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. 

Courtesy of Nicolette Stanton

Erykah Badu could’ve passed for Cleopatra with earrings that curved from underneath her bronzed hair and accented her mocha skin – that is if Cleopatra wore a T-shirt and sweat pants rolled up at the knees.

The look encapsulated Badu in all her contradictions: exotic, earthy, regal, irreverent. She gingerly walked on stage Wednesday at the Chicago Theatre as if she were lost, and took her time settling in between a laptop and a synthetic percussion kit. Then she pretty much owned the place for the next two hours.

Badu’s fun to watch. While singing, her hands twirl beautiful shapes in the air, as if performing invisible calligraphy. She also uses those hands to conduct her band, occasionally embellishing the gestures with verbal instructions: “Bridge!” “Break it down!” “Give me something I can wiggle my back to.”

Spontaneity ruled. Over the jittery “I Want You,” with her backing singers creating a wordless rhythm bed, Badu called out for some crowd assistance: “Show me how to dance to this.” A couple in the audience obliged and were called up. “Follow me,” she said, and the dancers locked into a slower groove she tapped out on a percussion pad. “More bounce to the ounce,” Badu intoned, offering a running commentary on the impromptu dance contest raging on her stage.

Rating: 3 stars (out of 4)

“Out My Mind, Just in Time,” the 10-minute closing track of Erykah Badu’s fifth studio album, “New AmErykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh” (Motown), starts out slow, pensive and needy, and gradually unravels into the spaced-out hallucinations that made her previous album such a trip. At one point, the song slows down as if it were a vinyl record shuddering to a halt after the turntable plug was pulled in the middle of track.

That sort of sonic adventurousness (or weirdness, take your pick) defined Badu’s 2008 release, “New AmErykah, Part One: 4th World War.” A brilliant, angry, questioning album, it nailed American society’s anxiety as it redefined Badu’s music. It also likely made her record company overseers wonder whatever happened to the bohemian neo-soul princess they thought they signed in the ‘90s.

That singer can still purr, and hints of the languorous intimacy of her earliest music surface on “Return of the Ankh,” with its more inward-looking songs. If the previous album was social, political and analytical in scope, “Return of the Ankh” is all about intimacy, desire, heartsickness. Whereas “4th World War” was largely created on a laptop, “Return of the Ankh” has a live-in-the-studio feel, a subdued jam session. Badu coproduces, a mistress of vibe and feel rather than strictly formatted songcraft.

It opens with a question: “My love, what did I do to make you fall so far from me?” And it closes with an addict’s admission: “Recovering from a love I can’t get over.” The neediness is balanced by songs that suggest a more playful, mischievous, even devious perspective. “You better get away from here,” she warns a suitor in “Fall in Love (Your Funeral).” Turns out the contours of Badu’s heart are as wide, deep and shadowy as her ruminations on the state of the American consciousness. But the music is breezier, more relaxed, even as it wiggles beyond the contours of traditional pop. It’s the aural equivalent of a sun-kissed afternoon swaying in a hammock, the mind and the songs drifting away on their own quirky paths.
 
greg@gregkot.com

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