Monorail Poll 2010

I don’t think it’s just me being lazy with my record buying. This year it seemed as though almost every once great band was great again. The Vaselines and the Television Personalities put out brilliant singles, Tender Trap were better than they’d ever been before, and Edwyn Collins was properly back. I’m still making my mind up about the guest vocals on Losing Sleep, it’ll be March before it hits, probably. I believe there were new bands too, but I didn’t really take to the Dum Dum Girls, and in general there seemed too many records with boring four four beats pushed to the fore, like a fringe and a pair of shades. This made Directorsound’s wonky Two Years Today all the more delightful, you could see the whites of their eyes and their flecked irises. Three four lurching is where it’s at in their world, and they have refined it beautifully in the years since Redemptive Strikes, there is no one quite like them. Crooked feels like the record Kristin Hersh has been building up to for a decade, and Grinderman 2 is everything Grinderman and Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! strove (too hard) to be but (therefore) weren’t. She & Him made a record Nancy & Lee would have been proud of, but they were never going to steal The Sexual Objects’ crown. ‘There’s ice cream on the tissues / Get your ponchos out’. Filth.

Thanks to Monorail for a) being Monorail and b) asking for our votes again. Here is my list:

1. The Sexual Objects – Cucumber
2. She & Him – Volume 2
3. Vic Godard & Subway Sect – We Come As Aliens
4. Directorsound – Two Years Today
5. Spare Snare – Victor
6. Grinderman – Grinderman 2
7. Teenage Fanclub – Shadows
8. Kristin Hersh – Crooked
9. Bill Wells / Annie Whitehead / Stefan Schneider / Barbara Morgenstern – Paper of Pins
10. Allo Darlin’ – Allo Darlin’

Single:

Jo Mango – The Moth and The Moon / The Black Sun

Reissue:

Charles Douglas – The Lives of Charles Douglas

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And here is Chris S.’s list:

1. The Sexual Objects – Cucumber
2. Oneone – Aoooo *
3. Real Estate – Reality
4. Beach Fossils – Beach Fossils
5. Teenage Fanclub – Shadows
6. Nikasaya – One Summerheim *
7. The Liminanes – The Liminanes
8. Pantha du Prince – Black Noise
9. Dum Dum Girls – I Will Be
10. Directorsound – Two Years Today

* Two of these records were, strictly speaking, 2009 records, but I didn't get them until 2010... I'm not sure what the rules are or how tightly you're applying them... if Oneone / Nikasaya have to go, then please add in:

To Rococo Rot – Speculation
Moon Duo – Escape

Single:

Deerhoof / Oneone – Sealed With A Kiss / Oneone Theme

Reissue:

Spare Snare – Live at McGonagalls, Dundee, 28.10.95