2009 Albums of the Year
Ok, here it is, because you demanded it: The list of the top albms of 2009. I was hoping we could do this in a dialogue like last year, or maybe a KulturCast, but that doesn’t seem like it’s happening. So, without further ado, and in no particular order (I’ll let you argue over that), I give you the best albums of 2009:
Pearl Jam, Backspacer
U2, No Line on the Horizon
Jay-Z, The Blueprint 3
Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
The XX, XX
The xx "Basic Space" from Jean Hürxkens on Vimeo.http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6550399&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1
Metric, Fantasies
Band of Skulls, Baby Darling Dollface Honey
Kasabian, West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum
Civil Twilight, Civil Twilight
Alberta Cross, Broken Side of Time
White Rabbits, It’s Frightening
Thoughts? Â Arguments? Â Offers to have me killed? Â Go for it. But remember, if you don’t bother to listen to my picks, shut it.
Posted on January 7, 2010, in Music. Bookmark the permalink. 41 Comments.
Steve Evans
RJH
Scott B.
John C.
Susan M
Aaron Brown
ninemoons
John Harrison
kulturblogadmin
Kyle M
Brad
KulturBlogGuest
MCQ
Wm
Rebecca
Ivan
Geoff J
btdgreg
Clark Goble
Aaron R.
Tim J
Ben
Marcus
Brad Williams
gibsonbn
Seems like a pretty good list. Is it okay to admit that I haven’t heard any of this music? The XX and Phoenix seem to have a lot of buzz right now. I like Metric, but haven’t heard the new album.
Oh my gosh, the U2 album was SO BAD.
Says you gabby. I think it was easily one of the best of the year.
Greg, you have to have heard some of this because I have posted some of it before.
Wow those Pearl Jam songs are really good. The Metric songs are pretty good, but nothing I’ve heard by them touches their first album. Hate to be that snobby “I only like their first album” type of person but it is so much better than their later stuff.
Phoenix isn’t grabbing me. Haven’t listened to the rest yet.
My list would include all the albums from my “Song of the Year” post.
MCQ, You’re assuming too much. I may have heard of it, but I haven’t necessarily heard it.
Oh, plus the latest Mars Volta.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=essPUOnV6Dg&hl=en_US&fs=1&%5D
Greg, that’s very depressing.
BTW, Animal Collective and Neko Case got a ton of critical acclaim this year. They aren’t on this list because they’re just not my cup of tea.
Susan, is this the first time you’ve heard the Pearl Jam album?
Sorry, MCQ. You also need to consider that YouTube (and most other streaming audio/video) is blocked for me from my worked computer.
Yeah first time I’ve heard these Pearl Jam songs. I’ll have to check out the whole album.
Not in order of preference, but these are the 2009 albums that have stuck with me:
Reigning Sound – Love and Curses
Neko Case – Middle Cyclone
King Khan & the Shrines – What Is?!
Flaming Lips – Embryonic
V/A – Dog: A Best Show on WFMU Tribute to Ram
Wooden Shjips – Dos
Jay Reatard – Watch Me Fall
My list: Phoenix, Metric, Neko Case, Grizzly Bear, XX, Wilco and Regina Spektor.
I don’t think the U2 album belongs on the list at all, but Rolling Stone agrees with you MCQ (although no other critic does).
Sorry to hear that, Greg. I will hold off on rending my garment over your perceived indifference to my musical postings.
Susan, I hope you like Backspacer. It’s not my favorite PJ album ever, but I like it enough to put it in my top ten of the year. It’s also available on Rock Band!
Brian, I haven’t heard any of those except Neko, but I’ll check them out.
SG, wrong again, man. In addition to being #1 on the RS list, it was picked #4 by Jon Pareles of the (wait for it) New York Times and #9 by Q magazine.
Incidentally, the Q magazine list is pretty on target, IMO. The Pareles list contains Green Day at #3, which I considered very strongly for my list.
Backspacer was PJ’s best album since No Code. Come to think of it, it’s PJ’s only good album since No Code.
I would love to put Horizon in the top 10, but it just wasn’t that good of an album.
Not much in the way of female vocalists here. I had high hopes for Alberta Cross, but while I liked the sound, alas, the discrimination stands.
I wish I could provide one myself.
Florence and the Machine? Yeah Yeah Yeahs? Not my favorites of the year, but not bad.
Worst album I sat through, on advice of a “friend/Bad Pig”: iwrestledabearonce
At least we agree on Backspacer, Tim. Do you know any of the other albums on the list? What other albums made your list?
FHL, are you saying that Alberta Cross is discriminating against females, or that I am?
I hadn’t thought of the list in terms of female vs. male but now that you mention it, Metric is fronted by a female vocalist, as is The XX, and Band of Skulls has a female vocalist/bassist. In addition, Jay-Z collaborates with a female vocalist on each of the two songs I chose from his album. That adds up to quite a bit of female talent on my list. No discrimination here.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs just missed being on my list. Solid band, solid album.
I think it was probably a pretty good year for female vocalists overall. Neko Case, Regina Spektor, Karen O (the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Allison Mosshart (Kills/Dead Wheather), Lily Allen, and Kid Sister got a lot of love from the music press this year, among others.
MCQ, I’m pretty out of it music-wise. It takes a lot for me to warm up to new bands/styles so I often get in a rut of listening to the same bands over and over again. So I don’t know if I’d be a good judge.
Other than the ones mentioned here, I’d say the Grand Archives put out a nice little album but I’m not sure it scores very high as it wasn’t even close to their first album.
Was Neva Dinova’s last album in 2009 or 2008? See? I can’t even keep these things straight.
Not a 2009 album, but Vampire Weekend’s latest is pretty good.
I’m looking forward to Permalight from Rogue Wave (March) and Night Rainbows from Band of Horses (TBD).
Also the Shins, Midlake, Interpol, Fleet Foxes, and Arcade Fire have new albums coming out so I suppose 2010 should be a banner year music-wise.
I haven’t heard Grand Archive’s latest, Keep In Mind Frankenstein, but I’ll give it a listen.
Neva’s latest, You May Already Be Dreaming came out in 2008.
Those all sound like good reasons to look forward to 2010. We should do a music preview post soon.
Tim, quite right — Grand Archives’ new one was pretty great.
Susan, I’m listening to Mars Volta right now. I can dig it.
Here are mine, more or less in order:
Japandroids, Post Nothing
Just can’t say enough about these guys. Saw them live a month or so ago and they just had such swagger and presence and a big sound for two guys. I’m a sucker for fuzzy guitars, lo-fi production, group vocals and anthemic sing-along tunes. The epitome of a coming of age album.
Baroness, Blue Record
Mastodon was going to be my heavy album of the year, but then a few weeks ago I picked up this one. Tough to explain why it’s so good.
Neon Indian, Psychic Chasms
Passion Pit, Manners
These two are great happy, sunshiny feeling albums (at least that’s how I feel when I listen to them). If you like electro-pop these should treat you right.
Mastodon, Crack the Skye
“Oblivion” was my favorite song for months. The concept of the album is great, only something true stoners could come up with. A kid confined to a wheelchair uses astral projection to escape the confines of his life, but gets too close to the sun and burns his golden umbilical cord that holds him to something, and then he gets sucked into a wormhole, and then ends up inside Rasputin’s body via a divination, or something like that. Like Susan, I like the way Mastodon’s vocals have changed over the past two albums. The Cookie Monster growl is way over used in metal these days.
St. Vincent, Actor
Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
My wife is really into Phoenix and it rubbed off on me. Great pop songs, so buttery smooth and French.
Top 5:
Grizzly Bear, Neko Case, Phoenix, Wilco, then Iron and Wine or Lucinda Williams.
Here are some links to the things on my list in case anyone’s interested:
Reigning Sound: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J1NXkIxNqg
Neko Case: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDDjahz74-A
King Khan & the Shrines: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-_dI1opYmU
Flaming Lips: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9ew_K9JKlc
Wooden Shjips: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J51nLudoM6A
Jay Reatard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG65eqfg6bc
My top ten of 2009:
1.) Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
2.) Phoenix – Wolfgage Amadeus Phoenix
3.) Neko Case – Middle Cyclone
4.) Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band – Outer South
5.) Yo La Tengo – Popular Songs
6.) Editors – In this Light and on this Morning
7.) Monsters of Folk – Monsters of Folk
8.) Eels – Hombre Lobo
9.) Silversun Pickups – Swoon
10.) The Swell Season – Strict Joy
Others I own, but find lacking in one way or another:
U2 – No Line on the Horizon
Depeche Mode – Sounds of the Universe
Ben Lee – The Rebirth of Venus
Echo and the Bunnymen – The Fountain
La Roux – La Roux
The Dead Weather – Horehound
Tinted Windows – Tinted Windows
Bad Lieutenant – Never Cry Another Tear (Bernard Sumner’s new band)
Avett Brothers – I and Love and You
Haven’t had a chance to hear the 2009 albums by Air, Wilco, the Stills, Built to Spill, David Gray, Elvis Costello, Regina Spektor, Weezer, Dinosaur Jr., The Pet Shop Boys.
Just started listening to the 2009 albums by The Doves and Metric, but not long enough to form an opinion.
Pearl Jam/Eddie Vedder is like Neil Young for me. Love their folkie songs, but hate their rockin’ songs. If it sounds like Into the Wild, I’m in. If it sounds like Crazy Horse… blah.
I need to check out that Editors album. I really like several of the songs off The Back Room.
That’s a good list, Matt. I really like Editors, and Yo La Tengo. I have seen them both live and love their previous stuff, I just wasn’t as impressed with their 2009 albums.
I’d love to see Yo La Tengo live. Longtime fan. Dig almost everything they do.
Sort of on-topic, here is Pitchfork’s review of the new Vampire Weekend album, Contra. (Mine was pre-oredered from Amazon and should be arriving soon.)
What I love/hate about this review is that after reading the first two paragraphs, you could easily come to the conclusion that the first Vampire Weekend album was nearly universally despised. Instead, that was really only true of the sorts of hipsters that Pitchfork writers hang out with, who liked Vampire Weekend until it turned out that lots of people liked Vampire Weekend, and then had to adjust their attitudes accordingly. The remainder of the review, then, is motivated by an attempt to basically justify the new album to the writer’s friends.
Classic.
Haven’t commented here in a very long while, but I do check in every now and then. Gotta stay relevant, ya know. Anyways, thought ppl might like to know that an early candidate for 2010(?) – new Spoon album is streaming on NPR for those who can’t wait:
Also, the best thing I heard last year – hadn’t heard of him before seing this on Elvis Costello’s TV program on Sundance channel. So beautiful:
maybe wrong thread for this though? I dunno.
My links came out all wrong, hopefully you get the idea. I’m technologically impaired.
BTD Greg, for the record I couldn’t stand VW’s first album and imagine that I won’t like the next one either.
I just wanted to pop back in and say that I loved the Metric album, thanks for sharing that one! =) I will have to go back and check out the rest.
I can’t decide who they remind me of (Frente!, maybe?), but I love the sound.
Dallin, I loved that Elvis Costello show, thanks for linking it. I am definitely a fan of that show on Sundance Channel.
FHL, glad you liked it!
Just discovered another album to add to the list.
Katatonia – Night is the New Day