I’ll keep the intro short. This thing already reads like a novel. Here it is in bullet point form:
- I didn’t listen to enough music in 2009. Based on my colleagues list, I clearly have a lot of catching up to do.
- This is a pretty safe list for me, with only 3 bands that I hadn’t heard of before the year started.
- Canada’s back: 4 spots in the top 10.
- The battle for the #1 spot was the most heated it’s ever been. Ultimately, I think I made the right decision. No I don’t. Yes I do… I don’t know.
- Converting a long document from Google Docs to Tumblr with hyperlinks and pictures is a huge pain in the ass. I don’t recommend it.
- Don’t be a loser. Buy the music that you like so that artists can keep making it.
Without further delay, the year’s top 10:
10. Islands - Vapours
(Download)
Yay! Islands still have it. I didn’t spend enough time with this album, to be honest, but it’s nice to see that Islands are back with an album more respectable then 2008’s completely forgettable (except for it’s cover) “Arm’s Way”
This is some really good pop music all the way through. It’s no “Return to Sea” and certainly no Unicorns, but it’s good to see that lead singer Nick Diamond (who apparently goes by Nick Thorburg now) is still worth watching. I think if I would have made some more time for this album, it would have moved up higher on my list.
9. The Lonely Island - Incredibad
(Download)
Guilty pleasure or just a pleasure? This is a great CD. It’s funny, it’s spot-on, it’s well thought out. This is rap-comedy brilliance.
Except for the skits, pretty much every track is top notch. Best of all, it’s interesting enough to listen to multiple times, which I have to admit, I did a lot when this first leaked. This CD almost made me start watching Saturday Night live again.
I would argue that this CD is necessary listening to catch many conversational jokes (similar to South Park or Flight of the Concords are in some circles). I would say I reference the Natalie Portman Rap by itself at least one time a week.
8. Why? - Eskimo Snow
OK, it’s no Alopecia, but this is still a great album. Also, it’s very weird. Not for the lyrically faint of heart. The band has dropped their hip-hop here, but none of their quirky style and attention to weirdness.
It opens:
“I wear the customary clothes of my time, like Jesus did. With no reason not to die. Facing history. With little to no irony. Like I’m some forgotten city Sherman raids. Still hid under thick smoke after all these years.
These hands are my father’s hands but smaller, Soaked in paint thinner. Until they’re so dry coming together, they Make the sound of resisting each other.”
If this, paired with beautiful, sometimes orchestral pop music sounds appealing to, this is probably something you should listen to.
7. Handsome Furs - Face Control
Man, I really thought that Dan Boeckner was gonna show Spencer Krug what was up in the Wolf Parade side-project battle of 2009. When I first heard Face Control, I was simply blown away by it. It’s a machine of an album. Relentlessly pressing on with beat after beat and hook after hook. It’s other-worldly in some ways, though not in the same “other world” that Spencer Krug occupies.
There are no weak spots on this album, but there isn’t that much diversity to it either. It’s sameness is both a blessing and a curse, giving the album some consistency but also making it seem somewhat boring at times. It’s an improvement from their last album, Plague Park, however which was way too samey to listen to all at once.
The beats are so good hear that the thing carries itself as a really solid album. Don’t worry. It’s better then Wolf Parade’s last mess-up (That CD is still baffling to me), but ultimately Krug had to ruin Boeckner’s party again by giving him a Sunset Smackdown of sorts.
6. The Mountain Goats - The Life of the World to Come
So for the last three years, I’ve worked at a summer camp in Michigan called Camp Arcadia. I was in charge of 7-8th graders in the morning for leading them in some activities and conducting a Bible study. Because I like music so much, I incorporated a “song of the day” into my Bible study, and would hand out the lyrics, play the song for the kids, and then we’d talk about how it does or does not relate to our lives.
I can’t stand most Christian music though, so I had to be clever and pick out songs which I thought could have Christian themes in them out of my library. Naturally a lot of Sufjan Stevens was thrown in there, but I also used the song “Autoclave” by the Mountain Goats. The kids would always ask “Is this a christian band?” and by the end of the summer, I was able to say “No, but they are coming out with a CD of songs about the Bible.”
Anyway, Mr. John Darnielle (lead singer) can do no wrong in my mind, musically speaking. This is far from my favorite Mountain Goats album, but it is certainly spectacular. I finally got the chance to see the Goats live this year, and while I wasn’t that familiar with a lot of the songs at the time I saw them, the album still translated beautifully to the stage.
While “Heratic Pride” was a “loud” album by Mountain Goats standards, “The Life of the World to Come” is definitely not. It’s got a few “bangers” (as I believe Darnielle described them) on it, and they are fantastic, but the slow stuff is good as well. This man is one of the best songwriters currently making music, and I’d argue that everything he releases at this point is essential listening.
5. Discovery - LP
Vampire Weekend + RaRaRiot? Would could go wrong? Well, nothing really. On first listen, for some reason, I was not that impressed by this combination, however. It seemed kind of boring to me. A friend encouraged me to take another listen and I’m glad I did. In fact, I don’t know what I was missing the first time.
The whole thing is nearly perfect from start to end. This was my end-of-summer album. It’s so warm, so luscious, and goes so well with a glass of wine.
(at this point in writing the review, I put on the album and move it up from 7th to 5th place)
Hmm… I don’t know what else to say. This is the second most accessible album on this list. It’s the most fun. It’s sonically fantastic.
4. Dan Deacon - Bromst
Dan Deacon is one crazy dude. I started listening to him in preparation for a Girl Talk concert early in 2008, where deacon was opening. (See, Concerts of 2008 [Facebook Link]) Turns out, he was incredible. Like most people who started listening to Deacon around the time of “Spiderman of the Rings”, I became addicted to the song Wham City with an intensity similar to a cocaine addiction, and eventually realized that the whole album was that good. I went to the show and was absolutely baffled by the man’s presence and performance.
Fast-forward to 2009. Bromst comes out, and it’s better then “Spiderman of the Rings.” There is no Wham City, but every song is almost that good. It’s maddening how good some of the songs are. His control over the billions of instruments in his arsenal is incredible. Unlike “Spiderman,” Deacon composed this album to be able to be performed with actual musicians playing actual instruments. I’m incredibly upset I never got to see one of those shows, because it would have been incredible to see these things pulled off live.
I watched a documentary on the making of this album, and Deacon had written a part for a player piano, but it was too fast. The solution? Record it twice, and only play every other note, then put them together. How do you recreate that live? Who knows.
Anyway, Deacon has opened up a garden flourishing with interesting sounds, interesting melodies, and just wonderful music on this album. If you’ve never listened to Deacon before, however, you should be warned. It’s a bit noisy, but after a couple listens, I’d imagine most people could gain some appreciation for this work of art.
3. Japandroids - Post-Nothing
I listened to this CD 25+ times in a row while doing my Drawing final last spring. My final was six charcoal drawings of different parts of a foosball table. That’s not particularly important, but what is important is that as the weather got warmer, Post-Nothing represented the coming of summer, warm weather, and wonderful things.
And I never got sick of it. Though it doesn’t sound anything like them, Post-Nothing was my “Little Joy” of 2009. It’s short, simple, and sincere. There’s nothing over the top about it, just two guys from somewhere in Canada rocking out. It’s the passion with which the music is played sung that make it such a joy to listen to.
“We run the gauntlet, must get to france so we can french kiss some french girls”
“Well you can keep tomorrow,
After tonight we’re not gonna need it,
Be there!,
Be Down!
Background we’re too drunk to feel it
OOOOHHH
We used to dream
Now we worry about dying.
I don’t wanna worry about dying.
I just wanna worry about those sunshine girls.”
Who can argue with that?
2. Sunset Rubdown - Dragonslayer
Sunset Rubdown has never released an album that I have not considered the album of the year, and but for the staleness of the closer “Dragon’s Lair,” this would probably still be the case. this album IS better then their previous album, “Random Spirit Lover,” (my favorite album of the year in 2007 List [Facebook link]) and may even be as good as their full-length debut “Shut Up I’m Dreaming”, (my favorite album of the year in 2006 List [Facebook link]).
In short, I’m enamored with Spencer Krug, in whatever project he may happen to be a part of. This man is a genius. I don’t have any idea what he’s writing about most of the time, but I love the way he sings it, and I love the music he puts to it.
The first eight tracks of this CD are nearly perfect. This CD has shown the fruition of Sunset Rubdown transforming from Spencer Krug’s “project” to a full cohesive band experience. This transformation is highlighted by the increased vocal presence of Camilla Wynne Ingr. While Krug’s voice is certainly capable of standing alone, Ingr compliments him perfectly, never stepping on his toes, but always making him sound better.
In contrast to “Random Spirit Lover,” “Drangoslayer” is a much more concentrated effort of the part of Mr. Krug. There’s more song, less ambient wandering. When there are guitar solos, they are generally concise and impeccable in quality. Even underneath the verses, and choruses, the instrumentation on this album is perfect. Every member of the band is working at full-force the whole time, but no one gets to the point of being exhausting.
Krug’s lyrics are no less bizarre then usual, however. It’s still a circus of odd mythology as a metaphor for something or another. There are a couple songs dealing with birds. A couple more that are self-referential to Krug’s other work, and even a cover of a Swan Lake (one of Krug’s other bands) song, which was also released in 2009.
The stand-out track for me is “You Go On Ahead (Trumpet Trumpet II),” a brilliant revisiting of the original “Trumpet Trumpet, Toot Toot”, from “Random Spirit Lover”. This is his best song since “Us One’s In Between.”
The only blemish on this CD happens at the end, and unfortunately it’s over 10:00 minutes long. It’s not that this is a bad song (and after seeing it performed live, I can confirm that it is in fact a great song) but this recording of it just isn’t good enough for the CD. It’s not good enough to be this long. It’s not as good as the closer to Shut Up I’m Dreaming. It’s… boring. If something else, just a little bit better, had been where this song is, this would be the best album of 2009, giving Sunset Rubdown 3 #1 spots in the last four years.
I’ve written enough about this. If you get hooked on this CD, I emplore you to go dig deeper into Mr. Krug’s work (Wolf Parade, Swan Lake…). The rabbit hole goes pretty deep, and every album allows for a greater appreciation of the others.
1. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
I hate to be boring, but let’s be serious here: After “My Girls” and “Brothersport” leaked, everyone knew that this was going to be the album of the year. I believe it was Stereogum (can’t find article though), who stated that even if they phoned it in for the rest of the tracks, just based on the merit of the two leaked tracks alone they’d have album of the year.
I was fortunate enough to hear this album for the first time in a wonderful basement club in London on Dec. 3. (You can find my first impressions of the album here: OneThirtyBPM [link], second half of page) I was impressed, to say the least, with the quality of the album, and also had an opportunity to talk to a couple members of the band.
When I finally got my copy of the CD, I didn’t listen to anything else for a month. This album and the Sunset Rubdown one are the reason that I only listened to like 15 CDs from this year. They just took up massive chunks of my time because of their depth and quality.
There isn’t a week spot on this album. I don’t want to write that much about it, just believe the hype. This will be most people’s top album of 2009 for a reason. Other people will state why more eloquently then I will. I can’t wait to see where the band goes from here.
