The Best Albums of 2010: Garry Mulholland and Chris Roberts

It's the last entry from writers today, with Garry Mulholland and ChrisRoberts providing their top five albums of 2010. Over the next few days we'll have top fives from Rob da Bank, Zane Lowe and Gilles Peterson.

Garry Mulholland (reviewed albums)

1

Hot Chip - One Life Stand

The ideal cross between old-school house music, the warm love song and a quintessentially English kind of geek pop. Each Hot Chip album continues to get better than the last.

Read the BBC review and listen to previews

2

Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me

A true epic - as if someone took that bit in Kate Bush's Hounds of Love about taking your shoes off and throwing them in a lake and made a triple album out of its infinite implications and dimensions.

Read the BBC review and listen to previews

3

The Soft Pack - The Soft Pack

The best back-to-basics Velvets/Richman geek-punk album since The Feelies disappeared.

Read the BBC review and listen to previews

4

Grinderman - Grinderman 2

Dirty, funny, noisy old farts at play.

Read the BBC review and listen to previews

5

These New Puritans - Hidden

A dark and forbidding world buried 'neath the Essex undergrowth - and the only place where funereal classical music, Jamaican dancehall rhythms and something unmistakably Wicker Man-esque get to hang out and bond.

Read the BBC review and listen to previews

GarryMulholland.com (external link)

Chris Roberts (reviewed albums)

The National - High Violet

The Brooklyn band valuing lyricism and dramatic confessionals over lame Soweto rhythms made their masterpiece. Deeper and richer every time you hear it.

Read the BBC review and listen to previews

Bryan Ferry - Olympia

Several leagues above, the majestic return of the man renowned for stylish effortlessness who actually obsesses over every note, texture and word. He cares more than you think.

Read the BBC review and listen to previews

Peter Gabriel - Scratch My Back

A covers album with a ban on guitars or drums. Sodden with strings and morbid vocals. Thoroughly bleak and depressing. Happy days!

Read the BBC review and listen to previews

Grinderman - Grinderman 2

How does he get away with it? Cave and cohorts continue to rock out with an aversion to political correctness and reams of overcooked midlife poetry. Sassy!

Read the BBC review and listen to previews

Drake - Thank Me Later

The year's best hip hop/soul/pop album, with Drake complaining of the perils of youthful fame but doing so with insight, pathos and no shortage of groove.

Read the BBC review and listen to previews

Chris Roberts on Rock's Backpages (external link)

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