Best of 2010
[this is a work in progress]
Fruitful collaboration
Film: (a poor year, no real top-notch classics in live action)
1. Toy Story 3
2. The Town
Inception
The Kids Are Alright
True Grit
Tamara Drewe
Lebanon
The Secret in their Eyes
It’s a Wonderful Life (Christmas Eve at The Phoenix)
(The King’s Speech) [2011]
(2009 winner: Inglourious Basterds )
Actor:
Ben Affleck – The Town
Jesse Eisenberg – The Social Network
Jeff Bridges – True Grit
(2009 winner: Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) )
Actress:
Julianne Moore – The Kids Are Alright
Annette Bening – The Kids Are Alright
Lesley Manville – Another Year
Hailee Steinfeld – True Grit
(2009 winner: Carey Mulligan (An Education) )
Supporting Actor:
Mark Ruffalo – The Kids Are Alright
(2009 winner: Brad Pitt (Inglourious Basterds) )
Supporting Actress:
Rebecca Hall – The Town
(2009 winner: Kristin Scott Thomas (Nowhere Boy))
Director:
1. Ben Affleck – The Town
Samuel Maoz – Lebanon
(2009 winner: Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds) )
Script:
The Social Network
(2009 winner: The Hangover)
TV:
The Trip (BBC2)
The Art of Cornwall (BBC4)
Gig:
Corinne Bailey Rae – Somerset House
Gil Scott Heron – Somerset House
Songwriters’ Circle recording at Bush Theatre, Shepherds Bush – Loudon Wainright, Richard Thompson, Suzanne Vega
(2009 winner: Hothouse Flowers – Community hall, Baltimore, West Cork)
LP:
Praise & Blame – Tom Jones
I’m New Here – Gil Scott Heron
(2009 winner: Sea Sew – Lisa Hannigan)
Single:
What good am I? – Tom Jones
Laura Marling – Devil’s Spoke
(2009 winner: Glass – Bat for Lashes)
Book:
Freedom – Jonathan Franzen
A Crisis of Brilliance – David Haycock
(2009 winner: The Great Lover – Jill Dawson)
Art:
Paul Nash – The Elements – Dulwich Picture Gallery
(2009 winner: Dream – Jaume Plensa)
Play:
Jerusalem – Jez Butterworth with Mark Rylance (Apollo)
(2009 winner: August: Osage County (NT))
Sports event:
1. Spurs victory over Inter Milan at White Hart Lane with Gareth Bale on fire
Watching Saracens from the bench vs Leicester Tigers
(2009 winner: Ireland winning the 6 Nations)
Website:
?
(2009 winner: Posterous)
Saddest loss:
see Farewell 2010
Simple Pleasures part 4 
Just working on mine
Look forward to seeing them (and picking up some music tips)
Film: The Social Network, Inception (although neither were classics)
Book: ‘The Bounce’ – Matthew Syed
LP (a very good year): 1st: Cee-Lo Green – ‘The Ladykiller’
Runners up: Laura Marling – ‘I Speak Therefore I Can’; Pantha Du Prince – ‘Black Noise’; Marconi Union – ‘A Lost Connection’; Christian Scott – ‘Yesterday You Said Tomorrow’; Four Tet – ‘There is Love in You’
(as ever with music other 2010 musical gems will reveal themselves in the years ahead)
Live Music: Nils Petter Molvaer (Feb 2010) and Laura Marling (April 2010). I particularly enjoyed the reaction of the older members of the audience at the NPM gig who thought they were in for a pleasant evening of cool jazz (as it had been billed) and witnessed a single 2-hour piece of violent sonic and visual effects, discordant guitar and beautiful trumpet. Those who didn’t leave sat there with their mouths open in wonderment for two hours. It was astonishing.
Website: http://www.vbs.tv
Airline: Turkish – just about the only one left that feeds you properly
Sport: (Biased)…My daughter slaughtering the field at Wycombe Pool in 100m Breaststroke Championships and setting a Personal Best by 6 seconds. I haven’t been as happy at that moment for years.
(Unbiased)…Phil Taylor’s two 9-dart and one ten-dart finish against James Wade.
Australia destroying France in Paris (Rugby Union). I think Australia will win the 2011 world cup.
Radio: TMS (particularly when Geoffrey Boycott isn’t on it).
Art: An inspiring visit to the Tajikistan Artists Collective in Dushanbe and meeting little-known, world-class artists with their work on display.
Obits: Teddy Pendergrass, Claire Rayner, Henryk Gorecki, Captain Beefheart, Haiti, Alec Bedser, Bobby Hebb.
Agree that good though those two movies were neither are classics.
I just don’t get the Cee-Lo thing – he’s OK but to me not sockknockingoff.
Love your sporting moment.
Have been following the Ashes on Radio 5 and was on the verge of getting hooked.
Hadn’t heard about Bobby Hebb – Sonny is a strange, haunting 45 that’s been in my collection since I was in short trousers.
Enjoyed your list.
Are you judging the Cee Lo album on the two singles? They are, by a long shot the weakest tracks on the album. ‘Fool for You’ is one of the best individual pieces of music I have heard for years! A bona-fide soul classic in my humblest which would stand up as a piece of work in any era. It grabbed me on the 3rd listen. I urge a re-listen on your part. In the car, a bit of volume etc. I think you will like the Christian Scott album very much though. A real jazzer.
Were you referring to the biased or unbiased sporting moment? I am trying to control myself about Lily and her swimming…she could be very, very good. Or, that’s what the coaches say. The moment was terrific for me because there was a big crowd there (several hundred)and none of them had heard of her and the parents of competitors were ‘surprised’. She got a pat on the back from Greg Searle, Olympic rowing gold medalist which made her evening. But the happiness comment was worthy of your SP3 and beyond.
Bobby Hebb did some great things but many got lost in the ether otherwise known as Northern Soul.
Good to see you have added Laura Marling to the singles…but what about the album? Yout TJ choice shocked me. Really? That good?
TMS – there was a night during the last test when the broadcasting was so good (Michael Slater, the old Aussie batsman was superb and vaguely surreal) that I stayed up until 4am to listen. I go back to Arlott in the 1970’s with TMS – a man who was a poet first and a commentator second.
Judging by Bridges, Forget You and his recent NYE performance on Jools – i.e. on not a lot – tried Fool for You but doesn’t do it for me …yet.
Biased – sounds fab.
I like the Laura Marling LP but especially its opening. You have the advantage over me having seen her live.
Ditto the Tom Jones record – great opening (I love Dylan’s gospely stuff, especially the Slow Train songs, and What Good I connect with that side of Bob.) I liked this year’s stripped down records – even Gil’s eccentric one.
Although not brought up with the sport, I can sense all that poetry and languorousness in cricket – I’ll save it with gardening for when I’m old and have my Walt Whitman beard.
Well, I am shocked. I can hardly name a single artist who did their best work after 40. But I have just had a quick listen to the Tom Jones on your recommendation and he may be the exception. It’s good. Very good. Cracking band and production too.
Thanks Adam for shortlisting ‘Crisis of Brilliance’ – pleased to see you liked it so much (as well as the Paul Nash show at Dulwich – I’m discussing with them at the moment the possibility of doing a show based on the book – they’re quite keen). And nice to be listed alongside Jonathan Frantzen; I loved ‘The Corrections’, but haven’t had chance to read this new one yet – do keep me posted on the results!
I saw NO new films last year. Didn’t even make it to the cinema. Small children. Good to see I didn’t miss too much.
@PP Glad to have convinced you to some extent about the Tom Jones record. Cogitating now on artists who came into their own after 40. Christie Moore? Curtis Mayfield (radical thought I know)? Loudon Wainright?
@DBH David, delighted to have you turn up here. My wife bought me the book as a birthday present (very much appreciated) as she knows I love Nash and Gertler. Reckon I’ll have to make my mind up on all of the above over the weekend before the new year starts to feel like history. Congratulations on a thoroughly enjoyable book with plenty of insight.
Loudon Wainwright and Christie Moore? Better or managed to maintain a consistent level?
Cannot agree in any way with the Curtis statement. ‘New World Order’ is a very good album and presumably the reference point for your comment. But I own 4 Impressions albums from the sixties, any one of which could lay claim to being one of the best soul vocal group albums ever made. Then add all the classics from his Curtom label (Five Stairsteps, Leroy Hutson etc.). Then add the classic solo material – ‘Curtis’, ‘Roots’ and ‘There’s No Place Like America Today’ probably being the standouts and all surpass easily what he did after 1983. I think Curtis fans were relieved that he produced a great album after his accident (teaching himself to sing again provided his motivation for staying alive) but it doesn’t make a ten ten of Curtis greatest albums. I haven’t really factored in other people’s stuff on which he was the driving force (Curtom aside)…Patti Jo’s ‘Make Me Believe in You’ being a great example. He was responsible for an astounding amount of great soul music in the sixties and early seventies and I think should sit even higher than he does in the pantheon. Sorry, bit of a rant.
I haven’t really convinced myself but can’t help feeling there are examples. I was referring to NWO but that record has a special place in my heart, I’m just being sentimental.
My overreaction to your comment was fuelled by an agreeable chablis plus your bait. He didn’t do much in his forties. A couple of studio albums. However, the search for musicians who did their best work in their forties and after goes on. The list is thin. Miles did some of his best work in his forties. Silent Way and Bitches Brew being examples but of course, he also did some of his best work before then too.
Looking forward to the 2011 selection.
coming tomorrow night if all goes according to plan
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