Top Twenty Albums of 2009
- Grizzly Bear: Veckatimest
- Dirty Projectors: Bitte Orca
- Fuck Buttons: Tarot Sport
- Bear in Heaven: Beast Rest Forth Mouth
- Mastodon: Crack the Skye
- Yo La Tengo: Popular Songs
- Sunn O))): Monoliths & Dimensions
- Bat for Lashes: Two Suns
- St. Vincent: Actor
- The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
- Yeah Yeah Yeahs: It’s Blitz!
- Dinosaur Jr: Farm
- The xx: xx
- Raekwon: Only Built 4 Cuban Linx … Pt. II
- Sonic Youth: The Eternal
- Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion
- The Flaming Lips: Embryonic
- Kylesa: Static Tensions
- Slayer: World Painted Blood
- Memory Tapes: Seek Magic
Major calisthenics were demanded before I could arrive at a final order for these twenty gems, but I made it. What a terrific year!
Notes:
Grizzly Bear utterly dominated the competition. I feel strongly about every one of these, but I can’t remember another year—at least not recently—when my #1 towered so high above the rest of the list (maybe 2004?). Veckatimest has purchased real estate next to some of my all-time favorites. Way to go, guys.
It was an unusually strong year for metal, with three albums of undeniable heavitude (four if you count the majestic Monoliths & Dimensions; notice that I balk at the opportunity to put the band’s name in parentheses) moshing their way into the top twenty. Honorable mentions for 2009’s contributions from Isis, Shrinebuilder, Khanate, Skeletonwitch, Baroness, Converge, Coalesce, and, most delightfully, Megadeth’s pummeling Endgame, which is their best in perhaps twenty years.
Many of my favorite rock bands of the nineties, from an array of genres, made strong showings this year, with Yo La Tengo seeming to turn over a new leaf, Dinosaur continuing to roll as confidently as ever in its new (old) incarnation, and Sonic Youth releasing its punkiest album ever. And though I didn’t get quite as swept away by Embryonic as some other folks might have, its ambition and foggy darkness made it more than satisfying. A few other entries in this category deserve an HM: Polvo’s In Prism, Built to Spill’s There Is No Enemy, Wilco’s Wilco (The Album), and, yes, U2’s No Line on the Horizon. I’ll keep my mouth shut about the Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam albums. Oops. Guess I didn’t do a very good job of that.
Finally, as to new sounds: this glo-fi thing? I am over the moon for it. Washed Out didn’t quite make the albums list, and neither did Neon Indian, and Memory Tapes’s inclusion was a veritable squeaker, but all three artists impressed me enormously, and all three will be present on my forthcoming songs list. To the degree that this fledgling sound is in fact a coherent sound, and that these three artists from among certainly many more may be considered its most salient representatives, this sound is deeply moving to me and comes as close as any electronic music I’ve heard to delivering the emotional goods that I expect from the best pop. It’ll either take over indie electropop altogether in the next two years or be forgotten utterly. We’ll see. It might depend entirely on what M.I.A. decides to do next.
And as to the two songs lists I’m working on: they are totally driving me crazy. Wish me luck.
December 31st, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Yes, I’m responding something like 20 minutes after you post this. I’m stuck and home and bored. DON’T JUDGE ME. But again, we all appreciate how well thought out these lists are. I always benefit from them. I’ve usually heard about 14 out of 20 on your year-end lists, and, truth be told, I always hurry to check out the remaining six. The only album I’m surprised to not see is Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, which has lost a bit of its lustre to me (with a few shining exceptions). And I actually agree about glo-fi (or chillwave, or whatever), largely in spite of myself. I don’t want to like it precisely because it was such an “it” this year, but I think you’re right that it delivers. I’d also implore you to check out Memory Cassette (not to be confused with Memory Tapes!) as another solid contribution to the genre (and one that’s a little bit less blissed out and reverby). Also, have you heard TPOBPAH’s EP? “Higher Than the Stars” will go really high on my songs list, despite Kip Berman still being a a nasally, bourgie, Burberry-adorned imbecile.
January 2nd, 2010 at 1:09 pm
Hey again Luc,
I’m really glad to have a faithful reader, honestly, so the last thing I’d do is judge you.
And thanks for the praise; I really enjoy doing this.
WAP just doesn’t have any momentum. I deeply adore those first two tracks—they were the obvious choices for singles—and then, immediately as of track 3, it starts to wind down. It honestly feels like kind of a slog the rest of the way. But I’ll return to those two singles for years to come, and they’re both going to appear on my songs list.
Memory Cassette and Memory Tapes are actually the same artist. He’s also released stuff under the name “Weird Tapes.” It’s not clear how he distinguishes the three. Incidentally, there was a Memory Cassette song released this (last) year called “Asleep at a Party” that I really loved (perhaps more even than any individual song on Seek Magic), so it’s possible that “both” artists will show up on the songs list. We’ll see. Still much work to be done.
And no, I had forgotten that PoBPaH released an EP in ‘09 as well! Thanks for the reminder. I’ll check it out.