Best of 2010

With all of the recent "Best of 2010" lists that have been posted on the internet I was inspired to create my own. Though we have not quite reached the end of 2010 i feel compelled to post mine now. Anything from here on out will be grandfathered in to the 2011 list.
2010 has been, personally, one of the greatest years for music. I can't even begin to think of how many live performances I've seen and how many nights I've spent staying up listening to new music. From sweating for hours under the unforgiving Tennessee sun at Bonnaroo to dancing to The Walkmen in a barn in the middle of Iowa, this year has been nothing short of spectacular for live music.
On that note I will start with my list of my favorite live performances of 2010. I am omitting the performances that i experienced at Bonnaroo for the simple reason that it was four days of nothing but performances from amazing talent and I don't find it fair to the others on the list that I purposely set out to see.

Best Live Performances of 2010:

1. Daytrotter's Barn on the 4th of July show at the Codfish Hollow Barn in Maquoketa, IA. Featuring The Walkmen, These United States, Dawes, Justin Townes Earl, Johnny Corndawg, and Young Man.
2. Wilco at DPAC in Durham, NC
3. Arcade Fire and Spoon at the Verizon Wireless Center in Atlanta, GA
4. Yeasayer at Cat's Cradle in Carrboro, NC
5. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros at Music Farm in Charleston, SC

*All of these show were attended with Ashlie White, who made most of these possible and all of them memorable.

2010 was also a great year for emerging bands as well as a couple old dogs that learned some new tricks. I remember the anticipation of waiting for the Broken Bells music box-set to arrive in the mail. I made a vow not to listen to the album until it arrived at my door, which was hard considering that everyone around me was already listening to the leaked version that came out the previous week. I have compiled a list of my top 25 albums though they are for the most part in descending order it was hard to put one over the other, but I tried my best.

1. The National - High Violet
2. Local Natives - Gorilla Manor
3. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
4. The Black Keys - Brothers
5. The Morning Benders - Big Echo
6. Surfer Blood - Astro Coast
7. The Walkmen - Lisbon
8. Broken Bells - Broken Bells
9. Onward, Soldiers - Ghosts In This Town
10. Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz
11. Avi Buffalo - Avi Buffalo
12. Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse - Dark Night of the Soul
13. The Love Language - Libraries
14. Freelance Whales - Weathervanes
15. Jonsi - Go
16. Best Coast - Crazy For You
17. Beach House - Teen Dream
18. Yeasayer - Odd Blood
19. Toro Y Moi - Causers of This
20. Dr. Dog - Shame, Shame
21. Belle & Sebastian - Belle & Sebastian Write About Love
22. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today
23. LCD Soundsystem - This is Happening
24. Spoon - Transference
25. Charlotte Gainsbourg - IRM

To finish the best of categories I leave you with my top 10 music videos. These appear in no particular order and goes something like this:

- The Black Keys - Tighten Up
- Arcade Fire - Suburbs
- Local Natives - World News
- Yeasayer - Madder Red
- Bowerbirds - Northern Lights
- Avi Buffalo - What's In It For
- Toro Y Moi - Talamak
- Jonathan Boulet - A Community Service Announcement
- Best Coast - When I'm With You
- The Morning Benders - Promises

Well there you have it folks the Best of 2010 list as noted by me, the Fortunate Observer. I would love to hear what you think and what your favorites of 2010 were. These lists would not have been the same without inspiration from many different people and places so for that i would like to send a special thanks to the following: Ashlie White, David Ostiguy, Andy Simonson, Daytrotter, La Blogotheque, Matt Keen at Gravity Records, Billy Mellon, Sean Thomas Gerard and all the guys in Onward, Soldiers (who appear on the Gasoline Rainbows compilation along side many of the aforementioned top bands.), Brooklyn Vegan, My Old Kentucky Blog, Pitchfork, Large Hearted Boy and many others, Thank you all so very much.