Good Year for the First Half of the Alphabet

Time for the top ten albums of 2009. Here they are, in alphabetical order. It's a weird list this year, in that:

a) almost all the artists start with a letter between A and M,
b) there's very little rock, as such, on it, and
c) it's probably very unrepresentative of what people have actually been listening to this year.

There's just so much music out there, and I've spent most of 2009 quite broke and therefore not wanting to know what I was missing out on, that I feel like what I did end up discovering could seem very random and full of glaring omissions. I mean, I haven't checked these picks against those of the fascist trendy tastemakers yet or anything. Many of these albums were all picked up at one particular time in the summer when Alison and I were about to drive to Maine, so we'd have new stuff to listen to, so that portion of the year is probably over-represented. And I know there are albums on here that fans would say are not even the best albums by the artists who put them out. But this is just what I happened to stumble upon in my bumbling way and enjoy, so make your own list if you think it's not an accurate reflection of the year's best.

One other thing: I've included a sample streaming track from each album this year so you can hear what I'm talking about and see whether you agree with me. As the whole post is intended to convince people to buy the albums listed, I hope this blatant copyright infringement won't offend anyone. But if it does, I will gladly remove any and all of these tracks. Thanks.


Animal Collective
Merriweather Post Pavilion
I know this one's going to be on a lot of people's lists. And so it should be. It seems like after that Panda Bear album did so well AC decided they should try to make music for the masses. I guess that means it's a little less weird than their previous stuff, but they've gone through a pretty natural evolution to get to this place, and it's highly enjoyable, and it's still not exactly The Beatles or anything. I mean, are you really going to force yourself not to like something this catchy and celebratory just because everyone else does? Is that even possible? Come on, man.


Bat for Lashes
Two Suns
This is one of those might-not-be-as-good-as-some-earlier-work-but-it's-the-first-thing-I-heard-and-I-love-it-so-screw-ya entries mentioned above. It's very spooky/romantic in a Kate Bush kind of way, so I suppose you have to be in the right kind of mood for it. But it gives me the shivers and makes me feel like I'm in high school again. That might not sound like a good thing, and I don't have time to figure out why it is in this case, so just take my word for it and check it out.


Bibio
Ambivalence Avenue
Another discovery after the fact. In fact, it seems this guy put out another album earlier this very year which may be even better than this one. I guess one of these days I'll get around to listening to it. This one reminds me a little of Caribou, in that it sounds like a guy who's into electronic music trying to make folk songs. Except Bibio's a bit funkier and more dance-oriented. Very pleasant on a long car trip, for instance from Nova Scotia to Maine.


Cass McCombs
Catacombs
Cass McCombs, on the other hand, sounds like a guy who's into folk music trying to make electronica. I suppose that makes him somewhat like Smog/Bill Callahan, who also put out an album this year that almost made it onto this list. McCombs doesn't sing as low as that guy, but his lyrics are similarly dark and/or personal. The songs are pretty and generally a bit more tuneful. I think he has some association with M. Ward too. He probably has other albums, some of which may or may not be better than this one. I should really find these things out if I'm going to pretend to be some kind of expert, eh?


Dog Day
Concentration
The only local release on this list. That probably makes me a jerk, as I'm sure there were lots of wonderful albums released by other Haligonian artists this year. But, as you may be starting to gather, I'm not exactly with it these days. At least, that's the excuse I'm going to stick with. I like this album at least twice as much as Dog Day's first one, and that's saying a heck of a lot.


Fever Ray
Fever Ray
Do you already know about this? Do I need to explain that it's the woman from electronic duo The Knife? I'll assume I do. You know how that The Knife album had that one really cool song, but then everything else, even though it was very spooky and weird, had this kind of goofiness to it that you just couldn't quite embrace or ignore? Well, this record managed to ditch the goofiness, while maintaining the darkness, including the super creepy Laurie Anderson style pitch-shifted vocals. Does that mean I'm saying the guy in The Knife is a goof? Maybe it does.


The Flaming Lips
Embryonic
I've already gone on at length about this album elsewhere. Here's another song, in case you weren't convinced by the first one. My friend Charles criticizes them for ripping off other bands, specifically Can on Embryonic. But I just can't not like it, no matter how hard I try. And I'm a very big Can fan. So that makes it legit, in my book. Kanye West made a whole song directly out of a Can sample, for Pete's sake, and I'm sure he made a lot more money off it than Wayne Coyne will see for his trouble on this awesome but very uncommercial record.


Tim Hecker
An Imaginary Country
Ambient electronics. If you like that kind of stuff, which I do, Tim Hecker produces some of the best that's out there. If it bores the hell out of you, well, you won't like this. If you're on the fence, give this track a try. You can listen carefully to the gorgeous attention to detail here, or let it envelope you in a blissed-out meditative fog, or you can just put it on in the background while you're working and not be distracted by it at all while you remain mysteriously calm. So many states of consciousness accessible through one artist's music... and he's Canadian too!


Mountains
Choral
Mountains are very ambient too, but not so electronic. Choral sounds to me like a hi-fi, long-play version of the Buddha Machine. The band name is appropriate because this music is beautiful and pastoral, rather than purely hypnotic. Dare I compare it to early Popol Vuh? The CD sleeve says this actually came out in 2008, but iTunes lists it as 2009 when I load it in, and it wasn't on last year's list, so it definitely deserves a spot here, even if it's not quite contemporary with the other entries.


Phoenix
Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
I'm sure you've already heard this album. It's everywhere. I'm pretty sure I heard this song in a Cadillac commercial. We used to call that "selling out." Now it's called "making a buck however you can, what with everyone and her grandmother putting out music and no one buying it." So what? Good for them, I say. If you somehow have avoided the hype, they're French and they sound like The Strokes. They're also undeniably catchy, to the extent that they made it onto this list despite ruining the near-perfect alphabetic pattern mentioned in the title of this post. And you KNOW I love a good alphabetic pattern.

Honourable mentions:
Sonic Youth The Eternal
Air Love 2 (See? This one would have made the list completely regular. AND they're also French! Damn you, Phoenix!)