2010's Best List of the Best of 2010

2010 had its moments, along with a few inevitable disappointments, the greatest disappointment being most publications' choices for what they deemed the best of the year.  It's always frustrating to read the year-end best-of lists, I know, thus I have compiled an elite best-of-the-best-of-2010 list, including selections from the year's music, film, and literature, as well my personal favorite art exhibits.  I also have refused to apply ordinal rankings to these, as such is a simplistic and cheap approach to the art of a best-of list.  It is important to note, as is always the case with this blog, that I only included what I personally experienced in 2010 and that ultimately the list is entirely subjective and somewhat autobiographical (as a few of my friends may appear in the list).  This list will be lengthy, so for the first time ever on The Esoterrorist, you must continue reading after the jump.

Holiday Tunes

A google search for "noise christmas" doesn't get you holiday classics performed by The Boredoms, but you may get a few "joyful noise" results.  Unfortunately there aren't a lot of cool records for fans of the out that are holiday-relevant, but I do know of a few that are somewhat unique concepts for Xmas albums, if you even care about being festive with your current tunes.

Working Stiff has been an open forum collective of outsider folk since 1985.  It mostly consisted of some like-minded artists meeting at the Springwater venue in Nashville, TN, some of the most recognizable acts involved being Lambchop, Dave Cloud, and one of my favorites, The Cherry Blossoms.  Cherry Blossoms bassist, Laura-Matter Fukushima, began a small label, Tiny Rig, which put out one of Nashville's proudest holiday records, The Working Stiff Christmas compilation, featuring holiday recordings (some live from Springwater) from all the best, and decorated with one of the many beautiful paintings of Blossoms' frontwoman, Peggy Snow.  The record still pops up at Nashville's most popular vinyl shop, Grimey's, every holiday, and it can still be ordered through Amazon and The Cherry Blossoms' official site.

If you've read this blog before, then you know about my fascination with christian alternative culture, especially religious metal.  Almost a decade ago, ROTD Records (and wouldn't you know it, christian metal labels have a significantly short lifespan, and this one's now kaput) put out their famous (and when I use this word, it often means famous amongst my friends and me) Brutal Christmas record, with epic metal covers of your holiday favorites.  Asian black metal group Kekal's cover of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" is the highlight for me, with the chorus sung with elfin-esque  group vocals.  Now, metal christmas albums seem gimmicky and silly, I know, but what stands out about this one is the sincerity of the record, as these bands subscribe to the christian faith and thus all subsequent christmas narratives, advent and all.  This is way out of print.  WAY out of print, but you can find it.

Back in 2002, when music wasn't that bad, or at least not near as bad as now, German label Mobilé put out a storybook packaged compilation of christmas and winter songs.  Some are obvious picks, like Low's "Take the Long Way Around the Sea" and some terrible Badly Drawn Boy song.  Really the reason to grab this is for Domotic's "Smith, Klaus, and White" and Múm's "Nóttin Var Svo Ágæt Ein."  I think Boomkat still sells some copies.  Insound may have one or two left.  Not too scarce.