The time has come to begin the year-in-review and (super bonus!) decade-in-review lists! I am very excited since the decade has been excellent for music, and this year has been quite good as well.
I am not up to the task of doing much more than giving you the lists as I finish them. Usually I would love to blather endlessly on the significance to me the music has, but there is just too damn much of it to get into it for all of them. Where I can, I will note what must be noted, otherwise, you can assume I have spent many quality hours with the albums/cuts/bands mentioned. Also, as I often do, I have not included reissues/best-ofs here. Were I to do that, then everything re-issued by John Coltrane would be the best thing to come out this year, which given the frequency with which his stuff is reissued, would be true every year.
At least I spared you that...
albums:
1. YACHT - See Mystery Lights: Thinkin' music is sometimes also good fer dancin'.
2. Wooden Shjips - Dos: It ain't a drone if it is a groove.
3. St. Vincent - Actor: The Kate Bush-Prince collaboration should have been this.
4. Girls - Album: If only Elvis Costello could have done it this good without also being a wuss about every damn thing!
5. Various Artists - Yeti 7: A great summary of the lo-fi stuff that made this year interesting. Their comps are usually good, but this is a favorite.
6. El Perro Del Mar - Love Is Not Pop: I think I just like her. El perro con sabor en 2009.
7. Handsome Furs - Face Control: I think this is way better than it was given credit for. It is no Wolf Parade, but neither is Wolf Parade at this point.
8. Bob Dylan - Together Through Life: Best since Time Out Of Mind.
9. Abe Vigoda - Reviver: Shoegaze with a nerd veneer, not nerd with a shoegaze veneer.
10 Franz Ferdinand - Blood/Tonight: I prefer the dub version (Blood), but only because the original songs are so good. Their best IMHO.
11. Jeffery Lewis - Em Are I: Dumb title, but as affected, cutesy, and smug as he can be, I like his idealism.
12. Woods - Songs Of Shame: Best of the lo-fi crop.
13. Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career: This grew on me as the year passed. I still put it behind Get Out Of This Country, but this is good. Might I add you MUST have their cover of Springsteen's Tougher Than The Rest, which is a b-side from this album's sessions. It is a crime they didn't include it.
14. Blackout Beach - Skin of Evil: The voice takes some getting used but Mister Mercer is smart as hell, genuinely clever, and talented beyond my ability to take in other than in small doses. Even so, I think this is my favorite project of his in which he is the leader.
15. Various Artists - Dark Was the Night: Most comps suck, but the lineup here is amazing, and at least half of the top tier bands deliver more than the leftovers most bands give to comps.
16. Little Girls - Concepts: More prime lo-fi.
17. Exene Cervenka - Somewhere Gone: I know little of her solo stuff, but this is mature without being VH1 or embarassing.
18. Various Artists - Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The source material was usually underground originally, but now this label and these bands are taking a deserved victory lap. Good bands + Good songs + Good mix of inputs means this isn't just another shitty tribute album.
19. Liechtenstein - Survival Strategies In A Modern World: Another good lo-fi offering.
20. Elvis Perkins - In Dearland/Doomsday EP: It isn't Ash Wednesday, but still outshines 99% of the other alt.singer-songwriter stuff on the planet, band or not.
21. Why? - Eskimo Snow: Being leftovers from a very good album can sometimes also produce a good album.
22. Dark Meat - Truce Opium/When The Shelter Came EP: The EP of demos is slightly better, but if you like the sloppy big alt.band stuff, this is about as good as I am yet to hear it done.
23. Get Back Guinozzi - Carpet Madness: A small little throwback to the Young Marble Giants model, without rising exactly to that standard. That said, it is more fun than YMG.
24. Taken By Trees - East Of Eden: I am bothered by her sop to the scarf and her smug change of Animal Collective's Girls to Boys, but I can't deny that the highlights here are big ones.
25. Beck - Velvet Underground & Nico: Not a real album perhaps, but he released a full cover of a classic album with some excellent, some good, and only a few dud performances. That makes it a good album to my ears.
Honorable Mention & Near Misses - In no particular order:
Major Lazer - Guns Don't Kill People...Lazers Do:
Modest Mouse - One's First, And You're Next:
MV & EE - Barn Nova:
MV & EE - Drone Trailer:
No Age - Losing Feeling:
Suburban Kids With Biblical Names - #4:
Sharon Van Etten - Because I Was In Love:
Black Lips - 200 Million Thousand:
Spectrum - War Sucks:
Morrissey - Years of Refusal:
Karl Blau - Zebra:
Yim Yames - Tribute To George Harrison:
Peter Bjorn & John - Living Thing:
Papercuts - You Can Have What You Want:
Akron/Family - Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free:
Monsters Of Folk - Monsters Of Folk:
Phosporescent - To Willie:
M. Ward - Hold Time:
Au Revoir Simone - Still Night, Still Light:
Andrew Bird - Noble Beast/Useless Creatures:
Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion:
John Vanderslice - Romanian Names