This is the time of year that I usually start to put together lists of my favorite albums and movies of the year. This year though, I’m not even going to bother with an album list. I don’t think I bought a single album worthy of a top 10 listing this year. It was a terrible year for music - at least heavier rock music. My favorite album this year was probably the new Duran Duran, which makes for a pretty pathetic year.
As for movis, I’m holding off until I see some the the current movies like True Grit, King’s Speech, The Fighter, etc. I’ll probably make that list sometime in January after the Oscar nominations.
Tony, I never had much interest in the ‘freeze’ discussions when they first happened, because when I first
tried freezing a VSTi in SX2, it seemed such a slow process, and simply rendering the VSTi part to audio
seemed much quicker and is easy to move.
What do you see as the advantage of freezing a VSTi rather than rendering to audio?
Actually, I thought this was a very good year for new music; maybe not as great as 2009, but still worthy. However, I tend to agree with Tony about hard rock; the only really good hard rock album I bought was Slash’s album, which had great songs on it… the only thing I didn’t like was using 12 different singers – I would’ve gone with one singer for all of it. I don’t think I bought ANY new Metal this year. I need to get home to review my new albums before I post a “best” list but I am positive the following would appear on it:
Beach House – Teen Dream
Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest
Kanye West – Fantasy
Dari – eponymous EP
Arcade Fire – forget name
Syd Barrett – An Introduction to Syd Barrett
Taylor Swift – don’t laugh, this album actually rocks
Tinyfish: Big Red Spark (Simply Amazing. Even better live if you can catch them, for me find of the year. No doubt)
Transatlantic: Whirld Tour: Live at Shepherds Bush (OK, I was actually there that night, so I’m probably biassed. Best gig of 2010. These guys can do no wrong in my book, but playing the Whirlwind in it’s entirety was an amazing experience)
Steve Hackett: Out of the Tunnels Mouth (Prog doyen who still has it in spades, and a really nice guy too)
Glass Hammer: If (Glass Hammer’s return to large scale prog after the rocky-er “Three Cheers for the Broken Hearted” from last year -Which I liked immensely too even if their hard core fans didn’t)
Frost*: The Philadelphia Experiment (Their first foray into the USA at Rosfest last year, a brilliant live album, particularly with Nick D’Virgilio guesting on the drum throne, suitable blend of madcap brit humour and musical brilliance from Jem and the boys - Look out for “Black Live Machine” on DVD in 2011 I was at the night they filmed it and it was simply fantastic)
Spock’s Beard: X (A real return to form. For me the best album since Neal Morse left the band - Nick D’Virgilio finally hits his stride as lead singer)
Black Country Communion (Come on, Bonamassa, Hughes, Bonham, Sherinian, what’s not to like?)
Yeah, I haven’t heard about them in years either. Just checked out their myspace page.
Some good new material there. I’ll be picking that one up. Thanks for the tip Mr One.
I’ll be checking some of these out myself. It seems you and I like things in a similar genre. I’m a big fan of Frost and Steve Hackett but I haven’t heard the others before. (Listening to music too much from other artists will influence me to create songs with similar melodies, and I prefer to be as unique as I can).
I was intrested in hearing the tinyfish album listed above but it’s not available in the USA for download either on iTunes or Amazon. Weird.
And Doug - MAN that’s a wimpy list this year. You usually do much better than that. I don’t blame you though. It’s just a bad year for heavier music. And start preparing your top movie list.
Here are my favorites for the year (in no particular order)
Lady Antebellum - Need You Now
The Black Keys - Brothers
Grinderman 2
Slash - Slash
Ozzy Osbourne - Scream
Biggest disappointment - Dead Weather - Sea Of Cowards. I was looking forward to it but I just can’t like it, as much as I try. Could be something to do with the sheer harshness and my age.
Been going to get the new Loose Tubes album. Not a new recording but still a new release
I’ve been compiling my movie list as the year went along so I wouldn’t forget any i’d seen like I did last year. I’ve been ranking them in rough order, too. the problem is like what you cited – seems like all the superior movies are coming out right now, and I need to see at least some of them before I post my best list.
I don’t think it’s been released in the USA, or even if there’s plans to. I tried to order it awhile back (I order records thru my little hole-in-the-wall record shop – don’t do many album downloads anymore) and they said their distributor had no record of it. There are a few places you can download a 320 mp3, however, legit places
From what I’ve read/heard, this was the year of the “oldies” metal acts to make comebacks, particularly Ratt and Iron Maiden. I loved Ratt; never cared for Iron maiden.
I don’t listen to death metal, which seems to dominate here in the States anymore
It also seems like the best Metal is being done in Europe, particularly Scandanavia. One of the few metal albums I bought this year was one of the Ocean albums (they put out two). It’s quite good. I think they’re German?
It’s available direct from their website. £10 + world wide postage of £3. I guess that is quite expensive compared to what you would normally pay for a CD.
For about a year, I was mostly buying online (iTunes). But I missed having a nice little booklet with lyrics and artwork; and when I burned a CD of whatever I downloaded, it wasn’t as satisfactory as having the whole shebang. So i’ve gone back to buying CD’s – one of the holdouts, I guess
Many iTunes albums come with interactive booklets. Some with video. Lyrics can be embedded in the music file and gotten a zillion places on the internet.
Not sure how that helps me when I’m listening in my car or Hi Fi, though. I like holding the artwork and lyric book in my hands! Because (like you I’m sure) I was brought up on LP’s – now THERE was where artwork flourished and linernotes/lyrics were at their zenith. However, in any case one day soon it’ll ALL be digital download and the paradigm will shift totally to what you’re describing.
You usually do much better than that. I don’t blame you though. It’s just a bad year for heavier music. And start preparing your top movie list. 
