What I listened to in 2010

This is what Last FM says I listened to most last year, and I'm not about to argue.

1. Laura Viers — July Flame.

All this endless beauty:

2. Arcade Fire — The Suburbs

My second favourite album of 2010? OK, I take it back, I will argue with LastFM: the album had at least four great songs, but the number of times I fell asleep on the train only to find it still playing when I woke up suggests it was on bloated side.

Anyway, here's one the great songs:

3. John Grant — Queen of Denmark

Very obviously the best music that Midlake made in 2010.

4. Sun Kil Moon — April

Screw you, Last FM: this was my album of the year. Favourite non-Chester memory of 2010: walking across my local golf course at night, accompanied only by April, falling snow and foxes appearing like ghosts in the distance.

5. Sun Kil Moon — Admiral Fell Promises

More of the same, which obviously made it one of the albums of the year.

6. The xx

Very much the year before last. Which didn't stop me listening to it practically incessantly.

7. Bonobo — Black Sands

On our first day in Spain, this album played on a non-stop loop as we decanted our minds by the pool.



8. Biosphere — Wireless

You know how music's often too musical? This works as a refreshing ear-sorbet:



9. Tame Impala — Innerspeaker

Because it was delicious to imagine an alternative history of the Beatles where George went all West Coast.

10 Laura Marling — I Speak Because I Can

It grew on me.