy this album.

Favourite Song

Witchcraft by Pendulum. Not because it's particularly creative. Although Pendulum are still the best D&B band, it's just not a creative genre. It's just enjoyable, has a cool sounding riff, lyrics & singing and I've listened to it more than any other song this year. If I had to pick a song for it's creativity, I wouldn't be able to, there's too many to choose from. Runner up would be Self vs. Self by Pendulum & In Flames, for the same reason.

Favourite Newcomers

Janelle Monáe, obvs. Runner up is Surfer Blood because they make awesome surf rock.

Favourite Movie

I haven't seen many 2010 films. I've been watching loads of old classics throughout the year. I have to wait for Inception to come out on DVD before I can see it. I did see Shutter Island and that gets my vote, I'm fairly confident I would still vote for it even if I saw more films, the only potential contender is Inception (DiCaprio again, lol). I did not see that plot twist coming! It made a nice change from all the predictable plot twists flying around in so many movies these days. Runner up would be Toy Story 3. I don't even care if it's a kid's film, it was still very fun and I gladly watched it again with poopnoodle because she hadn't seen it, and I rarely rewatch movies willingly.

I don't watch TV so can't vote in that category. I hope you don't mind me stealing your post layout Eliminator.

 

[Garouga! Bare Your Fangs!]

Best Album: Fever - Bullet For My Valentine
I was at a severe loss of ideas for 2010 albums, but then I remembered this and how much I enjoy it. Your Betrayal was a great single that ranked high up for quite some time, and in my opinion is was a much-needed boost for them. The title track was amazing too, as were a few others like Begging for Mercy and A Place Where You Belong.

Best Song: Say You'll Haunt Me - Stone Sour
The lyrics are amazing. This is one of those "at-some-point-we-all-feel-this-way" songs, and it's a good interpretation of said feeling. It especially touched me because of a big personal reason that sounds crazy (my dead ex is haunting me and it's quite comforting).

Best Newcomer: B.o.B.
I know it breaks the pattern, but I have a lot of respect for this guy. He skyrocketed quite quickly and made some pretty memorable songs along the way. Although most people are going to remember Airplanes, Magic is gonna have a special place in my mind because of how catchy it is.
...Seriously, just thinking of the song gets it stuck in my head.

Best Movie: Scott Pilgrim vs The World
For those of you who don't know, this movie is based on a series of comic books that introduced a simple yet interesting concept: Fighting evil exes. Every now and then, each of us feels that we are competing for the love of that special someone with one of their exes. This series amplified that scenario by making it deadly. The movie did the books amazing justice and gave us some pretty good quotes (My personal favorite is "Bread makes you fat?!"). Plus, it was an epic nerdgasm.

Best TV Series: Dragon Ball Z Kai
This may seem stupid, but allow me to explain. In the past decade, the popularity of anime has increased considerably. The idea to re-air Dragon Ball Z episodes was a mix of a good marketing ploy and an educational experience. With its original plot and characters, it showed kids that this is how an anime can become successful. Countless series have come and gone, but Dragon Ball Z lives on.

 

[Eliminator Jr.]

Beat me to it. I hate you.

XD

Sea of Cowards by The Dead Weather: This was actually a disappointment seeing as their debut was excellent. I still like it a lot, I don't think Jack White can even make something that's bad, but it just didn't meet my high expectations.

Yeah, I intentionally didn't include this one in my post. Some songs were really great and when I began listening the album I was really impressed. Songs like "Die by the Drop" and "I'm Mad" are really catchy, but as the album wears on Alison Mosshart's voice just gets more and more irritating to the point where you can't put up with it anymore. I'm really hoping she's not going to bring this lazy vocal style back to The Kills, because Midnight Boom remains in my top five albums of all time and I don't want her to ruin that band as well. I've never listened to Sea of Cowards the whole way through because her voice on it just annoys me so much. The furthest I've ever been able to get in one listen is up to halfway through Gasoline. But honestly, some of the lyrics are terrible (eg. Old Mary), some of the songs are terrible and overall it's not a great album.

Janelle Monáe, obvs. Runner up is Surfer Blood because they make awesome surf rock.

I've heard some people talk about Janelle quite a bit, so I'm going to have to listen to her sometime soon. I like soul music like Sam & Dave and motown stuff, so if your review was good I should like her as well. Surfer Blood I've listened to a few songs of but didn't really get into them much. If I remember rightly they sound a bit like The Drums, right? Not a big fan, but there's aspects of their music which are pretty good. By surf rock do you mean that lo-fi sound that reminds you of the beach? That genre I love, there's a whole lot of bands in New York (I think I had Beach Fossils in my post, that's an example) that I love that have that surf-ish sound.

I hope you don't mind me stealing your post layout Eliminator.

No problems.

Best album? Tough choice, I'd say...........Lady Gaga.
Best movie: Hangover.

Hangover was 2009 and Lady Gaga's last album was 2008 (I had a hunch).

 

[Weeaboo Name]

Ok, this is pretty tough as i have kinda taken the second half of the year off of new music and so on but here's my opinions.

Album - Plan B - The Defamation Of Strickland Banks Or Crystal Castles II

Song - Enter Shikari - Destabilise

Newcomer - Twin Atlantic perhaps, their album was good.

Movie - The Expendables (just look at the cast lolz) or Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

Series - Dexter or Bakuman.

 

[Rogue planet]

Yeah, I intentionally didn't include this one in my post. Some songs were really great and when I began listening the album I was really impressed. Songs like "Die by the Drop" and "I'm Mad" are really catchy, but as the album wears on Alison Mosshart's voice just gets more and more irritating to the point where you can't put up with it anymore. I'm really hoping she's not going to bring this lazy vocal style back to The Kills, because Midnight Boom remains in my top five albums of all time and I don't want her to ruin that band as well. I've never listened to Sea of Cowards the whole way through because her voice on it just annoys me so much. The furthest I've ever been able to get in one listen is up to halfway through Gasoline. But honestly, some of the lyrics are terrible (eg. Old Mary), some of the songs are terrible and overall it's not a great album.

Agreed. Die by the Drop is the best song on there, but the entire performance left a lot to be desired. Not only by Alison, but the whole band. I haven't listened to a lot of 2010 albums, I've mainly been digging into older music. So there aren't many contenders, but out of what I've listened to it still stood out. I'm not sure what they were trying to achieve with the album, but whatever it was, it didn't work too well. I may be biased because I loved the debut so much (it was my album of the year for '09 iirc) and I was expecting another AOTY, but hopefully they'll do better with the next one.

Surfer Blood I've listened to a few songs of but didn't really get into them much. If I remember rightly they sound a bit like The Drums, right? Not a big fan, but there's aspects of their music which are pretty good. By surf rock do you mean that lo-fi sound that reminds you of the beach? That genre I love, there's a whole lot of bands in New York (I think I had Beach Fossils in my post, that's an example) that I love that have that surf-ish sound.

I don't like The Drums either, but I suppose you could make that comparison. It's not overtly lo-fi, imo, but it depends on what you consider lo-fi. It's more like post-punk with surf rock influences, I thought. I haven't heard many newcomers so there aren't many contenders, again. xD But I thought Surfer Blood were decent. I will listen to Beach Fossils at some point and they may well steal the title.

 

[Eruption]

These should be like nominations and then once enough people have nominated you can create a thread for each category and have a poll for people to vote for the winner.

Album - Recovery, Eminem. - I don't rarely buy albums or listen to them, I generally just listen to select songs so I suppose Eminem wins because he has the best album from the few that I've listened to. I would have went with Science & Faith (The Script) but it just wasn't as good as The Script's first album.

Song - Nothin' On You - B.O.B. ft. Bruno Mars - This is definitely the hardest choice because of the amount of good songs released in a year but I guess this marginally wins because it was in my head for ages.

Newcomer - Tinie Tempah - Another difficult choice and I definitely have to mention Swedish House Mafia and maybe even mention Professor Green. Of course, except maybe SHM, many of you won't have heard of these unfortunately. Anyway, Tinie has definitely been a breakthrough.

Movie - The Karate Kid? - I haven't seen many movies this year but I quite liked the remake of Karate Kid so I'll go with that.

Series - The IT Crowd - Its still as funny as the previous series were. :D

 

[Fever]

Best Album
For me the best album of the year was probably Fever - Bullet For My Valentine.
The sound came across entirely different to previous albums, but it seemed somewhat familiar and comfortable at the same time. For me at least. Great overall album. Each and every song on there I completely love listening to.
(As it happens I'm listening to Pretty On The Outside right now!)

Best Song
I really do not know what it is, but Double Vision - 3OH!3 has gotta be the best song of the year for me. I can't put my finger on why, it's just a brilliant song.

Best Newcomer
I really have no idea, I rarely listen to anything that's brand new unless it's a band that I discover sometime through the year that have just released their first album.
So instead, I'll name the band who I discovered for the first time this year but have been around for a little while but I never knew about them nor did I realise they had an album out.
The winner is Lights.

Best Movie
Saw VII. That movie rocked the sh*t out of the saga that I love the most of any movie saga.
Close runner up is Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Completely agree with Garouga, total nerdgasm. I also have the comics as well :)

Best TV Series
Its a 3 way draw. Firstly, Dexter. Pretty much one of the most amazing tv shows ever!
Secondly, Spartacus: Blood and Sand. I love that stuff, there's a chick get her head caved in on a stone step and there is NO lack of visuals.
Third and final, Big Bang Theory. Dr Sheldon Cooper at his most hilarious best yet again. I just love that show. Also, Kaley Cuoco ftw!

 

[Rogue planet]

Finally listened to Beach Fossils. Yes, they are better than Surfer Blood. Much better. So I'll place them in second place for best newcomers. Because I discovered someone else I like more. xD How To Dress Well released their debut album this year and I have to say it's one of my favourites of the year as well, great ambient vocals and lo-fi production. Kanye West's new album is my 2nd AOTY. Haters gonna hate, this is an amazing album idc what anyone says.

Inception is on par with Shutter Island for me. I think I preferred the plot of Shutter Island but the tension and action scenes in Inception are amazing, as well as the score. I really can't decide between the two.

 

[MOON~DANCER]

I dont watch tv or anything, so I can do the song and album yes?

ALBUM: Stone Sour- Audio Secrecy

SONG: Stone Sour- Say You'll Haunt Me, and Stone Sour- Miracles. (yeah i had 2 )

 

[Kid Coma]

Albums:
Telephantasm by Soundgarden and The Bride Screamed Murder by Melvins, the only albums released this year that I actually enjoyed.

Song:
Black Rain - Soundgarden, sounds just like something from the Loud Love-Badmotorfinger era, shows that they can still kick ass after all these years.

Newcomer:
N/A

Movie:
Toy Story 3, a fine conclusion to the Toy Story trilogy. I admit, I cried at the end.

TV:
N/A

 

[Margot]

Best Album: By far would have to be Slash's solo album. I wasn't sure how he would be on his own, but he collaborated with some great people and I didn't have a problem with any of the songs. My favorites he worked with though would be Ozzy Osbourne, Myles Kennedy, Ian Astbury (with Izzy Stradlin!), and Iggy Pop. Of course not only were there great vocals, but also fantastic guitar ;)

Best Song: That's tricky since I like so many genres, but I'll go with Starlight by Myles Kennedy and Slash (kinda why I loved the album so much)

Best Newcomer: I really don't know who's new in the music world right now, lame.

Best Movie: I adored the A-Team, which I know isn't oscar worthy or anything, but come one LIAM NEESON AND BRADLEY COOPER?! and all the action/planning was great. However, I gotta give this to Inception.

 

[otaku-dono]

Best album: Eisbrecher - Eiszeit. I haven't got many 2010 albums but this is definitely the best, and possibly Eisbrecher's best album (this or Antikörper). It's a typically solid Eisbrecher album with their same sound and the same sort of style, but they're good at differentiating all of their stuff so it's by no means monotonous. Top songs from it are Böse Mädchen and Gothkiller.

Best song: idk
Best newcomer: idk
Best movie: idc
Best tv series: idc

 

[moments.]

Favourite Album​

Not easy to choose an entire album which I liked best... I liked many snippets from different albums which makes it hard, although there is one album that stands out as being completely amazing. Every song I could listen to and enjoy thoroughly and I think that constitutes a Favourite Album Choice. Pendulum - Immersion for reasons that Vendak specified. It is an amazingly enjoyable album to listen to, and despite the constraints of the Drum and Bass genre, Pendulum worked very well to mix it up, incorporating obvious influence from other genres/artists to bring some variety to the often similar DnB genre.

I heard one song from this album which I believe was Watercolour and it sparked me to buy the album after hearing previews of all the other songs. After that, the album as a whole sparked me to buy all their previous albums without even listening to previews of the songs. And I was not disappointed.

This is an amazing album and highly enjoyable, particularly for those DnB fans out there, although I can imagine it pleasing other listeners as well due to it's variety.

Favourite Song​

After the hype I just put on Pendulum's Immersion, it would feel wrong not to choose one of their songs for this category. The question is, which one? While it is definitely a hard choice as all the songs are enjoyable and interesting, I stick to the one that introduced me to Pendulum and the genre of DnB. Watercolour has received attention on the radio as a single release and I don't blame them. This song, while arguably the most similar to the generic DnB sounding song, has beautiful lyrics and is quite atmospheric and rhythmic.

Nothing much else to say other than this spot could've been filled by any one of the songs in the album Immersion.

Favourite Newcomers​

While I stil haven't heard all their songs yet cause I'm waiting for more iTunes credit, The Ghost have a lovely debut album which fuses indie rock and vintage electro-pop. Their songs are all happy-go-lucky and can't help but make you smile and are the perfect introduction to this years summer holidays!

Favourite Movie​

Inception takes the cake peoples. Easily the best film of this year and way up in my favourite films of all time. It was beautifully made, the soundtrack was incredible and we cannot forget the compelling and deep plot line. For whoever hasn't seen this film yet, watch it as soon as you can, it will not disappoint.

As an aspiring film maker myself, I must say that this film produced some serious inspiration for my own ideas and work. Watch it as soon as you can. Do whatever it takes. :P

Best TV Series​

The only scrap of television I watched this year was so entertaining and funny that it has invited me to take a new perception of tv series. Sherlock Holmes which premiered this year and had like three 2 hour episodes was a joy to watch. It was made like a film, with amazing cinematic composition and rich plot lines easily filling movie length periods while remaining entertaining. It was certainly an interesting, and fun series to watch and is highly recommended!​

 

[Bologna]

Probably didn't really focus too much on this years music but...

Album
Of the Blue Colour of the Sky - OK Go

Got to go way back to the beginning of the year for this one, but it's a good'un.

Song
Pretty sure I can't even pick this one.. maybe I will later though.

Movie
Toy Story 3

I could go animated every year, but really, Toy Story 3 was just awesome. And it gets bonus points for being the third movie in a series and still being just as good if not better than it's predecessors (at least the second one for sure). How to Train Your Dragon was also awesome. And going away from animated, Green Zone was pretty cool, but wouldn't claim it as the best of the year. To be fair, I've yet to see Inception, and The Fighter hasn't released yet but it's sure to be good as it has Mark Wahlberg in it and everything is better with Mark Wahlberg.

But yeah, Toy Story 3.

TV Series
Brand new this year- The Walking Dead
Just pretty much in general- The Office

Yeah... The Walking Dead is kind of pretty awesome. I'm a fan.
And you can never go wrong with The Office.

 

[stonejhonson]

Best release

In the year 2010 there are many types of releases have been done. Some type of the best releases are as below.
Best film: Black Swan[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif] [/FONT]
Best album: The National High Violet
Best song: California Gurls
Best actor: Jeff Bridges
Best actress: Sandra Bullock

 

[NekoNekoChan]

In my opinion...

Best Album:
Teenage Dream by Katy Perry, The album seems pretty fun. I enjoy the album alot. :P

Best Song:
We R Who We R by Ke$ha, Even though it's critically-criticized (cuz' of the autotune). I can actually relate to it.

Best Movie:
I agree with almost everyone, Toy Story 3 is fab! :)

 

[Ayselipera]

BEST ALBUM
First of all I'm not an album person. I don't know why, but I tend to go by songs and not albums so forgive my poor knowledge of this subject. This year I liked Congratulations by MGMT the best. I know there was a lot of disappointment from other MGMT fans with this album, but I really don't see anything wrong with it. I enjoyed just about every song on it and that's a lot coming from me.

The other two albums I really liked this year was Broken Bells by Broken Bells and and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West. I tend to find that I like indie/rock/new waveish sounds all mixed into one and Broken Bells sort of captured that for me. As for Kanye West I've always been a fan, but at the same time his newest album was a step up from his last. When 808s & Heartbreaks came out I thought that was the end to any of the music I deemed good from him, but it seems he made a nice turnaround.

BEST SONG
Congratulations - MGMT. I hate showing my sentimental side, but it's one of those songs that touched me on a deeper level. Meaning I can really relate to the lyrics and when I listen to it it means something to me.

BEST NEWCOMERS
It has to go to Best Coast. Their songs all pretty much have to do with the same thing which is a little annoying, but I can look past it.

BEST MOVIE
I just remembered that I saw the mockumentary I'm Still Here which is suppose to be about Joaquin Phoenix's change from an actor to a rapper along with showing the downfall of a celebrity. I thought it captured the downfall part well. It was everything I would have expected.

BEST TELEVISION SERIES
I don't watch regular television shows and for the few shows I actually follow they've been around before 2010. So I don't have anything to put here.

Overall I'm behind on everything this year. D: