My Favorite Albums of 2009: 25-11

I’m not completely happy with this list.  I’ve been agonizing over it for about a month now, and no matter how I work it, it doesn’t seem to come out right.  I listened to about 250 albums this year, a paltry percentage of the number of total releases.  Even out of those, I only listened to maybe 40 of them multiple times.  I believe in order to really understand an album, you have to listen to it upwards of 30 times, and you can only have so many albums like that in your life at one time.  Making a list of albums, then, seems to be so pointless and somehow dishonest.  All but eight of these artists already had songs on my Favorites Songs list.  Moreover, the whole list seems sort of mainstream/Pitchforky to me.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it doesn’t fulfill the purpose of this list: to help readers discover new things they may have missed over the year.  Maybe this is actually an indication that the good music really makes it through, and we can have faith in the indie rock portion of the music industry.  Maybe it just means I have boring taste.

I tried to strictly stick to my favorite albums, but that didn’t quite work.  I listen to that Bishop Allen album all the time, but really feel that it doesn’t deserve to be on a year-end list.  I rarely listen to Circulatory System, but I find that album continually exciting when I do listen to it.  The album I picked as number one probably isn’t my favorite favorite album of the year, strictly speaking, but I wanted it to be number one for many different reasons.  So, in the end, I’m not really sure what this list is.  A list of albums that I really enjoyed, in a vague order, that I also feel are somewhat important to this year.  I hope someone finds something new from this list.  All of these albums are very good, if not great.  Yes, there were better albums that came out this year, but this is the list I made.

I’ve included my favorite song from each album, unless it was on my Favorite Songs list, in which case I’ve included a different favorite.

25) Signal Morning – Circulatory System Before I heard this album, I knew nothing about Circulatory System.  I didn’t know that they’ve been around for ten years now, and I didn’t know that Jeff Mangum (of Neutral Milk Hotel) is occasionally involved in the project.  All I knew was that I was astounded by how different and how good so many tracks on this album were.  A few tracks are nearly regular rock songs (“Round Again”), a few are noisy experiments (“Blasting Through”), and few are psychedelic masterpieces (“overjoyed”).  Nearly every song on here is a strange gem in one way or another.  It’s an invigorating listen, and a good introduction some more out-there music if you’re usually tentative about these sorts of things.

MP3: “this morning (we remembered everything)” – Circulatory System

24) Monster Head Room – Ganglians This album is almost dull at times.  There’s only so much 60s-garage warbly vocals layered over alternately strummy and twangy guitars that can stay interesting.  But I find Ganglians’ musical project as a whole to be very, very good.  It’s not so much the individual songs on Monster Head Room, but rather the idea of the album, that I find intriguing.  I like that the songs “Candy Girl” and “Modern African Queen” make sense together on the same album.  All of the tracks are vaguely unpolished, but with such nice background “oohs and aahs” and extra psych guitar parts scattered throughout, that they’re just as well-thought out as they ought to be.  Just like the album as a whole.

MP3: “Cryin’ Smoke” – Ganglians

23) Embryonic – The Flaming Lips Embryonic is terrifying.  The album cover is unsettling.  The first words you hear are “She submits as she dominates.”  There are 18 tracks and the album is over an hour long.  The sounds throughout are as thick and alien as everything that’s always come from the cracked head of Wayne Coyne, but are now all dark and frightening, instead of fun and pleasantly existential.  I’ve never liked such an upsetting album so much before.  Once again, Mr. Coyne and his merry band of musicians have created something that sounds like nothing else, and absolutely stands out because of its own insanity.

MP3:“The Ego’s Last Stand” – The Flaming Lips

22) The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart I did not intend or want to include this album on my list.  I think this album is overrated.  However, back in February, there was one night when I was really sick with a fever.  I almost never listen to music when I fall asleep, but I felt so strange that night that I decided to put this album on.  As I was drifting off, I came to this feverish realization where I really “got” this album.  That sounds really stupid, but it’s had a secret soft spot for me ever since then.  The songs are very well-constructed and compact.  It’s all just a tad too glossy, but I can’t deny that at least a third of the songs on TPOBPAH are going to be classics.

MP3: “This Love Is Fucking Right” – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

21) Gather, Form & Fly – Megafaun This album likes to trick you.  At first glance, it seems like another good, sleepy folk album.  But then they started dropping songs like “The Process” and “Darkest Hour.”  There are few albums that have such a wonderful, subtle sense of humor right alongside the folksiest of songs.  Plus, all of this is accomplished in an incredibly listenable way.  I feel about Gather, Form & Fly much the same way I do about Signal Morning.  If this type of folk-noise album usually scares you off, this is a great entry point into the genre.

MP3: “Darkest Hour” – Megafaun

20) Rejoicer – Grooms Grooms used to be called Muggabears.  When they were Muggabears, they played a particular brand of noisy rock.  I always thought that the band was good, but felt that if you chose to play that kind of noise music it couldn’t just be good.  It had to be really, really good.  Then, Muggabears (wisely) changed their name to Grooms and put out this incredible album that got weirdly little notice from the bigger blogs.  The twisting melodies and bass lines on this record are endlessly fascinating.  They remind me so much of a young, updated Sonic Youth, and their live show is just as killer as a young Thurston and Kim must have been.  Travis Johnson’s voice is both gloriously strong and mercurial- even paced and then breaking into a falsetto fitting of the screechy guitar parts.  One of the most impressive up-and-coming acts of the year.

MP3: “Dreamsucker” – Grooms

19) Watch Me Fall – Jay Reatard This slot was either going to go to Harlem’s Free Drugs or Jay Reatard.  Ultimately, I had to give it to Reatard.  Forgetting entirely about the persona that Jay Reatard has cultivated, especially this year, this is a wonderful, fun album.  I don’t understand why the suburban kids of American aren’t listening to this instead of all that pop-punk nonsense on the radio.  Reatard truly is one of punk’s finest songwriters.  He understands the original 70s ethos of playing delightfully optimistic songs about terrible things, and he brings enough originality to the table that it’s all still applicable to a post-modern, more current angst.  Coming back to his ethos, it’s also fascinating to hear this tough figure unraveling throughout the album.   Listen to “Can’t Do It Anymore.”  What a great pop song about trying to hold it together.

“Can’t Do It Anymore” – Jay Reatard

18) Con Law – Generationals If Generationals have one problem, it’s that they haven’t quite figured out how to make a song build yet.  But, they have perfectly, utterly, mastered the art of the hook.  The number of songs with perfect hooks on this album is astounding.  “Nobody Could Change Your Mind,” “Angry Charlie,” “Faces in the Dark,” “When They Fight, They Fight,” and “Bobby Beale” all have great hooks that get in your head.  Chances are, if you are a living person who likes rock music, you will adore this album.

MP3: “Nobody Could Change Your Mind” – Generationals

17) Why There Are Mountains – Cymbals Eat Guitars This album deserves recognition based on “And the Hazy Sea” alone, but the rest of the album is also very solid dude rock.  I think Pitchfork actually said this in their original review of the album, but Why There Are Mountains is great suburban driving music, and I only wish that I’d had this album in high school.

MP3: “Some Trees (Merritt Moon)” – Cymbals Eat Guitars

16) Born Again Revisited – Times New Viking The noise!  The glorious noise!  It’s no secret that Times New Viking is one of the best noisy bands out there.  This latest effort is just more confirmation that this is a very important band.  First of all, I love that these guys are from Ohio.  It’s nice they’re not from Brooklyn for some reason.  As for the actual album, it just sounds so pleasing to my ears.  Maybe scuzzy pop songs are the theme to my list this year, but I love finding the buried gems of melody in these songs.  It takes just enough work that it’s an incredibly satisfying but fun listen.

“No Time, No Hope” – Times New Viking

15) Album – Girls I was very, very resistant to this album at first.  I knew it was fun and I knew that every single person I knew liked it.  To me, this signaled that maybe the album was a little too easy to be great.  Despite my desire to keep listening to it, I buried my adoration of Girls in the bottom of my hype-hating heart.  Then, they put out a music video with microphone penises.  The tide was turned, and I was officially won over.  Yes, most of the songs on this album are fun and easy.  But they’re also brilliant.  It’s very difficult to write such well-constructed, upbeat songs, and the half-joking half-pleading vocals give the album a wonderful sarcastic edge.  This is the album I’ll be giving my nephews when they’re teenagers, hoping that it’ll influence them enough to get into indie rock from the 2000s.  I have full confidence that it will.

“Ghost Mouth” – Girls

14) Face Control – Handsome Furs This album has been criminally overlooked.  I don’t know how Dan Boeckner (of Wolf Parade) comes up with so many good songs, but there are really some astounding tracks on this album.  I’m not normally a fan of the whole dancey rock with synths thing, but these songs are actually just very, very good.  I think that’s why the general public who typically likes this dancey rock sort of thing that’s been so popular this year (I’m particularly thinking of Florence and the Machine and Phoenix, for example), hasn’t taken hold of this album in the same way- because the songs are good and a little more challenging than we usually expect from this genre.  I don’t know.  Maybe I watched the “I’m Confused” zombie music video one too many times, but I will defend this album’s awesomeness (without much coherent argument) to the bitter end.

MP3: “I’m Confused” – Handsome Furs

13) Bromst – Dan Deacon This album builds so slowly that the first audible sound doesn’t even begin until forty seconds have already passed.  And, as said in my “Snookered” write-up, build is what this album is about.  I think I like this album so very much because I’m so surprised how much Deacon has matured.  His Santa Claus-like physique and jolly nature make him a figure to root for, but his wacky tunes and fun live show didn’t exactly make me think he’d ever produce such a stunning piece of art.  But I’m so glad he proved me wrong, and it feel so good to love this album.  Darker, more complex, grander, Bromst is incredible.

“Woof Woof” – Dan Deacon

12) Bitte Orca – Dirty Projectors Yeah, it’s good.  It’s really, really good.  This is, in my estimation, the “best” album to come out this year (maybe MPP, but probably Bitte Orca).  There’s not much I can really say about this that hasn’t been said.  But, my favorite reason why this album is so innovative and important, is its amazing incorporation of female hip-hop vocal styles into Longstreth’s weird brand of guitar rock.  It’s incredibly fitting that Beyonce was at their pool party show this summer.  I hear Beyonce all over this album.

“Temecula Sunrise” – Dirty Projectors

11) Power Move – Screaming Females I listened to this album a whole lot this year.  It’s good.  It’s definitely good.  But looking back, I think the reason I’ve enjoyed it so much is because it’s really inspiring to hear such a good female lead guitar player.  Not just a female guitar player, but a true female front-man, who really kicks serious ass, without being generally labeled as a “girl band.”  Maybe that shouldn’t be a reason to pick this as my number eleven album of the year, but also, maybe it should be.  Plus, these are some serious kick-ass harder rock songs no matter which way you slice it.

“Sour Grapes” – Screaming Females

My Favorite 50 Songs of 2009: 20-11

To recap:  As for My Favorite 50 Songs of 2009, I made a few rules for myself.  First, a band can only appear once.  Also, this is purely about singles I enjoy.  For instance, I would never put Harlem Shakes’ Technicolor Health on my favorite albums list, but “Sunlight” made it pretty high on this list because it’s a great pop song.  I like a lot of Grooms’ songs and think they’re probably better than many of these, for instance, but none of them made it onto this list because they work much better as a group of experimental songs on an album.  This gave me a chance to give recognition to many bands from this year I would otherwise have left out.  And, for the record, I think this list of songs is less important but more fun than my forthcoming list of best albums of 2009.  You can download all of the songs by clicking on the words in bold.

So here it is, the fourth installment of my 50 Favorite Songs of 2009.

20) “Tunnelvision” – Here We Go Magic Luke Temple’s newest project settles somewhere between sugary pop and strange noise.  It sounds vaguely alien and upsetting, like a weird dream that you can’t quite remember when you wake up, but you’re sure it was beautiful.  The texture and depth of “Tunnelvision” is only heightened by the cryptic, beautiful, simple lyrics.  “People live and then we die.”  This song is definitely a place I like to visit, and the perfect music to put on when you’re just at home alone.

19) “The Lie/The Truth” – Double Dagger Ah, the never ending quest to listen to the new Pavement.  I’m not saying that Double Dagger sounds that much like Pavement exactly, or even that they’re influenced by them, but the things I like about this song are the same things I like about Pavement.  The sweeping chorus makes my heart skip a beat, and the lyrics are so delightfully clever.  “Living in the middle of nowhere/In a town called exactly right/It’s got a population of you/And everyone sleeps well at night/There’s a reason everything here/Can be explained in ten words or less/The wrong people are never right.”

18) “It Ain’t Gonna Save Me” – Jay Reatard Two minutes and twenty-two seconds of pure punk bliss.  Jay Reatard may have called me names, gotten beat up by fans, and has his band quit on him this year, but I still love this song.  He’s 100% the real deal obnoxious punk anti-hero, and if you have any doubts, just listen to this song.

17) “Move To California” – Times New Viking All that guitar noise, ramshackle drums, and scratchy vocals.  Then out of nowhere you get, “Move to California/I hear you’ll have a better time.”  It’s no secret that Times New Viking are the kings of catchy lo-fi melodies, and this song represents some of their best writing.

16) “Eviction Party” – Darlings If the Strokes gave a picture of what it was like to be young and in the city in the beginning of the decade, Darlings are their end-of-the-decade music soul mates.  There’s so much Strokes in this song: a driving bass line, half sung lyrics, and talk of apartments and parties.  Darlings’ feel is so representative of being a twenty-something Brooklynite that it’s nearly impossible not to relate to this song.  Plus, the way Darlings put together their various guitar solos and keyboard riffs make for songs that, dare I say in the midst of all this early 2000s Strokes-nostalgia, are even better than their earlier counterparts.

15) “Walkabout (ft. Panda Bear)” – Atlas Sound I don’t know one person who doesn’t like this song.  I’m sure that it’s going to be on every single 2009 song list.  Panda Bear’s dreamy AnCo aesthetic mixed with Bradford’s precocious sense of play and imagination create a nearly perfect collaboration that revels in the energy of childhood.  “Walkabout” will surely go down as being one of the best of the late 2000s.

14) “Useful Chamber” – Dirty Projectors This might seem like a somewhat strange song choice from Bitte Orca, especially since so many of the tracks are already classics.  Out of all the warbly vocies, sharp guitar work, and R&B-tinged female vocals, I like this track because of the swell halfway through the song.  After all that buildup when Longstreth finally sings, “Bitte orca/Orca bitte,” that’s a pretty remarkable songwriting moment.

13) “Two” – The Antlers “There’s two people living in one small room/From your two half-families tearing at you/Two ways to tell the story (no one worries)/Two silver rings on our fingers in a hurry/Two people talking inside your brain/Two people believing that I’m the one to blame/Two different voices coming out of your mouth/While I’m too old to care and too sick to shout.”  Best lyrics of the year, absolutely, hands-down.

12) “You Can’t Force a Dance Party” – Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele This track might win for most entertaining song of the year.  You really can’t force a dance party.  Truer words have never been spoken, and rarely are cheesier lyrics sung: “We don’t have to dance/Let’s kiss instead.”  Dent May manages to pull it all off with his sincere voice and strummy ukulele.

11) “Home” – Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros There are a lot of things I like about this song.  The number one thing that I can never get enough of, though, is Jade Castrinos’ voice.  Down to Earth and homey, I could listen to her sing, “Alabama, Arkansas/I do love my ma and pa/Not the way that I do love you.”  It’s also such a wonderful straight-forward love song, a genre that’s difficult to navigate in today’s post-modern world.  Sweet and caring, this will be another mixtape-worthy song for years to come.

Photos: Times New Viking, The Axemen, and Home at Mercury Lounge

This show happened embarrassingly long ago, but here a just a few photos.  Times New Viking were, of course, great.  They churned out their noise pop tunes with incredible skill.  The guitar player fills so much of the space in the songs that watching him demystifies the recordings to a certain extent, but a great band to watch.  The Axemen are a New Zealand band from the 80s, and these dudes can still totally rock.  In sweat pants and beer bellies, these guys are still the real rocking deal.  And Home.  Well, they were maybe the worst live band I’ve ever seen.  They were “are you kidding me” bad.  Their hippy-dippy looking lead singer played paltry, overly-worn chord progressions on the keyboard and guitar while the poor drummer and bass player merely filled in his lame posturings.  I felt bad for them.  I’m having a difficult time providing a MySpace link since it’s such a common name, but I believe they’re some band from the 90s.  I can’t believe they’re still together, because they made a mockery of what rock and roll ought to be.  Absolute trash, and I can’t believe they got on a bill with Times New Viking.  Then again, you might be able to lob the same criticisms at these photos.  I apologize for the lateness and not awesomeness of them.

Home:

The Axemen:

Times New Viking:

MP3: “No Time No Hope” – Times New Viking

Recommended Wednesday Show: Times New Viking at Mercury Lounge

Frankly, I can’t believe Times New Viking’s new album, Born Again Revisited, hasn’t gotten more attention.  It got an 8.1 on Pitchfork, but didn’t get Best New Music.  It’s just as hard to listen to as their older work, with just as many hidden pop melodies.  Listen to the mp3 below.  It might sound difficult to some listeners, but wait until the chorus.  “Move to California/ I hear you’ll have a better time.”  A philosophy I’ve grown to doubt, but a fabulous line in the song.  Plus, their shows are very cool as they play whole-heartedly on ramshackle gear.  A wonderful band that you should definitely see if you haven’t already, and if you have, you should hear them play material off of their new album.

MP3: “Move To California” – Times New Viking

Recommended Sunday Show: Times New Viking, Woods, and Blank Dogs at Market Hotel

If this isn’t one of the most stacked Sunday shows I’ve seen in awhile then, well, I’ll eat my foot.  But it is, so I won’t have to.  You’ve got one very established lo-fi band and two of the buzziest bands on the scene.  I saw Times New Viking open for Deerhunter last year, and they just put on a great live show.  They play rock music for people who love rock music, full of interesting twists and turns and exciting instrumentation.  Woods just got Best New Music on Pitchfork and it’s true- their new album indicates that they’ll be around on the scene for awhile.  Check out the track below.  And Blank Dogs are definitely riding on the whole new lo-fi wave.  It kind of reminds of that Hold Steady lyric, “At least in dying you don’t have to deal with New Wave for a second time.”  True Craig Finn, very true.  But in the case of this show tonight, you might as well just go and embrace it all.

MP3: “Rain On” – Woods