2010 was sensational year for music. Not only was there a slew of exceptional rock, metal, and indie records, released from proven acts, there was also an exciting crop of new artists that sprouted up throughout the year. Debut albums from Tame Impala, Aeroplane, and Mumford and Sons all showcased stellar songwriting while veteran artists like Bryan Ferry and Manic Street Preachers proved they still had gas in their creative tanks. For this year’s Bullz-Eye list, I’ve broken down my favorite albums into a few categories.

Ellie Goulding: Lights
Initially, this English newcomer performed her self-written material in a more intimate, singer-songwriter setting – but upon entering her university studies, she discovered and fell in love with electronica. She then started working with producers like Frankmusik and Starsmith, who began to reshape her song presentations. The retooling of Goulding’s approach proved to be pop music gold. On Lights, the songstress’ debut album, Goulding’s confessional lyrics and ethereal vocal delivery effortlessly weave through waves of synthesizers, hyper-melodic guitars, and Italo-disco bass lines. While there isn’t anything on Lights that is as obviously radio-baiting as Katy Perry’s inescapable “California Gurls,� there are at least six or seven tracks that top it in quality. There’s a song late on the record called “I’ll Hold My Breath� that I must have played a hundred times this past year. Musically, the track’s intro and first verse are kept lean, with hushed synths and acoustic guitars supporting a honey-sweet vocal from Goulding, but just when you think you know the direction the arrangement heading in, an explosion of crystalline keyboards and thumping drums gushes from your speakers, revealing what in my estimation is the greatest chorus of the last 12 months. Whether it’s dance-floor bangers (“Under the Sheets�) or gorgeous ballads (“The Writer�), Lights never misses the mark.

Alcest: Écailles de Lune
Alcest is the brainchild of a French musician who goes under the nom de plume Neige. Écailles de Lune is the project’s second album and is easily the most exhilarating musical piece that I came across in the last 12 months. Although Neige’s roots are in black metal, his wildly inventive arrangements aren’t exclusively bound to that genre’s parameters. Everything from the atmospherics of shoegaze to the barren soundscapes frequently favored by groups like Sigur Rós and Mogwai are explored on Écailles de Lune. Each song on the album is its own sweeping epic, with skyscraping guitars and serpentine mood shifts. Neige’s vocal performance also mirrors the music’s expansive reach. On “Solar Song,� the singer croons like he’s fronting a 4AD band circa 1991, but on the two-part title track, his tortured screeching and growling owes an obvious debt to his black metal background. Time will tell if Alcest finds an audience with non-metal listeners, but there’s certainly enough diversity on Écailles de Lune to warrant it.

RIYL: old-school OMD, Kraftwerk

One could make a strong case for OMD as one of the most overlooked bands of synth pop’s first wave, and ironically, it was their commercial success that diminished their profile. Before the band struck American gold with “So in Love” and “If You Leave,” OMD were more inclined to mess around with their new toys just to see what kinds of sounds they could make. Hit songs were a bonus, but the band was more concerned with making art with a capital A. Then those hits came, and damned if it didn’t feel nice and warm in the spotlight. The band wanted to stay there a little longer, so they made 1986’s The Pacific Age. They were rewarded with one Top 20 single in “(Forever) Live and Die” and declining record sales on both sides of the pond. Not even a support slot on Depeche Mode’s stadium-filling Music for the Masses tour could stop the band from imploding, as singer Andy McCluskey watched the rest of the band walk away. Whoops.

McCluskey ultimately grew tired of carrying the OMD torch by himself after 1996’s Universal, but it was ten more years before McCluskey and co-founder Paul Humphreys buried the hatchet and embarked on a special tour featuring the band’s Architecture and Morality in its entirety (which makes them trendsetters on the ‘full album live’ front). At long last, McCluskey and Humphreys, along with original rhythm section Malcolm Holmes and Martin Cooper, are releasing History of Modern, their first album together since The Pacific Age. The good news is that they clearly recognize that there was magic in the sound of those early albums that was missing from their later work. The bad news is that they seem content to use their old songs as the framework for their new ones. And Humphreys doesn’t get a single lead vocal.

Sometimes the similarities to earlier songs are subtle, like the vocal in ther verses to “The Right Side.” The track itself is pure Krautrock goodness, but the vocal melody in the verse bears a strong resemblance to “We Love You.” Other songs are a bit more outspoken in terms of their origins; “RFWK,” another Kraut-ish gem (the title references the first initials of Kraftwerk’s best-known lineup), is essentially the 2010 version of “Souvenir,” while “Sister Mary Says” is a little bit “Enola Gay,” a little bit “Dreaming,” with a vocal melody in the verse that recalls the unintelligible vocal snippet throughout “Flame of Hope.” Interestingly, this song’s origins go back to 1981, and McCluskey revisited it for inclusion on Universal, but decided against it because it sounded too much like old OMD. That the song would be acceptable for inclusion now is either amusing, cynical or sad – we’re honestly not sure which.

Sonically, History of Modern chugs along like the long-lost follow-up to Junk Culture. Musically, it could have used a little more time in the oven. There are glimmers of hope here and there, like the shimmering “Sometimes” (dig the Macy Gray-ish vocals by Jennifer John), but the next time McCluskey and Humphreys decide to make a record together, let’s hope that the collaboration is a mutual one, rather than Humphreys agreeing to perform a bunch of songs McCluskey has already written. (Bright Antenna 2010)

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Click to buy History of Modern from Amazon