Stitch on 14/12/2009 at 20:46

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You know it, you love it, you're not a list nerd and really couldn't give less of a shit, it's time for our annual round up of the year's best albums! List your favorites--preferably a top ten but I ain't exactly the protocol fuzz--and tell us why. As always I'm sure there will be a lot of love for some of indie's finest, but that's no reason not to contribute if you feel otherwise (this part was for fett). You love 'em, so list 'em!

Here's the thing, though: I'm not quite ready yet, despite the fact that it's past time to get this thread underway (I had one eleventh hour addition and then couldn't figure out where exactly the new Grizzly Bear belongs). As such, I'm not quite finished writing up my list, and have decided instead to break tradition slightly and count down my top ten as I complete them. I figure this will also add some ridiculous and undeserved comical weight to what is merely just another list compiled by a random internet idiot with no credentials whatsoever.

And so, without further ado:

Uncle Stitch's Top Ten for 2009

* 10. The Mars Volta, Octahedron - I'm not sure you'll find many Mars Volta fans that weren't hanging on for dear life by their last album, the exhausting and busy Bedlam in Goliath which marked the near-unlistenable end point of five years of sonic experimentation. Surprisingly, the Mars Volta have now returned from the unforgiving prog wilds to deliver music that actually has appeal beyond amateur musicians practicing their mixolydian scales at the Guitar Center nearest you. Not only is Octahedron remarkably tasteful by Mars Volta standards--more good ideas survive the production than not--but the songs themselves are the most solid batch these guys have managed since their debut, with gorgeous melodies and hooks that are given enough breathing room to thrive. Not quite as ambitious as their past work, yes, but a much-needed palate cleanser before the Mars Volta head off into digital bagpipe arpeggios, or whatever the hell it is they decide to do next.
* 9. The xx, X - Making music that sounds like the way night feels is more difficult than it sounds. You have to capture the shadows, for one, and the dark areas they swallow between sparsely-places lights. And then there's the sensation of a landscape in transition, a hushed tone as the cheerful clamor of day closes shop and activity retreats inside. And, of course, lots not forget the possibility of sex, or of being alone, or of sex that turns against itself and leaves one alone. Effectively capturing all this on song isn't exactly new, of course, but what is stunning is that The xx, a group of four nondescript kids barely out of their teens, could rise out of nowhere to nail it with such deliberate perfection on the first try. Sad and sexy, X provides the surprise essential soundtrack for anyone who gets a second wind as dusk descends.
* 8. Fuck Buttons, Tarot Sport - Fuck Buttons always had two strikes against them in my book: the wall of gibbering vocals they employed to disruptive effect and, well, that name. They're still called Fuck Buttons, true, but they've ditched the meth-addict-behind-the-Shop-n-Go rants on their sophomore effort. What's more important, however, is that Fuck Buttons have expanded upon the strengths hinted on last year's debut and bolted for the horizon, creating an album of noise that twists upon itself to then explode into cathartic melody. Tarot Sport shrugs off unnecessary limitations--genre restrictions, who needs 'em?--and the results, from the wet, electronic pulse of "Rough Steez" to the shimmering, synth-drenched "Space Mountain," is an instrumental masterpiece with surprisingly broad appeal, band-name-being-"Fuck Buttons" notwithstanding.
* 7. Future of the Left, Travels with Myself and Another - Even the most patient of us have our breaking point--maybe it's trying to debate the moon landing with a conspiracy theorist, maybe it's discussing the tax-exempt status of churches, or maybe it's just when that meathead your friend is dating queues up Creed on the jukebox--but at a certain point social niceties collapse and you want to make it crystal clear exactly how much less you think of the intelligence and taste of the individual in question. Future of the Left make punishing music out of that disdain, that fury at the idiocy of others, but imbue it with a sharp and hilarious wit that renders it approachable, if not exactly good-natured. Smart-assed and sarcastic but never preachy, Travels with Myself and Another turns its guns from one target to another, regardless of politics (overly-sensitive earth hippies receive perhaps the most brutal takedown), and the result is a compact thirty minutes of pointy, pissed off rock for smart asses everywhere--well, smart asses who are cool enough to remain on the right side of Future of the Left's arsenal, which, honestly, probably excludes you.
* 6. The Lonely Island, Incredibad - Comedy albums are a tricky prospect, as songs that hinge on humor are typically worth only two listens at most--one for you and one for a friend, the end. The Lonely Island's brand of humor avoids this pitfall by typically involving a humorous concept that escalates via repetition until its inevitable horrible conclusion, each song a humorous micro-journey into the absurd that actually gets funnier with each subsequent listen. More importantly, though, The Lonely Island actually brought (and bought) the musical chops to represent on the music, with songs so pop perfect that the line between parody and mainstream radio is rendered meaningless. The opening volley of incredible tracks stack up to the giddy heights of an alternate universe greatest hits collection, and even gimmick tracks like "Sax Man" manage to understay their welcome and operate as breathers before the next onslaught of twisted top 40. Of course, it isn't all perfect--the skits are generally terrible and a few joke genre exercises like "Ras Trent" fall flat--but overall Incredibad managed to not only stand up to repeat listens but somehow become the album I've listened to the most all year.
* 5. Sunset Rubdown, Dragonslayer - The Boeckner/Krug songwriting team of Wolf Parade--think Lennon and McCartney but with less friction and tighter pants--spent most of 2009 splitting the difference with side projects, and Krug's dubiously named Sunset Rubdown can claim the cup (albeit only slightly--that Boeckner's Handsome Furs disc is a lot of fun, too). Sunset Rubdown is technically a fully functioning band but Dragonslayer is very much a Spencer Krug affair, overflowing with elegant melodies, abstract lyrics, and angular song structures that spin off unexpectedly in unusual directions that make perfect sense upon hindsight. There's a restless creativity at work here, a refusal to sit back and say "yeah, that'll do." Krug's quirky, affected voice can be something of a love it or hate it affair, true, but I fall firmly in the former, and frankly he could possess the pipes of Marge Simpson as long as he kept yelping out lyrical gems like "I hope that you die in a decent pair of shoes, you got a lot more walking to do where you re going to." Dragonslayer not only provides the perfect showcase for Krug's brilliance as a songwriter but also promotes Sunset Rubdown from Wolf Parade offshoot to confident equal.
* 4. HEALTH, Get Color - HEALTH's eponymous debut was a disruptive and screeching ride that, while rewarding, didn't really have a base of appeal beyond a couple kids and that v-necked hipster sneering at you from behind the American Apparel counter. On their second proper album, HEALTH take a massive step towards, well, songs, and the results is a bit like witnessing an amphibian climbing on land for the first time. Lead single "Die Slow" is actually catchy enough for your girlfriend, and even more abrasive numbers tend to be softened with an expanded sense of melody. "Before Tigers," for example, sounds like great sheets of noise careening across a metal plain, and yet the androgynous vocals soar over the battlefield with pensive beauty. This softer, rounder sense of songwriting also provides greater contrast with the noise, as when the album escalates into the nightmarish "Eat Flesh," you really feel it ("Death+" doesn't exactly play nice, either). Get Color is a riotous journey that pulls between melody and cacophony and eventually pushes directly against you--hard--until expansive closer "In Violet" grants release. It isn't quite the best album of the year, but it was my personal soundtrack to 2009.
* 3. The Flaming Lips, Embryonic - Embryonic's dizzying strengths don't exactly require context to be appreciated--for many the album will even serve as a point of entry into the weird world of the Lips--but its place in their discography is what rendered it such a surprise. 2006's At War with the Mystics was a tired, underwritten mess from a band that had made a career out of consistent, loopy brilliance. The Lips seemed more dedicated to their (admittedly great) carnival of a live show than to, you know, actually making music. As such, the fact that Embryonic is an unapologetically surreal and confrontational volley of weird with nary an uplifting crowdpleaser in sight is a shock that would border on career suicide were the album not so ridiculously good. Much has been made of the spastic freak-out jams that stretch across the double album (that still comes packaged as a single album--what?), but beneath it all is a center that holds it all together--you're never too far from a compelling melody, or a moment where the Lips' pop sensibilities squeak through. The album could be trimmed a bit, true, but its sprawling excess is part of its charm--this isn't a collection of songs so much as a hallucinatory experience. Even if you leave out all the accompanying visuals currently accompanying this album--that guy hitting the everloving shit out of the gong on their live shows, the fully naked people sliding out of a giant, spherical vagina in the video for "Watching the Planets"--the Flaming Lips have solved running out of gas by bolting a jet engine to the car's frame. The Lips are back and weirder than ever.
* 2. The Antlers, Hospice - "I wish that I had known in that first minute we met/ the unpayable debt that I owed you." And so begins 2009's most gorgeous yet unsettling album, which technically isn't the Antlers' debut but might as well be. Hospice is a story on two fronts, the story of its inception--it was more or less written in extreme isolation over the course of a year--and the story of the album's narrative itself, which is either an explicit first-person account of a cancer ward care provider falling in love with a terminal patient or a metaphorical examination of a claustrophobic and destructive relationship. Heavy stuff, sure, but even heavier than you think--generally speaking, if you're finding the going too easy then you probably aren't following along close enough. The lyrics are perhaps this year's best, unfolding and connected upon previous points with successive listens, sweeping yet compact with resonating truths (personal oh-shit-I've-been-there moment: "You say that, 'No one's gonna listen, and no one understands,' so there's no open doors and there's no way to get through, there's no other witnesses, just us two"). The generally gorgeous music doesn't really break any new ground--Arcade Fire and Sigur Ros are definitely taught this younger brother how to shave--but it locks in with the raw lyrics to produce a punch to the gut that lingers uneasily after the final notes, like the album's epilogue that explores the ghosts of traumatic relationships that haunt long after any attempts at a happy ending. The most visceral and emotional listening experience of the year.
* 1. Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion - For awhile Hospice was going to get the top honors, but I couldn't do it. As great as that album is, I have to hand 2009 over to joy. To sheer celebration. To dancing with your loved one in a moment so private that the world outside swirls forgotten. To solving insomnia by holding hands and running through the streets in the middle of a hot summer night. To honoring the life of a deceased family member by cherishing and supporting those closest to you now. To the magic of shared moments of intimacy that belong solely to you and the one you love. To life and its habit of being horrible and then incredible and the fact that you need to deal with the latter by embracing the latter. And, on a personal level, to the album that has been my constant companion throughout the many highlights of an incredible 2009. Here's to life, joy, love, and Merriweather Post Pavilion.


Honorable Mentions (which are all pretty great but didn't make my top ten)

* Dan Deacon, Bromst
* St Vincent, Actor
* Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest - Yeah, that's right: it didn't make the top ten. Replace a couple of the water-treading mood pieces with "Two-Weeks"-worthy singles and this would have been a contender for album of the year.
* Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
* Japandroids, Post-Nothing
* Handsome Furs, Face Control
* The Raveonettes, In and Out of Control

Thanks But No thanks

* Dirty Projectors, Bitte Orca - After five spins I gave up and admitted that hyper-arranged quirky vocal pop isn't for me.
* Passion Pit, Manners - "Sleepyhead" makes me want to go back in time and destroy whatever caveman combination of tapping and grunting resulted in the creation of music.

Disappointments

* Yeah Yeah Yeahs, It's Blitz! - Things that should never be uttered to Nick Zinner: "Would you mind playing less guitar on this one?"
* Franz Ferdinand, Tonight! - Not exactly a pile of crap but nor can it hang with anything from their back catalog.
* The Decemberists, Hazard of Love - We only care about shapeshifting forest dwellers and babykilling rakes if you've got the tunes to back them up, kids.
* Muse, The Resistance - The beginning and end consists of some of their finest work to date, too bad about the uninspired stretch in the middle that seems to consist of B-sides from previous albums.

Single of the Year

* 10. Muse, "Uprising"
* 9. Grizzly Bear, "Two Weeks"
* 8. Das Racist, "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell" (Wallpaper. remix)
* 7. Dorrough, "Ice Cream Paint Job"
* 6. The Lonely Island, "I'm On a Boat"
* 5. Jason Derülo, "Whatcha Say"
* 4. Kanye West, "Heartless"
* 3. Animal Collective, "My Girls"
* 2. Sean Jean, "Down"
* 1. HEALTH, "Die Slow"



12/15/09 edit: added #8 and #7
12/16/09 edit: added #6
12/18/09 edit: added #5
12/20/09 edit: added #4
12/22/09 edit: added #3
12/30/09 edit: added #2 and #1, added everything else but Single of the Year
1/5/09 edit: Top ten singles, fuck it I'm done!

ercles on 15/12/2009 at 00:21

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Octahedron broke my heart and my massive Mars Volta boner.

june gloom on 15/12/2009 at 02:48

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Callisto's Providence and Devin Townsend Project's Ki completely destroy all else. Even Isis' Wavering Radiant doesn't come close.

Scots Taffer on 15/12/2009 at 04:33

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This is going to be like those multi-part San Fran write-ups! Excitement in every post!

I'm still listening to a lot of '09 albums (as well as watching '09 movies) to make as complete a list as possible.

Tonamel on 15/12/2009 at 05:21

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This is the first I'd heard of The XX, too. Then I turned around and NPR included them in their (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121342228) Best of 2009 Discussion.

When one panelist played them, the reaction of the other panelists wasn't very favorable. But they didn't play the whole song on the air (full version's in the link), so I'm not sure it was a fair judgment. However, I do agree with their point that the song sounds like it's about to burst open at any moment, and it's kind of frustrating that it never does.

I think I'd rather hear it in the context of the rest of the album before I make a decision on it, though.