Drowned in… November + The Best of 2010

This month’s blog post from Sean Adams, the founder of Drowned in Sound, features several different year-end flavoured playlists…

Don’t be alarmed but that whooshing sound you can hear is your brain whirling at the thought that it is already December and yet it still feels like February. However, don’t worry that beeping sound isn’t some digital alarm bell ringing in your cerebral cortex, it’s probably some electronica or a sample in the depths of one of the year’s finest tracks. Speaking of which, what are the tracks of the year that you really should have heard? If you’ve kept up with my monthly playlists, you will hopefully know quite a few of these already but for the sake of completeness and optimum time-saving, a year’s worth of my listening to 500+ albums and digesting the music media, so you don’t have to, is compiled here…

Drowned in… November
It might be my imagination but I think each of my playlists have revealed both a shift in my taste and in the sound of the year - contrast and compare with each playlist below. From Daft Punk’s Tron soundtrack and Kanye’s critic-pleasing return to James Blake’s stripped down re-jig of Feist’s ‘Limit to Your Love’, November was awash with pianos, strings, beats and submergent synths, often within the first three seconds of a song. There’s a definite chill to this playlist but hopefully the electronic hum will bring some warmth to your ears. Oh and Nicki Minaj swears, a fair bit, in case you’re offended by talk of Dungeon & Dragons.
Listen/subscribe: Drowned in November 2010

Sean’s Songs of the Year
30 of my favourites from 2010 put together as a little mixtape. My number one is either Kelis’ ‘Acapella’ or Perfume Genius’ ‘Mr Petersen’ or maybe Blondes’ ‘Moondance’. Do I really need to pick a favourite?
Sean’s Songs of 2010

Drowned in Sound’s favourite albums of 2010
Last week on DiS we revealed our album of the year and you can flick through them as a playlist. Or listen to a track from each of the top 75, using the following links.
DiS Albums of the Year 2010
DiS Albums of 2010 - Sampler

@seaninsound
Over the past week or two, whilst compiling our end of year list, I’ve been doing tweet-length reviews as @seaninrcrds, with marks out of 10, for some of the year’s releases and putting them into a Spotify playlist.
Listen/subscribe: @seaninrcrds

Winterwave
A playlist of wintery feeling songs, compiled with suggestions from the Drowned in Sound boards.
Listen/subscribe: winterwave

Drowned in… 2010
Here are all of my monthly playlists, in case you missed any of them or want some extra music to drown out your drunk uncle explaining at length what it was like the first time he played Pong.

Drowned in January 2010
Drowned in February 2010
Drowned in March 2010
Drowned in April 2010
Drowned in May 2010
Drowned in June 2010
Drowned in July 2010
Drowned in August 2010
Drowned in September 2010
Drowned in October 2010
Drowned in November 2010

By Sean Adams, founder of drownedinsound.com.