The 10 most awesome albums of 2010

For once, Mark Morford and I are even.

Every year at this time, my friend Andy sends out a highly excitable e-mail asking about a dozen of his most rabid, music-obsessed friends -- sound engineers, club promoters, DJs, designers, anyone for whom music is less a casual dalliance and more like lifeblood -- to compile their personal lists of the year's best music, so we can all discover something new and/or gently mock each others' weird tastes in African banjo disco, kazoo jazz funk or ambient doom metal.

He describes his pick albums:

Rather amazing year for superlative glitchy electronica chill-out...

Opium daydream white-boy falsetto hip-hop one-man-and-a-MacBook masterwork of faraway weirdness and dreamy faded washes, so unusual in tone and timbre yet so instantly impressive in its singularity of vision that it makes you wonder what the hell you've been doing with your meager little life.

Ultra-premium rainy day/sigh at the moon/sip your whisky/wallow in the bathtub/ponder the Endtimes/crave a warm companion/nurse your wounds/ache for a simpler time/masturbate slowly for an hour and then go to bed and dream of navigating a small boat through a quiet storm of existential angst music.

...channels Elvis on a heroin porn binge, and try not to smile a dark and dirty smile. Unevenly produced, terrible artwork, who the hell cares. Turn it up, slam your firewater and curse the gods. Awesome.

I actually understood this:

This record is badass incarnate and you don't dare roll your eyes until you've heard it like, 10 times, naked and drunk and clawing at the moon.

Come ta think of it, if "lost my pants" and "clawing at the commode" can be shoehorned inta that, I've done it. To country! Heh.

So how are Morford and me even on music?

First, he and I both call music compilations 'albums'. I've been doing that since before he was born.

Second, I've never heard of any of the artists or groups or albums on his list. He wouldn't have heard of any of the artists or groups or albums on mine.

All you music lovers go enjoy this column, then come back and tell me what he said.