2010 rock & pop The best albums

December 29, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Chicago Tribune

Tens of thousands of albums are released each year. How to narrow down that avalanche to a list of a few favorites?

This year’s list could’ve easily been several times longer. But once again, I settled on the following selections for one reason: They brought me the greatest pleasure in 2010.

1. Janelle Monae, “The ArchAndroid” (Bad Boy): The Atlanta singer’s boundary-busting debut album has ambition to burn. It’s a self-empowerment manifesto couched inside a futuristic “emotion-picture” about an android’s battle to overcome oppression — got all that? The music is equally adventurous, touching on everything from lounge jazz to hard funk. A star is born.

2. The Besnard Lakes, “The Besnard Lakes are the Roaring Night” (Jagjaguwar): The Montreal band perfects its marriage of Brian Wilson-like melodic splendor and My Bloody Valentine-worthy guitar roar. While the lyrics are a bonfire of earthly espionage and anxiety, the music shoots for the heavens.

3. Neil Young, “Le Noise” (Reprise): Neil Young says producer Daniel Lanois made his guitar sound like “God” on this “folk-metal” solo album. It’s unlike anything Young has recorded in his long career, and that’s saying something, a melding of fragility and violence that lends poignance and gravity to songs about loss, confusion, mortality.

4. Robyn, “Body Talk” (Interscope): In an era when big, buoyant pop is king, from Katy Perry to Black Eyed Peas, this Swedish singer trumps them all. “Body Talk” caps her trilogy of releases this year with an affirmation that pop can be both smart and danceable.

5. Sharon Van Etten, “epic” (Ba Da Bing): A powerful singer with emotionally transparent songs, swathed in gorgeous textures supplied by guitars, pedal steel, even a harmonium.

6. LCD Soundsystem, “This is Happening” (DFA/Virgin): LCD auteur James Murphy creates a dance-and-trance soundtrack for a long night out that is alternately beautiful, giddy, and sometimes downright poignant.

7. Kanye West, “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” (Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam): Perhaps only West could turn all the hatred directed at him into a song as thrilling, surreal and anthemic as “Runaway,” the centerpiece of an album that turns contradictions into strengths, a mix of classical opulence, grimy beats, boldness and vulnerability.

8. Dessa, “A Badly Broken Code” (Doomtree): Sharply observed, deeply personal lyrics set to a genre-defying mix of rhythm loops, mellow atmospherics, straight-up rap, spoken word, guileless singing, and enchanting melodies.

9. Arcade Fire, “The Suburbs” (Merge): An album-length cycle of concise songs mixed with progressive-rock touches. Win Butler and his bandmates invest their suburban upbringing with fondness and regret, wistfulness and disappointment, and that tension is nurtured by music that is among the richest, subtlest and most unsettling of the band’s career.

10. Warpaint, “The Fool” (Rough Trade): Bass lines snake through a gauzy swirl of guitars, underpinned by surprisingly funky drumming. The singers seem to be almost conversing, finishing each other’s thoughts as they seduce all who come within earshot.