if you have been partying as hard as the awesome people in the picture above this christmas, you may not feel like a trip to the shops to find amazing one off deals that you will never be able to find again (at least until february anyway, but then you’ll have to pay the increased vat. and that will amount to 25p for every tenner you spend). never fear though. i have done the hard work for you and found the very best deals on music related shit to be found on amazon. this has absolutely nothing to do with me being an amazon associate and getting a percentage of everything you spend. honest. please use the links i provide though. just for, erm, just do. thanks.

[edit - before you read this paragraph, please bear in mind it is a joke. don't stop reading just because you think i am a secret nickleback fan. i am not. apparently this was not made obvious. usually i wouldn't mind and would let it slide, but detest them so feel i must set the record straight on this occasion. thanks]. first off, check out all these mp3 you can get for 59p. that’s right. it includes gabrielle cilmi who was on never mind the buzzcocks a while back. or, how about this. remember ‘rhythm is a dancer’ by snap? well you can pick up the 2008 edition which also somehow manages to be the original! that’s clever. the fun doesn’t stop there though. two words for you. nickleback & ‘rockstar’. don’t miss out on this amazing chance to pick up the song that made dfs famous. grab your download now. the full list is here. even better than all those expensive choices though, you can get a cover of that matt cardle song by some band called biffy clyro for just 49p. amazing! they’ve changed the name though.

on the album side of things, there are actually a few genuinely good deals to be had. buy arcade fire’s fantastic ‘the suburbs’ for a fiver and get pretty much any other decent album for £2. the extra albums include klaxons, foals, the black keys and loads more. take up the offer here. it doesn’t have the be arcade fire as the first album by the way. you can mix and match all sorts. there are a few large collections available at a good price too. ‘unearthed’ johnny cash is there for just £19.59, which saves you over £50 apparently. and you can save over £40 by getting bob marley’s ‘songs of freedom’.

it can be nicer to have a proper actual cd in your hand though. here are five quick deals i found for you:

vampire weekend. contra. £3.99

bombay bicycle club. flaws. £4.49

laura marling. i speak because i can. £4.47

janelle monae. the archandroid. £4.93

gorillaz. plastic beach. £3.99

elsewhere you’ll also find 10% off quite a few ipods. there are also some great deals on docks, including this fantastic gear4 one or this ridiculously cheap veho 360 option.

as for me, i bought josh a harmonica as part of his christmas present, so i think i’ll be getting him this as well.

sorry for the sales pitch type post, but i didn’t have much to post about and thought this may be useful to somebody somewhere. i’ll be posting some review from mr joshua river brown tomorrow to make up for it.

the above is a picture of how i prepared myself to decide on my favourite ten albums of the year. i’ve sort of been thinking about it for a while and in the end sat down, made a list off the top of my head and by checking itunes and my last.fm from the past twelve months. that sort of thing. a few i’d forgotten about came back into the running and i got down to a short list of 30something. i succeeded in getting it down to ten. sort of. i have given an honourable mention to one outside the top ten as well because it just wouldn’t have been right not to. you’ll probably understand why when you see what it is. rather than a chart, this is a collection of the top ten in no order (actually, fuck that – i’ll post them alphabetically) other than number one. there always has to be a winner. one other thing to note is that this is just albums. three of my favourite records of the year are eps but i decided to exclude them. i expect i’ll make a post about some of my favourite things of the year in general over the next fortnight and summer camp, spectrals and girls will all feature heavily in this.

with apologies to those that just missed out, including but not restricted to mount kimbie, los campesinos!, kele, yeasayer, abe vigoda, blood red shoes, sleigh bells, girl talk, janelle monae and (the last album to be dropped) foals, here is the albums that are between my second and ninth favourite of 2010.

arcade fire. the suburbs. august.

brilliant story telling album, that just reaffirmed arcade fire as one of the most reliable bands for delivering quality with every record. buy here.

bombay bicycle club. flaws. july.

i cannot tell you just how many time i have stuck this on during my journey to work on a miserable morning and it has cheered me right up. buy here.

the black keys. brothers. may.

one of my gigs of the year and, to me, their most accesible album is also their best. buy here.

crystal castles. crystal castles (ii). april.

another band that excelled live. maybe not quite as good as the debut, but ‘celestia’ is one of the most beautiful yet thrilling things i have ever heard. buy here.

flying lotus. cosmogramma. may.

he’s in even more experimental mood than usual and when flying lotus experiments, the results are always both interesting and superb. buy here.

gayngs. relayted. may.

there is no way this album should work. ever. it does though. now you get twenty odd mates together and write an album inspired by one track from 35 years ago and see what you come up with. buy here.

mystery jets. serotonin. july.

the eel pie island boys have now made the perfect indie pop album. this is. fuck knows how they’re going to improve on this, but i can’t wait to hear them giving it a go. buy here.

no age. everything is borrowed. september.

a cleaner offering than nouns hasn’t meant that no age have lost any of their edge. this may be clean, but is also wonderfully dirty. buy here.

wavves. king of the beach. august.

the best of the lo-fi chill wave type albums that all but took over the world this summer. josh’s favourite album by the way, since you ask. buy here.

let’s have a bit of a drum roll then. the best album of the year isn’t even an album in the regular sense. it is a combination of previous eps and releases from a teenager with a talent for making the unlistenable listenable. when you can’t really make out the guitar, it doesn’t matter because you’re enjoying his voice. when the lack of production and lo-fi sound cracks through the speakers it doesn’t matter because that tune is perfect. i have listened to so little else over the last few weeks that even now as i write i can hear ‘water turns back’ in my head so perfectly that it is as if i have the album playing now.

cloud nothings. turning on. november (i think?)

if you don’t already own this, you need it now. let’s see if first album proper, due next year, will hold the same position this time next year. buy here.

and finally the special mention. i couldn’t leave this out, despite it not quite reaching the heights i hoped it would. i’m seeing the film on tuesday, and i’ll let you know if this goes from an 8/10 album to 10/10 like i hope it will. i love you thomas bangalter and guy-manuel de homem-christo.

daft punk. tron:legacy soundtrack. december. (buy here)

what have i missed? what shouldn’t be there? let me know in the comments. by the way. i am fully aware that the ’0′ at the end of the ‘top10′ text on the cover art graphics is slightly cut off. i noticed after i’d done the last one and couldn’t be fucked to fix it, so live with it.

i am invited by the way. i just thought i’d post this while i was waiting for my turn in the shower. it isn’t like they’re getting married at the moment and i’m at home in my bedroom blogging. i’m an usher and everything.

with the hardest working day of the week now consigned to water cooler history, and only four office days left until field day festival i thought i’d get home, relax and put my weary feet up with some terrible television. i wanted terrible but watchable tv. you know, shit, but still leaves you feeling warm inside (surprise surprise, howard’s way, that kind of thing). to my annoyance i’ve painfully just watched the first 41 seconds of ‘snog marry avoid?’ and i’m left questioning our existence. but instead of writing a tear and blood stained final message directed at jenny frost, ‘pod’ and overweight orange girls giving them the satisfaction they crave, i’ve instead gone through my itunes to make a rather more life embracing note of my favourite five albums of 2010 so far. so for all those looking for something other to do than start gang warfare against glowing perma-tan girls, go listen to the following…

foals. ‘total life forever’
raising the bar not just for bands from studious oxford, but for all british bands right now. amazing. 9
favourite song… ‘spanish sahara’

arcade fire. ‘the suburbs’
not out for a few days yet, but thankfully for us (but not their bank manager) it’s leaked and is currently set on repeat on my iphone. quite brilliant. 9
favourite song… ‘ready to start’

mystery jets. ‘serotonin’
the strongest middle of an album i’ve heard in a long time, irresistibly catchy. 8
favourite song… ‘show me the light’

avi buffalo. ‘avi buffalo’
sounds like the album mgmt tried (but failed) to make with their second offering. poppy and summery, lovely stuff. 7
favourite song… ‘truth sets in’

yeasayer. ‘odd blood’
in places sounds like a perfect pilled up, loved up, (but still relatively calm) summer rave. odd blood, odd sounds and oddly scattered bits of genius. 7
favourite song… ‘love me girl’

so there you have it, my top five. a special mention should also go to sleigh bells, the coral and two door cinema club who just failed to make the grade, i’m sure they’re crying into their supper right now. with that written, i’m off to watch ‘lee nelson’s well good show’. someone pass me a gun.

words by jamie day (twitter, blog)