Heaven + Earth

I don’t know why I feel compelled to do this. I think I just feel left out if I don’t. Well, that and I just finished reading Rolling Stone’s and Spin’s top albums of 2010 articles and neither one mentioned Mumford & Sons “Sigh No More” which I thought was a complete crock. Also, they don’t include any releases from artists releasing on Christian labels, some of which deserve our attention. So… without further ado I give you MY…

Top Ten Albums of 2010 That I Actually Bought And Listened To:

(I can’t profess to actually having listened to every major release of 2010, let’s be honest)

10. Hillsong Live - “A Beautiful Exchange” - fantastic new worship songs from down under

9. Audrey Assad - “The House You’re Building” - Some decent songs matched with a fantastically mellow female voice make this album easy to listen to over and over again.

8. Phillips & Gullahorn - “Christmas” - Never has a Christmas record made we want to listen to it over and over again. We start singing Christmas carols in November, for pete’s sake. I’m sick of them by Christmas. But not this record. Great arrangements and performances.

7. Civil Wars - “Poison and Wine EP” - Just an EP of four gorgeous folk songs with fantastic harmonies, that’s all. Their full length is due out this year. Can’t wait!

6. Thad Cockrell - “To Be Loved” - Moving and highly listenable alt-country with great spiritual content.

5. Gungor - “Beautiful Things” - I didn’t really give this record a chance until I saw this band live. Now I can’t get enough. Essentially a worship “concept” album that gives us some great vertically oriented music without some of the tried and true conventions of typical corporate worship writing.

4. Mumford & Sons - “Sigh No More” - Frenetically paced folk/roots group with great lyrics, great melodies and harmonies.

3. Arcade Fire - “The Suburbs” - Just when you thought they were sure to flop, these guys give us their best record yet. How can they make 3 great records in a row?

2. Ray LaMontagne - “God Willin’ and The Creek Don’t Rise” - Love his voice, love his lyrics, love his production values, can’t stop listening to this record and I haven’t stopped listening to his previous three either.

1. John Mark MacMillan - “The Medecine” - This technically isn’t a 2010 album but it was re-released to a wider audience in 2010 so I’m including it, okay? Get off my back. Lyrically my favourite album in a long time and musically it’s pretty spectacular too. This is the guy who gave us the ubiquitous worship tune “How He Loves” and it only gets better from there. Trust me.