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

(NB: picture taken in the flat of an ex-editor of the Wire!)

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fucking pitchfork

Jody Rosen has suddenly discovered NYC bachata hearthrobs Aventura and he's repping for Baltimore too.

What makes you so sure he's just discovered them?

http://www.slate.com/id/2155532/entry/2155544/

http://www.jewcy.com/feature/2007-09-18/the_music_of_atonement

GAPDY in top 6 of the pitchfork SINGLES list. also, AC's "Summertime Clothes" isn't on the list at all despite the inferior "My Girls" being #1. i don't understand.

pitchfork "best songs of 2005" -- hot 100 hits in places #1-30: 12; pitchfork "best songs of 2009" -- hot 100 hits in places #1-30: 0

some blogger tries to predict pithfork top 10 albums

http://popheadwound.blogspot.com/2009/12/pitchfork-predictions.html

1. Merriweather Post Pavillon - Animal Collective
2. Veckatimest - Grizzly Bear
3. Bitte Orca - Dirty Projectors
4. Only Built For Cuban Linx, Pt.2 - Raekwon
5. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix - Phoenix
6. xx - The xx
7. Album - Girls
8. Psychic Chasms - Neon Indian
9. Embryonic - The Flaming Lips
10. Tarot Sport - Fuck Buttons

pitchfork "best songs of 2005" -- hot 100 hits in places #1-30: 12; pitchfork "best songs of 2009" -- hot 100 hits in places #1-30: 0

to be fair, 2005 was a singles list not a songs list. Also, in 2005, Since U Been Gone, Mr Brightside, Welcome to Jamrock, 1 Thing, Late Registration, Stay Fly, Hate It or Love It, In the Kitchen, and Go Crazy were released.

In 2009, we got...Lady Gaga, and even you all were, like us, slow to coming around embracing her. If we polled a month later, she'd have two songs in the top 30 instead of top 100 I reckon. Polled two months earlier, she may have had none.

^^ I think this is right. I'm not sure I even voted for "Bad Romance" but I def. would now.

Saddest moment for me was realising "Inflation" didn't make it :-(

I had even wondered who you'd get to write about it if it had made the list.

in 2005, Since U Been Gone, Mr Brightside, Welcome to Jamrock, 1 Thing, Late Registration, Stay Fly, Hate It or Love It, In the Kitchen, and Go Crazy were released

the difference seems to be the equivalents of these songs were still made and released in 2009 but didn't necessarily have the same chart success, which suggests that the voters don't really care for, or care to seek out, teenpop, dancehall, r&b or hip-hop unless it's in a pop context, which...sucks. hence, a lack of richgirl, jeremih, electrik red, kid sister, demi lovato, busy signal, timberlee, young dro etc...

well, to go back to 2005, clipse, ldy sov, and robyn all made the top 30; we just aren't going to agree on the relative quality of the 2005 v 2009 stuff there.

i refuse to believe anyone outside of rock critics listens to dubstep

Not even non-rock critic British folks or American anglophiles?

Well, not yet they don't.

they damn well should.

i refuse to believe anyone outside of rock critics listens to dubstep

lol

Also rev and scottpl are both kind of right in that

scott OTM: this kind of HAS been a shitty year for chart pop, especially those big, weird singles we can all rally around

rev OTM: Why would you fill that void with 10 sound-alike chillwave bands?

I mean I think it also has a lot to do with ROCK CRITIC HABITS in 2009... not just pfork but across the board

Lists like these are dominated by white, male, college-educated 20/30-somethings who regularly do things like download .rars of Ducktails albums and champion Dirty Projectors. They're living in this insular universe where they can only hear what they WANT to hear since critics/indiefux can now find ONLY the music they like with no help from radio/MTV, and no chance of stumbling across pop stuff with the ease of 1995 or even 2005. I mean when do you expect random Dusted Magazine beardo to SIT DOWN AND WORK to hear the awesome Shakira song or Brad Paisley song when there's like James Blackshaw albums leaking all day.

I mean for every poptimist like Maura or Juzwiak there's like 50 rock critics in hoodies who think Phoenix is groundbreaking music

They wear the hoodies because they're ashamed, Whiney.

Guardian just updated their top 10 of the year with Noah & The Fucking Whale at #7. Amusing defensive comeback from Guardian writer Rosie Swash to critics in the comments tho:

You want to see bland, wait till the Readers' Poll results come in. Last year's list featured Killers and Kings of Leon

yeah more people need cars w/ actual AM/FM radios imo. xxpost

Though, tbf, the big single of 2009 -- "Boom Boom Pow" -- should have been on there. That shit has more dope electromurk than Kingdub80 Vs. HyperFrosty or whatever

no, that song is awful.

I would argue that being "the big single of 09". I'd pick empire state over that clunker. What's billboard say?

(not that empire state is much better, mind you)

I gotta feeling is going to be the BEP songs that people remember from this year for sure. Hell, it's going to be the BEP song that outlasts all of their others to date. That's the one that will be played at weddings, office parties, clubs, etc.

and it's also the "big single" of the year, along w/pokerface

hm, i guess BEP had a "good year"

am getting the impression that indie tracks are judge on their merits whereas other genres are being judged on whether they're the "big song" of the year or close to it, which...idk, it's nice when an "umbrella" happens, but ever year there's as much going on beneath the chart surface in teenpop, r&b, hip-hop etc.

i'm fine w/"boom boom pow" but "i gotta feeling" sucks so hard

am getting the impression that indie tracks are judge on their merits whereas other genres are being judged on whether they're the "big song" of the year or close to it, which...idk, it's nice when an "umbrella" happens, but ever year there's as much going on beneath the chart surface in teenpop, r&b, hip-hop etc.

sure, but you could argue that whether a pop song succeeds as pop-- including how well it does in the marketplace/on radio, whether it gets played in communal/social settings, etc.-- is judging it on its merits.

oh i'm so bored of that argument, it's about how YOU respond to it, not others - it seems like an excuse to avoid talking about the music tbh. and i'm not sure why it'd apply to all the genres i mentioned but not indie in any case

Various business factors may determine how well a song does in the marketplace and on the radio, so while interesting that shouldn't be seen as the crucial item in judging the success of a pop song.

Meanwhile, some allmusic.com genre lists up

http://blog.allmusic.com/2009/12/14/allmusics-favorite-rb-albums-of-2009/

http://blog.allmusic.com/2009/12/15/allmusics-favorite-folk-albums-of-2009/

http://blog.allmusic.com/2009/12/14/allmusics-favorite-latin-albums-of-2009/

Still surprised Juan Maclean's "One Day" hasn't been showing up. When that came out I was for some reason sure it would be huge.

Ha, I reviewed six of the albums on AMG's Latin best-of-year list. That Paulina Rubio disc is pretty fucking awesome; so much better than that atrocious Shakira album.

scott OTM: this kind of HAS been a shitty year for chart pop, especially those big, weird singles we can all rally around

yeah, but there hasn't exactly been this dearth of great chart pop-LIKE singles or lower charting singles, which basically means the staff wasn't really paying attention to them. which of course i don't have a problem with - i like p4k just fine for what it is, and i'm not going to complain when a site that has bearded chillwave diehards as 75% of its staff overlooks stuff like that. there's other places to go for good crit of pop music

Still surprised Juan Maclean's "One Day" hasn't been showing up. When that came out I was for some reason sure it would be huge.

― maciej recognizing trill, Tuesday, December 15, 2009 2:19 PM (49 minutes ago) Bookmark

ya i was surprised by this, too. it's been a staple in dj sets this year, in my experience at least. i would switch 'one day' with that washed out song for 10th place for posterity.

'One Day' quite possibly my favourite single of 09 all in all

slant's list is up, not sure if it was posted

http://www.slantmagazine.com/music/features/2009yearinmusic.asp

looks like these guys really, really slept on st vincent's first album

Having read some of the Best of Decade lists, I can't help but think that 2009 has been really lackluster. The Pitchfork Top 100 tracks list (which I normally enjoy) didn't excite me much this year. There are some good songs on there, but hardly any great ones. Of the top of my head... Other years this decade that I found wanting still saw some extraordinary new talent emerge. For example:

2002 saw the Neptunes and Timbaland doing some of their best work. And you had tracks like "Grindin'", "Cry Me a River", "Can't Get You Out of My Head", etc.

2003 brought us Dizzee Rascal, The Knife (to an international audience), Villalobos' Alcachofa. Tracks like "Crazy in Love", "Hey Ya", "Ignition (Remix)", "Heartbeats", etc.

2004 gave us Sung Tongs, Piracy Funds Terrorism, tracks like "Toxic, "Heartbeat", etc.

2005: Arular, Robyn, Antony. Tracks like "1 Thing", "Hope There's Someone", "What You Know", etc.

2008: New Amerykah, Portishead's transformation, London Zoo. Tracks like "Machine Gun", "White Winter Hymnal", "Blind", etc.

I think the abundance of creativity found in 2000-01 and 2006-07 is undeniable.

2009 felt to me mostly like the Top Box Office list of the year: most of it a "sequel" of sorts, nothing terribly groundbreaking. I suppose MPP and Bitte Orca might be the most original albums I heard this year. I like some of the Glo-Fi stuff (particularly) Neon Indian, but does it measure up to past year highlights? I suppose 2008 wasn't too much different. But nothing this year blew me away like the three albums I listed above.

I'm hoping to be convinced otherwise...

Just to add to that... Fever Ray is my favorite album this year. But I would say that, while Karin is definitely an original, that her album is more of a subtle, intriguing offshoot of The Knife, rather than a big leap forward.

all years are the same

^ yes. apart from 2000 which sucked.

lauding "white winter hymnal" as groundbreaking or w/e is prob even more lol than the whole aspie/troll decade breakdown thing

In 2009, we got...Lady Gaga, and even you all were, like us, slow to coming around embracing her. If we polled a month later, she'd have two songs in the top 30 instead of top 100 I reckon. Polled two months earlier, she may have had none.

― scottpl, Tuesday, December 15, 2009 5:16 AM Bookmark

that's fair re: gaga. I mean, I came around to her literally yesterday when I decided I wasn't offended by "Paparazzi" stuck in my head

but that doesn't change that 2009 also had "Turnin' Me On", "I Know You Want Me", "Loba", "Turn My Swag On", "Boom Boom Pow", "Birthday Sex", "Try Sleeping With a Broken Heart", etc. maybe even "Single Ladies" would count, didn't notice it skimming through your 2008 list and it definitely feels like it impacted this year

Yep, you're right. That one should be left off from the argument. That said...

Someone who devotes their commenting time to simply looking for a detail to laugh at is 'even more lol'. See troll.

the level of resistance to the idea that you might have to put in a tiny bit of effort these days to find the most inventive/excellent examples of (formerly-)popular genres is weird. but i don't think anyone can take it for granted any more that great pop music will just drop into your lap like it would have seven years ago. if you wait for that, you'll end up thinking:

"2009 felt to me mostly like the Top Box Office list of the year: most of it a "sequel" of sorts, nothing terribly groundbreaking"

i've been bitching about the charts - UK even worse than US - all year, so i'd probably agree w/that - though as rev's just pointed out the top 40 was hardly a pop wilderness. but it's totally unreflective of the music actually being made.

i refuse to believe anyone outside of rock critics listens to dubstep

You're the one who keeps wondering how people hear No. 1 singles so this doesn't surprise me a bit.

it's still completely weird to me that rock critics have started listening to dubstep tbh