December 31, 2009
My Top 10 Albums of 2009
All comments welcome. I’d love to hear what ya’ll have been listening to most this year.
The albums below most likely have the most plays in my iTunes, though I didn’t actually check. You just kinda know.
Like when you know every single lyric on the album, or something like that.
There were a LOT of good records released this year, so many not on this list. But I believe there are some brilliant ones below.
10. Pete Yorn – Back & Forth
9. Vib Gyor – We Are Not An Island
8. Downpilot – They Kind of Shine
7. Blitzen Trapper – Black River Killer [EP]
6. Jay Farrar & Benjamin Gibbons – One Fast Move or I’m Gone (Music from Kerouac’s Big Sur)
5. Built to Spill – There is No Enemy
4. Son Volt – American Central Dust
3. The Thermals – Now We Can See + EP
2. Wilco – Wilco (The Album)
1. Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band – Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band
Honorable Mention:
Kurt Vile – God is Saying This to You!
Add your favorite records of 2009 by commenting below!
Tell us what you think! Please leave a comment below. We LOVE comments!
Written by: William S.
Filed Under: Featured, Top 10 Lists
Tags: alternative top ten lists, best albums 2009, favorite records, music top 10 lists
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A.K.A.
January 2, 2010 at 12:26 am
I really like your picks for albums of the year, but let’s get real. Most of the readers have different tastes in music, albeit good or bad.
Most will like Lady Gaga’s “Hitmixes.” I do not enjoy this type of music but I can appreciate peoples’ desire to dance to a beat.
Also, although I do not condone others to watch “Twilight, The New Moon,” there are several songs on the sound track which warrant a listen.
Death Cab For Cutie’s, “Meet Me On The Equinox” is getting a lot of play on both the alternative and main-stream circuits. If I may add, the song is “kick-ass.”
Another is Thom Yorke’s “Hearing Damage.” Beautiful. Who would ever have known that these song artists would contribute to a main-stream movie?
I say — GO AHEAD!!! Let more people hear the “fantasticness” that is you! Other naysayers who believe that these musical artists have “sold out” are not realizing the audience that will now hear and discover new and wonderful music!
KG
January 2, 2010 at 11:51 am
Below is my top 10. But to be fair there are a lot of highly regarded albums where I have downloaded singles but not heard the entire thing (ie, The xx, Flaming Lips, Bat for Lashes, Fever Ray, Kurt Vile etc). I plan to download and listen to many of them at some point over the next few months.
Best Reissues:
Beatles Stereo Box Set
The Zombies – Odessey and Oracle
10. The Clientele – Bonfires on the Heath
9. Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
8. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz!
7. Jarvis Cocker – Further Complications
6. Wavves – Wavvves
5. Matt and Kim – Grand
4. Julian Casablancas – Phrazes for the Young
3. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
2. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
1. Girls – Album – I assume that in 1977 when Elvis Costello released “My Aim Is True” that he was seen as the modern day manifestation of Buddy Holly and that same could probably be said here in relation to Girls. There is a very late 50′s/early 60′s feel to the album despite also being very modern (lots of reverb). It takes a very special skill to incorporate influences like Holly, Costello, The Beach Boys, Ramones, The Replacements, Pulp, Wall of Sound era Phil Spector and Shoegaze bands and make them uniquely your own. Some other reasons I love this Album.
- It takes a lot of audacity (and confidence ) to name the first song on your debut album as “Lust For Life” and IMHO craft a song that tops the classic Iggy Pop tune that shares the same name. It also takes some chutzpah to name your band composed to two men, “Girls”.
- The Beach Boys influence that creeps into the album isn’t of the fashionable Wilson Brothers sung Pet Sounds type (as has been trendy in Indie Rock for the last 10 years – and rightfully so). A song like “Big Bad Mean Motherf*cker” is a direct descendant of the somewhat less hip Mike Love helmed early Beach Boys songs like Little Honda. Regardless, I love both era’s of the BB and Girls buries the sunniness in enough distortion to make it sound modern and cool.
-The centerpiece song of the album, Hellhole Ratrace is 6 and a half minutes of brilliance. Stylistically, it has few similarities to “Satisfied” by the Replacements but to me, lyrically and emotionally, the two songs are tied. Christopher Owens (Girls singer and songwriter) sings with a heart-on-the-puke-stained sleeve pathos that defines most of Paul Westerberg best work. Hellhole Ratrace ends in a wall of shoegaze reverb while repeating the chorus over and over like “Satisfied”.
- The videos for most of the singles can be found on youtube and are worth checking out especially the high def clip for Hellhole Ratrace filmed in Bernal Heights area of San Francisco (not too far away from where I used to live there).
- You get a better sense of the songwriting when you find out about Christopher Owen’s improbable background as a childhood member of the Children of God cult and subsequent upbringing through Texas and San Francisco.
Anyway, hope you enjoy the list.
A.K.A.
January 4, 2010 at 10:03 pm
Thank GOD I’ve found another “Matt and Kim” fan out there! I was beginning to feel as if everyone else had a hearing deficiency! I am obsessed with “Daylight” and also older songs such as “Yea Yeah!” We NEED to spread the word!
A.K.A.
William S.
January 5, 2010 at 10:15 pm
Greatly enjoyed your list. You convinced me to run right out (to my computer desk) and buy the Girls album, which is everything you said it was. Excellent rec – thanks!
I’ll be checking out the other bands I haven’t heard, though I do own Matt & Kim, Grizzly Bear & Phoenix — 3 of your top 5! Definitely excellent albums in their own right.
KG
January 3, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Just curious about two omissions from your list.
1. Arctic Monkeys – I think they’ve made past lists of yours and I’m curious to what you think of their new album.
2. Animal Collective – They’re somewhat polarizing but have made close to every major media top 10 list this year. Based on your selections, I presume you have their album and they are part of your music universe.
William S.
January 5, 2010 at 10:20 pm
Unfortunately, my musical universe has shrunk a bit, I think you’re way up on me in keeping up.
Anyway, I do like the Arctic Monkeys new album but I’ve kind of grown tired of their brand of brit rock. Maybe Coldplay ruined it for all of them for me.
As for Animal Collective, meh, they’re OK. Nothing special. I do wish Belle and Sebastian would record another album. The latest Morrissey was actually pretty good, too, and Rhett Miller of Old 97s.
To A.K.A. — don’t overrate Matt & Kim…or maybe I just need to listen to both albums more…
A.K.A.
January 6, 2010 at 12:25 am
Okay, I may have too much love for Matt & Kim, but doesn’t Morrissey still wear band-aids over his nipples? i mean, COME ON! Androgyne is soooo 80′s!!!!
A.K.A.
January 15, 2010 at 1:33 am
MATT & KIM! MATT & KIM!!! MATT & KIM!!!!