AllMusic's Favorite World Albums of 2010

The AllMusic editors are recapping the year in recordings with well over a dozen posts in which they present their favorites within specific genres and styles. Right now, on the AllMusic Blog, they provide a list of their favorite world releases of 2010. World music was easily one of the hardest lists to whittle down, considering the embarrassment of musical riches evident throughout the year (see our upcoming separate post on the excellent world compilations and reissues that appeared during 2010). With great new work from veterans to spare (ranging from African jazz maestro Mulatu Astatke to Brazilian stalwart Gilberto Gil), along with promising youngsters like Saravah Soul (a Brazilio-British collective) and the Good Ones (a trio of Rwandans who all survived that country's genocide), world music in 2010 enjoyed one of its best years in, well, years.

King Sunny Adé - Bábá Mo Túndé
Mulatu Astatke - Steps Ahead
The Chieftains/Ry Cooder - San Patricio
Paolo Conte - Nelson
Paban Das Baul - Music of the Honey Gatherers
Gamelan Madu Sari - Hive
Gilberto Gil - BandaDois
The Good Ones - Kigali Y' Izahabu
Huun Huur Tu - Ancestors Call
Seu Jorge and Almaz - Seu Jorge and Almaz
Salif Keita - La Différence
Konono No. 1 - Assume Crash Position
Dino Saluzzi - El Encuentro
Madlib - Medicine Show No. 2: Flight to Brazil
David Bixler & Arturo O'Farrill - The Auction Project
Saravah Soul - Cultura Impura
Khing Zin Shwe/Shwe Shwe Khaing - Voice Over the Bridge
Tomoko Sugawara - Along the Silk Road
Tango-Orkestri Unto - Finnish Tango, Vol. 2
Téada - Ceol & Cuimhne (Music & Memory)
Yann Tiersen - Dust Lane
Tinyela - African Drums & Voices
The Unthanks - Here's the Tender Coming
Marcos Valle - Estática
The Whitefield Brothers - Earthology
Tom Zé - Estudando a Bossa Nordeste Plaza
Original Broadway Cast - Fela!