Albums: 2009

THE YEAR IN MUSIC: 2009 (OUR VERSION)

December 23, 2009

The most wonderful time of the year. List time. I made my first "Best of" lists in 1998 and have every year since looked forward to this time of the year very much. Not only does the whole list process give me an excuse to listen back over all of the records I bought through the year, but it also gives me a chance to focus on music instead of, say, making cookies, cleaning the floors or writing Christmas cards or whatever it is "normal" people are doing this time of the year. Not that I ever needed an excuse to listen to music when I should be doing other far less important things.

FAVORITE ARTISTS OF 2009:

1. Josh Hall (Thunderhawk / Killer Robots From Space / Stun Guzzler / Black Label Summer) - I feel awful for anyone who doesn't know Josh and his work yet. Your life is worse than mine if you do not know his songs. Facts is facts.

2. Animal Collective (1 album, 1 EP) - I decided a few weeks ago that Animal Collective are likely my band of the decade. This because I'm pretty certain that I'll still be finding things to love about their catalog all through the next decade. Also, I'm certain that many, many artists of the next decade will be attempting to rip these guys off. And they could do worse.

3. Mount Eerie (2 albums)

4. Bradford Cox (1 Atlas Sound LP, 1 Deerhunter EP)

5. Yo La Tengo (2 LPs)

(Pictured above: Thunderhawk at their album(s) release show at The Brass Rail in Fort Wayne, IN. Photo by Drew Allegre.)

MOST DISAPOINTMENTING ALBUMS OF 2009:

1. Wilco’s Wilco (The Album)

2. Bob Dylan’s Together Through Life

3. Phosphorescent’s To Willie

4. Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s Beware

5. Rhett Miller’s Rhett Miller

6. MF Doom’s Born Like This

7. Sonic Youth’s The Eternal

8. Bruce Springsteen’s Working On a Dream

9. Todd Snider’s The Excitement Plan

10a. Clem Snide’s Hungry Bird

10b. Q-Tip’s Kamaal the Abstract

FAVORITE EP RELEASES OF 2009:

1. Deerhunter’s Rainwater Cassette Exchange

2. Animal Collective’s Fall Be Kind

3. Paul Westerberg’s PW & the Ghost Gloves Cat Wing Joy Boys

4. Washed Out’s Life of Leisure

5. Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s Higher than the Stars

FAVORITE REISSUES OF 2009:

1. Red Red Meat’s Bunny Gets Paid

2. Radiohead’s The Bends

3. The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

4. Radiohead’s Amnesia

5. The Stone Roses’ The Stone Roses

6. The Beatles’ Let It Be

7. Serge Gainsbourg’s Histoire de Melody Nelson

8. Nirvana’s Bleach

9. The Beastie Boy’s Paul’s Boutique

10. Company Flow’s Funcrusher Plus

FAVORITE SONGS OF 2009:

1. Black Label Summer’s “Teenage Riot FanClub”

2. Girls’ “Lust For Life”

3. Atlas Sound’s “Walkabout”

4. Camera Obscura’s “Forests & Sands”

5. Animal Collective’s “What Would I Want” Sky”

6. Mount Eerie’s “Wind Speaks”

7. Dirty Projector’s “Cannibal Resource”

8. Killer Robots From Space’s “Wild Child (Power Ballad)”

9. Built to Spill’s “Planting Seeds”

10. Dinosaur Jr’s “Over It”

FAVORITE ALBUM COVERS OF 2009:

1. Julian Casablancas’ Phrazes for the Young

2. Wilco’s Wilco (The Album)

3. Iron & Wine’s Around the Well

4. Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest

5a. Monsters of Folk’s Monsters of Folk

5b M. Ward’s Hold Time

LEAST FAVORITE ALBUM COVERS OF 2009:

1-4. Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion

5. Bruce Springsteen -  Working On a Dream

FAVORITE PERSONAL FINDS OF 2009:

1. Coconut Records

2. Red Red Meat

MOST LISTENED-TO ALBUMS OF 2009:

1a. Camera Obscura’s My Maudlin Career

1b. Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion

2. Thunderhawk’s Black Label Summer

3. Coconut Records’ Davy

4. Killer Robots From Space’s Powerlifting

5. The Flaming Lips’ Embryonic

6. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s S/T

7. Julian Casablancas’ Phrazes for the Young

8. Iron & Wine’s Around the Well (Disc Two)

9. Built to Spill’s There is No Enemy

10. Girls’ Album

MOST OVERLOOKED ALBUMS OF 2009 (non-Josh Hall list):

1. Mount Eerie’s Wind’s Poem

2. A.C. Newman’s Get Guilty

3. God Help the Girl’s God Help the Girl

4. Castles’ Castles EP

5. I Was a King’s I Was a King

THINGS THAT ANNOYED ME MOST IN 2009:

1. Downloading becoming okay, illegally speaking. I read something Greg Kot wrote about how nice it is now to e-mail music to friends and celebrate it with them faster than he used to be able to. Dick in your ear, big guy. Fuck you. I hope Jeff Tweedy shoves a pain pill bottle up your ass.

2. The word “hipster.” Seriously, shut the fuck up already. Poseurs.

3. Record stores closing. All of them. Of the six I’ve worked at, only one is still open. I love Apple hardware but despise the concept of most music dollars going through Apple hands.

4. No new Paul Westerberg album. Still. The guy supposedly has HUNDREDS of basement recordings just sitting around. His EP was great, that 49:00 shit last year was great. C’mon already, Paul! I need you!

5. Radiohead fucking with people. Getting old. You guys are humans, please at least attempt to treat others as humans, too. You are not punk rock when you tease and condescend, you are dog shit. So, yes, after all these years, I’ve finally joined the I’d Kill To Kick Thom’s Ass Club. Just so as long as that tall-as-fuck Ed guy isn’t around.

50 FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2009:

1. The Flaming Lips’ Embryonic - Remember back in 2007-08 when all the bloggers and their lovers started using the expression “art damaged” in every conversation? I ignored all that mess. And then I heard Embryonic and decided that, if “art damaged” is to become the 300th rock sub-genre of the naughts, then at least this record will hopefully be the first landmark release of that surely already dead buzz expression. Where most anything-goes records sound indulgent and often quickly dated, this one succeeds in it’s unrelenting strangeness. Where most aging bands look out-of-touch when they re-imagine/update their sound, The Flaming Lips, a 26-year-old band, sound so inventive and artistically capable over Embryonic’s epic tracklist that the rest of their very great catalog merely becomes a precursor to this, their most impressive work yet. It’s a long and challenging late career risk taker ride that surely won’t suite most, but, if you hang in there and get to know Embryonic’s 18 tracks, you’ll maybe find that you don’t have to rip off Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear or The Arcade Fire to sound relevant in 2009. You can rip off Miles Davis and 60s psych-pop while being noisy and trippy and old and, well, even kind of accessible. 

2. Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavillion / Fall Be Kind - Experimental hip-hop producers look forward to Animal Collective’s loop-oriented records more than brain dead people do the loopy Country Music Awards. Which is to say, more than this writer looked forward to the recent DVD reissue of Pierrot le fou. So, you know, a lot. This for two reasons: 1) the production on AC albums is something to marvel at; and 2) the AC, along with a few others (Dan Deacon and LCD Soundsystem, to name just two), are releasing the records that will shape the sound of future generations. Avey Tare and Panda Bear, the two frontmen of the AC, here composing the bulk of their work on samples and computers, hit a creative high with Meriweather, offering up, in this writer’s opinion, some of the strangest music to ever see so much fan attention. Take this one back to 2002, listen to it and try to imagine it being a hit record (all things considered, in 2009, it was). Impossible. But I’d guess that by 2012 Cameron Crowe will be using these songs in his movies and the hideous cover art will have become a symbol of high brow post-Eno fandom. A Remain In Light for the Now Generation.

3. Built to Spill’s There Is No Enemy - I recently wrote a nine page essay about how one can gauge another’s indie rock authenticity by how much they celebrated the new Built to Spill album. I, for one, am still celebrating it - this because it’s their best release since 1999’s Keep It Like a Secret, an album often considered to be the last classic of the original indie rock generation. And while others (Dinosaur Jr., Lou Barlow, Yo La Tengo, Polvo, Cymbals Eat Guitars (wink wink), Circulatory System, etc.) from that generation also released great records in 2009, it was Built to Spill who led the pack, releasing a nearly flawless guitar-loaded indie rock gem that just might be their best front-to-back offering  to date.

4. Mount Eerie’s Wind’s Poem - I’ve written five or six Phil Elverum-related record reviews over the years. I did not, however, review Wind’s Poem. It’s just too hard of a record to capture with words. I could tell you all about it here, but I’d rather you hear it. And you will, without doubt, dismiss it quickly. Elverum’s best records are hard to get your hands around … hang in there and you’ll be treated to something absolutely special and unique. Every time I have this record on, it’s my record of the year. Elverum’s best work since the original Mount Eerie album over five years ago. Hopefully he goes the fully-baked mode again soon, as all this Dawn/Lost Wisdom/Singers/etc. stuff is great, but albums like Wind’s Poem remind us that you are one of the musical geniuses of your time.

5. Killer Robots From Space’s Powerlifting - Josh “Thunderhawk” Hall self-released a number of albums under different monikers in 2009. The first half of my year was owned by the hungover twang of his Black Label Summer record, which sounds an awful lot like a meaner, drunker, cooler version of classic-era Old 97’s. The second half of the year, hands down, was dominated by the perfectly languid power-pop of what might be Hall’s best record yet released (Hall keeps a full closet), Powerlifting, credited to his Killer Robots From Space moniker. When putting together the below list of my favorite songs of the year I had trouble choosing just one from Powerlifting. Seven of the 13 songs on said album made my long list. Same thing for Summer - seven out of 14. Unlike my Top 2 records of 2009, Hall’s records keep it simple; here it’s all about the song, no tricks, just words, guitars and a humble rock swagger. And with his Standard Recording Co. debut (an album that on paper looks to be his best collection yet), Thunderhawk VI, coming in January, look for the Hall train to keep rolling. Beware the Stun Guzzler.

6. Camera Obscura’s My Maudlin Career - Since jumping in the sack with producer Jari Haapalainen Scottish rockers Camera Obscura have been on a major roll, now releasing back-to-back twee-pop classics. Shag haircuts. Funny glasses. Awkward art geeks making music that I can only think of one word to describe: perfect. Maudlin’s 11-song tracklist offers so much to love: best-ever vocals; clever, memorable writing; chamber pop arrangements that make The Smiths sound primitive; the year’s most bulletproof tracklist; endless repeat value. Melancholy retro-pop music that holds your hand and hogs the tissues - perfect. And, really, best vocals ever.

7. Thunderhawk’s Black Label Summer - Josh “Thunderhawk” Hall self-released a number of albums under different monikers in 2009. The first half of my year was owned by the hungover twang of his Black Label Summer record, which sounds an awful lot like a meaner, drunker, cooler version of classic-era Old 97’s. The second half of the year, hands down, was dominated by the perfectly languid power-pop of what might be Hall’s best record yet released (Hall keeps a full closet), Powerlifting, credited to his Killer Robots From Space moniker. When putting together the below list of my favorite songs of the year I had trouble choosing just one from Powerlifting. Seven of the 13 songs on said album made my long list. Same thing for Summer - seven out of 14. Unlike my Top 2 records of 2009, Hall’s records keep it simple; here it’s all about the song, no tricks, just words, guitars and a humble rock swagger. And with his Standard Recording Co. debut (an album that on paper looks to be his best collection yet), Thunderhawk VI, coming in January, look for the Hall train to keep rolling. Beware the Stun Guzzler.

8. Coconut Records’ Davy - Lean, simple, honest pop from the kid who, as a teen, played Max Fischer in Wes Anderson’s Rushmore. You’ll find a review for this album on this website. Easily one of my most-listened-to records of the year, and maybe even decade. It’s very inviting, to say the least.

9. Julian Casablancas’ Phrazes For the Young

10. Girls’ Album

11. Dirty Projectors’ Bitte Orca

12. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s S/T

13. Yo La Tengo’s Popular Songs

14. Dinosaur Jr’s Farm

15. Marmoset's Tea Tornado

16. A.C. Newman’s Get Guilty

17. Atlas Sound’s Logos

18. Monsters of Folk - Monsters of Folk

19. Bill Callahan - I Wish We Were an Eagle

20. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

21. Iron & Wine - Around the Well

22. Lotus Plaza - The Floodlight Collective

23. David Bazan - Curse Your Branches

24. AA Bondy - When the Devil’s Loose

25. God Help the Girl - God Help the Girl

26. M. Ward - Hold Time

27. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It’s Blitz

28. Magnolia Electric Co. - Josephine

29. The Avett Brothers - I and Love and You

30. Dan Deacon - Bromst

31. Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why There Are Mountains

32. Circulatory System - Signal Morning

33. Odd Nosdam - Time Soundtrack

34. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy - Beware

35. Castles - Castles

36. Jay Reatard - Watch Me Fall

37. Andrew Bird - Noble Beast

38. The Antlers - Hospice

39. Wilco - Wilco (the album)

40. Felice Brothers - Yonder is the Clock

41. Clem Snide - Hungry Bird

42. Castanets - Texas Rose, The Thaw & The Beasts

43. Woods - Songs of Shame

44. Karen O & The Kids - Where the Wild Things Are

45. Q-Tip - Kamaal the Abstract

46. Condo Fucks - Fuckbook

47. Black Lips - 200 Million Thousand

48. I Was a King - I Was a King

49. Molina and Johnson - Molina and Johnson

50. Justin Townes Earle - Midnight at the Movies

OTHER ALBUMS I ENJOYED IN 2009:

Deer Tick - Born On Flag Day

Sonic Youth - The Eternal

Polvo - In Prism

The Big Pink - A Brief History of Love

Times New Viking - Born Again Revisited

Volcano Choir - Unmap

Sole - Battlefields EP

BLK JKS - After Robots

Metavari - Be One of Us and Hear No Noise

Modest Mouse - No One’s First, And You’re Next

Fiery Furnaces - I’m Going Away

Nurses - Apple’s Acre

Wavves - Wavvves

Todd Snider - The Excitement Plan

St. Vincent - Actor

Bike for Three - More Heart than Brains

Akron/Family - Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free

Rhett Miller - Rhett Miller

P.J. Harvey & John Parish - A Woman A Man Walked By

Doom - Born Like This

Manchester Orchestra - Mean Everything to Nothing

Bob Dylan - Together Through Life

The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love

Mirah - (a)spera

Ben Kweller - Changing Horses

Bruce Springsteen -  Working On a Dream

Elvis Perkins - In Dearland

Vetiver - Beware

Dan Auerbach - Keep It Hid

Phosphorescent - To Willie

Black Joe Lewis - Tell ‘Em What Your Name Is

Mountains - Choral

Thom Yorke - The Eraser RMXS

Bon Iver - Blood Bank

Written by G. William Locke