Advent Artists - Bellowhead best of 2010
- Dec 01, 2010
The best albums and singles of 2010 will be chosen by your favourite artists right here on Virgin Red Room all through December, as Advent Artists begins.
Every day of the month, another band will name their most loved music of 2010 and explain why in this exclusive guest blog series on the Red Room.
Bellowhead are first off the mark, with Pete Flood and Andy Mellon picking their top five albums of 2010 and top five singles to boot.
They also reveal their own favourite moment of 2010, and add a Christmas wish to get us all into the festival spirit. Come back tomorrow for another Advent Artist's best music of 2010..
Top 5 Albums of 2010
5. Joanna Newsom – Have One on Me
Really divides the household – my girlfriend can’t stand her and my daughter is convinced that she’s some kind of singing cow. Me, I think she’d be the world’s greatest songwriter if she’d just drop all the drippy introspection for the more allegorical style she used on YS. And even with a sky-high ‘me’ count, she still writes a better melody than anyone else.
4. Various Artists - Palenque Palenque
A great compilation in which crazed Colombians re-imagine African hits of the 70s. Not so far from what we do actually, what with the past being a foreign country and all.
3. Brian Eno, Leo Abrahams & Jon Hopkins – Small Craft on a Milk Sea
Consisting of fifteen sprawling soundscapes with a nod to Lou Reed, you could be forgiven for discounting this as a meandering, partially succesful studio experiement. We’ve enjoyed it most at breakfast while chomping down our Mini Shredded Wheat – literally small crafts on a milk sea.
2. Various Artists – Murder: Songs From the Dark Side of the Soul
The Trikont label do the best compilations: fact. This is a a beast of an album featuring a gruesome selection of songs from the 30’s and 40’s. Our second album had a body count of about 70, so we like a bit of splatter and gore.
1. Finn Peters – Music of the Mind
Finn’s a pal – he came to Canada with us a few years ago. Having spent a bit of time with him on the road, we think this perfectly encapsulates the unique sound of his brain.
Top 5 Singles of 2010
5. KT Tunstall - Still a Weirdo
My family love this, but not as you’d expect – it causes a mass outbreak of earnest emo-lite vocals and pained expressions, which makes for great entertainment of a morning.
4. Everything Everything – My Kz, Ur Bf
Sounds like early Prefab Sprout, which is no bad thing. It’s great when a band pull off the trick of being both catchy and intelligent at the same time. I haven’t the first clue on what this is about though, so I could be wrong about the intelligence bit.
3. Cee Lo Green – Fuck You
This, on the other hand, is both catchy and happily vacuous, as all great swearing songs should be. And anyone who can rhyme ‘sorry’ with ‘Ferrari’ i alright in our book.
2. OK Go – White Knuckles
Yes, the dogs swung it, but this is a great song even without furry reinforcements.
1. The Vaccines – If You Wanna
We liked them before we were on Jools with them, honest! In fact, we liked this song from around the point that we heard they were going to be on the show and we googled them. That’s how cool we are.
Favourite Moment
Our favourite moment of the year was persuading the young helicon virtuoso Edward Neuhauser to join our band. His intimate knowledge of real ale has been invaluable in the process of releasing our own designer brand of beer.
Christmas Wish
Our wish for Christmas is for Ed to get a toupeé. We like to do the occasional comedy hair gig to enliven a tour – a particular favourite at the moment is the comb-over night – but Ed sadly doesn’t have the wherewithal to get involved, and we’d love Santa to give him the chance.
Bellowhead released their latest album 'Headonism' earlier this year.
Look out for more Advent Artist best music of 2010 countdowns every day on Virgin Red Room, and let us know your own choices on Twitter and Facebook.
Greg Rose
