Andy's Top 100 Albums of the 2010's (Intro & Part 1)

Well, I promised there'd be something else music-related on here before New Year and this is it. As those who are friends with me on Facebook know already, I've decided to hang up my music reviewing boots as of the end of this year. There are several reasons, most of which would probably only bore you if I went into them here but it's a combination of life getting busier (I recently relocated from Hertfordshire back to my hometown of Bradford to take a new higher-ranking job with a longer commute and am currently building up to hopefully buying a house with my lovely missus next year which means that free time is very much at a premium right now) and just generally feeling that my music taste has gone off the pulse slightly of late (which I'm not complaining about - I'm happy liking what I like but at the same time I don't want to be one of those tedious old bores who's just endlessly waxing lyrical about the bands they grew up with twenty to thirty years ago in the webzines/magazines they write for).

So with it being the end of the year and end of the decade, now seems as good a time as any to wrap 23 years of music writing up (my first published review was an album write-up of the Bluetones' "Expecting To Fly" in the school music magazine way way way back in the spring of 1996 and I've been going ever since - I think it's fair to say I've earned this break!). But I thought a good sign-off would be to do a list for the last decade. From a reviewing point of view, the start of 2010 saw me move to London and step things up towards becoming a full-time writer for Pure Rawk (the other 'zine I wrote for at the time, Bubblegum Slut, closed up in the summer of that year) so this does feel quite a bit like squaring the circle nicely.

Getting this list down to 100 album was even more of a swine than the usual end of year Top 40/50/60 lists - after scanning through the ten "best ofs" I've done in various places, the original list came to 122 but after a LOT of bashing things about, I managed to get it down to 100. The only rule I set myself was a maximum of one album per band which is why some albums that scored pretty highly in end of year charts aren't on here (including one or two which actually won my AOTY award bizarrely!) - I wanted this list to really be the best of the best. And hopefully it is.

Traditionally, I also put a "worst of" bit down for each year in the intro as well. I ummed and ahhed about doing this on this occasion as giving any album the ignominious award of "Worst album of the decade" really does seem very harsh but, upon consideration, there's only one atrocity of a record it could've gone to which was Steven Tyler's "We're All Someone From Somewhere". Review here if you really must know more but suffice to say that this extremely ill-advised attempt at branching out into pop-country by the Aerosmith frontman still comfortably holds the lowest score I've ever given anything on Pure Rawk and deservedly so - it really is just unremittingly awful. Thankfully, Mr Tyler has since gone back to Aerosmith and left his Kid Rock/Taylor Swift aspirations quietly brushed under the carpet for which we should probably all be grateful. If you really do want to see just how terrible this was though...well, don't say I didn't warn you but click on the link below...

Yeuch. Anyway, now that's done, let's get on with the list proper shall we? I'll be putting up two lots of ten a day for this thing from now until New Year's Eve. One last time unto the breach dear friends...

100. THE VIRGINMARYS - "Divides" (2016)

In a just world, "Divides" would have been the album that made the Virginmarys the big players of Britrock that several were predicting them to be up until this point. Building on their promising but slightly inconsistent debut, 2013's "King Of Conflict", it saw them leading from the front with a killer set of tunes and riffs which looked to send them skyward. Then, mysteriously, it didn't sell and the band were dropped with frontman Ally and drummer Danny returning as a duo with 2018's ferocious "Northern Sun Sessions". A criminally underrated band who really deserve so much better than the hand the last few years have dealt them.

99. JD & THE FDC'S - "Recognise" (2012) (Review here)

For a few moments, Nottingham's JD and the FDC's (formed by ex-Teenage Casket Co guitarist Jamie Delerict and former Patchwork Grace bassist Joey Strange) really looked like they could be contenders - "Recognise" was a nitro-fuelled collection of punked-up Britrock even featuring guest appearances from D-Gen's Richard Bacchus, the Murderdolls' Acey Slade and the Luchagors' Amy Dumas (better known as Lita from WWE). Unfortunately it just never quite kicked on for them from this first album and after one more effort (2015's much angrier "Anatomy Of A Wolf"), they called it a day. Nevertheless, I'd strongly recommend looking this album up if you missed it first time round.

98. GHOST - "Prequelle" (2018)

To me, Ghost had always seemed like a bit of a novelty band up until this point - their early albums such as "Infesstisumam" were certainly an engaging listen with the scary ghoulish image concealing a surprisingly listenable collection of goth-pop tunes. However, 2016's "Meliora" was a big disappointment, seemingly seeing them turning into an identikit noughties metal band to win over a few more Metal Hammer readers. However, "Prequelle" turned things around nicely with the tunefulness added back in to create a good album which drew you back for repeated listening.

97. DIAMOND DOGS - "Set Fire To It All" (2012) (Review here)

Now well into their third decade of existence, the 2010's were a tough decade for the Dogs with the group going on hiatus for half of it following the sudden death of sax player Magic and frontman Sulo keeping himself busy fronting the Crunch and putting out a few solo albums before the band reconvened for 2019's "Recall Rock 'n' Roll And The Magic Soul". For me, "Set Fire To It All" was their best album of the decade though, capturing their low-slung Stones/Faces indebted shuffle perfectly with some killer tunes to boot.

96. BUSTER SHUFFLE - "I'll Take What I Want" (2017) (Review here)

It's still a mystery to me how Buster Shuffle aren't better known on these shores when they've picked up a decent following both in Europe and even to a lesser extent the States. Mining the same sort of supremely tuneful political ska-pop-punk as prime time Madness, all four of their albums from the last decade (2010's "Our Night Out", 2012's "Do Nothing" and 2015's "Naked" being the other three) are well worth a listen but for me, their most recent remains their best to date with a new found political anger there to complement the tunefulness. Seriously, get yourself better acquainted with this band asap.

95. SUPERSUCKERS - "Get The Hell" (2014) (Review here)

Another group to have had an up-and-down decade with Eddie Spaghetti thankfully overcoming throat cancer to ensure that hopefully they'll be around for a good while yet. At the start of the decade, it did look a bit worrying for the Supersuckers - "Get The Hell" was their first album for six years and its predecessor, 2008's "Get It Together" had been a bit of a by-numbers disappointment. But it turned out to be a much-needed reminder of everything that's made this band so great down the years and follow-ups 2016's "Holdin' The Bag" (a second countrified album to go with 1997's "Must've Been High") and 2018's "Suck It" were good efforts as well. Long may they reign.

94. THE WONDER STUFF - "Oh No...It's The Wonder Stuff" (2013) (Review here)

The best of the Stuffies' three albums of the past decade (though 2016's "30 Goes Around The Sun" and this year's "Better Being Lucky" are both well worth your investment as well), with the likes of "Friendly Company", "Be Thy Name" and "From The Midlands With Love" being very worthy additions to the band's back catalogue. Plus the title track had none other than Greg Davies in the video, I mean seriously, what's not to like?

93. THE SPANGLES - "Sweet FA" (2018) (Review here)

Take two members of the Main Grains (Ben and Ginna) and Polly from the Idol Dead and you get the Spangles. "Sweet FA" was a rollicking joyride through the best bits of Britrock (the Wildhearts, Terrorvision) and pop-punk (the Ramones principally) with riffs and hooks to spare. Still very much out there and gigging, go see them if you get the chance.

92. ELECTRIC SIX - "Bitch, Don't Let Me Die!" (2015) (Review here)

I think it's safe to say that Dick Valentine and co can happily claim the award of busiest band of the decade with no less than eight albums released over the last ten years! "Bitch, Don't Let Me Die!" (a sort of concept album about death and other things if you will) just shades it from 2013's "Mustang" as their best for me though, mixing a seriously warped sense of humour with some uncannily catchy tunes. And, let's be honest, any song with a tune called "Big Red Arthur" about a drunk Santa Claus impersonator being impaled on spikes at the bottom of a chimney surely deserves at least a curiosity listen...

91. SPUNK VOLCANO & THE ERUPTIONS - "Shit Generation" (Review here)

The Eruptions' second album has been their best to date in this reviewer's opinion and actually makes it on to this list not just ahead of their other three but also ahead of anything from Spunk's day job band Dirt Box Disco as well. Foul-mouthed, funny and with energy and hooks to spare, this is simply a great "don't give a f**k" collection of pop-punk tunes which blasts through like a force ten. Great stuff.