Okay, so I’m doing this in a rather slapdash manner because I’d rather not sit and agonise over it, but I think it should be about right. 30 ‘honorable mentions’ followed by 20 'top tracks’, in order (if you click on the top 20 you can here them over on YouTube). Enjoi.
Honorable Mentions:
Lone - Once In A While
Ikonika - Psoriasis
Egyptrixx - The Only Way Up
Lil Silva - Perfussion
Local Natives - Who Knows Who Cares
Rossi B & Luca - E10 Riddim ft. Killa P
Ramadanman - Work Them
Joy Orbison - BB
Drake - Shut It Down ft. The-Dream
Big Boi - General Patton
Mount Kimbie - Would Know
65daysofstatic - Tiger Girl
Rustie - Beast Nite
MellowHype - Chordaroy ft. Earl Sweatshirt & Wolf Haley
DJ Nate - Footwurk Homicide
Addison Groove - Footcrab
LV ft. Okmalumkoolkat - Boomslang
Hyetal & Shortstuff - Ice Cream
Lorn - Until There Is No End
Mosca - Nike
Fantastic Mr Fox - Sketches
Freddie Gibbs - Nation Anthem (Fuck The World)
Four Tet - Plastic People
Sleigh Bells - Infinity Guitars
Pariah - Railroad
Terror Danjah - This Year (Pro Plus) ft. D.O.K., Griminal & Mz Bratt
Scuba - So You Think You’re Special?
Pangaea - Why
Marnie Stern - Transparency Is The New Mystery
Daughters - The First Supper
Top Tracks:
- Brilliantly wonky, staggering technicolour synths show how far Jamie Vex’d has come.
19. Hackman - Pistol In Your Pocket
- Awesome tropical funky tune form one of the most underrated producers in the UK.
18. Jamie Woon - Night Air (incl. Ramadanman/Becoming Real/Deadboy remixes)
- Jamie Woon finally steps it up a gear, backed by a slew of great remixes. Expect big things from the album next year.
- From their upcoming second album - insanely technical and beautiful post-rock.
16. Wiley - It’s Wiley/From The Drop (Prod. MJ Cole)
- Two very different tracks tracks (one a jumped up dancehall banger, one a downtempo dubstep anthem), pretty much the same set of lyrics. Wiley’s still a don.
- R'n'B addict Deadboy turns out an insanely infectious garage tune.
- Gorgeous string sounds over mechanical beats - what Lorn does best.
13. DVA - Just Vybe ft. Fatima
- DVA switches up Natty to make an incredible vocal tune.
- The horns at the end kill me every time.
11. Altered Natives - Rass Out
- Brilliantly simple but effective broken-beat.
- Blake at his soulful best, from the fantastic CMYK EP.
- Just listen to the original - what the hell is Jam City doing here? Insane.
8. Owen Pallett - The Great Elsewhere
- This album should’ve been in every end of year list - just wait till the rolling toms come in at the end.
7. Das Racist - Rainbow In The Dark
- Das Racist at their best - serious, yet seriously funny.
- Epic chords and reverb laden 80s drum sounds make for a huge combo.
- David Kennedy’s signature skittering drum sounds are met with a fantastic vocal samples - 2010 belongs to Ramdanman.
4. Kanye West - All Of The Lights (ft. pretty much everyone)
- Rivals Tribe’s 'Scenario’ for the best posse cut of all time.
- Huge. Just huge.
- I have listened to this track a ridiculous amount of times since it surfaced when Trim was calling Wiley out in January, and it epitomises grime at its best, funny, brutal and often nonsensical.
- The-Dream takes 'Fast Car’, injects even more Prince, and comes up with a career-defining single. And the best thing about it is, he’ll probably outdo himself in 2011.
And there you have it. Until next year.