Best of 2009

Hey everyone,

A bit later with this list than usual, but I'm still here in time to satisfy all of your last-minute holiday shopping needs. It's really great to see how this list has caught on and grown over the years. I can't even remember when we started this thing, maybe 7 or 8 years ago or so. It's always been just a way for me to talk about music and to hear from other music nerds. And now it's really great to see the anticipation for this list and to have other people stressing in April already over where to rank an album. We started out on good old-timey e-mail and are now producing this note on Facebook and last.fm (that to come out later). Evolving with the times, man. We're no Craigslist here.

So, anyways, you know the drill. It's the top 10 albums of 2009. 10 is kind of a rule of thumb, because we (most of us, anyways) have 10 digits and it's a nice, round number. But the album does have to be from 2009. Cause otherwise it's not the best albums of 2009, yo. It's just "Albums I like". We're picky on dates here. But we're all about sharing music and hearing what you think. I've always gotten loads of music off of people's lists and it's been really great to hear what people have to say about music. We're not like Pitchfork here, so nobody will laugh if you list Lou Bega's new album as #4 on your list. So, if you like, feel free to write your own note in response to this list, add your list to a comment at the end of this, or e-mail me your list. Come 2010, I'll post another note collating everyone's recommendations.

So, with that. Let's go to the home office in Duquesne, Iowa....

10. Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - Up From Below

Another one that I heard in the car that took me forever to track down. This particular song, Home, really struck me for some reason. It really is super saccharine sweet, but there's something about it that I just find irresistible. And it's actually a bit of a departure for the rest of the album, which is kind of an Ennio Morricone-inspired brand of indie rock. The songs all sound like they'd fit right in in a modern remake of The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.

9. Portico Quartet - Isla

Young group of Londoners that's really one of the best jazz groups out there right now. I could listen to just about anything that they put out. A lot of it has to do with the way they feature an instrument called the hang as one of their melody instruments. It's a sort of steel drum that they have to get special from some dude in Switzerland. But it just has this really great sound that works really well in a tight jazz group like Portico Quartet.

8. Mayer Hawthorne - A Strange Arrangement

This is the one that could generate some scorn, much like picking Duffy in the top 5 last year. I know he's got a lot of strikes against him - white guy singing soul and all. And he did cause an existential crisis for me when I saw this song advertised in Starbucks. The horror! That being said, he is from Motown and he did grow up listening to soul, and this is a really, really good album. He doesn't really have the voice of most any soul singer, but that's kind of why it works. It's punk soul. There's not a weak track on the album.

7. White Lies - To Lose My Life

Kudos to Heather for turning me on to these guys. You don't see this kind of big guitar-driven riff heavy, lyrically overwrought music very often any more. It's totally awesome. They've got one song, no joke, that's kind of a love song by a guy who's a ghost singing it to the woman who's just killed him after he just realized that she's killed him with a pair of scissors. That's a theme that doesn't come up very often. While the obscure reference for the song, Farewell to the Fairground, is that it's written about Pripyat, the city that was abandoned after the Chernobyl disaster. And, in a happy coincidence, I discovered these guys shortly after visiting Pripyat. So, if you go into my photos, I'm sure you'll find a photo of the fairground that they're singing about.

6. Morrissey - Years of Refusal

So, here's the second of the two gloomy albums. Morrissey is pretty much perennially depressed. But the first time I heard this song on Jonathan Ross with the peppy melody and instrumentation and the "I'm throwing my arms around Paris" bit (I couldn't make out the rest of the lyric), I thought that good ol' Mozz might have actually turned the corner. Only after buying the album did I realize that he's throwing his arms around Paris, because only stone and steel accept his love. So, yeah, still some therapy ahead for him. This is definitely the strongest album musically for Mozz since he parted ways with Johnny Marr. It's a lot more guitar heavy, pure rock and roll type music than you normally hear from Morrissey. I've never been a fan of his solo stuff, but this album really does rock.

5. Neko Case - Middle Cyclone

I've always adored Neko's voice, but her last couple of albums just didn't do it for me. She's always been brilliant as part of the New Pornographers and she's a real peach, but the solo country stuff just wasn't doing it for me. Something's different on this album, though. It's cranked up just enough to go from palatable to fantastic. She's always had that great modern take on Patsy Cline with phrases like "This tornado loves you" and she does a fantastic, heart-breaking rendition of Harry Chapin's "Don't Forget Me". It's one of those covers that transcends the original. And if that's all not enough, it features hands down the best artwork of any album this year: Neko perched on a GTO with a sword in hand. Awesome.

4. Metric - Fantasies

Metric's Emily Haines is so the closest thing we have to Debbie Harry. She totally carries this album. She has such a feminine voice, but it doesn't sound feminine at all. She'd totally kick your ass if you pissed her off. I've loved Metric for years now and seen them a good few times, but this is the first time they've cracked the top 10 list. It's hands down their best album; outstanding from beginning to end. "Help I'm Alive" got all kinds of radio play, but songs like "Gimme Sympathy", "Sick Muse", and "Stadium Love" are even better. That's how good this album is.

3. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

In some years, Metric might have been the top album for me. In a lot of years, Grizzly Bear definitely would've been tops. It's a really unique album: rock without a lot of guitar, lots of using voice as an instrument, lots of harmony, unique melodies and instrumentation, mixing acoustic instruments with feedback. It's got it all. They've got a great range of voices in the group that they use to great effect. The baby-faced guy on bass (and everything else) has this great falsetto that mixes well with the lead singer's deep voice. It's one of those experimental albums that really, really works.

2. Sunset Rubdown - Dragonslayer

Sunset Rubdown has put out three albums and each time they've made my top 10 list. If you discover only one band from me, discover these guys. Not only do they not get the buzz that Canadian bands like Arcade Fire get, they don't even get the buzz of Canadian acts like Terrance and Phillip. I don't know what the deal is. I actually had to go to Canada to hear about them. How's that for sacrifice? But, I'm hooked now. Spencer Krug's always been able to work really complicated yet beautiful lyrics into these sweeping 7 minute songs that go through something like 3 tempo changes and a few other digressions, but they always work. That is, actually, probably why they'll never be radio friendly. No song of theirs ever clocks in under 5 minutes. But the video that I linked to is really great, because it strips away all the production and the wall of sound that they build and let you hear the brilliance of Krug's lyrics. My favorite line of the year hands down is "And I'd like to watch the white flesh of your heels as they take turns breaking the desert heat to beckon me in languages I've never learned." Brilliant.

1. Sin Fang Bous - Clangour

Iceland does it again. Sigur Ros took #2 last year and Seabear singer Sindri's solo project takes the top place here. I adore this album. I listened to this and only this over and over again on one trans-Atlantic flight. It's truly amazing that he did all the music on this album when you hear how many layers are in all of his songs. It's not just instrumentation, but there'll be alarm clocks, cranks, pots and pans, distortion, bells, rocks, pretty much anything that makes a sound. But he doesn't lose the melody. He hasn't added sounds just to be complex and showy; everything has a purpose. And his voice really reminds me of Sufjan Stevens. It's an album I can listen to again and again and it never gets old.