Remember back in the old days when HEALTH remixed the fuck out of Crystal Castles’ ‘Crimewave’ with astonishingly good results? Well they’ve only gone and done it again. This time ‘Suffocation’ gets the treatment (inadvertent pun alert). No idea why they’ve chosen something from the debut album, but who cares when it means HEALTH are doing things. Oh, and it’s available as a free download. Although it’s using the artwork from the second album for some reason.

after my recent posts about kate jackson and the kills i felt the need to talk women. my favourite frontwomen of all time. before we start, i need to bring two parts of that last sentence to your attention. firstly the word “favourite”. i will have missed out loads (i’ve only done my top five after all) and there are ladies that i am sure are better than the five below, but these are my favourites. secondly, i’m not counting solo artists. this is all about those that women that take the lead of a band. sorry pj harvey. sorry lykke li and natasha khan. i’m not counting solo artists in this.

5: alice glass
have you ever seen her live? she is actually mental. it’s fucking brilliant and it is her energy that makes up a big part of why crystal castles are so exciting.

4: kate jackson
nobody epitomises library cool like miss jackson. not only did she lead he band on stage and off stage, but she even painted the cover art for their albums. the long blondes may be no more, but she frontwomaned (real word) them with such style that they’ll be present on my ipod for a long time yet.

3: karen o
with her unique look and powerful recognisable voice, karen o was made to front a band. she complements the sound of yeah yeah yeahs and you can’t imagine anybody else in her role.

2: debbie harry
do i really need to explain this one? she’s the mother of all frontwomen. she has the songs. she had the looks. blondie were debbie harry.

1: alison mosshart
pipping blondie to the post, alison mosshart is perfect. sexy, strong, edgy. she has everything. not just that but she fronts two bands. the kills and the dead weather. she is equally amazing in both and fully deserves her top spot.

many more could be here. shirley manson and nina from the cardigans were considered. stevie nicks only just missed out but i imagine would make it onto most lists. there are new challengers as well. elizabeth sankey, for example, has everything in place to join the list.

that was fun. expect more lists coming up soon.

coming up over the christmas period i’m with the family and all that jazz for most of the time so posts might be a little irregular. i’ll be trying to do a couple of features though and a few spotify playlists. first off, this one. i’ve chosen my favourite track from each of the 2010 albums of the year i picked, other than those that aren’t on spotify. as an extra bonus i’ve put in my choices from my favourite three eps from 2010 as well. what’s more, my two favourite singles that aren’t on any of those records (still with me?) are here too… that’s ‘the sea is a good place to think of the future’ and spanish sahara’ by the way.

sockformation’s top ten albums of 2010 and then some other tracks as well (spotify)

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.

live review: crystal castles. the roundhouse. 15 october 2010

i’d wanted to see crystal castles for a long time. i’d heard how raucous their shows got and how electric they were on stage. when tickets for this gig came up i was ready. things didn’t quite go as plan. some staff drinks the previous night had turned into quite a heavy session, so it was with a lack of sleep and hangover from hell that i turned up to witness what could have been my favourite performance of all time.

from the off alice glass was a little pocket of energy and craziness. ethan kath an image of concentration and genius. even from my area next to one of the pillars mid way back and with a caning headache i was sure this was a band i needed to see again. as kids came past me at regular intervals soaked in sweat i knew that the place to be was the front. last night, it wasn’t to be thanks to a free bar the night before. next time my preparation will entail a week of sleep, clothes i don’t mind ruining and checking my glasses in at the cloakroom. i’m getting involved.

and all this with camden’s answer to michael fucking flatley in front of me for the entire night.

by the way, kids these days aren’t what they used to be. i’ve been at the front to see system of a down, the prodigy and the subways. not once did i leave the pit.

oh, and before i forget… health (i’m really sorry about the lack of caps… it’s the sockformation rules though) )were fucking immense beforehand as well. i’m not sure i’ve ever seen a band as into their own music as they were. when they make music as good as they do though, who can blame them.