“Hey, so, pretty good year for music overall.” I feel like critics always seem to make some comment or other about how the year went “for music,” which I’ve always found kind of odd. How can you tell? I mean, you can tell, in a way, because you loved so many more albums one year than another, but it just ends up being about so many other things — about your experiences, your experiences with music, the amount of time you spent listening to music, the friends you kept, your overall mood, etc. So in that case it was a great year for music, because I had a great year — one of the best or maybe the best I’ve ever had.
It’s also the end of a decade, and a lot of websites and blogs have devoted their time to discussing what the decade in music looks like, what were the most important aspects, and projections for the future. While I originally had intentions for reflection, I’m going to pass on this, namely because I feel like I’ve only really been a part of half the decade as a music-listener. I’ll leave it to people much wiser in their years.
If you want to listen to any of these albums and can’t find them for download on the internet, I can upload them to mediafire or some other such site. Anyways, here it is — my Top 20 Albums, ranked from 20 (lowest) to 1 (best):
20.
Casiotone For The Painfully Alone
Vs. Children
Vs. Children almost didn’t make this list because I had forgotten about it. It’s an easy sort of album to forget about, because like all of the previous Casiotone catalog, these songs are small. They’re tiny things — a stray pink fridge magnet letter B, an espresso spoon, a fav icon or a paperclip. They’re the kind of songs that capture moments in the lives of people who sit next to you on the bus, who scan the tabloids with you in the checkout line. The unifying theme here is children, or, more specifically, the troubles people get into when they get preggers, and what they do in those situations. They’re songs about parents’ relationships to their kids, or about kids themselves. There are great references here, especially musical ones, and especially the Bowie one.
19.
The Balconies
The Balconies
The Balconies is a stunning indie-rock debut from Ottawa. They sort of sound like HILOTRONS, who are also from Ottawa. The songs flourish in duet structures, background do-do-dos, groovy basslines and a girl with crazy good pipes. You can tell they’re having fun. They’re young. They take themselves just seriously enough. They have the potential to be one of the biggest Canadian indie-rock bands — squashing out Toyko Police Club and Stars and whoever else along the way. Let’s wait for the next one to see what happens.
18.
Fuck Buttons
Tarot Sport
An album as much about texture and repetition as its predecessor, but this time it seems that Fuck Buttons are really going after dance beats. The songs have a stronger pulse than on Street Horrrsing, and it’s not always about a growing crescendo, as it is on “Surf Solar” and “Olympians” — songs open and sustain their cacophony over their entirety. It’s a different flavour in the same medium, and a nice step forward from a still solid debut.
17.
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
There were probably some great indie-pop albums this year, but either I didn’t look hard enough or the pile of them never came to my ears. It’s maybe unfortunate, but at least I had The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. The album is an updated Sarah Records sound; jangling guitars and tambourines are buried under the surface of electric fuzz that borders shoegaze. The drum beats are fantastic — fast and energetic throughout. The singer coos out melodrama with an accent not unlike The Field Mice or Another Sunny Day’s lead singers. Above all, we certainly can applaud The Pains for courageously wearing their influences like a fluorescent t-shirt to a funeral.
16.
Dan Mangan
Nice, Nice, Very Nice
You just have to get into the Canadiana though, don’t you? Lazily repeating what I said earlier about this album on CHR:
Mangan’s hitting all the right touchstones — Canadian content, to be sure, including Vancouver’s cedar-abundance; longing on the open road; rent-cheque worries; record stores; Quebecoise song titles; it goes on. He’s a bit less clever than John K. Samson, but a bunch gruffer, a little more whiskey-soaked. He’s a bit like Craig Cardiff, but without the kid — he’s younger, less tour-drained, more in touch with the current horde of mid-twenties indie-lovers. He’s out to conquer, and he’s doing it.
Can’t wait to see what comes next here, as he’s on point to inherit a piece of the Canadian songwriters’ throne. Allons-y!
15.
The Avett Brothers
I And You And Love
The Avett Brothers are brandishing their aggressive, start-and-stop approach to bluegrass-folk in its best dress this time around, and it has finally put them on the map this year (well, along with their record deal). It’s overdue, considering the magic they’ve made in previous albums and EPs. They’re talented, and know better than anyone else how to at once push out from and stick within an established genre. The only thing keeping this from the top of the list is that they diverge too much from what they’re good at — stories. Their droops into the expository-almost-preachy meditations on politics, life, people’s “natures,” etc. are what kills the soaring greatness this album might’ve been for me. Even so, it has so many stand-out tracks, so many compelling moments where lyrics and music merge to become gorgeous hooks.
14.
Animal Collective
Merriweather Post Pavilion
If you made an Venn diagram to find 2009’s best music, where the circles symbolized critics and indie-aficionados and, granted, maybe anyone over 18 who doesn’t just listen to music on the radio or Rod Steward Walmart bin Greatest Hits collections, then Merriweather Post Pavilion would probably occupy the centre spot. It was a dominant force this year, beginning even before its January release, catching blogger’s ears and spreading like wildfire from the die-hard Sung Tongs fans into a much wider spectrum of listeners. Above all it was Animal Collective’s movement into the mainstream; the trio stripped their rough, murky, challenging snake-skins for the bright reds, yellows, and whites of uncamouflaged, choral pop. There are vocals you can understand. There are beats you can dance to. There’s love and emotion and summer. And there’s some of the all-around catchiest pop of the year.
13.
Jenny Owen Youngs
Transmitter Failure
Transmitter Failure works well as a concept album. Meditations of a break-up — possible break-up, in the process of breaking up, post-break-up, etc. — infuse every song. It’s a joy to hear when too many artists these days are just throwing a collection of songs together, not worried about making something unified. This might be symptomatic of “the death of the album” business people keep discussing, but there’s still a lot to be said for wholeness and cohesiveness. The best part about this album is that the songs switch gears so much — between songs and within songs themselves — that we’re never bored with the result and, in fact, we care what Youngs has to say as a result. Her voice is powerful (or soft when it wants to be), emotive and has a nice timbre that puts her a line above other female singer-songwriters. She has nice hair (on the cover at least). And she’s Canadian!
12.
Elvis Perkins In Dearland
Elvis Perkins In Dearland
After I heard “Shampoo,” the first track from this album, I thought immediately that In Dearland would reach the top of my year’s list. It was such a compelling opener to an album that had a lot of expectations to keep. What came about was an album with one or two tracks that annoy rather than impress, keeping it away from such great heights, but even so the majority of songs here are as stunning as Ash Wednesday’s, and they’re pumped with more instruments and more musical energy. The songwriting is as great as ever — moving, surreal, wonderful.
11.
A Sunny Day In Glasgow
Ashes Grammar
Songs explode with sunshine (like “The White Witch,” which works from a “Song 2″ kind of drum beat), they give a gut reaction for head-bobs and singing along (”Failure”), they’re the perfect songs to drive to (”Close Chorus,” which wavers out like “I Only Said”). It’s an album that’s more like one continuous song, and this works in its favour; we’re given a po-mo shield of haze where generic pop songs, delicate vocals, and sustained beats are constantly attempting to break through the surface but never quite making it all the way. There’s that tension all the time, which makes it sound a lot like an updated version of Loveless or Psychocandy.
10.
Camera Obscura
My Maudlin Career
My Maudlin Career is a record about making music and touring, and the complications that come along by separating oneself from friends and love, and by putting oneself in a grueling, difficult situation for an extended period of time. Take “French Navy,” where Tracyanne Campbell notes that “relationships were something [she] used to do,” and cringes when her lover begs: “I want you to stay.” No. She’s going on the road again. Place-signifiers jump out everywhere — redwoods, rivers in Toronto (???), the Southern Cross, and America: Chicago, Cleveland, fishing in Portland. She’s even sad that she’s causing these feelings in her fans; in the ballad “Away With Murder,” she laments against some pedal-steel-sounding synths that “people have been traveling miles just to hear us sing.” Well, no wonder. And they’ll keep coming. The album title is fitting then — constantly making music this charming and affecting takes its toll, but we’re all better for it.
09.
Sunset Rubdown
Dragonslayer
I’d rather have Spencer Krug on his own. The Swan Lake business is good I guess, but give me some Spencer Kruuuuuug already. This guy is awesome. I don’t know how he does it either. He’s always singing nonsense, but he fucking makes you FEEL it. “Silver moons belong to you.” That line kills me every time, especially coupled with its sister line: “Gone are the days bonfires make me think of you.” The guy’s not saying anything at all, but the emotive and rousing quality of every hook he’s written on Dragonslayer is evident. And how about how Krug never forgot how to rock out? Wow, that part toward the end of “You Go On Ahead (Trumpet Trumpet II)” (more nonsense) where the drums kick in harder as he starts repeating “and add up, and add up…” Jesus. And why not close out with a ten minute ballad that keeps you interested throughout? Sure. More please. Don’t even make another Wolf Parade album (okay I didn’t mean that).
08.
Bombadil
Tarpits & Canyonlands
It’s sort of hilarious. Let me walk you through it. Bear with me. The band’s named after an enigmatic Tolkien character and the album cover features a whimsical scene involving a hot air balloon. The first song is an epic intro about building someone a metaphorical (or real??) pyramid. You’ll want to sing along to this, but you won’t know why and, when you do, people might make fun of you. A bit later, you’ll hear a song which seriously, seriously discusses the doldrums and troubles of post-married life (heavy stuff). You’ll appreciate the details, and the metaphors for life, because they’re good — they’re serious and poetic. These same sentiments come back again later in the touching ballad “Marriage,” but first you’ll hear a song about its protagonist pining hard for a girl to marry him in ridiculous situations (”Won’t you marry me, marry me? Please Ju-lie!”), and a horn-flustered, pirate-deck sing-along jam called “Oto The Bear” which isn’t about anything as far as I can tell — fish discos though. Oh, and there’s also “So Many Ways To Die” in the mix, which is violin-moan and snare drum sparkle about someone trying to convince a loved one not to take their own life. Then of course we’re given a really old-style-Romeo-from-the-bottom-of-the-balcony love song sung completely in Spanish called “Laurita,” then a bouncing-beat, handclappy ode to Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia itself (”MALAYSIA!!”) and a return to the pyramid business from the start. Then a straight-faced, Irish-tinged war elegy (for Vietnam?). Then a song that includes LAN party and Aphex Twin dorm-room lyrics, but it’s actually about a Christian kid committing suicide. Believe it or not, Tarpits & Canyonlands closes out with a wedding song to be played for a lesbian couple. Conclusion: This. Shit. Rules.
07.
The Mountain Goats
The Life Of The World To Come
My allegiance to The Goats! is well-known to anyone reading this, so in lieu of a proper discussion about the Biblical thing, lyrics, chord-driven piano, Owen Pallett, or the majestic Dodo, I’ll simply say that if John Darnielle were a cartoon character, I’m betting he’d be the Candelabra, Lumière, from The Beauty And The Beast.
Lumière is a happy, intelligent character — giving advice, leading, etc. but in the end he’s an entertainer; he’s about performing for his audience. I mean, “what’s a little dinner without… music?” His famed “Be Our Guest” is all about altruism — about doing his work (which probably doesn’t seem an awful lot like work) for the fans. And like Lumière, John Darnielle is an entertainer. When he takes the stage, discusses his work in interviews, blogs, or even when he writes liner notes, he’s a presence to be felt, always coming up with consistently witty commentary and funny dialogue that seeps with charisma. He takes his time to make/do/say something memorable. And in the end, he plays to please. In a live recording I have, he uses a system to get requests from people (”okay, second from the back, fifth from the right”) instead of allowing the loudest shouters to dominate, he sings songs he’s played a thousand times with continual joy, he banters with the crowd. In an old post on his blog (lastplanetojakarta), he wrote in a rage about an artist who threw aside their audience by claiming “I’m only doing this for myself.” And in this really great article (http://www.cokemachineglow.com/feature/4977/concert-mountaingoats) on a Goats Live show, the writer mentions how Darnielle apparently says to his audience, concerning “No Children,” that “this song is more yours than mine anyway.”
Maybe this comparison is a stupid stretch, especially because Mountain Goats songs have always been about bottom-of-the-barrel, despicable or depressed characters in desperate situations (and it’s no different on The Life). It’s dark stuff, especially contrasted with the exuberance of “Be Our Guest.” But then if you can’t believe that dark, forlorn characters could be thrilling to sit beside, to hear about, then perhaps you need to revisit Lumière: “Try the grey stuff; it’s delicious.” I’m sure Darnielle would agree.
06.
Polly Scattergood
Polly Scattergood
I fell in love with Polly Scattergood’s first EP/demos — which include the majority of the songs on this album — back in 2008. In fact, “Nitrogen Pink” was one of my favourite songs of last year (and remains one of my favourites of this one, too, though other songs have surfaced here). Scattergood’s music is like a dark version of Hello Saferide; neurotic, weird, tongue-and-cheek and often heartbroken, but additionally caught in the tinted windows of a herse on a rainy day. The characters inhabiting the songs (or maybe Polly herself) are manic-depressive — at once happy and sad, and fighting toward one opposite or another at any given time. The fact of the matter is that no song disappoints — Scattergood’s voice dominating with all the range and histrionics her music, writing and creativity demand.
05.
Why?
Eskimo Snow
Yoni Wolf can appreciate good word-play. I bet his name isn’t his real name. It contains perfect assonance; it sounds cool; it’s fun to say. Yo-nee. Wolf. Esk-ee-mo. Snow. He raps well, too. That’s the thing — it’s always been this sort of rap/indie-rock hybrid, and it was always gritty and offensive and a light misting of Georges Bataille whenever he opened his mouth and purged into the mic. Things are slightly different on Eskimo Snow — there’s more singing, less of the obscene, and more music!… but some things never change. The wordplay’s still there — the lyrics are still as good as Alopecia, as good as anything I’ve heard by anyone, but Yoni lets the music take control this time. In “Into The Shadows Of My Embrace,” he rambles his best perverse creations — about the upstairs neighbour’s eavesdropping on his masturbation noises, about a busload of hypothetical schoolgirls, about making out with your shrink — before delivering the key thesis to his entire body of work: “You gotta yell something out you’d never tell nobody.” And that’s all great. But what comes directly after the aforementioned line is some of the catchiest, unforgettable, impulsive pop of the year. So whatever you want to say about Why?, about this weird hybrid, about how white guys shouldn’t do hip-hop — this album isn’t really about that anymore. It’s about convincing pop songs and inspired music.
04.
Emmy The Great
First Love
This album filled the Nina Nastasia void in my 2009 life. It did so in a big way. I’m a huge fan of Nastasia’s attention to detail, and even more so to her ability to subtly give life to the details — to delve between the hair-line cracks of the song’s characters and events for that extra bit of interest, reflection, meaning. Emmy The Great’s successes are the same, and in addition she’s able to draw us in with a voice that’s halfway between Nastasia herself and Lily Allen — at once the plain near-speaks of Nastasia and the British inflected rolling-tongue melodies of Allen. And it has to be said that I can’t get enough of people who sing about music; being as it’s such an integral part of my life, it’s easy to attach to the personal experiences of characters who pause over cassette compilations or recall before anything else the music playing in the moment of a first meeting.
03.
Phoenix
Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix really was the biggest indie-rock-whatever album of the year, wasn’t it? Cadillac commercials, remixes spilling all over the internet, the singles played endlessly, everywhere you went — the sheer success of this album is that it defied its saturation point, that it stayed relevant/listenable/whatever through the majority of the year. Instead of talking about every-fucking-song-being-awesome, let’s talk about “Love Like A Sunset I&II,” the longest “song” on the album and also the most unlike any of the others. Wolfgang is so grand because this song works so well in the fold of great pop; at track four (and five) it’s the well-placed coolant that keeps the album from overheating, that gives your ears a bit of rest. On any other album a great majority of listeners would throw this song away as drivel or nonsense, but here it functions as a catalyst for extended pop brilliance, and it serves to let listeners unfamiliar with more experimental sides of “rock music” to become interested in something new.
02.
Japandroids
Post-Nothing
Post-Nothing might be about shirking. Shirking everything — production, intellectualism, complexity, etc. Even the title suggests a shirking of genres. But it’s not rebellious. It’s not actively avoiding, it just doesn’t care. It wants to talk about girls instead. It wants to discuss summer, irrational love, to imagine running away from home, to drool over a future out of the fucking suburbs. Really, it wants to parlay about being a teenager, to express teenage sentiments, if not to sometimes occupy a wiser, older, nostalgia that’s bent on old times – when everything was easier and infinitely more difficult (when all you worried about were “sunshine girls”). It wants to scream, so it does. All the time. About girls. About leaving. It rocks the fuck out. If you want to call it “emo” — emotion spewed out loudly as though “the man” is about to sew up some lips — it’s the best emo record to come along in a long time.
01.
Micachu
Jewellery
This year hasn’t seen an album more unafraid than 21 year old Mica Levi’s Jewellery to explore the possibilities of what a pop song can be, can use, can incorporate — what it can sound like — and also been so downright successful at capturing all of the elements that make music so great to listen to in the first place. This isn’t just a bunch of songs that include out-of-tune guitars and heavy sighs and vacuum cleaners and keyboard mashing; above all, it’s pop music in the most visceral way — affecting, catchy, moving, and forcing your body into movement. Sure, it’s challenging. You won’t fall in love with the martian laser-gun beat on “Curly Teeth” or even the too-familiar “Hey-Ya” handclaps on “Golden Phone,” and you sure as hell won’t understand what Levi is singing about on first, second, even third listens. But after that. This album is a grower in the best way, music that reveals itself with all the drama and intrigue of a hand of seven card stud. And it succeeds this way because, unlike a lot of what we hear blasted from convertibles or at parties, it always provides something new for you to find. Songs on Jewellery are in constant flux, never sure about the ground they’ve laid, the structures they’ve erected, the work they’ve done. They’re always keen to try something new, which is probably what all art needs to do most of all.
Casiotone For The Painfully Alone
Vs. Children
Vs. Children almost didn’t make this list because I had forgotten about it. It’s an easy sort of album to forget about, because like all of the previous Casiotone catalog, these songs are small. They’re tiny things — a stray pink fridge magnet letter B, an espresso spoon, a fav icon or a paperclip. They’re the kind of songs that capture moments in the lives of people who sit next to you on the bus, who scan the tabloids with you in the checkout line. The unifying theme here is children, or, more specifically, the troubles people get into when they get preggers, and what they do in those situations. They’re songs about parents’ relationships to their kids, or about kids themselves. There are great references here, especially musical ones, and especially the Bowie one.
19.
The Balconies
The Balconies
The Balconies is a stunning indie-rock debut from Ottawa. They sort of sound like HILOTRONS, who are also from Ottawa. The songs flourish in duet structures, background do-do-dos, groovy basslines and a girl with crazy good pipes. You can tell they’re having fun. They’re young. They take themselves just seriously enough. They have the potential to be one of the biggest Canadian indie-rock bands — squashing out Toyko Police Club and Stars and whoever else along the way. Let’s wait for the next one to see what happens.
18.
Fuck Buttons
Tarot Sport
An album as much about texture and repetition as its predecessor, but this time it seems that Fuck Buttons are really going after dance beats. The songs have a stronger pulse than on Street Horrrsing, and it’s not always about a growing crescendo, as it is on “Surf Solar” and “Olympians” — songs open and sustain their cacophony over their entirety. It’s a different flavour in the same medium, and a nice step forward from a still solid debut.
17.
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
There were probably some great indie-pop albums this year, but either I didn’t look hard enough or the pile of them never came to my ears. It’s maybe unfortunate, but at least I had The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. The album is an updated Sarah Records sound; jangling guitars and tambourines are buried under the surface of electric fuzz that borders shoegaze. The drum beats are fantastic — fast and energetic throughout. The singer coos out melodrama with an accent not unlike The Field Mice or Another Sunny Day’s lead singers. Above all, we certainly can applaud The Pains for courageously wearing their influences like a fluorescent t-shirt to a funeral.
16.
Dan Mangan
Nice, Nice, Very Nice
You just have to get into the Canadiana though, don’t you? Lazily repeating what I said earlier about this album on CHR:
[quote]Mangan’s hitting all the right touchstones — Canadian content, to be sure, including Vancouver’s cedar-abundance; longing on the open road; rent-cheque worries; record stores; Quebecoise song titles; it goes on. He’s a bit less clever than John K. Samson, but a bunch gruffer, a little more whiskey-soaked. He’s a bit like Craig Cardiff, but without the kid — he’s younger, less tour-drained, more in touch with the current horde of mid-twenties indie-lovers. He’s out to conquer, and he’s doing it.[quote]
Can’t wait to see what comes next here, as he’s on point to inherit a piece of the Canadian songwriters’ throne. Allons-y!
15.
The Avett Brothers
I And You And Love
The Avett Brothers are brandishing their aggressive, start-and-stop approach to bluegrass-folk in its best dress this time around, and it has finally put them on the map this year (well, along with their record deal). It’s overdue, considering the magic they’ve made in previous albums and EPs. They’re talented, and know better than anyone else how to at once push out from and stick within an established genre. The only thing keeping this from the top of the list is that they diverge too much from what they’re good at — stories. Their droops into the expository-almost-preachy meditations on politics, life, people’s “natures,” etc. are what kills the soaring greatness this album might’ve been for me. Even so, it has so many stand-out tracks, so many compelling moments where lyrics and music merge to become gorgeous hooks.
14.
Animal Collective
Merriweather Post Pavilion
If you made an Venn diagram to find 2009’s best music, where the circles symbolized critics and indie-aficionados and, granted, maybe anyone over 18 who doesn’t just listen to music on the radio or Rod Steward Walmart bin Greatest Hits collections, then Merriweather Post Pavilion would probably occupy the centre spot. It was a dominant force this year, beginning even before its January release, catching blogger’s ears and spreading like wildfire from the die-hard Sung Tongs fans into a much wider spectrum of listeners. Above all it was Animal Collective’s movement into the mainstream; the trio stripped their rough, murky, challenging snake-skins for the bright reds, yellows, and whites of uncamouflaged, choral pop. There are vocals you can understand. There are beats you can dance to. There’s love and emotion and summer. And there’s some of the all-around catchiest pop of the year.
13.
Jenny Owen Youngs
Transmitter Failure
Transmitter Failure works well as a concept album. Meditations of a break-up — possible break-up, in the process of breaking up, post-break-up, etc. — infuse every song. It’s a joy to hear when too many artists these days are just throwing a collection of songs together, not worried about making something unified. This might be symptomatic of “the death of the album” business people keep discussing, but there’s still a lot to be said for wholeness and cohesiveness. The best part about this album is that the songs switch gears so much — between songs and within songs themselves — that we’re never bored with the result and, in fact, we care what Youngs has to say as a result. Her voice is powerful (or soft when it wants to be), emotive and has a nice timbre that puts her a line above other female singer-songwriters. She has nice hair (on the cover at least). And she’s Canadian!
12.
Elvis Perkins In Dearland
Elvis Perkins In Dearland
After I heard “Shampoo,” the first track from this album, I thought immediately that In Dearland would reach the top of my year’s list. It was such a compelling opener to an album that had a lot of expectations to keep. What came about was an album with one or two tracks that annoy rather than impress, keeping it away from such great heights, but even so the majority of songs here are as stunning as Ash Wednesday’s, and they’re pumped with more instruments and more musical energy. The songwriting is as great as ever — moving, surreal, wonderful.
11.
A Sunny Day In Glasgow
Ashes Grammar
Songs explode with sunshine (like “The White Witch,” which works from a “Song 2″ kind of drum beat), they give a gut reaction for head-bobs and singing along (”Failure”), they’re the perfect songs to drive to (”Close Chorus,” which wavers out like “I Only Said”). It’s an album that’s more like one continuous song, and this works in its favour; we’re given a po-mo shield of haze where generic pop songs, delicate vocals, and sustained beats are constantly attempting to break through the surface but never quite making it all the way. There’s that tension all the time, which makes it sound a lot like an updated version of Loveless or Psychocandy.
10.
Camera Obscura
My Maudlin Career
My Maudlin Career is a record about making music and touring, and the complications that come along by separating oneself from friends and love, and by putting oneself in a grueling, difficult situation for an extended period of time. Take “French Navy,” where Tracyanne Campbell notes that “relationships were something [she] used to do,” and cringes when her lover begs: “I want you to stay.” No. She’s going on the road again. Place-signifiers jump out everywhere — redwoods, rivers in Toronto (???), the Southern Cross, and America: Chicago, Cleveland, fishing in Portland. She’s even sad that she’s causing these feelings in her fans; in the ballad “Away With Murder,” she laments against some pedal-steel-sounding synths that “people have been traveling miles just to hear us sing.” Well, no wonder. And they’ll keep coming. The album title is fitting then — constantly making music this charming and affecting takes its toll, but we’re all better for it.
09.
Sunset Rubdown
Dragonslayer
I’d rather have Spencer Krug on his own. The Swan Lake business is good I guess, but give me some Spencer Kruuuuuug already. This guy is awesome. I don’t know how he does it either. He’s always singing nonsense, but he fucking makes you FEEL it. “Silver moons belong to you.” That line kills me every time, especially coupled with its sister line: “Long are the days bonfires make me think of you.” The guy’s not saying anything at all, but the emotive quality of every hook he’s written on Dragonslayer is evident. And how about how Krug never forgot how to rock out? Wow, that part toward the end of “You Go On Ahead (Trumpet Trumpet II)” (more nonsense) where the drums kick in harder as he starts repeating “and add up, and add up…” Jesus. And why not close out with a ten minute ballad that keeps you interested throughout? Sure. More please. Don’t even make another Wolf Parade album (okay I didn’t mean that).
08.
Bombadil
Tarpits & Canyonlands
It’s sort of hilarious. Let me walk you through it. Bear with me. The band’s named after an enigmatic Tolkien character and the album cover features a whimsical scene involving a hot air balloon. The first song is an epic intro about building someone a metaphorical (or real??) pyramid. You’ll want to sing along to this, but you won’t know why and, when you do, people might make fun of you. A bit later, you’ll hear a song which seriously, seriously discusses the doldrums and troubles of post-married life (heavy stuff). You’ll appreciate the details, and the metaphors for life, because they’re good — they’re serious and poetic. These same sentiments come back again later in the touching ballad “Marriage,” but first you’ll hear a song about its protagonist pining hard for a girl to marry him in ridiculous situations (”Won’t you marry me, marry me? Please Ju-lie!”), and a horn-flustered, pirate-deck sing-along jam called “Oto The Bear” which isn’t about anything as far as I can tell — fish discos though. Oh, and there’s also “So Many Ways To Die” in the mix, which is violin-moan and snare drum sparkle about someone trying to convince a loved one not to take their own life. Then of course we’re given a really old-style-Romeo-from-the-bottom-of-the-balcony love song sung completely in Spanish called “Laurita,” then a bouncing-beat, handclappy ode to Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia itself (”MALAYSIA!!”) and a return to the pyramid business from the start. Then a straight-faced, Irish-tinged war elegy (for Vietnam?). Then a song that includes LAN party and Aphex Twin dorm-room lyrics, but it’s actually about a Christian kid committing suicide. Believe it or not, Tarpits & Canyonlands closes out with a wedding song to be played for a lesbian couple. Conclusion: This. Shit. Rules.
07.
The Mountain Goats
The Life Of The World To Come
My allegiance to [i]The Goats![/i] is well-known to anyone reading this, so in lieu of a proper discussion about the Biblical thing, lyrics, chord-driven piano, Owen Pallett, or the majestic Dodo, I’ll simply say that if John Darnielle were a cartoon character, I’m betting he’d be the Candelabra, Lumière, from [i]The Beauty And The Beast[i].
Lumière is a happy, intelligent character — giving advice, leading, etc. but in the end he’s an entertainer; he’s about performing for his audience. I mean, “what’s a little dinner without… music?” His famed “Be Our Guest” is all about altruism — about doing his work (which probably doesn’t seem an awful lot like work) for the fans. And like Lumière, John Darnielle is an entertainer. When he takes the stage, discusses his work in interviews, blogs, or even when he writes liner notes, he’s a presence to be felt, always coming up with consistently witty commentary and funny dialogue that seeps with charisma. He takes his time to make/do/say something memorable. And in the end, he plays to please. In a live recording I have, he uses a system to get requests from people (”okay, second from the back, fifth from the right”) instead of allowing the loudest shouters to dominate, he sings songs he’s played a thousand times with continual joy, he banters with the crowd. In an old post on his blog (lastplanetojakarta), he wrote in a rage about an artist who threw aside their audience by claiming “I’m only doing this for myself.” And in this really great article (http://www.cokemachineglow.com/feature/4977/concert-mountaingoats) on a Goats Live show, the writer mentions how Darnielle apparently says to his audience, concerning “No Children,” that “this song is more yours than mine anyway.”
Maybe this comparison is a stupid stretch, especially because Mountain Goats songs have always been about bottom-of-the-barrel, despicable or depressed characters in desperate situations (and it’s no different on [i]The Life[i]). It’s dark stuff, especially contrasted with the exuberance of “Be Our Guest.” But then if you can’t believe that dark, forlorn characters could be thrilling to sit beside, to hear about, then perhaps you need to revisit Lumière: “Try the grey stuff; it’s delicious.” I’m sure Darnielle would agree.
06.
Polly Scattergood
Polly Scattergood
I fell in love with Polly Scattergood’s first EP/demos — which include the majority of the songs on this album — back in 2008. In fact, “Nitrogen Pink” was one of my favourite songs of last year (and remains one of my favourites of this one, too, though other songs have surfaced here). Scattergood’s music is like a dark version of Hello Saferide; neurotic, weird, tongue-and-cheek and often heartbroken, but additionally caught in the tinted windows of a herse on a rainy day. The characters inhabiting the songs (or maybe Polly herself) are manic-depressive — at once happy and sad, and fighting toward one opposite or another at any given time. The fact of the matter is that no song disappoints — Scattergood’s voice dominating with all the range and histrionics her music, writing and creativity demand.
05.
Why?
Eskimo Snow
Yoni Wolf can appreciate good word-play. I bet his name isn’t his real name. It contains perfect assonance; it sounds cool; it’s fun to say. Yo-nee. Wolf. Esk-ee-mo. Snow. He raps well, too. That’s the thing — it’s always been this sort of rap/indie-rock hybrid, and it was always gritty and offensive and a light misting of Georges Bataille whenever he opened his mouth and purged into the mic. Things are slightly different on [i]Eskimo Snow[i] — there’s more singing, less of the obscene, and more music!… but some things never change. The wordplay’s still there — the lyrics are still as good as [i]Alopecia[i], as good as anything I’ve heard by anyone, but Yoni lets the music take control this time. In “Into The Shadows Of My Embrace,” he rambles his best perverse creations — about the upstairs neighbour’s eavesdropping on his masturbation noises, about a busload of hypothetical schoolgirls, about making out with your shrink — before delivering the key thesis to his entire body of work: “You gotta yell something out you’d never tell nobody.” And that’s all great. But what comes directly after the aforementioned line is some of the catchiest, unforgettable, impulsive pop of the year. So whatever you want to say about Why?, about this weird hybrid, about how white guys shouldn’t do hip-hop — this album isn’t really about that anymore. It’s about convincing pop songs and inspired music.
04.
Emmy The Great
First Love
This album filled the Nina Nastasia void in my 2009 life. It did so in a big way. I’m a huge fan of Nastasia’s attention to detail, and even more so to her ability to subtly give life to the details — to delve between the hair-line cracks of the song’s characters and events for that extra bit of interest, reflection, meaning. Emmy The Great’s successes are the same, and in addition she’s able to draw us in with a voice that’s halfway between Nastasia herself and Lily Allen — at once the plain near-speaks of Nastasia and the British inflected rolling-tongue melodies of Allen. And it has to be said that I can’t get enough of people who sing about music; being as it’s such an integral part of my life, it’s easy to attach to the personal experiences of characters who pause over cassette compilations or recall before anything else the music playing in the moment of a first meeting.
03.
Phoenix
Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix really was the [i]biggest[/i] indie-rock-whatever album of the year, wasn’t it? Cadillac commercials, remixes spilling all over the internet, the singles played endlessly, everywhere you went — the sheer success of this album is that it defied its saturation point, that it stayed relevant/listenable/whatever through the majority of the year. Instead of talking about every-fucking-song-being-awesome, let’s talk about “Love Like A Sunset I&II,” the longest “song” on the album and also the most unlike any of the others. Wolfgangis so grand because this song works so well in the fold of great pop; at track four (and five) it’s the well-placed coolant that keeps the album from overheating, that gives your ears a bit of rest. On any other album a great majority of listeners would throw this song away as drivel or nonsense, but here it functions as a catalyst for extended pop brilliance, and it serves to let listeners unfamiliar with more experimental sides of “rock music” to become interested in something new.
02.
Japandroids
Post-Nothing
Post-Nothing might be about shirking. Shirking everything — production, intellectualism, complexity, etc. Even the title suggests a shirking of genres. But it’s not rebellious. It’s not actively avoiding, it just doesn’t care. It wants to talk about girls instead. It wants to discuss summer, irrational love, to imagine running away from home, to drool over a future out of the fucking suburbs. Really, it wants to parlay about being a teenager, to express teenage sentiments, if not to sometimes occupy a wiser, older, nostalgia that’s bent on old times – when everything was easier and infinitely more difficult (when all you worried about were “sunshine girls”). It wants to scream, so it does. All the time. About girls. About leaving. It rocks the fuck out. If you want to call it “emo” — emotion spewed out loudly as though “the man” is about to sew up some lips — it’s the best emo record to come along in a long time.
01.
Micachu
Jewellery
This year hasn’t seen an album more unafraid than 21 year old Mica Levi’s [i]Jewellery[i] to explore the possibilities of what a pop song can be, can use, can incorporate — what it can sound like — and [i]also[/i] been so downright successful at capturing all of the elements that make music so great to listen to in the first place. This isn’t just a bunch of songs that include out-of-tune guitars and heavy sighs and vacuum cleaners and keyboard mashing; above all, it’s pop music in the most visceral way — affecting, catchy, moving, and forcing your body into movement. Sure, it’s challenging. You won’t fall in love with the martian laser-gun beat on “Curly Teeth” or even the too-familiar “Hey-Ya” handclaps on “Golden Phone,” and you sure as hell won’t understand what Levi is singing about on first, second, even third listens. But after that. This album is a grower in the best way, music that reveals itself with all the drama and intrigue of a hand of seven card stud. And it succeeds this way because, unlike a lot of what we hear blasted from convertibles or at parties, it always provides something new for you to find. Songs on [i]Jewellery[i] are in constant flux, never sure about the ground they’ve laid, the structures they’ve erected, the work they’ve done. They’re always keen to try something new, which is probably what all art needs to do most of all.
