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

what is this Death reissue people keep ref'ing to...? not very google-able

I was wondering about the Death thing myself. can't be left out now.

oh its this: http://therisingstorm.net/death-for-the-whole-world-to-see/

# of Spin’s Top 40 Albums of 2009 I’ve heard: 7
# of the Onion AV Club’s Top 25 Albums of 2009 I’ve heard: 4
# of Stereogum’s Top 50 Albums of 2009 I’ve heard: 4
# of Decibel’s Top 40 Albums of 2009 I’ve heard: 29

The inevitable result of that:
Bands with “major” 2009 releases whose music I have never heard (a partial list): Animal Collective, The Antlers, Arctic Monkeys, Art Brut, Bat For Lashes, Andrew Bird, Bill Callahan, Neko Case, Dan Deacon, The Dead Weather, The Decemberists, Dirty Projectors, Fever Ray, Fuck Buttons, Future Of The Left, Girls, Grizzly Bear, Bon Iver, Japandroids, Lucero (the band, not the Mexican singer – her, I’ve heard), Metric, Monsters Of Folk, The Mountain Goats, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, Passion Pit, Phoenix, St. Vincent, Sunset Rubdown, The Thermals, White Rabbits, The xx

unfortunately KoL were backed by NME and Q this decade - although both mags have hardly any credibility.

In particular NME had KoL on the front cover for the first album, and i lead the laughter on the worst NME covers thread.

ok i totally missed or forgot that MPP made a pretty reasonable #26 in the UK album chart (on release - not sure where it is now), so it doesn't seem to have done too badly really

how are you defining "major releases" - stuff on those four lists? i'd hardly call any of those major releases.

xps

the japandroids album is actually quite good fwiw

is it possible...

no-it can't be.

i appears to be so: they've created THE GREATEST ALBUM OF ALL TIME!

"major releases" in critics circles not commercial sales terms down the supermarket.

xp 'post-nothing' is ok but it's got nothing on 'all lies ep.'

how are you defining "major releases" - stuff on those four lists? i'd hardly call any of those major releases.

xps

― lex pretend, Thursday, December 10, 2009 7:51 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

how are you still asking loaded questions like this in hopes of someone willingly goading you into the same boring argument you have every damn day?

shit getting heated. someone post another horrendously indentikit list?

the lex and unperson have one thing in common there NOT particularly interested in indie rock/ indie pop/ singer-songwriters

ha i kinda laughed when i saw LJ lump in phoenix with all those other bands...phoenix is actually right up your alley imo

how are you defining "major releases"

"Major" in the sense that the people who are my supposed peers keep putting them on their lists. (I think it's safe to predict that most of these same artists will make up the bulk of the Pitchfork list and Pazz & Jop too.)

it wasn't my lumping! phoenix is the only one who have actually made me love a song, as illuminated upthread...maybe i can work on the rest

i still dunno why people rate this Phoenix over their first two albums

phil go listen to my record or I'll fully punish you in the pit

Jimi Hendrix broke in the UK before the US, right?

no (xp)

phil go listen to my record or I'll fully punish you in the pit

Dude, yours is the only one on that list I have the slightest interest in hearing, but whoever your publicist is, I fear he or she has never heard of me.

I was just funnin but you know how to find me if you want me to use the Inviolate Strength Of My Influence

JD if I listen to your album on Spotify will the angels of the Lord come down and deprive me of my eternal rights

TOO LATE

prepare to be intermixed with clarions for Malibu Mish Mash*, Consumer Direct and the new Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy book

*yes I know these have finished, but it's the principle

This FACT Magazine list is blowing my mind.(n.1) The song they posted from their No. 11 disc -- by a Leyland Kirby -- has a similar vibe to William Basinski's The Disintegration Loops, but warmer, I think. Anyway, what a list.

_________________________________
(n.1) Although, I admit, there's a handful of discs that probably work well for clubs but don't translate as well for the kind of listening I do these days (on headphones or in the office).

(A handful of discs on the FACT list, I mean).

safe to predict that most of these same artists will make up the bulk of the Pitchfork list and Pazz & Jop

Nah, I bet only about half of those make P&J. (I can't entirely predict which half, but I bet I have a pretty good idea.)

Of all the albums in the poll, they have a column of what they've heard, and a column of what they haven't heard. And then have the option of sorting the results by giving more weight to the ballots of critics who've heard the most

Btw, as somebody who hears a shitload of records and wants his votes to count quadruple, I totally love this cockamamie idea, but I don't get how it would work. So when critics file their ballots, they would list every single record they'd listened to that year? Or are you saying that, once the Top 40 is computed, already overworked Voice interns make calls to every single voter, give away the list (there go the surprising results), and poll them on which of those they've heard? (Plus, as Phil suggests, that wouldn't seem very fair -- just because you haven't heard a lot of favorite critics records doesn't mean you haven't heard a ton of other records. I've heard almost nothing that Phil listed, either. But I don't know what you mean by "all the albums in the poll". All albums are "in the poll.")

It would be unlikely that many would be persuaded to do something so tedious as check the albums they've heard out of a long list. It's not impossible. Look at the our current 70s poll -- there are a list of over 1,300 nominees to choose from. Last I checked the VV poll generally had around 1,700 albums getting votes.

A more feasible system would just be to enter an estimated number of albums one has listened to from that year. Either way we have to take their word for it. Which is why I merely proposed that the data be there for those who'd like to sort out the critics who shamelessly listen to just a couple dozen albums a year. Out of the 700 plus, I know they exist. Entertainment writers who split time between music, film and other arts, mostly write previews for live gigs, live reviews, and only a handful of album reviews.

Last I checked the VV poll generally had around 1,700 albums getting votes.

Problem is, nobody knows what they are until after everybody has voted. They're not nominees. So yeah, it'd be impossible. Fun idea, though! (As for # of albums, I doubt anybody keeps track. I know I sure don't. I could estimate, but not with any hope of accuracy. And I seriously doubt the only-heard-12-album folks would want to admit it.)

i still dunno why people rate this Phoenix over their first two albums

Word. Or even their third! I mean, I kind of get why people would be more interested in a scrappy guitar band than in the kind of weirdo eclectic lounge music they made in the early half of this decade, but I'm not sure I see how Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is miles superior to It's Never Been Like That.

the first PHoenix was fun; new one is kinda bleh
i like mt. goatz album quite a bit; somewhere in the 20's i think

i still dunno why people rate this Phoenix over their first two albums
― mdskltr (blueski), Friday, 11 December 2009 01:10 (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

is the consensus tht this is a better rec than the first two?

death record is good

wish ancorp wd go back to their pre-sung tongs hcti/spirit style

Yes, new Phoenix album is nice an' all but there's nothing on it that's as sublime as If I Ever Feel Better. Genuinely amazed that it's getting placed in best-of-decade lists.

yea i dont think anyone actually dislikes the death record, some people just arent gonna vote for something that was recorded, and presumably meant to be released, 35 years ago. :shrugs:

I think it's great but I didn't think for a minute to put it in any top 10 of best new records... honestly it's had more hype and praise than anyone involved with its creation could have ever imagined, no-one needs to be cap'n save-a-Death here

This Phoenix record was a bigger deal than the others because it was the first one released into an environment in which most indie listeners and sites/blogs "agreed" that Phoenix were a relatively big deal. Like a 2009 example of why Elephant was a major release the week it came out but White Blood Cells wasn't.

The band had pulled in fans from different spheres over the course of the decade, released records that were mostly slow burns but eventually beloved to some extent (esp the one prior to WAP w/in the U.S.), but this time around it was a hotly anticipated record. The early two tracks, the singles, were then two of the only things people sort of stopped and made time for immediately last year. It didn't hurt that the consensus was then "wow, this is really good."

makes sense

safe to predict that most of these same artists will make up the bulk of the Pitchfork list and Pazz & Jop

Nah, I bet only about half of those make P&J. (I can't entirely predict which half, but I bet I have a pretty good idea.

I wouldn't be too sure: Fourteen of the top 15 LPs and 13 of the top 14 songs on Pazz and Jop last year also made either the 2008 or 2007 Pitchfork year-end lists. It's not just indie artists either: The six highest-placing top 40 artists on the Pazz and Jop songs list last year were also the same six highest-placing top 40 artists on the Pitchfork list, and of course LCD and TVOTR won the LPs the past two years. (and MIA won songs, with things like Fleet Foxes and H&LA even making the top 10 songs.)

Improbable as it would have sounded 12 months ago, I imagine AnCo will win this year. Maybe handily too. Not only are all these bands on all these lists above going to place in LPs quite easily, but AnCo, Dirty Projectors, Phoenix, YYYS, and Grizzly Bear could easily place in the top 10 songs as well.

scratch that last "easily."

xposts to scott

much like the Animal Collective and Dirty Prodge albums I guess. It's good to see bands slowly gaining mainstream attention over a course of years, as opposed to blowing their load on their first or second album and then nothing.

It also helped Phoenix for sure since they were shit live at the start of the decade and now they are quite tight: Most people seeing them this year probably were doing so for the first time, and they surprised a lot of other people who were expecting to be underwhelmed.

i'd like a similarly sensible explanation for why The Future Will Come is being totally ignored. I suppose 'TOO pop/dancey for LCD lovers' would do tho.

Tom Ewing said it reminded him of Younger Younger 28's. This is NOT a sensible explanation!

Seemed to me the big turning point for Phoenix was their fabulous performance on SNL last spring. Something about it just stood out, and people were talking about it a lot. I tried to get tickets to their show a month in advance and it already sold out.

the future will come is kind of inconsistent - though yeah given the past poll form of lcd soundsystem, hot chip et al i am definitely surprised it hasn't cropped up more. it'll make my top 30, maybe 20.

i ain't heard FOTL yetit - when did it come out? quite recently, right?

phoenix - it's kind of a gradual snowball effect, right? they've always trundled away in the background making inoffensive noises - i even liked "if i ever feel better" - and slowly picking up more and more fans. hard, consistent graft paying off, which fits into their improvement live too. wouldn't surprise me to see hot chip in this position a few years hence.

also, the juan maclean's album came out pretty near the start of the year, with the big hype single all the way back in 2008, so people may have just forgotten

Yeah, getting booked onto SNL six weeks before your record is released can't hurt either! I had damn well forgotten about that since by that time the LP had leaked I think and the die was cast for them already in certain circles.

xpost to blueski, yeah too dancey is about right. Even things like Hot Chip and your other DFA/Kompakt-y stuff is still a hardish sell to our readers. That stuff will place a lot higher on our year-end lists than on, say, a Stereogum readers poll (or our own for that matter).

In some small way it probably didn't help that Happy House had come out and been considered a "2008" song already to people and overwhelmed the rest of the (still good!) LP. In some small mental way, that track lived on its own away from the LP and when that happens people can tend to discount the LP more than they should, almost as if a song like that doesn't "count" toward its overall quality. I know that doesn't make any freaking sense at all, but I do feel as if that somehow happens.

xpost I agree with the lex 100% across the board there, ha!