ISoA's Best of 2010

NOTE: This list will be updated with songs and music and pictures galore until the end of December! Please keep checking back!

Sorry I haven't been around. I've been trying to figure out what to do. In my opinion if I can't give you guys my all then... there is no point in even trying...

Normally that would lead to me saying I'm packing it in... BUT that's not what I want to do. I want to pull my extraordinarily depressed head out of my arse and get back to work.

All the experiences I've had with this blog have been brilliant! I mean whether it was bowling with Klaxons, or FreQ Nasty interviewing me lol, I can't imagine anything cooler. It would be insane to give up now. Plus I still have archived stuff you guys want to hear/see for sure and how could I possibly deprive you of that?

Enough blather... this is why you came here...
BEST OF 2010
Remember this is (mostly) based on U.S. release dates (unless the album didn't come out here *cough* TMB)!

Best Albums:

It would be hard to beat the epic scope of Plastic Beach and the inclusion of "Cloud Of Unknowing" sort of seals the deal on it being my "record of the year". I will say that Surfing The Void was a very very very close second.

Gorillaz - "Plastic Beach"
Klaxons - "Surfing The Void"
To My Boy - "The Habitable Zone"
The xx - S/T
Editors - "In This Light And On This Evening"
Ellie Goulding - "Lights"
Foals - "Total Life Forever"
Hot Chip - "One Life Stand"
M.I.A. - "Maya"
The Chemical Brothers - "Further"

Best Singles:

This time Klaxons win as they rightly should! If I could I'd give 'em like every award for best everything (which I almost am) so we'll save some time here and say that the narco-dreamscape vibe of "Twin Flames" wins both best single and best video of the year!

Klaxons 'Twin Flames' from Trim Editing on Vimeo.

Klaxons - "Twin Flames" (Best song also best video!)
La Roux - "Bulletproof"
To My Boy - "Hello Horizon"
Gorillaz - "On Melancholy Hill"
Ellie Goulding - "The Writer"
Foals - "This Orient"
Kele - "Everything You Wanted"
Frankmusik - "Fear Inside Of Me"

Best Breakout Artists:
She Is Danger
Gorillaz - "On Melancholy Hill (She Is Danger Remix)"

Best Non-Brit Dance Album:
Matthew Dear - "Black City"

Best Non-Brit Album:
Kanye West - "My Beautiful Dark Fantasy"


Best Remix Of The Year:
Lady Gaga - "Bad Romance (Starsmith Remix)"

Best Concert Of The Year:

Klaxons
This is fun because there's a nice story with it.

Well let's start at the end and work our way back to the beginning. Right as we parted company, on our second night with the Klaxons, Jamie Reynolds said "Never has something so negative, in my mind, brought about something so positive"...

What is this negativity you ask? It's around 1:12... it probably worth you knowing that my radio show is called "The Spirit Of Albion" :)


And what was the positivity? The fact I ended up making friends with my favourite band after that mess.

I went to the Klaxons show at the Magic Stick with the expectation that I would have some time to talk to them. I'd already talked to their manager so it was a sure thing (but I kind of expected it to be like 5 minutes, and a hand shake, and off we go). Instead it turned into hanging out with the whole band til 2am and going bowling. Then getting an invitation extended to join them in Chicago the next day blew the lid off of awesome and we entered some new realm of awesome lol...

Highlights:
Bowling with Jamie and creating our own new technique; surprisingly I won which made no sense...
Bursting into song with James singing Kajagoogoo's "Too Shy" (as he could not remember the city of Kalamazoo)
Simon inviting us to Chicago where the list read "Guy from Detroit"
Exposing the band to Bell's beer one of Kalamazoo's greatest exports
Hearing loads of awesome stories that I'd never read in a magazine, or write about here
Jamie bought a fucking CROSSBOW because that's how truck stops in America work
Making friends with one of my favourite bands of all time


Lowlights: (or "The stupid shit I say to this band every time I see Klaxons")
James: "So I guess the original version of the album sounded more like 'Echoes'"...
Me: "(Me thinking of the sound) You mean like Ride? Like shoegazey music?!?"
James: "Umm, no, like the song 'Echoes'"
Me: "Oh, yeah... *awkward pause*"

Me: "Anthony, I'm really glad I didn't realize who you were last night. I think I would have geeked out" Note: For those of you who don't know Anthony Rossmondo was Pete Doherty's replacement in The Libertines which is this blog's other favourite band
Anthony: "I'm really glad that you didn't do that"
Me: "Yeah me too, me too" (if you picture me acting like Scott Pilgrim that scene just comes alive with how retarded I was acting)

As far as a review of the live show: The shows both nights were great but the Chicago show had more energy than the Detroit one (largely due to crowd size). They really killed nearly every song they did but one of the biggest tunes was "Flashover"... they do a great job with their poppier songs? But the intensity of their harder songs sort of transforms the crowd and everyone is sort of in tandem (like the "Twin Flames" vid without the nudity lol)... further proof of this was "Atlantis To Interzone" which literally was an amazing bolt of sonic energy bouncing around the room. I've seen them perform 4 times and this tour has been their best so far. They seem more centered, more grounded, and generally happier dudes... or maybe I just caught them on a couple great days and had a wonderful time? Perhaps I can confirm that next time they roll through the Midwest...

I could continue to blather about fun times but let's just say Klaxons are as nice in real life as they are in your heads.




Ok I've got some work to do... but there are literally pages and pages of written material for this I simply have to go back and proof read. I figured if I was going to disappear for months I'd come back with something big lol. Love you guys... thanks for the on going support!