The 2009 Magazine Albums Of The Year Thread For Posting Lists and Discussion.

Rock-A-Rolla Magazine Top 30
1 Zu - Carboniferous (Ipecac)
2 Sunn o))) - Monoliths & Dimensions (Southern Lord)
3 Richard Youngs - Under Stellar Stream (Jagjaguwar)
4 Khanate - Clean Hands Go Foul (Hydra Head)
5 Celan - Halo (Exile On Mainstream)
6 Converge - Axe To Fall (Epitaph)
7 Cobalt - Gin (Profound Lore)
8 Jello Biafra & The Guantanamo School Of Medicine (Alternative Tentacles)
9 El Grupo De Omar Rodriguez Lopez - Cryptomnesia (RLP)
10 Part Chimp - Thriller (Rok Action)
11 Sonic Youth - The Eternal (Matador)
12 Secret Chiefs 3 - Le Mani Destre Recise... (Web Of Mimicry)
13 Pissed Jeans - King Of Jeans (Sub Pop)
14 Kong - Snake Magnet (Brew)
15 Slayer - World Painted Blood (American)
16 Eagle Twin - The Unkindness Of Crows (Southern Lord)
17 Gnaw - This Face (Conspiracy)
18 Baroness - Blue Record (Relapse)
19 The Flaming Lips - Embryonic (Warner)
20 Dälek - Gutter Tactics (Ipecac)
21 The Mars Volta - Octahedron (Mercury)
22 Pelican - What We All Come To Need (Southern Lord)
23 MadLove - White With Foam (Ipecac)
24 Shrinebuilder - S/T (Neurot)
25 Portal - Swarth (Profound Lore)
26 Them Crooked Vultures - S/T (Sony)
27 Bushman's Revenge - You Lost Me At Hello (Rune Grammofon)
28 Mountains - Choral (Thrill Jockey)
29 Minsk - With Echoes In The Movement Of Stone (Relapse)
30 Keelhaul - Triumphant Return To Obscurity (Hydra Head)

Uncut Albums Of The Year
1. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
2. Super Furry Animals – Dark Days/Light Years
3. The Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
4. Bob Dylan – Together Through Life
5. Wild Beasts – Two Dancers
6. The XX – The XX
7. Wilco – Wilco (The Album)
8. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
9. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz!
10. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
11. Bill Callaham – Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle
12. Fever Ray – Fever Ray
13. White Denim – Fits
14. The Flaming Lips – Embryonic
15. Bassekou Kouyate And Ngoni Ba – I Speak Fula
16. Florance And The Machine – Lungs
17. Doves – Kingdom Of Rust
18. Graham Coxon – The Spinning Top
19. Sonic Youth – The Eternal
20. The Horrors – Primary Colours
21. The Low Anthem – Oh My God, Charlie Darwin (Uncut Deliberate Error Charlie Brown Hahhaha)
22. Alela Diane – To Be Still
23. Manic Street Preachers – Journal For Plague Lovers
24. Micachu And The Shapes – Jewellery
25. Sunn 0))) – Monoliths And Dimensions
26. The Unthanks – Here’s The Tender Coming
27. Yo La Tengo – Popular Songs
28. Madness – The Liberty Of Norton Folgate
29. Pj Harvey & John Parish – A Woman A Man Walked By
30. Jim O’ Rourke – The Visitor
31. The Dead Weather – Horehound
32. Iggy Pop – Preliminaries
33. The Duke And The King – Nothing Gold Can Stay
34. Trembling Bells – Carberth
35. Tinariwen – Imidiwan: Companions
36. Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport
37. Dinosaur Jr – Farm
38. Arctic Monkeys – Humbug
39. Cornershop – Judy Sucks On A Lemon For Breakfast
40. The Felice Brothers – Yonder Is The Clock
41. Van Morrison – Astral Weeks Live At The Hollywood Bowl
42. Richard Hawley – Truelove’s Gutter
43. Bruce Springsteen – Working On A Dream
44. Reigning Sound – Love And Curses
45. Richmond Fontaine – We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River
46. Broadcast & The Focus Group - …Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age
47. Alasdair Roberts – Spoils
48. Raphael Saadiq – The Way I See It
49. Jay-Z – The Blueprint 3
50. Kurt Vile – Childish Prodigy

Decibel Albums Of The Year

1. Baroness-The Blue Record
2. Converge-Axe To Fall
3. Coalesce- Ox
4. Napalm Death-Time Waits No Slave
5. Cobalt-Gin
6. Kylesa-Static Tensions
7. Slayer-World Painted Blood
8. Tombs-Winter Hours
9. Marduk-Wormwood
10. Isis-Wavering Radiant
11. Immortal-All Shall Fall
12. Agoraphobic Nosebleed-Agorapocalypse
13. Obscura-Cosmogenesis
14. Magrudergrind-S/T
15. Nile-Those Whom The Gods Detest
16. YOB- The Great Cessation
17. Mastodon-Crack The Skye
18. Paradise Lost-Fath Divides Us,Death Unites Us
19. The Atlas Moth-A Glorified Piece Of Blue Sky
20. Asphyx-Death...The Brutal Way
21. Altar Of Plauges-White Tomb
22. Mournful Congregation-The June Frost
23. Funeral Mist-Maranatha
24. The Gates Of Slumber-Hymns Of Blood And Thunder
25. Burnt By The Sun-Heart Of Darkness
26. City Of Ships-Look What God Did To Us
27. Goatwhore-Carving Out The Eyes Of God
28. Gaza-He Is Never Coming Back
29. Katatonia-Night Is The New Day
30. Keelhaul-Keelhaul's Triumphannt Return To Obscurity
31. The Red Chord-Fed Through The Teeth Machine
32. Brutal Truth-Evolution Through Revolution
33. Krallice-Dimensional Bleedthrough
34. Culted-Below The Thunders Of The Upper Deep
35. Goes Cube-Another Day Has Passed
36. Suffocation-Blood Oath
37. Javelina-Beasts Among Sheep
38. Municipal Waste-Massive Aggressor
39. Millions-Gather Scatter
40. Funebrarum-The Sleep Of Morbid Dreams

i've heard three out of a hundred and twenty. beat that, ilm!

i'd really like to be friends with whoever runs rock-a-rolla magazine

i bet when i went to the ATP that mike patton/melvins curated, they were standing next to me the whole time.

And while they stood next to you they compiled the list.

Actually i know one ilxor who takes photos/writes for them so maybe you stood next to him.

is the writing in that mag any good? their coverage cuts right to the center of my being

It does get slagged off by people on internet message boards about the writing, but I don't think it's that bad. I like the magazine though, it covers lots of stuff no other magazine does. I just renewed my subscription. Q might have good writing but it doesn't cover anything I like.

I think aQ sells Rock-A-Rolla in the US. It's a bi-monthly mag.

http://rock-a-rolla.com/

Awesome, thanks. Surprised at lack of 3 Inches of Blood and Hacride on Decibel list. I just heard the Minsk album. The Zoroaster is nearly as good on early listens.

Here is a list of what's been covered in all the issues
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock-A-Rolla
xpost

Only heard seven of those listed. Though it's nice to see that Alasdair Roberts record show up -- definitely in my top 10 for 09.

Hard rock albums of the year?

Is this list only for print mags or can we discuss the (Onion) AV Club list here too?

Post away

Remind me never to buy an "Uncut" issue. God, that list.

I don't understand lists like that - "Oh shit we're almost done and it's been nothing but indie bands. OK, let's throw in, I don't know? Jay-Z at 49, he's good, right?"

to please ilxors

I don't understand Raphael Saadiq on that list either, since as far as I can tell it was released September 2008 in the UK just like everywhere else.

I've heard of thirty-three of these artists, and heard precisely nil of their records. ILM you say? At least looking at the lists means I've now heard of Kurt Vile.

Noted indie bands Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Van Morrison.

so where's this av club list you were gonna post whitey on the moon?

"I've heard of thirty-three of these artists, and heard precisely nil of their records. ILM you say?"

you win!

I've heard 35

The Zu album is terrific. I hope LJ has heard it, if not, it will blow him away.

I think he has although I forget his verdict as this was back in Jaunary iirc

(even longer ago than January)

Good choice for the Rock-A-Rolla winner. It's a monster album.

AV Club ran a best of the decade albums list recently but I'm pretty sure they haven't run a best of '09 list yet.

xp I like a lot of the albums in there and it's cool that people have picked up on stuff that I thought was completely ignored, like the Gnaw album has been a total 'is it just me' since the spring now

I can never properly articulate what I find sort of... skeezy about Rock-a-Rolla as a mag but I think it's something like, why do their limits of what they cover stop where they do? In theory you can say this about almost every music publication and even in practice they're far from alone but theirs is the niche I understand least

The writing has got a lot better though for def

the verdict was that it was very good fwiw

Zu is def gonna make my top 10.

it will probably make my top 5 but then i haven't actually heard an awful lot of records

I can never properly articulate what I find sort of... skeezy about Rock-a-Rolla as a mag but I think it's something like, why do their limits of what they cover stop where they do? In theory you can say this about almost every music publication and even in practice they're far from alone but theirs is the niche I understand least

Rock-a-Rolla seems to cover some pretty unconnected subgenres and yet doesn't seem at all interested in sketching out the territory between them or having any consistent sensibility as to how it treats them. Like, whenever I've bought it most of the reviews have been metal of some kind or other which hasn't really appealed to me, but the featured articles will be about how THIS harsh noise dude furrows his brow hard so he's cool, and THIS glacial ambient drone dude is OK with us, and so is THIS weirdo pronkoid math-skronk band, but THESE broadly similar acts are not within our remit, and any middle ground between them is, like, a sellout. Kind of frustrating to someone like me, who likes the outliers who get on the cover more than the bulk of the stuff reviewed.

Anyway I am pleased to see Part Chimp, Zu and Pissed Jeans, so who cares, I guess.

I am really missing Plan B magazine because I feel like there is probably music out there I would love but I haven't heard about it and I don't know how to hear about it. Obviously ILX helps with some stuff, but it's hard to get any overarching feel for what's out there when you pretty much have to have heard of a band to bother clicking on their thread.

I am really missing Plan B magazine because I feel like there is probably music out there I would love but I haven't heard about it and I don't know how to hear about it. Obviously ILX helps with some stuff, but it's hard to get any overarching feel for what's out there when you pretty much have to have heard of a band to bother clicking on their thread.

Don't worry yer pretty lil' head, that's what these year-end lists are for. I have found the most interesting ones to be from The Wire, Quietus, Silent Ballet, Brainwashed and Fact Magazine. And if those aren't enough, there should also be some interesting entries in Drowned In Sound, Muzzle of Bees, Cokemachineglow, and of course Pitchfork.

I guess you're right. I always find year-end lists a bit overwhelming, is all. Too much at once. I could certainly stand to check some or all of those publications more often if I wanted to know what was going on, of course.

Maybe I mean "I miss reading about bands who might still play a 150-capacity pub venue for a fiver in my uncool UK hometown", and suspect that year-end lists are not where those acts hang out.

I used to look forward to the MM/Kerrang/NME/RAW albums of the year lists every year and I'd usually save up xmas money n stuff and buy 5 or so of the top albums i liked the look of that i didnt have.
I wonder if kids still do that or if they just d/l the albums on the list.

Yeah, I wish The Wire would hurry up.

Or wait for the spotify playlist of the highlight tracks.

Is what the kids might do now, I mean.

Rock-a-Rolla seems to cover some pretty unconnected subgenres and yet doesn't seem at all interested in sketching out the territory between them or having any consistent sensibility as to how it treats them.

that's because there isn't really a central 'IT' to sketch out these connections or possess a consistent sensibility... and tbh I'm not sure why such a thing would be desirable from a magazine, which is after all a compendium of individual perspectives. plan B's strength was exactly its collective spirit and lack of a definable remit.

I think the thing is that RaR's area of interest seems at once narrow and nebulous - essentially, it's that fuzzy-bordered and fairly vast hinterland between the wire and terrorizer.

anyway, have to say that I'm pretty amazed and delighted to see richard youngs at no.3 in the RaR list.

I didn't even vote for that one - Ultrahits was on my list, maybe my vote got transferred?

from the looks of the write-up, it's a joint result for ultrahits and stellar stream.

Stellar Stream may well be great, I just haven't had anything like long enough with it yet. It'll be next year at least before I can really make a judgement on it.

rateyourshit delivers

#1 album: mpp
#1 ep: fall be kind
#1 single: brothersport
#2 single: my girls

lololol

Yeah, I wish The Wire would hurry up.

― and Susan Gucci as Erica Mane (Whiney G. Weingarten),

I hope someone else types it up this year. My fingers are still sore after typing out the rockarolla.
I'm looking forward to the Terrorizer end of year list, should be some good stuff in that.

Mojo Magazine

via: Swear I'm not Paul: List: Mojo Magazine's Top 50 Albums of the Year

50. Max Richter - Waltz With Bashir OST
49. Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... Pt II
48. Dan Auerbach - Keep It Hid
47. Bruce Springsteen - Working On a Dream
46. The Black Crowes - Before the Frost...

45. Cate Le Bon - Me Oh My
44. Mulatu Astatke & The Heliocentrics - Inspiration Informaton
43. Dead Man's Bones - Dead Man's Bones
42. Doug Paisley - Doug Paisley
41. Mos Def - The Ecstatic

40. Antony and the Johnsons - The Crying Light
39. Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band - Between My Head and the Sky
38. Sonic Youth - The Eternal
37. BLK JKS - After Robots
36. White Denim - Fits

35. Portico Quartet - Isla
34. Wilco - Wilco (The Album)
33. Leonard Cohen - Live in London
32. Wild Beasts - Two Dancers
31. Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens - What Have You Done, My Brother?

30. Staff Benda Bilili - Tres Tres Fort
29. Mastodon - Crack the Skye
28. Vetiver - Tight Knit
27. Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba - I Speak Fula
26. Neko Case - Middle Cyclone

25. Alasdair Roberts - Spoils
24. Vieux Farka Toure - Fondo
23. Arctic Monkeys - Humbug
22. The XX - XX
21. Bat for Lashes - Two Suns

20. Manic Street Preachers - Journal for Plague Lovers
19. Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Diamonds
18. Fever Ray - Fever Ray
17. The Phantom Band - Checkmate Savage
16. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca

15. Kasabian - The West Rider Pauper Lunatic Asylum
14. Mayer Hawthorne - A Strange Arrangement
13. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
12. The Low Anthem - Oh My God, Charlie Darwin
11. The Cribs - Ignore the Ignorant

10. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz
09. Madness - The Liberty of Nolton Folgate
08. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport
07. Florence & the Machine - Lungs
06. Bob Dylan - Together Through Time

05. Tinariwen - Imidiwan: Companions
04. The Horrors - Primary Colours
03. Richard Hawley - Truelove's Gutter
02. Bill Calahan - Sometimes I Wish I Were An Eagle
01. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

Q: for the stats fans: How many albums are both in the Mojo and Uncut lists?

Terrorizer list is good imo, haven't heard quite a bit of it but nothing that made me go 'waht'

(no I'm not posting it)

in the meantime...

Top 1000 metal albums of 2009 on rateyourmusic.com - custom chart
http://bit.ly/hhfrz

i always find it interesting to see how the people who've been into the same music as me over the year end up ordering the same/similar items...though from experience, ordering music this year was a bit "luck of the draw" - i could reorder my own top 100 tracks in pretty much any permutation and they'd still make an acceptable sense. fyi--

http://alexmacpherson.tumblr.com/post/309538328/albums-09
http://alexmacpherson.tumblr.com/post/309619543/tracks-09

Both have "Trap Goin' Ham". I got bored with 4075 quicker than I did 4180. That may be due to familiarity breeding contempt, but I suspect it's more due to his more standard choice of freestyle beats and the lack of supporting tracks as good as "Bunkin'" or "The Work's Hard".

i think i like the way 4075 feels more fleshed out - its tracks aren't just abbreviated demonstrations of his talent but that talent funneled to song-length purpose. love "coastin", "ok dennn", "let me in", "glass", "we outside" especially.

also love the random beyoncé beat on each mixtape - first time i heard "trap jumpin" it actually took me half a verse to realise wtf it was.

"OK Dennn" is prob my fave non-TGH track on 4075 but with about 4-5 exceptions, I prefer his skillz showcases to his more fleshed out songs, or at least they are slower to grab my attention.

LOPP is a spin-off board from the Sound Opinions one. The music results are not in the public section (not much is) I will try and get that changed for y'all.

The SOMB results are

Singles
http://www.soundopinions.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=22458

1 Phoenix – 1901
2 Animal Collective - My Girls
3 Phoenix - Lisztomania/Lisztomania (Alex Metric Remix)/Lisztomania (Clasixx Remix)
4 Dirty Projectors - Stillness is the Move
5 grizzly bear - Two Weeks/Two Weeks (Fred Falke Remix)
6 Weezer - (If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To
7 Bat for Lashes - Daniel
8 Jay-Z - Empire State of Mind (feat. Alicia Keys)
9 Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero/Zero (RAC Remix)
10 Animal Collective - Summertime Clothes
11 Basement Jaxx - Raindrops
12 The-Dream - Rockin’ That Thang
13 Shakira – She Wolf / Loba / She Wolf (Calvin Harris Remix)
14 Kanye West – Paranoid
15 Grizzly Bear - While You Wait For The Others/While You Wait For The Others (feat. Michael McDonald)
16 Taylor Swift – You Belong With Me
17 Annie - Songs Remind Me Of You
18 Mount Kimbie - Maybes EP
19 Camera Obscura - French Navy
20 Animal Collective - Brothersport
21 Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Young Adult Friction
22 Yeah yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll
23 Big Pink - Dominos
24 Guido - Orchestral Lab / Way U Make Me Feel
25 Burial / Four Tet - Moth / Wolf Cub
26 DJ Quik & Kurupt - 9x's Outta 10
27 Junior Boys - Hazel / Hazel (Ewan Pearson's Extended Remix)
28 Neko Case - People Got A Lotta Nerve
29 Darkstar - Aidy's Girl is a Computer / Aidy's Girl's A Computer (Kyle Hall Mix)
30 Lily Allen - The Fear / Fag Hag / Kabul Shit
31 Lady Gaga – Bad Romance
32 Girls - Lust For Life / Life in San Francisco
33 Joy Orbison - Hyph Mngo/Wet Look
34 The-Dream - Walkin’ on the Moon (feat. Kanye West)
35 Akron/Family - River
36 Joker / DJ2000F & J Kamata - Digidesign / You Don't Know What Love Is
37 Mount Kimbie - Sketch on Glass EP
38 Washed Out - Feel It All Around / Feel It All Around (Toro Y Moi Remix)
39 JJ - From Africa to Malaga
40 Miley Cyrus - Party in the U.S.A.
41 Miike Snow – Animal
42 Metric – Gimme Sympathy
43 Electrik Red - So Good
44 Floating Points - Love Me Like This (Nonsense Dub)/ Shangrila
45 Electrik Red - Friend Lover
46 St. Vincent - Actor Out of Work / Bicycle
47 Portishead - Chase the Tear
48 Passion Pit - Sleepyhead
49 La Roux - Bulletproof / Bulletproof (Redial Remix)/Bulletproof (Fred Falke Remix)
50 Passion Pit - The Reeling / The Reeling (Calvin Harris Remix)
51 Julian Casablancas - 11th Dimension
52 Royksopp - The Girl and the Robot
53 Atlas Sound - Walkabout
54 Thermals - Now We Can See
55 Franz Ferdinand - No You girls/Lucid Dreams (Mike Fraser Mix)
56 Metric - Help, I’m Alive
57 Handsome Furs - I’m Confused
58 Lady GaGa - Paparazzi
59 DJ Quik & Kurupt - Hey Playa! (Moroccan Blues)
60 Annie - Anthonio
61 Yeasayer - Ambling Alp/Ambling Alp (Memory Tapes Remix)
62 Fever Ray - When I Grow Up
63 Akira Kiteshi - Pinball / Noglitch
64 Music Go Music - Warm in the Shadows
65 Fuck Buttons - Surf Solar
66 Very Best - Warm Heart of Africa (feat. Ezra Koenig)/Warm Heart of Africa (Theophilus London Remix)
67 Drake - Best I Ever Had
68 Jay Reatard - It Ain't Gonna Save Me
69 Major Lazer - Keep It Goin' Louder
70 Arctic Monkeys - Cornerstone / Catapult / Sketchead / Fright Lined Dining Room
71 Matt and Kim - Daylight
72 Passion Pit - Little Secrets
73 Avett Brothers - I And Love And You
74 Baroness - A Horse Called Golgotha
75 Converge - Axe to Fall
76 Kings of Leon - Use Somebody/Use Somebody (RAC Remix)
77 Japandroids - Young Hearts Spark Fire
78 Mariah Carey – Obsessed
79 Lady Gaga – Poker Face
80 Maxwell - Prettywings
81 Mastodon - Oblivion
82 Keri Hilson - Knock Me Down (feat. Ne-Yo and Kanye West)
83 Memory Tapes - Bicycle / Plain Material
84 Holy Ghost! - I Will Come Back/I Will Come Back (CLASSIXX Remix)
85 xx – Crystalised / Hot Like Fire
86 Raekwon - House of Flying Daggers (feat. Inspectah Deck, GZA, Ghostface Killah & Method Man)
87 Kelly Clarkson - My Life Would Suck Without You
88 Delorean - Ayrton Senna EP (Deli / Seasun / Big Dipper / Moonson)
89 Antlers - Two
90 Florence + the Machine - You've Got the Love / You've Got The Love (the xx Remix)
91 Morrissey - I'm Throwing my Arms Around Paris
92 Addleboy Vs. Cliff - Beep My Beep
93 The-Dream - Sweat it out
94 Flight of the Conchords - Hurt Feelings
95 Micachu & the Shapes - Golden Phone
96 La Roux - In For The Kill/In For The Kill (Skream's Let's Get Ravey Remix)/In For The Kill (The Twelves Remix)
97 Pet Shop Boys – Love Etc
98 Kode9 - Black Sun / 2 Far Gone
99 YACHT - Psychic City
100 Fever Ray - If I Had a Heart

Albums
http://www.soundopinions.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=22438

1 Animal Collective - Merriweather post pavillion
2 phoenix - wolfgang amadeus phoenix
3 Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
4 XX - XX
5 Converge - Axe to fall
6 Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
7 neko case - middle cyclone
8 The-Dream – Love vs. Money
9 Flaming Lips - Embryonic
10 Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Dimensions
11 Fever Ray - Fever Ray
12 Weezer - Raditude
13 Handsome Furs – Face Control
14 Raekwon – Only Built For Cuban Linx II
15 yeah yeah yeahs - it's blitz!
16 super furry animals - dark days / light years
17 sunset rubdown - dragonslayer
18 St. Vincent - Actor
19 bill callahan - sometimes i wish we were an eagle
20 Akron/Family – Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free
21 Dinosaur Jr. - Farm
22 Bat For Lashes - Two Suns
23 mastodon - crack the skye
24 dj quik and kurupt - blaqkout
25 reigning sound - love and curses
26 Shackleton - The Three EPs
27 JJ – jjn02
28 pains of being pure at heart - s/t
29 Girls – Album
30 baroness - the blue album
31 Future of the Left - Travels with myself and another
32 Antlers - Hospice
33 Metric - Fantasies
34 Sonic Youth - The Eternal
35 Tim Hecker - An Imaginary Country
36 Memory Tapes – Seek Magic
37 Pavement Ist Rad & The Lots Of People Posting All Starr Band (Feat. Trai'd) - Sing Vampire Weekend's Contra
38 Morrissey – Years Of Refusal
39 Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career
40 Field - Yesterday & Today
41 Passion Pit – Manners
42 Wilco, Wilco (The Album)
43 Electrik Red – How To Be A Lady Vol. 1
44 japandroids - post-nothing
45 Annie – Don’t Stop
46 Micachu and The Shapes – Jewellery
47 Califone - All My Friends Are Funeral Singers
48 Decemberists - The hazards of love
49 Fuck Buttons - Tarot sport
50 Junior Boys - Begone Dull care
51 Kylesa - Static Tensions
52 James Blackshaw - The Glass Bead Game
53 Horrors - Primary Colours
54 Oneida - Rated O
55 atlas sound - logos
56 mos def - the ecstatic
57 Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why There Are Mountains
58 Cobalt - Gin
59 Krallice - Dimensional Bleedthrough
60 Atom™ - Liedgut
61 Julian Casablancas – Phrazes for the Young
62 Emeralds - Emeralds
63 Juan MacLean – The Future Will Come
64 arctic monkeys - humbug
65 Jay Reatard – Watch Me Fall
66 dan deacon - bromst
67 Fanfarlo – Reservoir
68 maxwell - blacksummer's night
69 Isis - Wavering Radiant
70 Avett Brothers – I And Love And You
71 Manic Street Preachers - Journal For Plague Lovers
72 A Sunny Day in Glasgow - Ashes Grammar
73 Thermals - Now We Can See
74 Antony and The Johnsons - The Crying Light
75 Martyn - Great Lengths
76 m. ward - hold time
77 Few Nolder - New Folder
78 wild beasts - two dancers
79 franz ferdinand - tonight
80 Them Crooked Vultures -S/T
81 Fun – Aim and Ignite
82 why? - eskimo snow
83 mew - No More Stories Are Told Today, I'm Sorry, They Washed Away
84 Pet Shop Boys – Yes
85 pissed jeans - king of jeans
86 Black Dog – Further Vexations
87 Andrew Bird – Noble Beast
88 Big Pink - a Brief history of love
89 Mumford and Sons – Sigh No More
90 Thee Oh Sees - Help
91 Fiery Furnaces - I'm going away
92 Built To Spill - There Is No Enemy
93 HEALTH - Get color
94 Vivian Girls – Everything Goes Wrong
95 A.C. Newman - Get Guilty
96 DâM-FunK – Toeachizown
97 Bibio - Ambivalence Avenue
98 yo la tengo - popular songs
99 Black to Comm - Alphabet 1968
100 Lightning Bolt - Earthly Delights

Mitchell, please explain: 37 Pavement Ist Rad & The Lots Of People Posting All Starr Band (Feat. Trai'd) - Sing Vampire Weekend's Contra

I like to think this is some sort of weird joke meme we should all run with.

I will try, essentially it's the boarder 'Pavement Ist Rad' who produced a rick-roll of Vampire Weekend's Contra. {see http://www.soundopinions.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=22104) in October which was plainly not the new VW album but managed to fool a few people out of the 4000 that downloaded it via one mediafire link. the wiki page for Contra was changed to say that the album leaked in October etc. Best explained by internet user 'Duff' in it's accompanying blurb on SOMB.

More than a few skeptical eyes meet the high placement of this record, no doubt, and reasonably so. There's no getting around the fact that this long player was constructed essentially as a rickroll set to ensnare a few thousand innocent fans of pleasant Talking Heads-biting North American Indie Rock®. Much to the dismay of these victims, the similarities between this record and the forth-coming release from the Ivy League's Vampire Weekend end roughly twenty seconds into each track, giving way typically to either John Lennon or someone doing a terrible job of pretending to be John Lennon. But while we all enjoy a joke at some twee fucker's expense from time to time, there's something at work here other than the spectacle of minor internet terrorism.

I mean, yeah, Sing Vampire Weekend's Contra is filled to the brim with inside jokes, some of which can only possibly be appreciated by a few dudes on a Jim Derogatis fansite spinoff board. But some of the finest moments have much broader appeal, striking suddenly with Earth-shattering absurdity. Track 2 ending with the dramatic final notes of "Day In the Life." A rousing and goofy cover of "Sgt. Pepper's" with the words, "Let me introduce to you/ the one and only Billy Corgan," spontaneously giving way to Bullet With Butterfly Wings. The bubbly synths, meowing samples, and boatloads of sass oozing from the forthcoming smash single "Dance Pussy Dance," later reprised with a chopped and screwed version. The guitar intros from The Toadies' "Possum Kingdom" and Everclear's "Santa Monica" dueling to the death and both losing to The Twisted Misters in a Greg-Gillis e-induced nightmare. Scores of crackpot genius moments like this, aimed at any fan of rock and roll with a random and encyclopedic knowledge of the last 40 years of pop music, all raising the same basic question:

Why?

Why on Earth make a record like this? If the beginning and end of the project was just to piss off some rabid music pirates with questionable taste, the thirty second intro to each song followed by two or three minutes of Neil Young awkwardly repeating "Vampire Weekend" (or is it "vaym-par pecan?") surely would have sufficed, and I'm sure it would've been a hell of a lot less work. But that's not what we have here. What we have here is what sounds like The Jesus Lizard covering Wings suddenly interrupted by a shitty vocal recording spliced in of some dude singing the noise guitar part. We have Satan winning souls for NPR. We have Dave fucking Grohl. Why make a record like this? For the love of pop music, and for the love all the solid bros of all sexes that gather here, or fuck, anywhere really, to discuss their irrational attachment to a bunch of rhythmic and melodic sound recordings, for all the bullshitting and ballbusting that inevitably follows, for the friendships that color our lives. Sure, not many people out there give much of fuck about how Jasper "EZ" Hitchen feels about Hipinion or Patron, regardless of how auto-tuned his voice is (mother fucker still hasn't heard this damn record yet. smfh). But anyone who comes across this record does so in the pursuit of life-affirming pop music in this young century, and surely gives a fuck about the love of music, and about those they share it with.

alright, if we're all posting our own here now:

http://narrowcast.blogspot.com/2009/12/narrowcasts-top-50-albums-of-2009-part_30.html
http://narrowcast.blogspot.com/2009/12/narrowcasts-top-50-albums-of-2009-part.html
http://narrowcast.blogspot.com/2009/12/narrowcasts-top-50-singles-of-2009-part_23.html
http://narrowcast.blogspot.com/2009/12/narrowcasts-top-50-singles-of-2009-part.html

I will try, essentially it's the boarder 'Pavement Ist Rad' who produced a rick-roll of Vampire Weekend's Contra. {see http://www.soundopinions.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=22104) in October which was plainly not the new VW album but managed to fool a few people out of the 4000 that downloaded it via one mediafire link. the wiki page for Contra was changed to say that the album leaked in October etc. Best explained by internet user 'Duff' in it's accompanying blurb on SOMB.

crackers is biters

haha i was gonna say, it's like a cross between ilm's MPP stunt and ilm's No Line On The Horizon stunt

My personal faves: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=227653904406

roxy muzak & taylor saporito sing animal collective's merriweather post pavillion

rescuing a gorgeously bleepy melodic gem from the clutches of a Gorilla Zoe mixtape track

heh

good to see someone else repping for the demi lovato album! though i think i prefer her second one to the debut

Hey ilxor, do you want to post your list on here? Not signed up to Facebook so I can't see it. Think we have a decent amount of overlap in taste, so I'll be interested to see your selection.

Here you go!

The Facebook note included a YouTube link to each of the 49 songs, obviously missing here.

#1

Fever Ray

9 for 09

Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion
Bat for Lashes, Two Suns
The-Dream, Love vs. Money
The Horrors, Primary Colours
The Juan Maclean, The Future Will Come
Raekwon, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…Pt II
Rihanna, Rated R
Six Organs of Admittance, Luminous Night
The xx, xx

the next 9

Broadcast and the Focus Group, Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age
DOOM, Born Like This
The Flaming Lips, Embryonic
Fuck Buttons, Tarot Sport
Mos Def, The Ecstatic
Oneida, Rated O
The Raveonettes, In and Out of Control
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, It's Blitz!
5: Five Years of Hyperdub

another 9

Annie, Don't Stop
Basement Jaxx, Scars
Black Meteoric Star
Ghostface Killah, Ghostdini: Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City
Tim Hecker, An Imaginary Country
Jay-Z, The Blueprint 3
LSD March, Under Milk Wood
Mount Eerie, Wind's Poem
Sunn O))), Monoliths and Dimensions

19 more admired in whole or part

Antony and the Johnsons, Another World
James Blackshaw, The Glass Bead Game
Blues Control, Local Flavor
Clipse, Til the Casket Drops
Current 93, Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain
Depeche Mode, Sounds of the Universe
The Field, Yesterday and Today
PJ Harvey and John Parish, A Woman A Man Walked By
Isis, Wavering Radiant
J Dilla, Jay Stay Paid
Merzbow, 13 Japanese Birds series
The Mountain Goats, The Life of the World to Come
Om, God Is Good
A Place to Bury Strangers, Exploding Head
Shrinebuilder
Sonic Youth, The Eternal
Taken by Trees, East of Eden
Woods, Songs of Shame
Yo La Tengo, Popular Songs

49 short ones for 09

Animal Collective, “My Girls”
Animal Collective, “Summertime Clothes”
Basement Jaxx, “Raindrops”
Bat for Lashes, “Daniel”
Bat for Lashes, “Pearl's Dream”
Big Boi ft. Gucci Mane, “Shine Blockas”
James Blackshaw, “Cross”
Burial, “Fostercare”
Burial and Four Tet, “Moth”
Clipse ft. Cam'ron, “Popular Demand (Popeyes)”
Miley Cyrus, “Party in the USA”
Darkstar, “Aidy's Girl Is a Computer”
Depeche Mode, “Wrong”
DOOM, “Gazzillion Ear”
The-Dream, “Rockin' That Shit”
The-Dream, “Sweat It Out”
Fever Ray, “When I Grow Up”
Fever Ray, “Seven”
Four Tet, “Love Cry”
The Flaming Lips ft. Karen O, “I Can Be a Frog”
The Flaming Lips, “Watching the Planets”
Fuck Buttons, “Surf Solar (7" Edit)”
Keri Hilson ft. Kanye West and Ne-Yo, “Knock You Down”
The Horrors, “Sea within a Sea”
Jay-Z, “DOA (Death of Auto-Tune)” *
Joker, “Digidesign”
The Juan Maclean, “One Day”
King Midas Sound, “Meltdown”
Lady Gaga, “Paparazzi”
Lady Gaga, “Bad Romance”
Adam Lambert, “Mad World” (Tears for Fears cover) **
LCD Soundsystem, “Bye Bye Bayou” (Alan Vega cover)
Lindstrom and Christabelle, “Baby Can't Stop (Aeroplane Remix)”
Mos Def, “Life in Marvelous Times”
Pet Shop Boys, “Love Etc.”
Raekwon ft. Inspectah Deck, Ghostface Killah and Method Man, “House of Flying Daggers”
The Raveonettes, “Last Dance”
Rihanna ft. Young Jeezy, “Hard”
Rihanna, “Russian Roulette”
Saint Etienne, “Method of Modern Love”
Six Organs of Admittance, “Anesthesia”
Solange, “Stillness Is the Move” (Dirty Projectors cover) ***
Taylor Swift, “You Belong with Me”
Taken by Trees ft. Noah Lennox, “Anna”
The xx, “Crystalised”
The xx, “Teardrops” (Womack & Womack cover)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Zero”
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Heads Will Roll”
Yo La Tengo, “Here to Fall”

* Yes, I realize that Jay's running on autopilot here. It's still a great song.

** This doesn't hold a candle to Tears for Fears' original, but it's pretty awesome.

*** This works much better as a full-stop R&B song than an indie rock tune.

6 extended plays for 09

Animal Collective, Fall Be Kind
Annie, All Night
Jesu, Opiate Sun
No Age, Losing Feeling
Spectrum, War Sucks
Spoon, Got Nuffin

9 archival, remix and live albums for 09

Bardo Pond, Peri
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, White Lunar
Echo and the Bunnymen, Live at the Royal Albert Hall
Melvins, Chicken Switch
Kylie Minogue, Boombox: The Remix Album 2000-2008
REM, Live at the Olympia
Saint Etienne, Foxbase Beta
Six Organs of Admittance, RTZ
Tom Waits, Glitter and Doom Live

19 not heard in 09

Matias Aguayo, Ay Ay Ay
Atlas Sound, Logos
William Basinski, 92982
Dälek, Gutter Tactics
Deerhunter, Rainwater Cassette Exchange
Dizzee Rascal, Tongue n' Cheek
Emeralds, What Happened (ordered from No Fun)
Hush Arbors, Yankee Reality
King Midas Sound, Waiting for You...
Madlib, Beat Konducta Vol. 5-6: A Tribute to...
Oneohtrix Point Never, Rifts (ordered from No Fun)
OOIOO, Armonico Hewa
Jim O'Rourke, The Visitor
Pet Shop Boys, Yes
Real Estate (ordered from Woodsist)
Jack Rose and the Black Twig Pickers
U2, No Line on the Horizon
White Rainbow, New Clouds
Zomby, One Foot Ahead of the Other

29 live thrills

Animal Collective (2x)
Antipop Consortium
Autolux
Erykah Badu
Black Dice (2x)
Boredoms performing 9 drummer BOADRUM
Boris performing Feedbacker
Caribou Vibration Ensemble with Marshall Allen
Devo
Dirty Three performing Ocean Songs
Echo and the Bunnymen (2x)
El-P
The Feelies performing Crazy Rhythms
The Flaming Lips
Grouper
The Jesus Lizard
The Juan Maclean
Melvins
Peter Murphy
My Bloody Valentine
No Age with Bob Mould performing Hüsker Dü
Oneida presents The Ocropolis
Panda Bear
Primal Scream (2x)
Red Red Meat
School of Seven Bells
Shellac
Six Finger Satellite
Suicide performing Suicide (1st LP)

8 from 08 loved in 09

Burning Star Core, Challenger
Flying Lotus, Los Angeles
Gang Gang Dance, Saint Dymphna
Grouper, Dragging a Dead Deer up a Hill
Jamie Lidell, Jim
Ne-Yo, Year of the Gentleman
Steinski, What Does It All Mean? 1983-2006 Retrospective
Young Jeezy, The Recession

10 anticipated in 10

Erykah Badu, New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh)
The-Dream, Love King
Eluvium, Similes
Four Tet, There Is Love in You
Flying Lotus, Cosmogramma
Liars, Sisterworld
Lindstrom and Christabelle, Real Life Is No Cool
Massive Attack, Heligoland
Pantha du Prince, Black Noise
Spoon, Transference

Hey thanks! Still need to hear the Tim Hecker and the Mount Eerie.

There's some great stuff in ilxor's list. He showed it to me recently and I was delighted to see The Horrors doing so well. I'm not keen on the whole album but 4 of the tracks at least are classics. Would love to have seen Shellac live. I think the lyrics to "Prayer To God" are on balance my favourite of the decade.

lol at my inability to tell the difference between lopp and lotp

It's not from the same ATP when I saw 'em, but still great...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHknmc_o28w

lol @ you apologizing for "doa" being autopilot jay but including the WHOLE DAMN ALBUM in the top 27

posted a top 100 tracks of 2009 here + youtube playlist featuring all but 10 of them

lol @ you apologizing for "doa" being autopilot jay but including the WHOLE DAMN ALBUM in the top 27

Yeah good point. It should probably be in the bottom 19 or so. I do like a number of the tracks on there, not really the whole thing, and obviously it doesn't hold up to Jay's 5 or 6 better albums. Then again... I really liked American Gangster, I might as well like this one, too, huh?

In retrospect I'd easily swap the Jay-Z album for Blues Control, Current 93, Om. Really like all of those start to finish.

Radio K Top 77 albums of '09

http://radiok.cce.umn.edu/top77/

seems like less local stuff than usual on the radio k list

Xgau (w/ P&J predictions):

http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Rock-Roll/Resuscitations-and-Business-Plans-The-Best-Albums-of-2009/ba-p/2032

Forty-nine years younger than Nelson at 27, Nellie McKay reached back half a century to reinvoke the spunk, optimism, and beauty of Hollywood nice gal Doris Day, dumbfounding her contemporaries in the process

You can't dumbfound people who don't care at all.

Wow, he really loves that late '08 Baseball Project cd. I've been meaning to check that out but haven't paid much attention to Steve Wynn since his early '80s Dream Syndicate days.

Mostly a good, interesting read.

If I can be nitpicky, am I the only one intrigued by Christgau describing the the xx as "electropoppers" (a term which he then uses to describe Lady Gaga, lest we have any doubts about his meaning)? Is it because of the band's background? Is it because they're from the UK? Is all eighties revivalism swept into this category? Are the rhythms on "Basic Space" really such a shock to the rock mindset?

Animal Collective are (these days) more "electropop" than the xx when you get down to it, but the term would never be applied to them. I don't think Christgau means the term as a compliment or an insult, but I'm curious as to what Christgau does mean by it.

OTOH I love Christgau on the Brad Paisley album: http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Rock-Roll/Paisley-s-Progress/ba-p/1695;jsessionid=DF668A4729C68A6D83677028A764B67C

At least he didn't call them "techno."

Hold up-- The xx are 80s revivalists?

I think so. They sound something like The Cure to me.

Animal Collective are (these days) more "electropop" than the xx when you get down to it, but the term would never be applied to them. I don't think Christgau means the term as a compliment or an insult, but I'm curious as to what Christgau does mean by it.

I think Christgau means "electropop" in an '80s sense of the word, while even if Animal Collective may now use programming alot, and added a bit more pop, he and many think of them more as rock.

What is the 80s sense of the word?

I would have thought any sense of the word would suggest, like, primarily electronic arrangements, but maybe not?

New wave, synth pop, new romantic...

it just amuses him to bracket the two together since they have programmed drums and synth sounds, esp. since he's riffing on being an old fart.

more concerned about the critically esteemed hip hop of the year consisting of "Raekwon, Mos Def, and possibly Jay-Z", did no one review say the quik/kurupt?

don't know Serengeti that he mentions.

"three recent NYU grads" - is that a joke?

At least the B&N site looks decent-- the presentation of the Consumer Guide on MSN is appalling.

Quik & Kurpt haven't appeared in EOY lists for shit (except maybe p4k and a couple others). Sad thing.

am I the only one intrigued by Christgau describing the the xx as "electropoppers"

You know I can totally hear the xx in songs like Yazoo's 'Nobody's Diary', but it does involve erasing the synth tracks. There is a bit of a New Order thing too I guess.

i kinda like his list!

Yeah, I d/l'ed The Panic Is On, still have to play--never heard of it before. His lists always have some reissue or compilation I haven't heard of and end up loving.

Our list (Porcys, Poland) http://porcys.com/Others.aspx?id=247

Jane Dark, top 25 songs

http://janedark.com/2010/01/top_25_songs_of_2009_in_a_sing.html

Do we have a PAZZ AND JOP 2009 thread yet?

imo jane dark is terrible

The Best Southern Soul 2009. I wish Pitchfork would give this guy a column

http://www.southernsoulrnb.com/corner2010.cfm

Still wanna hear that Ben Frost album.

― The bugger in the short sleeves (NickB), Tuesday, December 8, 2009 9:12 PM (6 months ago) Bookmark

searched "ben frost," he hasn't got his own thread, but man I am getting to this album this afternoon and it is WAY cool.

speaking of Ben Frost:

Ben Frost is one of six young talents to have been hand-picked “for a year of collaboration and inspiration” in the international Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.

The 30-year-old composer, producer and musician has been chosen as the scheme’s “music protégé for 2010-2011″. He will be mentored by none other than Brian Eno, former Roxy Music member, ambient pioneer, multidisciplinary artist and producer for the likes of Talking Heads, Jon Hassell and U2.

Melbourne-hailing, Reykjavik-based Frost received much acclaim for his 2009 album By The Throat, released via his own Bedroom Community label. Over the years he has collaborated with the likes of Tim Hecker, Nico Muhly and Bjork; he is currently working on the score for multi-player online game World of Darkness and “a reworking of Tarkovsky’s Solaris“. More info on the latter here. [thanks, Enter]

The Arts Initiative has six disciplines: dance, film, literature, music, theatre and visual arts. Each protégés receives their own individually tailored programme, with time provided across the year for unique personal access to, and creative dialogue with, their assigned mentor. Furthermore, each protégé receives a grant of $25,000 USD each and is eligible for a further $25,000 towards the cost of creating a project following their mentoring year.

The other protégés and mentors for 2010-2011 are:

Literature: American poet Tracy K. Smith; mentored by Hans Magnus Enzensberger (Germany)
Visual arts: South African artist Nicholas Hlobo; mentored by Anish Kapoor (United Kingdom)
Theatre: Lebanese actor, writer and aspiring director Maya Zbib; mentored by Peter Sellars (United States)
Film: Annemarie Jacir, a Palestinian film director and poet living in Jordan; mentored by Zhang Yimou (China)