1. Dirty Projectors Bitte Orca. Has my vote for best album of 2009. Favorite songs, Useful Chamber, Stillness is the move, Two Doves. Favorite line, “I am caught up in a storm I don’t need no shelter from.” I wouldn’t know where to begin. Genius.
2. Neutral Milk Hotel In the Aeroplane over the Sea. Better late than never. This has become one of my all time favorite albums. The lyrics are amazing. You catch only fragments listening and have to slowly put together what the songs are about, which might be summarized as the way in which we humans can make monstrosities of ourselves and each other. Telling of horror on a grand scale (ie., WWII) through small images of intimacy, sensuality and love destroyed (literally), the bits and pieces almost inspire joy, which is needless to say crushed when you discover what they are really about. And that, I suppose, might be exactly the point. And the music, quintessential indie folk-rock. And in one song, bagpipes. And they pull it off.
3. Fleet Foxes. Indie rock that incorporates an Appalachian ethos and succeeds. I never get tired of this album. Favorite line:
with scarves of red tied ’round their throats
to keep their little heads
from fallin’ in the snow
who knows what the hell it’s about, I like it.
4. xx. So this has the same sort of ultra chill, cool groove as something like Everything but the girl, but oh so much more sexy.
5. The dodos. Visitor. This is just fun, happy music. I couldn’t get enough of it. My favorites, ‘Red and Purple’ and ‘Winter’.
6. Girls. Album. Nevermind the band seems to be channeling Elvis Costello, it comes off feeling entirely fresh anyway. It lacks the emotional complexity of any of the albums listed above and instead chronicles beautifully sentiments and experiences best described as adolescent. That I identify with many of these songs suggests either I am immature (possibly) or that in the emotional complexity of adult lives lingers adolescence (likely).
7. Feist The Reminder. Another better late than never. I love the boppy stuff on here, like ‘1 2 3 4’ but it is the richness and beauty of her voice in songs like the Park that keep me listening.
8. The Walkmen. You and Me. Wow. Some of the most emotionally intense music I’ve heard recently. Donde Esta La Playa, the vocalist starts singing in a cool, casual voice, calm, lacking emotion, as if to say “this is not important to me, I’m just mentioning” only to lose control and almost scream in anger while the music becomes rhythmically chaotic and discordant. Then, he pulls it together again. And we repeat the cycle. Throughout this album, you get the sense of a voice that is struggling to contain anger and rage, to hold it together, to get past and move on but can’t, and this struggle comes out in the vocals. It is raw and powerful.
9. Tune-yards. Bird-Brains. I love this woman. The album is a little rough, but shows incredible originality. She’s already a star in my book.
10. Ryan Adams. Love is Hell. Yet another better late than never. This is just a fantastic journey through introspection and melancholy. Music, fanstastic. Lyrics, poetic. Favorites include the cover of wonderwall, shadowlands and afraid not scared. This has become a classic in my library.
