As 2010 winds down, we’ve still got a bunch of potentially terrific shows to look forward to, including Ludacris at the Allstate Arena (Sunday), Elvis Costello at the Chicago Theatre (Monday) and the Hold Steady at Lincoln Hall (Dec. 30), plus a gaggle of New Year’s Eve shows that we’ll preview in future columns.

But it’s also time to take stock and look back on a year of heavy-duty concert-going. Out of more than 100 shows I attended, here are my favorites from 2010:

1. Gorillaz, Oct. 16 at UIC Pavilion: The cartoon band invented by Blur’s Damon Albarn and Jamie “Tank Girl” Hewlett more than a decade ago has morphed into a real band, with more than 30 musicians and singers, including a core group built on former Clash members Mick Jones and Paul Simonon. Albarn orchestrates it all, blending hip-hop, dub reggae, Eastern music, punk, soul and myriad other genres into a soundtrack for a dying planet that doesn’t sound like a eulogy at all. Instead, it becomes one the year’s biggest dance parties. 

It’s been a tumultuous decade-plus for the music industry, with technology enabling more bands than ever to create and distribute their recordings, and more fans to listen to more music than at any time in history. With that as a backdrop, a number of trends emerged in 2010 that could have a major bearing on what comes next. Here are a few of the most prominent:

The Twitter bug: Increasingly, artists are usurping traditional media and going direct to their fans to break news, and you can’t get much more direct than Twitter. In 2010, artists ranging from Kanye West to the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne opened accounts and immediately attracted tens of thousands of followers. Rhymefest used the instant messaging network to announce his candidacy for 20th Ward alderman in Chicago. From behind his drum kit at “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” the Roots’ Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson punched out quips, critiques and behind-the-scenes details of daily tapings. And West turned tweeting into his own 140-character art form, whether providing blow-by-blow descriptions of the studio sessions for his latest album; musing about fashion, women and art; or venting his instant reaction to controversies such as his “Today Show” interview about former President George W. Bush.

Android chic: Futurism is in and pop entertainers are up to their bionic eyeballs in it. Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Janelle Monae, Robyn and Christina Aguilera all did variations on sci-fi themes and sexy robot characters on recent albums and tours. Black Eyed Peas hopped around like outer-space invaders on their latest arena jaunt. The trend goes hand-in-hand with the continued prominence of Auto-Tune on countless pop hits, which turns human voices into Hal, the robot from “2001: A Space Odyssey.” For many of these entertainers, it’s just an opportunity to play dress-up. But for Janelle Monae, the concept of “The ArchAndroid” has been part of her creative thinking for several years. “The android to me represents ‘the other’ in our society,” she says. “I can connect to the other, because it has so many parallels to my own life – just by being a female, African-American artist in today’s music industry. I have gone to predominately white or black schools, and tried to represent individuality, whereas some of the people around me were not. Whether you’re called weird or different, all those things we do to make people uncomfortable with themselves, I’ve always tried to break out of those boundaries. The android represents the new other to me.”

Photos: Top albums | Top Box Sets

Here are my favorite albums of 2010:

1. Janelle Monae, “The ArchAndroid” (Bad Boy): The Atlanta singer’s boundary-busting debut album has ambition to burn. It’s a self-empowerment manifesto couched inside a futuristic “emotion-picture” about an android’s battle to overcome oppression – got all that? The music is equally adventurous, touching on everything from lounge jazz to hard funk. A star is born.

2. The Besnard Lakes, “The Besnard Lakes are the Roaring Night” (Jagjaguwar):  The Montreal band perfects its marriage of Brian Wilson-like melodic splendor and My Bloody Valentine-worthy guitar roar. While the lyrics are a bonfire of earthly espionage and anxiety, the music shoots for the heavens.

Courtesy of Atlantic Records, Andrew Zaeh

Janelle Monae’s boundary-busting debut album, “The ArchAndroid” (Bad Boy), has ambition to burn. It’s a self-empowerment manifesto couched inside a futuristic “emotion-picture” about an android’s battle to overcome oppression. The notion of space travel and “new worlds” becomes a metaphor for breaking the chains that enslave minorities of all types – a theme that has a long tradition in African-American music, from Sun Ra and Parliament-Funkadelic to Cannibal Ox and OutKast.

greg@gregkot.com

Sponsored Link: Amazon's Janelle Monae Store