Hard On mp3 Withered Hand Good News …. buy it! (I just checked, it’s fucking SOLD OUT!! so check back, they’ll have more. Way to fucking GO, DAN!!!!!)
The time has finally come. The pushin has come to shove…And I’m going against my own word and making a numbered list. And here’s why: The Hype Machine is compiling lists as they did last year, for a big, gigantic, general list of favorite music of 2009. Now being an educated woman, I know that data is useless if it is not ordered and placed in an hierarchical fashion. So, know that theoretically I am not in favor of placing any one artist or album above another. That’s just ridiculous. How could I possibly say that I love Ice Palace slightly more than Pure Reason Revolution? Those two albums are like apples and oranges. I listen to far too wide a spectrum of music to make a comprehensive list in any sensible order, really. But, it is necessary in the name of science. So…. here is my list. And it is generally ordered as to how much I listened to these fantastic records. Now that says a lot more about me than about them, doesn’t it? xoxo
- Withered Hand Good News … buy it There’s a very simple reason I love this album and listen to it again and again. I fell in love with the honesty of it, the way it speaks to exactly where I am and where I’ve been and maybe even where I’m going. Dan Willson just does something that very few other singer/songwriters can do and that something is to simply lay bare what is not easy to tell. See my more thorough review here (scroll down).
- Mumford & Sons Sigh No More … buy it
- Bombadil Tarpits and Canyonlands … buy it
- The Antlers Hospice … buy it
- Meursault Nothing Broke EP …. buy it
- The Decemberists Hazards of Love ….. buy it
- Ice Palace Wonder Subtly Crushing Us ….. buy it
- Pure Reason Revolution Amor Vincit Omnia ….. buy it
- One Hundred Hurricanes Sixty Years Under The Stars ….. buy it
- White Denim Fits…..buy it
- Brakes Touchdown ….. buy it
- J. Tillman Year In The Kingdom …..buy it
- Phil and the Osophers Parallelo ….. buy it
- Still Life Still Girls Come Too …. buy it
- A Place To Bury Strangers Exploding Head ….. buy it
- Clem Snide Hungry Bird …..buy it
- Matt Dill Lila Rasa….. buy it
- Apse Climb Up….. buy it
- Jogger This Great Pressure….. buy it on itunes
- Greenland Is Melting Our Hearts Are Gold, Our Grass Is Blue….. download it for free!
- An Horse Rearrange Beds….. buy it
- The Builders & The Butchers Salvation is a Deep Dark Well….. buy it
- The Hudson Branch Tightrope Walker….. buy it
- Metric Fantasies….. buy it
- Bad Veins Bad Veins….. buy it
And, albums/bands that I sooooo wish I had spent more, and had more time for this year! There’s always those few that slip through your fingertips, you never get to them fast enough nor spend enough time on them. But these are all wonderful and I know I’ll be listening to them well into 2010.
Eek! Bandits Eek! Bandits ….. buy it
Experimental Dental School Forest Field download it for free!
Jadiid It’s Ok, Be Anxious see my review here
Lord Cut-Glass Lord Cut-Glass….. buy it
Nic Dawson Kelly Old Valentine ….. buy it
The Silent Years Let Go….. buy it
The Smiles and The Frowns The Smiles and The Frowns….. buy it
Warpaint Exquisite Corpse….. buy it
Zaza Cameo….. buy it
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Well given that our top 5 lists are nearly identical, all I can say is that we have some damn fine good taste between us! Stoked about ‘Good News’ being sold out too… that’s just brilliant.
agnes, it’s both a compliment and a bit frightening to me that someone as young as you likes the same music as me! xoxo
Good taste knows no boundaries, dear Tart!
Given that I’ve only heard one of those records, I reckon I need to stay in more.
Rol! How could you avoid the Decemberists? I think you need to go out more, obviously m’dear xox
Very interestink, ol’ Tarticles.
There are a few in there that highlight where out taste splits e.e Experimental De3ntal School. Like, really? Meh. But then you say the same to me about Jordaan mason & The Horse Museum, so I guess we’re about quits.
I’ve said this previously, & I have battered you with this, but Nic Dawson Kelly’s LP “Old Valentine” is perhaps the most consistently brilliant album of 2009. It’s out of the ordinary for me to say something so definite like that, given my aversion to ‘Best Of’ lists or declaring favorites & such, BUT this is fucking good album. It makes me beam like a mental whenever the first note strikes up — Bryan Ferry meets Gomez. Fucking brilliant.
As you know & we have discussed, 2009 was an excellent year for albums & music (from all genres) in general (don’t let any myopic fuckwit try & tell you otherwise based on their narrow listening spectrum) — I’d go so far as to say it’s one of the best in living memory. 2010 has a LOT to live up to, however it seems to be shaping up rather keenly: the newbies from Basia Bulat, First Aid Kit & Los Campesinos! (to name a tiny few of the advance copies floating about thus far) are really rather good. So, who knows. Next year might kill us with quality & quantity all over again.
Yeah well… that’s why I made clear that this list is what I listened to. It’s what struck my fancy as the year progressed and then at the end I had a list of things that I really wanted to listen to and hadn’t the time. I think those would have been in heavy rotation if I’d have received them a few months earlier, hint, hint! You’ve really got to stop hoarding the good ones all to yourself, DC!
And yeah 2009 was a killer year for debuts especially. Thanks for turning me onto at least a third to half of what’s on my list this year xoxo
Apologies on the delivery front
I have been snowed under this year with albums (I did a quick count & I reckon we were almost in 5 figures in terms of submissions across the board: Alobums, EPs & Singles) & as soon as I get one that’s remarkable I get stuck in an avalanche of many more to listen to & filter. Therefore my ‘sharing’ quota gets lost/forgotten about. I will make amends in the New Year, tho, rest assured.
I think the one thing that 2009 showed was follow up (2nd) albums were, in general, quite shite or utterly disappointing. Bowerbirds, Felice Brothers, The Builders & The Butchers? All of them very disappointing. I know you’ll have me for mentioning tB&tB in that, & I know they’d probably quite hurt to know I was disappointed by it in general, but I was in on the ground floor & their debut & original EP were quite flawless. Lofty heights to ascend by reply, I’m afraid.
Debuts, on the other hand, were amazing. Sure there was some dross but those bolts out of ther blue, when they were good, were generally phenomenal.
i can agree with DC on it not being a shite year for music, however to say the Felice Brothers and The Builders & The Butchers albums were disappointing is a bit harsh. Yes, The Felice Brothers album didn’t match the heady hights of the previous one, but this doesn’t mean that it was in anyway disappointing, i’ve found it to be a very rewarding album after repeated listens. And the amount of accolades that people heap upon the first B&B album must mean it is the best album of all time, i think i will be sorely disappointed by the time i get around to listening to it!
Anyway i like you list Miss, and i will fire my fave 20 songs of the year you way soon.
PS i’d forgotten all about Clem Snide!!!!
Sorry Chutters but compared to their debuts they were both very disappointing for me. I was expecting movement away from their debuts, not a retreat into the fetal position of safe retread. Sorry, but that’s basically what both albums were. Sure, there were some excellent songs on each (as there were one or two decent tracks on tthe Bowerbirds album) but a handful of songs do not a good album make.
This is why lists are so fucking stupid to make! Expectations are so completely different when you’ve known a band and seen their progress and heard the demos and session tapes and actually touched the making of the thing. I know you feel the same way re: M&S’s album … that it could/should maybe have been more, but to our ears, those of us who hadn’t heard a note of any of it before it was/is astounding! And the B&B are the same to me. I never listened to the first album so this one was something that hit me square between the eyes. It is a powerful piece of work on it’s own merit. But I can see your perspective too. Lists, grrrr….. the end of all of us, I swear it!!!
The Felice Bros… well that’s a whole other kettle of fish. Men’s music, I say. Never got that whole thing, but admit I never really tried either, beyond Calexico which I do enjoy on a limited basis. xoxo
Lists, my dear, as you know, those so-called ‘Best Of’ types & their like, as I have said time & again, are fucking pointless pointless tasks. At best they are thinly veiled ‘my taste is better than yours’ pissing competitions, & at worst they are thinly veiled ‘my taste is better than yours’ pissing competitions.
M&S we are agreed upon – I think it’s a great album, but I do wonder about the way this whole release package was engineered: LP made up of little under 40% new material, with remainder previously released on EPs in Europe. Therefore the natural/obvious audience would be, surely, the US (what traditionally don’t do/get EPs so much). But, Lo! They don’t release it in the US. Fuckinell’s up with that?
Meursault, Ice Palace, Pure Reason Revolution? Did not see that coming. Awesome list.
Thanks! I hoe my own row I guess, haha! That Ice Palace was a real grower but damn, it hits me right between the eyes every time I play it now. xox
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