Best Albums of 2010

Wow. It's over already, huh?

It seems like just last month that WOXY went off the internet after playing "Answer to Yourself" by the Soft Pack as its last tune.

Shit.

So looking back, 2010 was pretty good for music. Aside from the whole surf rock "slapping an echo on my voice is awesome" craze that bands like Best Coast reintroduced to us in the Big Dime, 2010 will go down in the record books as a solid, if not stellar year, for indie rock.

Here are some of the albums I had on heavy rotation this year....

1. Beach House, Teen Dream



Like The Wire, it's always awesome when something comes out of your hometown and completely knocks your fucking socks off. That said, Beach House could be from Iowa and that would not stop Teen Dream from being the absolute best album of the year and it's not even close. I discovered this album in January while painting a room in a blizzard and it will be something I remember for the rest of my life. It was one of those instant connections between an album and an action. Yeah, painting a room isn't as cool as cruising for chicks or a summer of baseball, but it will still always take me back to a moment in my life. On Teen Dream, Beach House took their cheap Casio keyboard drum machine sound and made it bigger without selling out. Now, instead of wishing Beach House songs were bigger, they are. It was like watching that scrappy shortstop come back after an offseason of hard work and hit 40 homeruns.

2. Arcade Fire, The Suburbs



I know what you're thinking. This album should be #1. And you may have a good argument as to why it should be. But #2 is still good, is it not? On The Suburbs, Arcade Fire strung a clothesline across the length of the album and hung their grievances with suburban sprawl on it. Although it's more restrained than their previous work, the band still knows when to turn it up and let it loose. This is the album we'll all come back to when we're forty, balding, with children who don't know us, and say "Fuck. Did these guys get it right or what?" And at the same time, our kids may be listening to the album thinking, "I'll never turn out like my parents" when we all know its inevitable.

3. The National, High Violet



If ever there was an album that upon first listen prompted disappointment and the feeling that "they'll never be like they were ever again" before giving way to acceptance and pure enjoyment, High Violet is it. For months, I couldn't get past a few songs on this album. The melancholy subject matter, the monotone way in which Matt Berninger delivers his lyrics, and the restraint the band showed throughout the album...it wore me out. It still does. At times I still think "this is the point where they're going to let loose" and then comes "Afraid of Everyone" and the band does the complete opposite. But in the end, I've come around. This is a great album to throw on when you're driving home after a hard day's work and you don't feel like feeling anything. And the National make that seem so easy.

4. The Walkmen, Lisbon



Lisbon, is basically High Violet times ten. If you know me, you know that The Walkmen can practically do no wrong, and with Lisbon, the same is still mostly true. But I still can't help but feel a little let down after what I thought was their best album, You & Me, where they reinvented themselves as a Sun Records revival act. On You & Me, everything worked. On Lisbon, there are hits and misses. Songs that were performed live a year ago are different on the record, and IMHO, different for the worse. "Juveniles", which was a country western tune, complete with whistling (!) when I heard it live in the fall of 2009, is now an almost cheesy lounge-act Rod Stewart wannabe tune. "Angela Surf City" was also much different live, but for whatever reason, the band changed it and it is what it is now -- one of my least favorite tracks on the album. But aside from that, Lisbon continues The Walkmen's evolution away from "The Rat", and whatever they got wrong before is made right with "The Sky Above". In the end, Lisbon is a great album, one of the best of the year, but an album that could have been better. The Walkmen, by default, usually have the top spot reserved when they make an album. Just not in 2010.

5. Wolf Parade, Expo 86



Maybe I didn't listen to enough music this year because Expo 86 fails to ignite much passion in me like the other four albums do. Yeah, that must be it. Maybe I need to go check out Kayne West's new album. Now that I think about it, Wolf Parade has let me down ever since their stellar 2005 debut, Apologies to Queen Mary. Maybe it's the dozen side-projects between them. Maybe it's just because their debut was just that good. Whatever he reason, Expo 86 is the band's most sonically crowded album to date, which is a change from a band that sounded like it was performing on the top of a scrap heap after an apocalyptic event with just a guitar, a crashing symbol and a synth keyboard straight out of a John Carpenter film. Now, there's too much drumming going on, as if every verse needs a breakdown ripped from the intro from "Hot for Teacher". Overall, Expo 86 reminds me that the bands I love will not always make music I love, and that I should be thankful for the ones that still do. There are some bright spots on Expo 86, but it's gotten to the point where this supergroup has stopped being super, and the band members' original/side-projects are where they make their best music.

Get on the bus, Gus

The #40 QuickBus has been an effective addition to rapid transit in Baltimore.

For whatever reason, the bus gets a bad rap in Baltimore.

Maybe the beating of a white passenger, Sarah Kreager, in 2007 by nine black school children is still fresh in everyone's mind. But what I've come to find in my experience with the bus in Baltimore has been nothing but pleasant.

Coming from Frederick County, I've long been waiting for work on the red line to begin so I am able to get to Baltimore without having to drive on 695 to catch the light rail or metro subway. But since the red line has been held up in red tape for the last few years, I got antsy and wanted to find a different way to get downtown.

After looking at the MTA bus schedule, I quickly learned of a couple of routes called "QuickBus". These bus routes don't act like most other buses, in that they stop at key transfer points and major landmarks, whereas the local bus can stop every block or two, making for a very long bus ride.

Currently, there are only two full-time QuickBus routes, the #40, which runs from Woodlawn to Dundalk and the #48, which runs from downtown Baltimore to Towson.

So I investigated the #40 a little more, seeing that it could satisfy my fix for a mass transit option into the city from the west. When I found out that the bus ran right by the park and ride located at the end of route 70, I pulled up Google Maps and found that I would need to walk on the shoulder of the entrance ramp to route 70 in order to catch the bus at the Forest Park stop.

So therein lies the one catch with the QuickBus -- it doesn't take advantage of any park and ride lots to allow commuters who don't live on the immediate bus route to take the bus downtown. Had the MTA built a walkway from the park and ride lot to the Forest Park stop, they could advertise the QuickBus as an alternative to the light rail and metro subway as a way to get to work or other events in the city. For now, adventurous riders, like me, can park at the park and ride and hoof it down the entrance ramp to the Forest Park Avenue bus stop.

The #40 QuickBus has 15 minute headways all day, meaning that buses are scheduled to arrive at any stop every 15 minutes. So far in my experience, this has been pretty accurate with a few instances of having to wait longer, but on average, I've waited 5-10 minutes for a bus.

From Forest Park Avenue, the ride downtown takes about 25 minutes. It travels down Cooks Lane, makes a left on Edmonson Avenue and then takes a right on Franklin Street before taking the two mile stretch of the "Highway to Nowhere" before entering downtown Baltimore. The route is very similar to the route planned for the red line, so getting downtown is a cinch. The Baltimore and Paca Street stop is close to the stadiums and the Charm Bus route is just a block away if riders want to head to the Inner Harbor, Harbor East, Fells Point or Federal Hill.

Another major issue with the QuickBus is that it's currently designed for work-day commuters only. The bus stops running around 10 p.m., which means it's not a good option for Oriole games that commonly run later than 10 p.m. or other nighttime events downtown. For that, the MTA feels that the light rail and metro subway should suffice, since both run until midnight.

So while the QuickBus may not be the answer to your east/west transit blues in Baltimore, it could be a start, and hopefully it's a preview for what is to come with the red line.