Best of 2010 – Matthew Melton’s Top Ten Albums

Thee Oh Sees– Warm Slime
This is a great LP to get into the Oh Sees with. It has some songs that they actually play live including the strangely catchy “I was denied”. That song gets into my brain and stays there in a good way.

Harlem – Hippies
Great continuation of their previous release thats also really cool, “Free Drugs”. Catchy sloppy but tight garage pop.

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti– Before Today
While not as experimental or lo-fi as his previous release – House Arrest, Before Today radiates with a similar intoxicating synth pop sound.

Fresh And Only’s – Play it Strange
These guys finally went all the way with the way and cleaned it up with some full on production. Waterfall is a perfectly crafted song and the whole album rides in on a wall of reverb.

Peach Kelli Pop – Peach Kelli Pop LP
Girl Pop to the max. Do the Egg Roll!

Magic Kids – Memphis
The instrumentation and the production on this is great. I remember seeing Bennet playing in the The Mutant Space Bats of Doom back in the day, so stoked for him making such a great sounding record! Very interested to see what he comes up with next.

The Strange Boys – Be Brave
Theres a kind of early stones thing happening on my favorite tracks on this that really works. Tight but careless 60s sounding pop and you can hear the Texas come through on a few tracks. The vocals sound cool.

Burnt Ones – Black Teeth, Golden Tounges
These guys just moved to Oakland from Indianapolis and they rule. The record has Marc Bolan written all over it and alot of the songs have a similar swagger to the T-rex song Metal Guru. Theres also this reverb slop pop thing happening that holds it all together. If you like T-rex, this is a must.

Beach Fossils
I would usually turn my nose up as this brand of dreamy college style indie rock, but its too simple and well done to pass it by. The record sounds great, good lo-fi production with lots of catchy guitar riffs. Good record for mellowing out.

Ty Segall – Melted
So good. Catchy Psych-y Garage Pop goodness. I want to hate this rich kid but his songs check out. Buy this LP.

Former Memphian Matthew Melton lives in Oakland California. He records bands onto analog tape and does the band Bare Wires. Check out the new Bare Wires music video for their upcoming UK single here.