2010 was a great year for all music aficionados

So, firmly within the sweet midsection of the holidays, we’re mildly pleased with our presents, somewhat frightened by the sight of another mince pie, conscious about holiday weight, and making plans for New Year’s Eve.

The interluding days between Christmas and the New Year is always filled with reflection, early thoughts for New Year’s resolutions and a sense of achievement because, hats off to you, and rightly so, you’ve made it through another year.

A lot can happen in one year. A change of jobs, perhaps you’ve moved to a new house or maybe this is the year you had that epic holiday (I certainly had one of those). The various turning points of my year had their own soundtracks—playlists that could animate infinite, cliche montages.

Spotify, iTunes, Last.Fm and, of course, my iPhone allow me to take music everywhere; Last.Fm and Genius, within iTunes, automatically organise my playlists using collaborative filtering wizardry; as a paying Spotify customer I gain access to exclusive albums and an inexhaustible music library.

It’s never been easier to become a music aficionado. Like me, If you were plugged into any of the aforementioned services, I’m sure your year had its own soundtrack too. My listening history for this year shows which tracks I listened to the most, a very Indie year indeed, but what was everybody else listening too?

What was the the best music of 2010?

I used our Skyttle Search tool to track conversations about the, “Best music of 2010.” The documents functionality delivered a list of authoritative lists whilst the list of entities alluded to some of the most talked about artists: The National, Arcade Fire, High Violet, LCD Soundsystem and Flying Lotus gaining visibility indicates that alternative and Indie acts have been very popular.

Some of the best lists returned came from Impose, The Chicago Reader, Indie Rock Reviews, Cerebral Pop (I love that name), Paste and Timeout. All of the lists suggest that both Indie and Alternative acts have been more popular amongst music writers this year, which got me thinking about whether the lists, and the writers themselves, were too cool for school? Did they not represent the mainstream charts? I was expecting to see boy bands, surely Gaga? However, the BBC’s Sound of 2010 and songs voted by Guardian readers demonstrate how alternative and Indie acts have entered the mainstream this year.

Common artists found across all of lists include: Cee-Lo Green, Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem, Hurts and MGMT.

I couldn’t help but think, whilst carrying out my research, that cloud-based music services and recommendation engines definitely influence the acts that enter mainstream charts. Does the most popular music on the web subsequently gain more radio plays? How are trends interpreted by the music industry? Questions and answers for another post, but what’s clear, from this quick analysis, is that the lines between Alternative, Indie and Pop genres are blurring increasingly each year. …