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

I knew you'd take another kick at that dead horse

i knew we would have this conversation yet again this year!

pretty stoked to see Jon Hassell on the WaPo list - love that record to bits.

Bottom line is that the democratic "consensus" for lists like these wasn't always so limited as most of the lists here suggest. The indie-rock domination is a fairly recent development, so dead horse or no, it's worth bitching about. And it's true -- the more conservative outlets (mid American print publications, whatever) seem like they might have more interesting ears these days. And give me hope that Brad Paisley and Kid Sister (both of whom made my ballot fwiw) might make the Pazz & Jop chart, if enough out-of-it old fogeys like me vote for them.

Actually, I doubt Kid Sister has a chance in hell, but it's a nice surprise to see her on a few other people's lists anyway.

i'm gonna vote for miranda lam

You should've voted for one of her good albums, Whiney! (I.e., the first two. Actually the new one's good, too, just a lot less good.)

i think the thing that most of us are complaining about isn't the lack of "originality" or what have you, but more the lack of adventurousness or even interest in what people find consensus on

OTM supremo

Re: Adventurousness, if any publication put an "adventurous" record at #1 with MPP in the same Top 10 ILM would crash from the crush of CHALLOPS! indignance.

Every year X # of people who only knew X much X many years ago will have learned enough to feel caught up with, and no longer overwhelmed by, all that music out there. So I won't condescend to say "I said that in 2007" or "We had this thread last year". They are realizing what is obvious to the critics and obsessive listeners who make these lists: that we already spend all year on the internet debating what is good, and that to restate our conclusions in December is anachronistic devotion to form. The only people it serves are the lazy and ignorant. Who are, ultimately, our masters. Oh. Em. Gee. Shocka.

idk. So far, I don't see this year's set of lists having any more of a concensus than in other years of the decade. In fact, except for a common cluster of discs at the very top, I've seen more unfamiliar titles on 2009 year-end lists than I've noticed in the recent past. Admittedly, I'm not following it as closely as others here are, I'm sure.

BTW, eMusic's Nos. 21 and 14 of the year? Nixon In China and Lang: The Little Match Girl Passion.

agree Daniel - I think the period from '02-'04 was much worse, because it felt like a lot of lazy cribbing was going on. These lists are supposed to be about proving or defining yourself as critic/tastemake, or your publication's scope, and at that time loads of mags/sites/papers paying zero attention to the indie-verse were suddenly printing year-ends with the fucking Books on them and the Rapture as album of the year. Lots of ambulance chasing, where now, it just seems a case of not that much good shit to choose from - especially where the fading album format is concerned. And if song lists are going to be 100 deep, well, who feels any real critical weight about the 86th-best song of a particular year?

xp Sounds like the work of Jayson Greene.

I'm not sure whats more boring at this point, all the lists beginning to look the same or rehashing this same argument every December.

at least it's different records every year

No I always put Loveless at #1

Was the Annie album rereleased again this year?

different annie album

album:

etienne jaumet - night music

despite having 14 spaces for them, i can't narrow down my trax yet :(

I take it the Jaumet is good then? It seems to have gotten an oddly wide release over here given I'd never heard anything other than the Ame remix (which is amazing, stupendous, marvelous, exciting etc.)

Also Lex you should vote for Kingdom's "Mind Reader" because I forgot to.

you love "mind reader"! omg that song is so fucking incredible - have been sitting on it for MONTHS unable to share it. official release is in feb 2010, finally - even though i've been hearing it out all year, i don't think i'll nominate it this year b/c there's no way to even hear it - not on youtube, myspace etc...it deserves to be fucking huge though.

âme remix of jaumet was '08, though when i tried to hype it here no one listened :( the album is terrific, yeah.

uh also i didn't actually post the jaumet nomination in the right thread lol

I've got a 1:22 snippet of "Mind Reader" which gets the gist across but I fell in love with it through that Kingdom mix you harassed me into downloading! The cut-up vocals are A-MAZ-ING.

There's a "vocal dub" youtube version from 2008 that's pretty much the same but lacking the cut-up vocal bit :-( Plus versions of Shyvonne performing it live...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvpIDjNroS4&feature=related

is your email still the bigpond one?

Yes! :-)

The only people it serves are the lazy and ignorant.

That is so wrong. I spend a lot of time paying attention to what albums people say they like in forums year round. But without fail, at the end of the year people are mentioning albums I've never even heard of. I always spend Nov-Dec cramming an additional 200 or more albums into my brain as the lists come out. Thank god for those lists, or I would never have been tipped off, at least not until much later. Also, it gets hard to sort through review sites that cover a lot of stuff, even when they give them ratings. Specialist sites that cover stuff like ambient, post-rock, electronica and metal often sound fairly uniformly enthusiastic about a huge amount of stuff in their reviews. At least at the end of the year they're forced to rank them. As arbitrary as it may seem, it is useful.

Album sales may be down, but I see no evidence that the album as a format is in decline. Even when CDs disappear, people are going to continue wanting to hear more than a single song's worth of music from their favorite artists. If anything, the album is expanding. Three artists that figure prominently in some of the year end lists -- Oneida, Oneohtrix Point Never and Leyland Kirby, have released TRIPLE albums, woo hoo!

I was going to come in here and post a data-crunching question about the p4k albumms list, but those were such awesome points by Fastnbulbous I didn't want to just change the subject. I'm also someone who values those year end lists, and I'm neither lazy or ignorant. I find that end-of-year wrap-ups, the good ones, will either point me toward stuff that's been completely off my radar, or, more frequently, get me newly excited about stuff I've been taking for granted. Royksopp and Yo La Tengo were both surprises for me on the P4k list, and I'm pretty excited to take a closer listen to both of them, after taking them for granted all year long. Which brings me to my question...

There's 28 Best New Music-ed albums that haven't shown up yet. I think it's possible that 24/25 slots will be from BNM (the 25th being Yeah Yeah Yeahs), but is there the possibility of anything else sneaking in there, and, if so, what? For what it's worth, I think it's possible they'll combine MPP and Fall Be Kind at #1 just to mix things up, but they might come in seperate as well. Any guesses on what won't make it? I'm betting Volcano Choir, Wild Beasts, Sunset Rubdown, Isis and Bill Callahan won't make it.

The only people it serves are the lazy

*raises hand

My guess would be that "Dark Was The Night", Volcano Choir and Wavves don't make it, and that Wild Beasts do.

dark was the night already in hon. mentions

Oh, right.
It's a shame Love vs Money and What Happened only got honorable mentions.

you guys realize that the person whose post you're picking apart and arguing with is cee-arr-ay-zee-why, right?

http://gillan.coopster.net/draw/vomit1.gif

^^^this gif goes really well with "What Would I Want? Sky," you just like trip

Unlike so many indie-rock crossover artists before them, Animal Collective did not breach the mainstream by cleaning up their act, or adopting classic-rock conventions, or scoring a strategic soundtrack or iPod-commercial placement CARE ABOUT ITS SOCIAL STATS

oops, fucked that up, they DID NOT care

Can someone please post the rest of the Wire Charts (Dub, Hip-hop, Critical Beats, Reissues and Comps etc). Thanks very much.

yes, I would like to see the Wire charts.....by far the most interesting this (and every) year

here's the Pitchfork list, with the original scores in parentheses:
http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/7744-the-top-50-albums-of-2009/

50. Woods - Songs of Shame (8.3)
49. Cass McCombs - Catacombs (8.2)
48. DOOM - Born Like This (8.0)
47. Zomby - Where Were U in '92? (8.3)
46. Dan Deacon - Bromst (8.5)
45. The Mountain Goats - The Life of the World to Come (8.4)
44. tUnE-yArDs - BiRd-BrAiNs (6.8)
43. Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why There Are Mountains (8.3)
42. A Sunny Day in Glasgow - Ashes Grammar (8.3)
41. Baroness - Blue Record (8.5)
40. Mos Def - The Ecstatic (8.0)
39. Jim O'Rourke - The Visitor (8.3)
38. Major Lazer - Guns Don't Kill People--Lazers Do (8.1)
37. The Antlers - Hospice (8.5)
36. Dinosaur Jr. - Farm (8.5)
35. jj - jj no 2 (8.6)
34. Passion Pit - Manners (8.1)
33. Bibio - Ambivalence Avenue (8.3)
32. Bear in Heaven - Beast Rest Forth Mouth (8.4)
31. Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Dimensions (8.5)
30. Royksopp - Junior (7.9)
29. Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs (7.9)
28. Micachu and the Shapes - Jewellery (7.9)
27. Various Artists - Five Years of Hyperdub (8.2)
26. Bon Iver - Blood Bank EP (7.9)
25. DJ Quik and Kurupt - BlaQKout (8.2)
24. Bill Callahan - Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle (8.1)
23. Memory Tapes - Seek Magic (8.3)
22. Wild Beasts - Two Dancers (8.4)
21. Neko Case - Middle Cyclone (7.9)
20. Real Estate - Real Estate (8.5)
19. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - S/T (8.4)
18. Atlas Sound - Logos (8.2)
17. The Very Best - Warm Heart of Africa (8.6)
16. Antony and the Johnsons - The Crying Light (8.6)
15. Japandroids - Post-Nothing (8.3)
14. Neon Indian - Psychic Chasms (8.6)
13. St. Vincent - Actor (8.5)
12. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz! (8.1)
11. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport (9.0)
10. Girls - Album (9.1)
9. Fever Ray - Fever Ray (8.1)
8. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (8.5)
7. Bat For Lashes - Two Suns (8.5)
6. Grizzly Bear Veckatimest (9.0)
5. Raekwon - Only Built for Cuban Linx...Pt. II (8.8)
4. The Flaming Lips - Embryonic (9.0)
3. The xx - The xx (8.7)
2. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca (9.2)
1. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion (9.6)

move along here

that's good advice

done vomit spewing

kinda surprised at Sonic Youth getting shut out of the Pitchfork list

hey, has anyone heard the dead sea album? they contributed to the score of this really dope film i just watched

what type of human being looks up the old pitchfork scores and types them out into a list ffs

gotta say Flaming Lips is a dope album and i'm glad it's repping for the GAPDY upset

there are about 10-20 subjectively dope-ish to dope albums in that list, so i'm not complaining one bit, although part of me is thinking 'well if they KNEW the st vincent album was dope, why is it only at 13'

lol, I'm on call Whiney, waiting for the phone to ring...

re: sonic youth, at this point I think they're taken for granted. I kind of wish Jim O'Rourke was still in the band. I think they reached a second peak on their albums with him

yeah, but SY's last 3 albums all placed, don't know why they'd be taken for granted now but not then