Matter of Time mp3 The Leisure Society The Sleeper…..
….. buy it
Well, now this is getting interesting… Over at the Contrast Podcast, Tim’s solicited everyone for their favorite 50 songs of 2009, remember? From all the responses he’s compiled the top 155. I’m very impressed with the list! If you didn’t submit your faves yet, you’ve still got a chance to get in the game at this point! Help us out, eh? (I”ve highlighted my top 10 in blue)
Here’s what Tim has to say:
Hello Everyone,
It’s time for the final vote to determine the top fifty songs that will be crowned as this year’s Contrast Podcast Festive Fifty:
Select your favourite 10 songs from the shortlist of 155 below and rank them from 1 (your favourite) to 10 and send the list to me (at contrast.podcast@gmail.com) You may also (if you are feeling evil) give a negative vote to any single song of your choice! The deadline for doing this is one week away – Monday 23rd November. Please ask your friends, family, blog readers and anyone else you know to send me their votes too – everyone can take part!!
Last year quite a few people said that they hadn’t heard many of the songs, so this year I’ve setup a handy player with (almost) all of the tracks on it:
Here’s the list …
A.A. Bondy – When The Devil’s Loose
Aidan Moffat & the Best Ofs – Big Blonde
Alexi Murdoch – Towards The Sun
Alice In Chains – Check My Brain
Andrew Bird – Fitz & dizzyspells
Andrew Bird – Nomenclature
Andrew Bird – Not a Robot, but a Ghost
Animal Collective – My Girls
Animal Collective – Summertime Clothes
Antlers (The) – Two
Art Brut – DC Comics And Chocolate Milkshake
Asobi Seksu – Transparence
At The Stars – Oxygen & Rust
Atlas Sound – Walkabout
Auld Lang Syne – Where My Fortune Lies
Avett Brothers (The) – I And Love And You
Bat for Lashes – Daniel
Beirut – The Akara
Bell X1 – The Great Defector
Big Pink (The) – Dominos
Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears – Get Yo’ Shit
Bob Dylan – Beyond Here Lies Nothin’
Bombadil – Sad Birthday
Bon Iver – Blood Bank
Builders and The Butchers (The) – Barcelona
Butcher Boy – Carve A Pattern
Buzz Aldrin – You and I
Camera Obscura – French Navy
Camera Obscura – Honey In The Sun
Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career
Casiotone For The Painfully Alone – White Corolla
Cats On Fire – Horoscope
Cats On Fire – Letters From A Voyage To Sweden
Cats On Fire – Tears In Your Cup
Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse with Wayne Coyne – Revenge
Das Racist & Wallpaper – Combination Pizza Hut And Taco Bell (Wallpaper. RMX)
Dave Matthews Band – Why I Am
David Bazan – Bless This Mess
David Gedge And The BBC Big Band – My Favourite Dress (live at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, 29 April 2009)
Death Cab for Cutie – Little Bribes
Decemberists (The) – Annan Water
Decemberists (The) – The Hazards of Love Part 4 (The Drowned)
Decemberists (The) – The Rake’s Song
Decemberists (The) – The Wanting Comes In Waves/Repaid
Decemberists (The) – Won’t Want for Love
Dizzee Rascal & Armand Van Helden – Bonkers
Doves – Jetstream
Doves – Kingdom Of Rust
Drums (The) – I Felt Stupid
Editors – Papillon
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes – 40 Day Dream
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros – Home
Eels – Fresh Blood
Elvis Perkins In Dearland – Shampoo
Fanfarlo – I’m A Pilot
Faunts (The) – It Hurts Me All The Time
Flight of the Conchords – Carol Brown
Flight Of the Conchords – Sugarlumps
Florence & The Machine – Cosmic Love
Florence & The Machine – Dog Days Are Over
Florence & The Machine – Kiss With a Fist
Franz Ferdinand – No You Girls
Franz Ferdinand – Twilight Omens
Franz Ferdinand – Ulysses
Future Of The Left – Arming Eritrea
Girls – Hellhole Ratrace
Gong – Dance with the Pixies
Grand Archives – Oslo Novelist
Grizzly Bear – Two Weeks
Guggenheim Grotto (The) – Fee Da Da Dee
HEALTH – Die Slow
Heartless Bastards – The Mountain
Here We Go Magic – Fangela
Horrors (The) – Sea Within A Sea
I Like Trains – Sea Of Regrets
Iggy Pop – King Of The Dogs
Jarvis Cocker – Angela
Jarvis Cocker – I Never Said I Was Deep
Jarvis Cocker – Leftovers
Jason Lytle – Yours Truly, The Commuter
Jason Mraz – Traveler/Make it Mine (live)
Kasabian – Fire
Kurt Vonnegut & Dave Soldier – Nice Very Nice
Langhorne Slim – I Love You, But Goodbye
Leisure Society (The) – A Matter Of Time
Leisure Society (The) – The Darkest Place I Know
Leisure Society (The) – The Last Of The Melting Snow
Lily Allen – The Fear
Low Anthem (The) – Champion Angel
Madness – We are London
Memory Tapes – Bicycle
Metric – Gimme sympathy
Metric – Sick Muse
Meursault – Love Or Limb
Meursault – Nothing broke
Meursault – William Henry Miller Pt. 2
Meursault – William Henry Miller Pt. 1
Mew – New Terrain
Middle East (The) – Blood
Morrissey – I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris
Morrissey – Something Is Squeezing My Skull
Mountain Goats (The) – 1 John 4:16
Mumford & Sons – Roll Away Your Stone
Mumford & Sons – The Cave
Mumford & Sons – White Blank Page
Muse – Uprising
National (The) – So Far Around The Bend
Neko Case – Middle Cyclone
Neko Case – People Got A Lotta Nerve
NOFX – My Orphan Year
Owl City – Fireflies
Pains of Being Pure At Heart (The) – Come Saturday
Pains of Being Pure At Heart (The) – Higher than the stars
Pains of Being Pure At Heart (The) – This Love Is Fucking Right
Pains of Being Pure At Heart (The) – Young Adult Friction
Passion Pit – Moth’s Wings
Passion Pit – The Reeling
Paul Haig – Relive
Pet Shop Boys – Love etc.
Pete Yorn & Scarlett Johansson – Relator
Phoenix – 1901
Phoenix – Lisztomania
PJ Harvey & John Parish – Black Hearted Love
Prefab Sprout – Earth, The Story So Far
Prefab Sprout – Let There Be Music
Prefab Sprout – Music Is A Princess![241.x600.music.TwilightSad.credi](<a href="http://www.citylife.co.uk/img/17457/35305_mumford__sons.jpg" target="_blank"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-5139" title="35305_mumford__sons" src= "Twilight Sad")
Raveonettes (The) – Suicide
Regina Spektor – Folding Chair
Regina Spektor – One More Time With Feeling
Richard Hawley – As The Dawn Breaks
Saint Etienne – Method of modern love
Sam Bisbee – Never Fall In Love
Spoon – Got nuffin’
Temper Trap (The) – Sweet Disposition
Thom Yorke – Hearing damage
Throw Me The Statue – Hi-Fi Goon
Twilight Sad (The) – I became a Prostitute
U2 – No Line on the Horizon
Very Best (The) – Warm Heart Of Africa
Wave Machines – The Greatest Escape We Ever Made
We Were Promised Jetpacks – Quiet Little Voices
We Were Promised Jetpacks – Roll Up Your Sleeves
White Lies – To Lose My Life
Wilco – Wilco (The Song)
Wilco – You And I
Wilco – You Never Know
Wild Beasts – All the Kings Men
Withered Hand – Love in the Time of Ecstasy
Withered Hand – Religious Song
Wye Oak – That I Do
XX (The) – Crystallized
XX (The) – Intro
XX (The) – VCR
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads Will Roll
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Zero
Happy voting!!
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I really liked the song you played this week. Always good to have you on x.
Thanks Greer, I don’t know why I didn’t see your comment until just now
xoxo
We have a few in common there Tart, so there’ll be at least 2 votes for those songs!
Oh Agnes, I’m so glad I helped convert you, hehehe
I didn’t get round to doing a festive 50 for CP purely because of the amount of stuff I have on the go right now & previously. I did vote for my top 10 out of the above, though, even if I was a bit restricted by a very narrow & mediocre choice of ‘best of’s for 2009. That’s not Tim’s fault, obviously. He’s merely displaying what the bloggers & readers have listed as their most memorable remembrances of music what they heard during this past year. Christ, what a boring fucking time they all must have had.
I know for a fact your choices would have been a little more obscure & not so, um, Hype Machine friendly; as would have mine. But then I put that down to a number of different things that set you & I apart, as well as a recognizable handful of blogs & ventures, not to mention a little off message when it comes to music taste & hunger for more/new/better. We certainly do like the chase, do we not?
That said, if I had voted for my top 50, most of my choices would have not made the list on the basis of mine being their only nomination. This is, of course, purely because the greater sum of my ‘favorites’ this year are from an entirely different racecourse, let alone stable, to that of the average blogger. I dare say your choices are along the same lines.
But the question remains: why are so many people chasing the same vanishing point? I was actually surprised to see The Decemberists’ 2009 offerings in the list given the sound thrashing it got on most blogs I frequented. But I’m not at all not surprised to see Meursault – having 4 songs featured, though, is a little much. Not that they’re not a good band – on the contrary – but their proximity to the voting bloggers (who have been in the same circle conversationally as their label & champion) is a where bias & familiarity share a bed.
It’s the same point raised re: the Top 10 albums of the (any given) decade – frankly, any list worth its salt, chosen before the end of the last year of the decade, should disallow choices from the last 6 months of the final year AT LEAST. This would in some way get past the whole over familiarity with recent releases etc. vs albums released 4, 5, 6, 7, 8yrs ago.
Anyway, I’ll be voting in peenko’s poll, but I will be sticking with my choices rather than the herd. I think it’s this frustration at not seeing the right bands getting the blogtime they deserve that’s helped us decide that as of next year we’re going to be opening a reviews section on TWRHQ.com. It will feature reviews of our ‘favorite’ albums by some of those artists we playlist the month previously & will host downloadable MP3s etc.
Of course, this kind of thing has the potential of turning into a long love letter to an increasing number of bands. Well, we’ll keep an eye on that – you know me by now, if an album has a duff track, a duff track I shall therefore say it is. It’s a good excuse to spread the word a little thicker about field-proven bands that are ripe for exposure. I mean, fucking hell, I get sent 1000’s of albums every month it’s about time I did the goods ones justice.
That, of course, & also proving there is far more superb music out there than the usual blog pieces would have you believe. Which, nicely, brings me back round to the lists of 2009. I read somewhere a blogger stating this year had been quite fallow for good albums.
My reaction, manyfold as it was, is that bloggers with a somewhat captive audience, declaring the lack of albums (good or bad) over the course of the year, in turn meaning a lack of GOOD albums over the same period, inferring that the direct result of which affected the quality of the blog, I’d wager, really don’t like music that much. Or they are seriously unlikeable characters &, because of, the many many many many pluggers etc. out there, avoid sending anything to said blogger.
There are hundreds & hundreds of albums plopping through my virtual & actual mailbox every week. Over 3/4s are unsolicited having heard of us through favorable word of mouth. Over half of the 3/4s is awful, dreadful cack. The remainder of that 3/4 varies from good to excellent. Rarely do I find the ONE in unsolicited submissions. Of the 1/4 I actively solicit about 3/4s of that is so-so. Again, the ONE is rare.
But, point being, if you are in any way half decent at getting your passion for the medium across to those you are looking to appeal to, as well as those whom appeal to you, then you’ll receive far more GOOD albums than you’d ever need to fill a top ten of the year. If you’re not receiving that kind of quantity then, hmmmm. Yeh. Hmmmmm. You don’t really have the right to say what was or wasn’t a bad year, then, do you? Mmm?
(I’m very bored in work, btw, Tart; hence the epic nature of this ramble)
Cool list, although there are plenty more songs which I would have added on the choices. I mean wheres Fever Ray, Dirty Projectors, Sunset Rubdown?
Anyway cool vibes!
Why the random avatar?
hehe
DC, darling, what a tome you’ve given me to reply to! First, this… “frankly, any list worth its salt, chosen before the end of the last year of the decade, should disallow choices from the last 6 months of the final year AT LEAST” Oh really? You’d have us making lists for the previous year sometime in July then? That’s simply ludicrous. If an album stands out, I’ve been listening to it regularly no matter when it hit. For example, One Hundred Hurricanes, which I’ve had on nearly non-stop since I caught “Snake” on your show back in March(?) It is as familiar or more than something that I’ve just played 20 times like Mumford & Sons’ Sigh No More which has only dropped a month ago. Or, were you making the opposite argument? If so, my point stands either way you want to make it. Both records are on rotation, both I know word for word, each and every song. Both are in my top list (haven’t yet decided how many to put in that list, ha!)
Now…, as for you doing reviews over at TWR headquarters, bravo!! I look forward to that very much. More to argue with and so on, and it will only show how much music I get from you which will expose me for the shallow follower that I am, which is a good thing in that my fans (all 4) will finally see that I indeed have no taste but depend on the trendsetters like you to pave the way. (no that’s not sarcasm, darling)
But yes, we do have “fringe” taste and that’s not just because I feed off of your collection, but also because as you say we present ourselves as being open ears to new/unsigned artists and to artists on the fringe of the music scene (well maybe me more than you, frankly… I do love me some experimental noise and whacked out 90s synth throwback tracks). So what do we expect? Of course our lists are not going to reflect even the average of the left of center of the blogging voice (which is in and of itself a strange slice of the wider culture’s musical taste)and so be it! Yay us! (and of course this extends beyond you and I, duh!)
So … bring that list on! I can’t wait to see what goodies you’ve got up your sleeve this year
thank fuck your job is so tedious
xoxo
Welcome Firefly! The avatars are assigned randomly unless you go over to http://en.gravatar.com/ and pick one of your own which follows you all around the web with your email addy. As for the artists you mention… I did give Sunset Rubdown a really good try, I soaked up two albums, pretty thoroughly I might add, but remain unenthusiastic about them. Dirty Projectors came a bit closer to moving me but in the end petered out, and Fever Ray fell victim to that “everyone is so gaga over that artist I can’t be bothered to listen” syndrome. Am I really missing something there, darling?
Thanks for stopping by, your blog is looking good! xoxo