The Best Albums of 2010: Gideon Coe

Today's top five comes from 6 Music's Gideon Coe - his picks appear below as submitted, but are not 'ranked' as such. Tomorrow it's the turn of two of our writers, John Doran and Matthew Bennett - editor of theQuietus.com and deputy editor at Clash magazine respectively (so you know they know what they're on about).

Gil Scott-Heron - I'm New Here

It came out at the beginning of the year and it's been haunting me ever since. A wonderful return, including an inspired Bill Callahan cover as the title-track. How many of the other songs are GSH confessionals? Possibly none of them. Frankly I don't care.

Read the BBC review and listen to previews

Perfume Genius - Learning

Out of nowhere (okay, it arrived in the post) comes this beautiful record. Properly lo-fi. Heartbreaking in places.

Read the BBC review and listen to previews

Caitlin Rose - Own Side Now

The song Learning to Ride has been the soundtrack to me falling off my bike in the latter part of this year. She's a great singer and this collection of songs manages to be wistful and tender but at the same time not in any way wishy-washy. I'd have played this more often on the programme, but Marc Riley always gets there first.

Read the BBC review and listen to previews

Tracey Thorn - Love and Its Opposite

Without wishing to turn myself into a stereotype, Everything but the Girl's Eden, along with The Smiths' debut, was as pretty much my soundtrack to being 16/17. It would be contrived to say the songs on this record ring true in the same way, but she does manage to take the themes of being 40ish and express them cleverly, tenderly, without it ever descending into anything resembling schmaltz. The songs are really good. The Lee Hazelwood cover with Jens Lekman is pretty wonderful, too.

Read the BBC review and listen to previews

Gold Panda - Lucky Shiner

I do find it difficult to talk about electronica without sounding like a t***pot (mind you, see above), so I'll simply say this is an excellent record. All sorts of noises, sounds and melodies, from all sorts of places. And, perhaps most importantly, it hangs together really well as an LP.

Read the BBC review

Check out Gideon's recently recommended album releases and Music Showcase collection of Interview Classics