Neu burst into Lepki consciousness in 2010, years after their influence seeped through countless Stereolab albums. Masters of the sparse 1 chord marathons, Neu featured on BBC4's excellent The Birth of Krautrock documentary. This view of the genre also led to the discovery of Faust, Popul Vuh, Kluster and a renewed appreciation of Kraftwerk, and only the second ever David Bowie song to make an impact (A New Career in a New Town finally toppled Lets Dance as the most played Thin White Duke song).
BBC4's Dennis Wilson documentary followed the Karen Carpenter story, and both detailed the lives of ultimately doomed figures from the 60s and 70s. Pacific Ocean Blue provided a soaringly inconsistent but occasionally magical backdrop to the spring, and the drum breaks on the Carpenters All I Can Do will surely come in for plundering when LTJ Bukem launches his long awaited return from DnB exile.
Bradford Cox ended the year as the top composer, with his double whammy of Atlas Sound and Deerhunter. The bands have a definite common thread of dreamy sonics.
All of this material is from before 2010...
Looking at the iTunes play counts, an intriguing thing becomes apparent when looking at plays by year.
The 80's were shit.
1983 only just managed to register as one listen through the Final Cut was deemed to be a necessary requirement for a Pink Floyd completist.
Probably the best year for music ever was 1970, as tunes from this year are still being played in their droves. Os Mutantes A Divina Comédia ou Ando Meio Desligado, Pink Floyd's Zabriskie Point, and Doris's Did you Give The World Some Love Today were all released 40 years ago. Blimey.
As the years roll by, it is in 1997 that music really starts to have a decent significance again, and this is largely down to Broadcast and Yo La Tengo and the release of various David Lynch soundtracks by composer Angelo Badalamenti. These artists are yearly mainstays.
My Gig of the Year would have to be Broadcast at the Royal Festival Hall a gig the Guardian called "Hypnotic, lulling, yet faintly unsettling". I would have gone for loopy myself with all sorts of swirling patterns and trippy visuals.
Less exciting was Rufus Wainwright who played a solo show in Sadler Wells on a boiling hot evening.
Oh and Screamadelica live was excellent too. Musically superb, though the sound was a bit crummy in places, right by the speaker.
Most Played Artists of 2010 - by number of tracks played
Yo La Tengo 642
Atlas Sound 541
Angelo Badalamenti 522
Pink Floyd 360
Iron & Wine 336
Broadcast 322
Stereolab 296
Broadcast & The Focus Group 280
Deerhunter 275
The Aliens 234
Caribou 221
Leonard Cohen 206
Massive Attack 198
Os Mutantes 198
Quantic 179
The Velvet Underground 125
The Beta Band 124
Dennis Wilson 111
Fleet Foxes 110
XX 102
Sparklehorse 101
Lou Reed 94
The Bees 94
Neu! 94
Rufus Wainwright 90
Spacemen 3 90
Animal Collective 89
Neil Young 88
MGMT 88
When looking at the most played artists, you need to go all the way down to Caribou for the first 2010 album in the list.
"electro heavy, slightly disintegrating melodic trance packs a punch of intruguing non-resolution."
Melodic and largely acoustic music was flavour of the season, with Iron &a Wine springing in from nowhere with their 2007 album The Shepherd's Dog accounting for most plays.
Early days of having a child in the house meant gentle songs were the preferred accompaniment.
Doris - Did you Give the World Some love today baby is a lovely timepiece from the late 60's which is a little bit of European Motown. I think of Doris Svennson as a cross between Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin, with a little bit of Cardigans/Carpenters thrown in.
Finally, the Dark Night Of The Soul was the token melancholy album of the month, with the Sparklehorse collaboration heavy piece of work mixing up catchy lyrical hooks with moody menacing nightmares.
You can listen to highlights on Spotify here...
Overall quite a good year, and due to the continued appropriateness of the music, I would give IRON AND WINE my artist of the year award.
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