I’m putting together my film and music ‘best of’ lists for 2010. Kicking it off with the number 10 best album of this year: Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti’s Before Today.

L.A. popster Ariel Pink does a masterful job of evoking West Coast sixties vibrations, Zappaesque jazz/ funk grooves, psychedelic soul and 80’s new wave, bringing to mind everything from Shuggie Otis to The Strawberry Alarm Clock and Quicksilver Messenger Service to The Cure and Prince. Pink is an overachiever who hits his mark far more than he misses it. In Before Today, Pink has created a mini-epic that glides thru pop music history like Rollergirl on ecstasy. Beneath the glittering surface, there’s a density and complexity that constantly surprises and never bores. Pink is building castles in Brian Wilson’s sandbox.

In this track from Before Today, Ariel covers the Rockin’ Ramrods’ 1966 song ‘Bright Lit Blue Skies’.