The Nashville Scene Critics' Poll
This year's top albums list was calculated using a sophisticated algorithm — OK, a spreadsheet — drawing on ballots submitted by our crack team of Scene music writers, both staff and contributing. Only full-length albums were eligible, so critical favorites like Keegan DeWitt's Nothing Shows EP and any number of releases from PUJOL or Natural Child didn't make the list. Long players that did qualify include impressive debuts by relative newcomers like Heartbeater and Action!, alongside new efforts from mainstays like Glossary and Elizabeth Cook.
Albums that received first-place votes, but didn't garner enough cumulative points to crack the Top 10 include Jamey Johnson's country double-album The Guitar Song, Ducko McFli's playful hip-hop romp Return of the Soul Vol. 2 and The White Stripes' live collection Under Great White Northern Lights. Other albums that scored well with our critics but fell short of the final cut: Tim Chad and Sherry's Baby We Can Work It Out, Colour Revolt's The Cradle, Hands off Cuba's From Arrival to Survival, Jasmin Kaset's Hell & Half of Jordan, William Tyler's Behold the Spirit, And the Relatives' Green Machinery, Forrest Bride's Cats With Wings and Heavy Cream's Danny.
Sum equals F10 plus — oh ... without further ado, the top albums of the year:
No. 10
Uncle Skeleton
Warm Under the Covers (YK Records)
Don't worry, fans of lush synth pop: We saved a spot on the list for a keyboard-toting brainiac who knows how to chart string arrangements and dream up mellifluous melodies. Ross Wariner, the brain behind Uncle Skeleton, first caught Nashvillians' attention as one-half of KinderCastle. But with this year's Warm Under the Covers, Wariner proves on track after track that crafting dreamy, seamless, atmospheric tunes is what he's cut out to do. WUtC nods to synth-slinging trailblazers like Devo and ELO, but it nudges kitchen-sink synth-pop — a genus that's long been futuristic in nature — even further into the future. In most bold fashion, as a matter of fact. —D. Patrick Rodgers
No. 9
Glossary
Feral Fire (The Rebel Group)
It's always a good year when there's a new Glossary record on the stereo, and 2010 is no different. Well, except that this time they had their buddies in Lucero releasing the album — which is the rockin'-est  conglomeration of Dinosaur Jr. and Thin Lizzy we've heard in ages — and spent more time on the road supporting it than they ever have before. And if that weren't hot enough, they also spiced things up with the debut of Saussary, their tour-only homemade hot sauce, and solo records from Joey and Kelly Kneiser that were chock-full of Murfreesboro's finest players and songwriters. —Sean L. Maloney
No. 8
The Greenhornes
★★★★ (Third Man)
It was easy to forget that Nashvillians Patrick Keeler and Jack Lawrence had spent the past half-decade on break from a Cincinnati garage rock band that Jack White isn't a member of. The Greenhornes jogged our memories with a spirited reunion, released on White's Third Man Records, no less. On ★★★★ (that's the title, not a rating), Keeler and Lawrence got back to churning out clattering, bopping grooves behind frontman Craig Fox. They sound like their heads are in 1966, which isn't a bad thing when you've got the simplicity of British Invasion pop down cold. —Jewly Hight
No. 7
Hammock
Chasing After Shadows ... Living With the Ghosts (Hammock)
There is some music whose only compulsion is toward beauty. Not to be clever or catchy; not to be bombastic or transgressive or hip. Often, this music is quite boring. But Hammock's Chasing After Shadows ... Living With the Ghosts is an enthralling, magnificently delicate record, from its echoing guitar swoop, reminiscent of Disintegration-era Cure, to its lush drones and understated, symphonic grace. There is a song called "In the Nothing of a Night" that, in its evocation of absence, recalls Wallace Stevens' line in "The Snow Man": "Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is." On Chasing After Shadows, Hammock make nothingness loom large. —Steve Haruch
No. 6
Evan P. Donohue
Rhythm & Amplitude (self-released)
There's a question you have to ask yourself when critically listening to an album dropped by a Belmont student: "Is this a record or is this homework?" Evan P. Donohue's Rhythm & Amplitude occupies the space between those extremes. Donohue's are well-written, well-arranged baroque pop tunes that sound like newly discovered cast-offs from the height of Elephant 6's late-'90s indie-pop boom. Like those early records by Beulah and Olivia Tremor Control, Donohue writes songs that struggle against their lo-fi amateur production, demanding higher fidelity. In spite of its production, Donohue's debut simply hits all the right spots. —Lance Conzett
No. 5
Elizabeth Cook
Welder (31 Tigers)
You can definitely be too hip to create good country music, but Elizabeth Cook's Welder demonstrates why some rules are meant to be broken. From the stutter-step of "El Camino" to the weary narrative of "Heroin Addict Sister," Cook and producer Don Was join cooled-out rock to basic three-chord country. Cook fills her songs with gloriously inappropriate love objects, objectionable hairstyles and rock 'n' roll lifestyle choices — not to mention such bedrock subjects as death, homecoming and drugs. Cook sings too country to be called anything else, but Welder takes the form into new areas. —Edd Hurt
No. 4
Heartbeater
Slow Waves (Meltface Records)
With song titles like "Vaporizer" and "Dark Horse Rising," Heartbeater are among the latest local rockers to make the case for marijuana legalization. They're not a jam band, though — hippies would be scared off by the Boy era Edge-inspired riffage awash in reverb, and the impassioned vocals of singer Greg Mabry, who croons with the strained fury of a man on the verge of murder. With nods to The Chameleons, Pixies and Broken Social Scene, this stellar debut lays out love as a battlefield of pummeling power chords, driving drums and '90s alt-rock dynamics slathered in spacious, moody, dream-pop atmospherics. Just imagine a Dramarama record with nine songs as good as "Anything, Anything." —Adam Gold
No. 3
KORT
Invariable Heartache (City Slang)
Despite its availability online and as an import, one of Music City's most important records of the year still isn't available physically at most retailers. Featuring 11 songs originally recorded by Chart Records artists — and one originally recorded by KORT frontwoman Cortney Tidwell's mother, Connie Eaton — Invariable Heartache has been a half-century in the making. And yes, it features renowned Lambchop frontman Kurt Wagner, some of Nashville's most talented non-Music Row players and a storied, heartrending background. (See our cover story, "Family KORT," from Oct. 14.) But what's more, Invariable Heartache is, simply put, a damn solid album with powerfully affecting, career-defining performances from Tidwell, Wagner and every player involved. —D. Patrick Rodgers
No. 2
Action!
Friend Weakend (The Music Fort)
In its disarming simplicity, Action!'s Friend Weakend is remarkable for what it lacks. Or rather, it does more with less, in this era when the phrase "epic" gets so quickly applied to albums that are really just overwrought and overstuffed with empty bluster. Action!'s uncluttered arrangements leave more room for imagination: At times in the beguiling "Sandpiper," Robyn Burns' guitar plays a single note, and husband Dan's drums click nothing more than a basic one, two, three, four — and yet the playful interchange of their voices, darting across the spare rhythm like bird calls across a field, build the song to a fitful, rollicking finish. Brimming with thoughtful, energetic charm, Friend Weakend is full of such surprises. —Steve Haruch
No. 1
Caitlin Rose
Own Side Now (Names)
No record appeared on more ballots, or garnered more No. 1 nominations, than Caitlin Rose's excellent Own Side Now — no shabby feat, considering that it's still only available in Nashville as an import. And perhaps no surprise, considering how nearly universal the praise from the U.K. and Europe has been. Ironically, in a year when so many of our indie bands hit the road with a raw rock 'n' roll sound scraped from the city's garage and basement floors, the album that captured Nashville's critical heart was a throwback, of sorts, to golden-age country music. Of course, Own Side Now is no retro re-enactment. Sure, there are shades of Patsy and Loretta, but Rose is a savvy writer who doesn't paint herself into corners. For every beer-destined tear there is a postcard from another pop-music landmark taped to the mirror behind the bar — from the sighing strings and '60s girl-group keyboard twinkle of "For the Rabbits" to the cosmic American shuffle of album stand-out "Shanghai Cigarettes." "I'm on my own side now," Rose sings on the title track, and this year, we're merely among the many jumping in line behind her. —Steve Haruch
