Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Best albums: 2010-2014

Over at Pitchfork today, our list of the top 100 albums of the first half of the decade, 2010-2014, has been posted. I got to write the entries for #60 (PJ Harvey's Let England Shake), #50 (Godspeed You! Black Emperor's Allelujah! Don't Bend Ascend!), and #28 (My Bloody Valentine's mbv). Along with the rest of Pitchfork's contributors, I submitted a ballot of my own personal top 100 albums from 2010-2014 before the master list was made. In the interest of transparency, discourse, and why-the-fuck-not, here's my ballot:

  1. Deafheaven: Sunbather
  2. Swans: The Seer
  3. Jesu: Ascension
  4. The Men: Open Your Heart
  5. Locrian: Return to Annihilation
  6. White Lung: Deep Fantasy
  7. Pallbearer: Sorrow and Extinction
  8. Iceage: New Brigade
  9. My Bloody Valentine: mbv
  10. Fucked Up: David Comes to Life
  11. Cult of Youth: Love Will Prevail
  12. Wolves in the Throne Room: Celestial Lineage
  13. PJ Harvey: Let England Shake
  14. Circle Takes the Square: Decompositions: Volume Number One
  15. Sunn O))) / Ulver: Terrestrials
  16. Prurient: Bermuda Drain
  17. Joanna Newsom: Have One on Me
  18. Liturgy: Aesthethica
  19. Godspeed You! Black Emperor: Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!
  20. Chelsea Wolfe: Pain Is Beauty
  21. Ty Segall: Sleeper
  22. Titus Andronicus: The Monitor
  23. Mamiffer: Mare Decendrii
  24. Waxahatchee: Cerulean Salt
  25. Metz: Metz
  26. SubRosa: More Constant Than the Gods
  27. Protomartyr: Under Color of Official Right
  28. Bill Callahan: Dream River
  29. Deafheaven: Roads to Judah
  30. Speedy Ortiz: Major Arcana
  31. Merchandise: Children of Desire
  32. Loma Prieta: I.V.
  33. David Bowie: The Next Day
  34. Converge: All We Love We Leave Behind
  35. Agalloch: Marrow of the Spirit
  36. Marissa Nadler: July
  37. Earth: Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light 1
  38. Code Orange Kids: Love is Love/Return to Dust
  39. No Age: Everything in Between
  40. Destruction Unit: Deep Trip
  41. Ceremony: Rohnert Park
  42. Swans: My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky
  43. Inter Arma: Sky Burial
  44. Pianos Become the Teeth: The Lack Long After
  45. Perfect Pussy: Say Yes to Love
  46. YOB: Atma
  47. Lower: Seek Warmer Climes
  48. Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra: Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light on Everything
  49. Self Defense Family: Try Me
  50. Lycus: Tempest
  51. Japandroids: Celebration Rock
  52. Trap Them: Darker Handcraft
  53. Kinit Her: The Poet & the Blue Flower
  54. Cult Ritual: LP1
  55. Screaming Females: Ugly
  56. The Haxan Cloak: Excavation
  57. Tombs: Path of Totality
  58. Cold Cave: Cherish the Light Years
  59. Krallice: Diotima
  60. Priests: Bodies and Control and Money and Power
  61. The Body: I Shall Die Here
  62. P.S. Eliot: Sadie
  63. Thursday: No Devolucion
  64. Swans: To Be Kind
  65. Tigers Jaw: Charmer
  66. Arctic Flowers: Reveries
  67. Year of the Goat: Angels’ Necropolis
  68. York Factory Complaint: Lost in the Spectacle
  69. Savages: Silence Yourself
  70. Horseback: Half Blood
  71. White Suns: Totem
  72. Total Abuse: Mutt
  73. Cloud Rat: Moksha
  74. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: Belong
  75. Emma Ruth Rundle: Some Heavy Ocean
  76. High on Fire: De Vermis Mysteriis
  77. Have a Nice Life: The Unnatural World
  78. Amebix: Sonic Mass
  79. Wild Flag: Wild Flag
  80. Barn Owl: Ancestral Star
  81. Touche Amore: Parting the Sea Between Brightness and Me
  82. Neil Young / Crazy Horse: Psychedelic Pill
  83. Fear of Men: Loom
  84. Windhand: Soma
  85. The Saddest Landscape: You Will Not Survive
  86. Barren Harvest: Subtle Cruelties
  87. Pissed Jeans: Honeys
  88. La Dispute: Rooms of the House
  89. Taurus: No/Thing
  90. The Soft Moon: The Soft Moon
  91. Pig Destroyer: Book Burner
  92. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists: The Brutalist Bricks
  93. Rush: Clockwork Angels
  94. Baroness: Yellow & Green
  95. Bob Mould: Silver Age
  96. Oranssi Pazuzu: Velonielu
  97. Planning For Burial: Desideratum
  98. Blood and Sun: White Storms Fall
  99. Russian Circles: Empros
  100. Ex Hex: Rips