Welcome to RARB Picks of the Year, 2010 Edition!
Reviewers who published at least seven reviews in 2010 were asked to select one Pick of the Year and one Honorable Mention. Reviewers with fewer published reviews could choose only a Pick of the Year. (Albums chosen in both categories are listed as Picks only; the full listing may be found under individual reviewers.) Reviewers could submit descriptions of their picks, but were not required to. Reviewers were also asked to select Songs of the Year on a similar principle.
Wow, just wow. Straight fives for all songs and in all categories from all RARB reviewers. 27 tracks. 74 minutes. 80 pages of liner notes. Winner of the CARA for best classical album. Buy this album if you haven't yet, it's truly amazing. (P.S. I started listening to it again as I was typing this brief blurb, and haven't been able to turn it off.)
An angelic album. Adesto dolori meo, which won the 2010 CARA for best classical song, did not even make my own top five list of best tracks on the album. That surely testifies to the quality of the music found here.
Perhaps the best song on the best album of the year. The tenor soloist does an outstanding job in bringing real passion to his solo, and manages to flawlessly hit a high B in what seems to be full voice. Beautiful, all around.
As I said in my review, thanks to Face for helping me notice/remember that Overkill is one of the greatest pop songs ever written. Why more a cappella groups haven't covered this Men at Work classic ("Day after day...") is beyond me. I particularly enjoyed how the subdued arrangement allowed me to focus on the words, something that I never particularly did with the original.
Naturally an album of original a cappella tracks from six guys who are completely at the top of their game tops any Best Of list. You will cry, laugh, snap, cheer and get sexed by the dance divos of Denmark.
These ladies bring it hard with few points of failure. I'm still enamored of the lip buzz on Pump It. In a year that was strong in female collegiate a cappella, the Jills came out the strongest.
There were a slew of songs from this double album of riches: Diversity, Why do we always wait, A Thousand Years and Did a Little spring to mind immediately. But the pairing of Christoffer Brodersen's singing with Niels Norgaard's songwriting wins hands down as the best song of the year. If you got to hear it live at SoJam or Mile High Vocal Jam, you'll definitely agree.
I'm a sucker for musical theatre pieces. And when they are this exceptionally well done. I melt.
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