Top 10 Albums of 2009:
1. ‘You Can Have What You Want’ by Papercuts – Picking this year’s Record of the Year was much more difficult than last year. Hot Chip’s ‘Made in the Dark’ was an obvious choice, partly because I hadn’t heard several of the great 2008 releases, but also because it was just such a complete record. I decided on Papercuts for a few reasons: 1. I remember sitting in the car after hearing ‘The Wolf’ on the radio and waiting through 5 or 6 subsequent (and awful) songs just to hear who that first song was. 2. Throughout the year I continually grabbed this record on my way out the door, and repeat car listenings goes a long way. 3. I’m not sure how well known this band is (evidenced by my seeing this record sitting in a used bin for $1.99 at the Princeton Record Exchange) and I wanted to pick something, at least somewhat, less than obvious…besides the fact that it’s just an amazing record.
2. ‘Phrazes For The Young’ by Julian Casablancas – Who saw this coming? I love Little Joy, Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti’s side project, and Albert Hammond Jr.’s stuff is decent, but I didn’t think Mr. Casablancas had anything left in the tank. It’s still new and exciting to me, I just got it last weekend, so maybe that’s why I’m so on board…but c’mon, timing really is everything. This is just a really incredible record, it’s 8 tracks (a little short for a full length, I agree) of weird pure pop, it has an 80’s-by-way-of-the-future feel and actually sounds optimistic, if not positive in the face of the rapture. However, WARNING: You have to be willing to accept this album for what it is, if you are too cool for school you won’t get it.
3. ‘Miike Snow’ by Miike Snow – As jarring as #3 may be to look at (all those ‘i’s!) this record really surprised me. I’d heard ‘Animal’ on the radio about a thousand times and decided to finally break down and buy the record…but only if I could find it used. I did, and I was totally into it. It’s kind of a sampler of everything good about electronic/dance music, it’s heartfelt and organic while still being icy and suave and everything else electronic music has to be.
4. ‘Axe To Fall’ by Converge – There’s not a whole lot I can say about this record. Anyone who knows Converge knew this was going to be yet another redefining of ‘heavy’ music. Converge is, for me at least, the benchmark by which all other ‘heavy’ acts are measured. They’ve been doing this forever and they actually get better and better every time. This record makes so many others obsolete.
5. ‘Rainwater Cassette Exchange’ by Deerhunter / ‘Logos’ by Atlas Sound – This is the Bradford Cox two-fer. This year the man at the helm of Deerhunter and the sole driving force of Atlas Sound released 2 great records, and in the interest of saving space they get to share #5. ‘RCE’ is an EP, but a fantastic 5 song EP is better than a bloated, boring LP any day. This record continues in the tradition of last year’s phenomenal ‘Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.’ and really cements them as one of the best and most promising groups around. Atlas Sound is similar in tune and texture but is certainly more trimmed down and personal. ‘Logos’ is the follow-up to last year’s ‘Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel’, and it’s a more cohesive and song-oriented effort. Two of the real bright spots are the songs ‘Walkabout’ which features Noah Lennox, Panda Bear from Animal Collective (the song sounds a lot like something on a Panda Bear solo record) and ‘Quick Canal’ which features Letitia Sadier of Stereolab (this song sounds more like someone covering Stereolab, than Stereolab themselves). There’s something very endearing about these two songs, the latter especially, who does a song with the singer from Stereolab in 2009? This is a solid record.
6. ‘Summer Of Hate’ by Crocodiles – Last year brought us The Muslims (now known as The Soft Pack), the other band formed out of the now defunct Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower, and now we have Crocodiles. Named for the Echo & The Bunnymen record, this is a two piece electronic duo (think Suicide from California) who make a kind of smoldering, damaged, punk noise rock that could apparently appeal to readers of Rolling Stone (it was featured as a ‘Buy This Now’ item). This record takes the beauty of being an outcast, the anger of endless frustration, plays it back and doesn’t care if you dig it or not.
7. ‘200 Million Thousand’ by Black Lips – Easily the best named album of the year ‘200 MT’ is yet another strong collection from Black Lips. ‘Elijah’, ‘The Drop I Hold’, and ‘Let It Grow’ continue the tradition of innovative garage the Lips have been making for years now. Though ‘I’ll Be With You’ is pretty much a carbon copy of the earlier ‘Dirty Hands’, the rest of the album holds up as a modern piece of garage in a sea of rehashed 60’s nostalgia.
8. ‘Break It Up’ by Jemina Pearl – I’m an unashamed and unapologetic lover of Jemina Pearl. I loved Be Your Own Pet and I don’t think they ever got (or will ever get) the credit they deserved for what they truly were. This is probably the only record I’ve ever gotten excited about through reading a blog, I followed the writing and recording process through Jemina’s blog and was ready to love every second of the record. Even though I don’t, it’s still a really good collection of songs. Members of Redd Kross and Sonic Youth had help in the production (as they did with BYOP) and you can feel their presence, but I’d like to see Jemina become a little more Debbie Harry and a little less Cherie Currie. Songs like ‘Heartbeats’ and ‘Selfish Heart’ are unassailably cool and completely pop and that’s where she’s at her best.
9. ‘In & Out Of Control’ by The Raveonettes – Last year’s ‘Lust Lust Lust’ missed my top ten (#11, so close!) but this record snuck on due to some of the strongest songs they’ve ever written. It’s hard to tell where The Raveonettes lie in the collective consciousness of the music buying public (or the music downloading public) but I kind of think they’re completely overlooked. I was at a show in Hoboken once and in walks Sharin Foo, all blonde and boots, and I don’t remember anyone even approaching her…even to buy her a drink. They had a song in a K-Mart commercial a few years back, and I heard their Christmas song at the mall yesterday, but this is really more of a review of the public at large for ignoring The Raveonettes rather than a quick blurb about yet another great record.
10. ‘Tentacles’ by Crystal Antlers – I reserved the #10 spot last year for a band and record that I thought was a bit underachieving, and so now it’s a tradition. ‘Tentacles’ has 4 amazing songs, and then a bunch of decent to sub-par tracks. Crystal Antlers are an organ-over-everything rock band that incorporate woodwinds and saxophones a feature a really talented singer, and this record has a few truly promising moments. Other times however it seems like they’re just going through the motions. I’d like to see them put out a record that doesn’t have 13 songs, that’s a little more focused and uses all the collaborative effort they’ve got. As a side note, in terms of band names ‘Crystal’ is the new ‘Wolf’. As another side note, I read a review of this record that said it was no good because Vanilla Fudge already did organ driven rock music. Vanilla Fudge, really? I think there’s enough room for them both.
Top 15 Songs of 2009:
1. ‘Two Weeks’ by Grizzly Bear – Along with the aforementioned ‘Animal’ by Miike Snow and ‘My Girls’ by Animal Collective, ‘Two Weeks’ has to be THE indie-rock radio song of the year. Though I found this year’s ‘Veckatimest’ somewhat underwhelming, I am a GB fan and this song is a classic. You can’t beat it for singing in the car.
2. ‘Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)’ by Beyonce – Please believe me, this choice is 100% un-ironic and not at all comedic fodder, it’s a phenomenon. This song is non-stop, it’s all energy and it’s accompanied by one of the best videos ever made.
3. ‘Enemy Destruct’ by Thee Oh Sees – The opening track from the quite enjoyable ‘Help’, this song is a monster. It’s also the first song they played when I saw them this fall, and Jeff Dwyer couldn’t have been nicer during our brief interaction.
4. ‘The Wolf' by Papercuts – This is a dreamy, reverb-y, echo-y, shoegaze-ish pop gem where Jason Quever sounds a bit like Bjork. See: Album of the Year.
5. ‘Elouise’ by Say Hi – I never thought I’d include a band that used to be called ‘Say Hi to Your Mom’ on a ‘best of’ list, but here they are. Their ’09 release ‘Oohs & Aahs’ is full of great subdued pop about girls, and this opening track will have you hooked.
6. ‘On The Road’ by Turbo Fruits – It’s become clear that while Turbo Fruits (ex-BYOP) aren’t exactly going to wow me, every record they do will have one really, REALLY good song.
7. ‘Conventional Friend’ by Cartel – Cartel’s first album ‘Chroma’ is one of my all time favorites, their following releases (2007’s ‘Cartel’ and this year’s ‘Cycles’) were decent, but it’s songs like ‘Conventional Friend’ that keep me interested. It may be punk-pop for the masses but it works.
8. ‘Disappearing Ink’ by Deerhunter – It appears there’s nothing they can’t do.
9. ‘I Hate People’ by Jemina Pearl – This song is interesting. It’s not the best on the album, and on the surface it’s just a typical girl-meets-guy through a shared hatred of everyone else story. However, if you dig a bit, it has a couple things that set it apart: 1. Iggy Pop is a guest vocalist on it giving it a classic punk feel and instant credibility and 2. it uses vague descriptions of the ‘boy’ that could be interpreted simply as ‘punk’ itself. So when you add these elements it becomes less of a song about a boy and a girl and more a song about someone discovering punk for the first time through their distaste for everything else. All this is completely valid provided you allow yourself to over analyze, which I do.
10. ‘Life Magazine’ by Cold Cave – Very cool song from a very cool record, helmed by the lead singer of Some Girls. The record, ‘Love Comes Close’, has a nice synth-goth-pop sound and this song is just one of 4 or 5 standouts. It also inexplicably showed up in a Radio Shack commercial.
11. ‘It’s Not Impossible’ by Jeffrey Lewis and the Junkyard – Jeffrey Lewis is possibly the most undervalued musician in America. He’s brilliant, writes really interesting songs with endless lyrics, and he’s also an amazing illustrator (the album this song appears on, ‘Em Are I’, has a great Madballs motif). The song is an easy-going little ditty that, to me, seems to be about girls…but I think everything is about girls, so it’s probably a bit deeper than that.
12. ‘Scarlet Fields’ by The Horrors – I didn’t really hear anyone talk about this record besides KEXP’s John Richards, but it was a really surprising and promising release. The Horrors began as a sort of flavor-of-the-month British garage-goth act. Their first release was good but not particularly memorable, but here you can tell they’ve really grown up and let in some other influences (My Bloody Valentine chief among them) and ‘Scarlet Fields’ is nearly perfect.
13. ‘Fall Drive’ by The Hunches – Until a moment ago this spot was occupied by a good song by Black Moth Super Rainbow from their severely boring ‘Eating Us’, but I just remembered this record. 2009 brought yet another awesome release by The Hunches, ‘Exit Dreams’ is just as raw and powerful as their previous stuff, but as with every new record, they’re better than they’ve ever been. I can’t think of a band more underrated than The Hunches, they’re poetic, delicate, and chaotic…one more reason I inexplicably love Oregon.
14. ‘Run’ by Obits – Obits is the new Rick Froberg (Drive Like Jehu, Hot Snakes) project and although this record didn’t really blow me away ‘Run’ is a really strong song in that tradition of straight forward rock.
15. ‘Faker’ by Miike Snow – I like when albums have a way of opening and closing with some purpose, when you can tell someone thought about how to present their music. This is the closing track and it does a great job of wrapping things up in a warm, electric piano-y way. There may be more interesting or influential songs here, but this is what really caught my ear.
Top 10 2009 Discoveries not of 2009:
1. Deerhunter – Easily, if I had heard it, ‘Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.’ would have been my #1 record of last year. It’s like Deerhunter when into my head, found all the songs I’d ever wanted to hear and made them. I could also easily write for another 20 pages about my love for this record, but I’ll spare you.
2. Destroyer – What the hell is Destroyer? Well, it’s on Merge, and I like the cover art for this ‘Trouble In Dreams’ record, but I think the dude is in The New Pornographers, and I’m not into them really…but it’s only 4 bucks, I’ll get it. Thank God. What have I been missing all this time? Amazing, amazing vocals theatrically sung over weird bendy guitar solos and piano. You know you love a band when you’re stuck in the hospital for a week with Pancreatitis due to your soon-to-be-removed inflamed gallbladder and all you can think about is how much you want to listen to Destroyer when you get home.
3. Xiu Xiu – If the first 6 months of 2009 belonged to Deerhunter, the second 6 belonged to Xiu Xiu. ‘Women As Lovers’ (also left off the ’08 list) was another used impulse buy that floored me. I’ve known of this band forever but never thought they were for me, having never heard them and being annoyed that I didn’t know how to pronounce their name (if you feel the same, it’s “shoo-shoo”, named from a Chinese film). No band has ever made me feel worse about being/more hopeful to be a human being. If Deerhunter made all the songs I ever wanted to hear, then Xiu Xiu made all the ones I didn’t know I wanted to hear.
4. Jens Lekman – A kind of Swedish Scott Walker with a hit of Stephen Merritt, I got really into him when I heard ‘Oh You’re So Silent Jens’ and continually heard ‘The Opposite of Halleluiah’ on the radio. I was happy to hear some of his songs in the film ‘Whip It’, especially like 4 seconds of 'A Sweet Summer's Night On Hammer Hill'. He’s incredible.
5. Yo La Tengo – Why, WHY did none of my friends ever tell me that Yo La Tengo are amazing? All I ever knew about them was that they had a million records, lived in Hoboken, and indie people loved them. I took a chance on a used copy of ‘And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out’ and, for the most part, I loved it. ‘You Can Have It All’ is a standout, and I am officially a fan.
6. ‘You, Appearing’ by M83 – Simply put, just a gorgeous song.
7. ‘Falling and Laughing’ by Orange Juice – It sounds like a joke that there was once a band called Orange Juice but I was completely unfamiliar with these seminal Scotts. Classic quirky pop, it’s always great to accidentally come across something that you can tell has influenced a ton of bands you already like.
8. ‘Health // Disco’ – A remix record of Health’s self titled ’07 release, and EVERY SONG is great. How many remix albums can you say that about?
9. A Hard Day’s Night – While I was recuperating from gallbladder surgery I stayed in bed for a week watching TV. Due to the impending release of ‘Beatles Rock Band’ it was non-stop Beatles and I decided to finally watch this movie. The early Beatles are my faves and this is like a time capsule of how to be cool. Dress excellent, sing catchy love songs and speak so that no one can understand a word you say.
10. ‘My Home is the Sea’ by Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy & Matt Sweeney – Anything with Bonnie “Prince’ Billy is worth a try. This is the opening track from the album ‘Superwolf’ and it’s completely cathartic. Four or so minutes in it hits you with this power pop wail, and it’s pretty epic. This was also the record I was listening to the night I went to see ‘Pirate Radio’, so it has memorable connections.
(Special Thanks to the Princeton Record Exchange, 80% of these came from the massive used section, and were quite reasonably priced. Plus, you get to hear stuff like this: “Oh, I think they must have a different section for ‘heavy metal’, because I don’t think AC/DC is ‘rock’.”)
Top 5 Rediscoveries of 2009:
1. ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’ by The Flamigos – This was the year I realized that this is the best love song ever written.
2. Emo – For some reason I got pretty heavily back into emo (and no, it was not because I broke up with my girlfriend.) Maybe it was nostalgia or whatever but the emo classics from high school found new life. Joan of Arc, CaP’n Jazz, Piebald, Death Cab for Cutie (also got into their newer stuff that I formerly gave up on), American Football, Braid, Jets to Brazil, early Bright Eyes, The Van Pelt…and I’m going to include Motion City Soundtrack and Alkaline trio, even though I didn’t listen to them in high school, hearing them now it feels like high school. Emo has, since some point in the 00’s, turned into some weird amalgam of goth, metal, mall-punk, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. It’s not even a thing now, at least, it’s not what it was. People ask me if I’m emo (a lot), and I don’t even know what to tell them (besides no). I want to sit there and tell them emo doesn’t exist anymore and I don’t know what these kids today call themselves. Then I want to give them a copy of ‘When Life Hands You Lemons’, but who has the time?
3. Neil Young – It took me 12 years to realize that the first song on ‘After the Gold Rush’ is one of the best. “I am lonely but you can free me, all in the way that you smile”, how did that not grab my ear in high school?
4. Weezer – I went through a big ‘Maladroit’ phase, as well as finally getting around to buying the deluxe edition of the blue album. There’s something very timeless about Weezer and I hope they start being awesome again soon.
5. Sonic Youth – At the start of 2009 I had 3 Sonic Youth records, most of which I got in high school (it all comes back to high school doesn’t it?), and I presently have 11. I went nuts at some point mid-year and got a new Sonic Youth record like every week. I also read ‘Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth’ over the summer. I think the whole thing was caused by the song ‘Shadow of a Doubt’ off the ‘Evol’ record. That song is unbelieveable.
Top 5 Pop Culture Music Moments:
1. (500) Days of Summer – In the scene where Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are riding the elevator and he’s listening to ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ by The Smiths on his headphones, Zooey recognizes it and sings it back to him. This is the most unrealistic thing ever put in a romantic comedy (I know this, I’ve seen them all). Even if you’re in Death Cab For Cutie, the odds of Zooey Deschanel singing The Smiths to you in an elevator are slim. However, his reaction to this ridiculous act is completely perfect. If I remember correctly, once she steps off the elevator he simply says, “Holy shit.”
2. Fantastic Mr. Fox – The return of the good Wes Anderson (sorry Darjeeling, I was not a fan) is promising for film and music alike. His films have always had flawless use of music and this one was no exception. My favorite was in the opening scene where Mr. and Mrs. Fox are seen in a side-scrolling shot avoiding obstacles on their way to steal some chickens. Anderson uses the Beach Boys here, which is brilliant because it gives the otherwise macabre act on screen a kind of good time feel which sets you up for the entire film. There’s another great moment when a singer voiced by Jarvis Cocker is playing around a campfire, but that scene is more memorable for what Bean says to him.
3. Infomania – This is a spec of comedic dust in the cable-sphere, but it’s one of my favorite shows. It’s on Current TV, the Al Gore network, and it has a music segment called ‘Sergio’s White Hot Top 5’ wherein host Sergio Chilli makes fun of awful pop music, example: “Coming in at #3 is ‘Good Girls Go Bad’ by Cobra Starship, nice band name idiot.”
4. The Big Bang Theory – Sheldon and Penny singing ‘Soft Kitty’ in the round provides a certain kind of heartwarming usually reserved only for long-lost relatives reuniting on TV, and receiving hand-made gifts from Down Syndrome kids. That’s how special it is.
5. Tim and Eric Awesome Show: Great Job! Season 4 – This is the best combination of music and comedy since Tenacious D. This season alone we heard: Pusswhip Banggang, Minivan Highway, David Liebe Hart’s email song, bloody nips, Tim and Eric’s sitcom theme song, Frank Stallone’s song to his daughter, and of course the song about the father and son who share a bed.
Best Band Name Heard in 2009:
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Wow, I have never had such an instant reaction to a band. People may find this name corny or dramatic or just stupid, but I got it right away and I love them for it. They actually made a really good record this year too, and aided in bring back the long off the radar (mine, at least) Slumberland Records label.
Runners Up: Sissy Wish, Au Revoir Simone
Worst Band Name Heard in 2009:
Fanfarlo – This is a weird one because I don’t really know why I don’t like this name, there’s just something about it. It just sounds sloppy, or like some kind of crappy desert…I don’t know what it is, I just know I don’t want any.
Runners Up: The Big Pink, Does It Offend You, Yeah?
Top 3 Mixtape Names of 2009:
1. Contorted Treaties
2. Vociferous Revelry
3. Fake Beard
Most Annoying Band of 2009:
Muse – These guys are at the forefront of something that’s been going on for a while now. These awful British bands that play truly banal rock music that are somehow super popular. Everywhere I look there’s bands like this and they’re just boring as hell. The worst part of all, of course, is that they all think they’re really cutting-edge and hip. Other bands that fall in this category: Kasabian, Arctic Monkeys, Kaiser Chiefs, The Kooks.
Most Annoying Things of 2009:
The Credits of Pirate Radio – Let me begin here by saying that I loved this movie. Apparently people had a problem with it because they used music that was not from the time period they were supposed to be in, and I couldn’t care less. It wasn’t a movie sampler about the music of 1966, it was a movie about the passion that a certain group of people had for a certain kind of music. Here’s my problem: during the credits, because it was a movie about pop music, they showed a montage of albums in pop music that have come about since. For some reason they thought it was a good idea to include ultra commercial, bad pop music albums in said montage. The problem here is that even though The Rolling Stones and The Beatles and The Kinks and all the British Invasion music was ultra commercial pop it was also genuine history in the making and completely culturally relevant. The only album I clearly remember seeing in the credits was one by Kanye West, and my friend said he saw Taylor Swift. It was hard to keep track due to the fact that it was impossible not to be going, “whaaaat, what is that…huh…no way, whaaa?” the whole time. These artists are not on par with ‘Astral Weeks’, sorry. The most glairing problem with this whole issue is the fact that the British government was forcing these songs off the air, so they had to be played on pirate radio. To this point I have heard of no radio station having to remove Taylor Swift and Kanye West from their playlists due to government regulations.
The Beard Backlash – What’s wrong with beards? More importantly, what’s wrong with bands that have beards? This year I listened to a lot of Fleet Foxes and Band of Horses and a bunch of other bands that prefer their faces warm, if not itchy. I read a blurb in GQ recently that said bearded bands don’t seem as rock starish as say…Jet, who suck. This writer had a problem because he wants his rockers to rock! And beards do not rock! Just look what happened to Kings of Leon, last time I looked they only had one bearded member left and they’ve never been more popular. The real backlash has come from the epicenter of bullshit cool, Brooklyn. If you have a beard and you like good music you are one of the three following things: a Brooklynite, a ‘hipster’, or Zach Galifianakis. I’m here to defend Brooklyn in this respect, Brooklyn isn’t cool. At least, it’s not cooler than anywhere else that has a collective scene and decent bands, and the only people that get down on it and call you a hipster are people that listen to Jet, who suck. So yes, I have a beard, no I’m not a hipster, yes I wouldn’t mind being Zach Galifianakis, and no I don’t live in Brooklyn…but I wouldn’t mind it, that’s where all the cool bands are.
Missing the Atlas Sound / Broadcast show that I had tickets for in Philly - Yeah, this was a huge disappointment. I missed Little Joy in Hoboken, and I was in the hospital for The Zeros show, but actually having tickets to see these two bands in a place as intimate as the First Unitarian Church was pretty crushing. It was the result of car trouble for both me and my show companion. Dude, I was bummed. Honorable mention to the Horrors / Crocodiles show that I purchased tickets to and then the Horrors canceled the show. Way to be.
Top 5 2009 Albums I Haven’t Heard, but are Probably Pretty Good:
1. ‘Alpinisms’ by School of Seven Bells
2. ‘Bitte Orca’ by Dirty Projectors (Actually, I purchased this on December 30th, after this piece was already written, and it’s amazing. I didn’t want to take anything out of the existing list, but I will say that ‘Stillness Is The Move’ could be the best song of the year.)
3. ‘Manners’ by Passion Pit
4. ‘Middle Cyclone’ by Neko Case
5. ‘The Crying Light’ by Antony and the Johnsons
"Petite Feet" is stuck in my head like 24/7.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a lady when he walks into the room.
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