A friend of
Bawley recently pointed me to
Andre’s Resolution 2010. In short, Resolution 2010 is a positive commitment that in 2010 you only listen to music released in 2010.
The rules (exceptions to):
• Re-issues and re-masters released in 2010 count as 2010 releases.
• For the month of January you are allowed to listen to anything from 2009. (edit: I suggest the Bawley 100 – 2009)
• I will probably come up with more rules as I think of them because not listening to Bad Brains for a year is starting to make me sad.
This got me thinking, could I do this? What would I miss? Would 2010 be a better year for new music than
2009? Such negative questions are not really in the spirit of Resolution 2010 so I turned the question on its head: if only listened to music released in 2010, what would I have to look forward to?
There are the already released albums from
Vampire Weekend (
Contra) and
Charlotte Gainsbourg (
IRM). Contra is more of the same preppy afro-beat indie-pop that made Vampire Weekend’s debut album so enjoyable, while IRM (sung by Gainsbourg but written and produced by
Beck) is as good as anything Beck has done since
Sea Change (2002).
On February 9th
Hot Chip will release
One Life Stand. With great reviews so far and the title track sitting on the high rotation list at
triple j,
BBC Radio 1 and
6Music, One Life Stand could be the album that sees Hot Chip break into the mainstream (without losing the their status as a critic’s favourite).
Daddy G returns for
Massive Attack’s first album in five years,
Heligoland, also set for a February 9th release. The album drops a lot of what made
100th Window pants and picks up a massive list of guest vocalists and collaborators including
Damon Albarn,
Hope Sandoval,
Guy Garvey,
Martina Topley-Bird,
Horace Andy, and
Tunde Adibempe. If the
Splitting The Atom preview EP and
last year’s live shows are anything to go by, Heligoland should be brilliant.
Back in September
The Knife provided the soundtrack to a Danish opera based on the life of Charles Darwin. The opera was called
Tomorrow, In A Year and a studio version of the soundtrack is due for release on March 1st. I doubt anything stranger will come out all year.
After some time spent writing Chinese operas and fronting the re-formed
Blur, Damon Albarn is back with
Gorillaz third album:
Plastic Beach, out March 8th. Once again the list of collaborators is impressive, drawing big names from hip hop (
Snoop Dogg,
Mos Def,
De la Soul), rock (
Lou Reed,
Mick Jones,
Paul Simonon,
Mark E Smith,
Gruff Rhys) and soul (
Bobby Womack). Albarn is promising it will be Gorillaz
"most pop album".
No dates yet, but
LCD Soundsystem are also due to release a new album in March. Sadly, it may also be the band’s last album. Main man James Murphy told NME
"I know I said (LCD Soundsystem was over) last time and things changed, but I don't like to repeat myself."Tipped for an early 2010 release is the next album from
Interpol. Drummer Sam Fogarino has said it will be more
Turn On The Bright Lights than
Our Love To Admire which is a good thing.
Later in the year, details of upcoming releases get sketchier. But there are some exciting albums on the horizon:
The National and
Band of Horses are both suggesting they will have new releases, as are
The Avalanches and
The Panics.
Despite the retirement of
Nine Inch Nails as a touring band, Trent Reznor has said
“2010 has a number of things planned including new material from nine inch nails and something else that isn't nine inch nails.”I know I could not go a year without listening to
The Cure. Luckily they also have a 2010 release planned, the 21st anniversary remastered re-issue of
Disintegration. Due in the first half of the year, the release will be a three CD set, containing the original album (remastered) , twenty previously unreleased b-sides and demos from the era, and a remixed and extended version of the
Entreat live album.
While 2010 looks like being a great year for new music I still don’t know if I am up for the Resolution 2010 commitment, what about you?
What are you looking forward to in 2010? What would you miss if you were to take up the challenge?
