Picking 10 albums to represent a year is as tough as nails, as tough as these tough dudes getting tough tattooos. Tough to that! I'm gonna tough out my list right here and now! 1. "Good News" - Withered Hand
A very late entry and straight to the top of the list; I think time will show this to be a very special record, the nearest comparison being Neutral Milk Hotel's "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea". Yep, that good!
2. s/t - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
The most innocent joyful noise of the year, sheer indie pop glee!
3. "Flick the Vs" - King Creosote
There's no such thing as a bad KC record, and this one has a couple of his very best songs on it. Fab bonus disc too.
4. "A Brief History of Love" - The Big Pink
This record sounded like a greatest hits of all the indie/shoegaze I listened to when I was a teenager. The loudest played record of the year.
5. "Waxing Gibbous" - Malcolm Middleton
Ahhhh. Malcy Walcy - you miserable old git. Cheers!
6. "Pissing on Bonfires/Kissing with Tongues" - Meursault
A true original new voice, and cracking circuit-bent messed up folk tunes.
7. "Checkmate Savage" - The Phantom Band
PJ Morricone Moog of Mogwai Doo-Wop Doom, if you like that sort of thing. I know I do. Every song sounds different to the last. Their next LP will be mind-blowing.
8. "Secret Soundz" - The Pictish Trail
"Let's have a disco, with all of these people, in our front room"
9. "The Airing of Grievances" - Titus Andronicus
This record sounded like Andrew WK having a fight with Bright Eyes in that car park behind the Queen's Head. Bloody ace. Bloody. And ace!
10. "Sigh No More - Mumford and Sons
As good as Camera Obscura or Health, who both just missed out, only cos I've listened to this a wee bit more.
27 comments:
The Titus Andronicus album was great. I saw them in Hoxton earlier this year and they put on a good show too. Ramshackle but highly entertaining.
Mine are:
1. Tom Russell - Blood & Candle Smoke
2. Dave Matthews - Big Whiskey & the Groo Grux King
3. Guy Clark - Someday's The Song Writes You
4. k'naan - Troubador
5. Speech Debelle - Speech Therapy
6. AA Bondy - When the Devil's Loose
7. Chris Cornell - Scream (Despite Timbaland)
8. Viva Voce - Rose City (Portland, Oregon indie band)
9. Noisettes - Wild Young Hearts (Come on, its fun!))
10. Jamie T - Kings & Queens
A tentative top ten:
1. Taylor Swift - Fearless
2. Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II
3. Lady Gaga - The Fame
4. Girls Aloud - Out Of Control
5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz
6. Titus Andronicus - The Airing Of Grievances
7. Flight Of The Conchords - I Told You I Was Freaky
8. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport
9. Shakira - She Wolf
10. Little Boots - Hands
I think Camera Obscura would be my album of the year. Inevitably I love your list Blimpmeister.
I've really had a rubbish year for getting into new music... partly RR's fault for getting me into lots of new old music. Also the way I now consume music online, listening to huge amounts of stuff but not giving it the attention it deserves (interesting piece about this by Simon Reynolds in today's Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/dec/07/musically-fragmented-decade). Ah yes, and maybe I'm getting old too...
So, of this list, I've listened to Meursault a few times and like it (love the track you've posted); have listened to King Creosote (good but didn't grab me) and the Big Pink (disappointing in comparison to the title track) on Spotify. The rest is new to me, but I'm already loving the Withered Hand track.
I think the only records released this year I've bought (paid to download) are The Decemberists' Hazards of Love (75% love, 25% feel a bit embarrassed for) and, just last week, East of Eden by Taken by Trees. Which is a little gem, and the only fey-Swedish-indie-pop-meets-traditional-Sufi-music-from-Pakistan album in my collection. So that's my album of 2009 for now.
But I'm looking forward to reading other people's favourites and investigating further... come back to me in a year or so.
I can't do it! No, seriously, I am unable to contribute.
I have had a truly horrendous financial year, so 2009 physical CD purchases are in single figures. I have also cleaned up my act on grabbing albums via filesharing (due, admittedly, to PC security issues rather than any crisis of conscience).
Even data-sorting my iTunes into Year-Of-Release order didn't really inspire me to a Top Ten of truly beloved albums.
So thanks to The 'Spill & the 'Box, 2009 has definitely been the Year Of The Song (as opposed to whole album) chez DsD.
Hello friend!
@shar - wish i coulda seen em - i'm guessing they make more sense live.
@tinny - I must listen to VV again! Esp seeing as they made my 10 of the 00s.
@shari - you can;t keep a good pop song down eh? no matter what form it takes - a good song is a good song.
@tracy - "my maudlin career" is a fab record, but they did have a lot to live up to.
1. Doves – Kingdom of Rust
2. Pearl Jam – Backspacer
3. Monsters of Folk – s/t
4. Fever Ray - s/t
5. Wilco (the band) – Wilco (the album)
6. Camera Obscura – My maudin career
7. Grant-Lee Phillips – Little moon
8. Dan Auerbach – Keep it hid
9. the Unthanks – Here’s the tender coming
10. the Phantom Band - Checkmate Savage
Song of the year: Pearl Jam – Just breathe
@barbryn - KC LPs have a slow release genius. It took me a healthy long while before "Bombshells" became ace.
I was thinking 09 was a bit rubbish, and that i'm a bit fed up of all the same old same old - but then a Withered Hand comes along...
@Darce - hey! how are ya?
the ten is pretty much all i;ve bought new this year, and one of my ten i have only ever listened to on Spotify!!
The way we listen to music is definately changing - it;s easier to cherry pick - and at least we've seen the back of the 2 good tracks rest filler cds, hopefully for good.
@TonNL - I have a good monsters of folk mp3, i shall endev to check out the rest of the LP.
@barbryn - did you get a shock when you saw the xmas John Lewis ads, with Victoria Bergsman singing GnR "sweet child o mine"?
i would like to point out - that very song featured on the 'spill YEARS AGO!! naturallly.....
http://readersrecommend.blogspot.com/2008/02/sing-me-phone-book-part-1-victoria.html
looks like a great list Blimpy - i don't think I could manage a top ten this year, mainly due to all the jazz, but The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart would definitely be on it, thanks to the Blimpcast it made it into my collection a few months ago and I love it! I might be able to manage a top five...maybe.
In the meantime here's my subject-to-change-non-legally-binding Top Ten of the decade (as I missed out on the previous post about it) which i'm just going to come up with now without checking my collection, i'm mentally picking a favourite from a bunch of different gnenres in the interests of variety, in no particular order:
White Stripes - White Blood Cells
Shitmat - Full English Breakfast
Lightning Bolt - Wonderful Rainbow
Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP
Sunn O))) - Black One
Pocahaunted - Peyote Road
Coachwhips - Bangers Vs Fuckers
Bonnie Prince Billy - Master And Everyone
Liars - We Were Wrong So We Drowned
Boards Of Canada - Geogaddi
ahh.....this will definitely change, but these are 10 albums that I have LOVED this decade at least.
@blimpy - yeah, that was akin to hearing Joanna Newsom's "This Side of the Blue" on a cinema ad for mobile phones. TBT's "Sweet Child of Mine" made it into the RR A-Z for Unlikely Covers too.
I'll also add as hangers on and near the top ten...
Le Tigre - The Feminist Sweepstakes
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell
....ah, I could go on forever....
I think I'd also struggle to come up with a top ten albums of 2009. Like others have said, too much new old music. Well, not too much - but you know what I mean.
1. Let's Change The World With Music - Prefab Sprout
2. The Hazards of Love - The Decemberists
3. Humbug - Arctic Monkeys
4. The BQE - Sufjan Stevens
5. The Duckworth Lewis Method - The Duckworth Lewis Method
6. Yours Truly, The Commuter - Jason Lytle
7. Around The World - Iron & Wine
8. Reservoir - Fanfarlo
9. The First Days Of Spring - Noah & The Whale
10. Merriweather Post Pavilion - Animal Collective
1: Jimi Tenor / Tony Allen - Inspiration Information
2: Brakes - Touchdown
3: De Rosa - Prevention
4: Bike For Three!- More Heart Than Brains
5: Fol Chen - Part I: John Shade, Your Fortune's Made
6: St. Vincent - Actor
7: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!
8: Slow Club - Yeah So
9: N.A.S.A - the spirit of apollo
10: Art Brut - Art Brut vs Satan
Fanfarlo - Wild Beasts - Elvis Perkins In Dearland - Fever Ray -King Creosote - Kotchy - Junior Boys - Aidan Moffat gets best album with board game - loads and I'd love the seven(7?) of Blimpy's that I haven't got yet.. plus... I want: Monsters of Folk....decemberists... Noah and his whale... haven't got all the camera obscura yet either.. or Viva Voce.... when can I stop work and just sit and listen please?
Doves' Kingdom of Rust is, as usual, quite magnificent and always enhanced by their live shows, with the hypnotic slide shows and projections: especially Here It Comes, with images of Northern Soul dancers. Oooohwheee, seeing 'em again next week!
The Decemberists are turning flaky, I'd agree. I didn't like everything on The Crane Wife and Rake's Progress just hasn't grown on me at all, which is so upsetting.
Ok so I think, THINK, that it goes like this:
1. Dan Deacon, Bromst
2. Flaming Lips, Embryonic
3. The Big Pink, A Brief History of Love
4. Monsters of Folk (liked it, saw them at the Troxy last month, emotional experience, now I love it)
5. Fuck Buttons, Tarot Sport
6. Passion Pit, Manners
7. Doves, Kingdom of Rust
8. Muse, The Resistance
9. Andrew Bird, Noble Beast
10. Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
With honourable mentions to: The xx, Mew, SFA, Fever Ray, We Were Promised Jetpacks, My Latest Novel, Decemberists (loved it for a while, not listened for ages), Secret Machines (technically last year but I'm only just loving it now), Vitalic, YACHT and Deerhunter.
Plus I listened to On the Beach a LOT.
When's the deadline for Shoey's festive 'Spill?
Also, blimpy - liking Withered Hand on a first go. And Little Lion Man in probably chorus of the year, no?
Now what have I left out?...
1.??? (have to leave something on the table for Aba's Awards).
Rest of the 10 (no order)
Mew - Hymn To the Immortal Wind
Nosaj Thing - Drift
Meanderthals - Desire Lines
Future of the Left - Travels With Myself & Another
Fever Ray
Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - White Lunar
Bike For Three - More Heart Than Brains
Yacht - See Mystery Lights
Bubbling under:
Hidden Cameras, Memory Tapes, Jeffrey Lewis, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Fuck Buttons, Dubblestandart, Aidan Moffat, Elvis Perkins, Harry Beckett.
That should be:
Mono - Hymn... &
Mew - No More Stories
Mew/Mono, Hymns/Stories, Shoey/Sleep
OK, OK, for what it's worth ...
In no particular order, albums I have thoroughly enjoyed in 2009:
Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit
Cornershop's Judy Sucks A Lemon For Breakfast
Soulsavers - Broken
Richmond Fontaine's W.U.T.T.T.H.S.L.A.R.
One eskimO
Fanfarlo - Reservoir
Shearwater - Rook (actually 2008)
At Swim Two Birds (2007! But only discovered thanks to the AOTW introduction on here)
DBT's Fine Print (Oddities/Outtakes)
but by miles the most listened to album chez DsD this year is 2007's Sunshine In A Shot Glass by 500 Miles To Memphis.
2009 albums I will probably regret not listing when I do eventually get round to hearing them? Doves, Florence And The Machine, Patterson Hood, Them Crooked Vultures, The Low Anthem.
And still firmly in the SORRY-BUT-I-JUST-DON'T-FECKIN'-GET-IT category: Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion.
Can I go to bed, now please?
Upright testing to behold if your comment fuctinon works, mine doesnt!
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