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

yeah but you & xhuxk are, like, all-genre alt weekly critics -- i mean i didnt vote for animal collective at all

MPP is prolly just too pop for those nerds

It is not #30 on my personal list, if anybody wonders.

MPP is prolly just too pop for those nerds

― the butthurt locker (Whiney G. Weingarten), Sunday, December 20, 2009 8:13 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

dirty projectors is top ten for them

it def feels to me like they are thinking they are 'making a statement'

if there's one thing deej & i can agree on it's that we're not gonna listen to merriweather post pavilion

now that's a club i'll happily join

"dude is just a blank slate"
you'll get no argument from me.

I think part of what we're saying when we say we want to see more diversity or imagination in these lists is: hip me to some new shit! I _know_ animalcollectivedirtyprojectorsyeahyeahyeahsphoenixgrizzlybear; I got that. What ELSE have you got? That's part of why my own list is an intentional mix of the hugely popular and the overtly personal (say, Tonetta777), even when that personal stuff is kinda flawed. It's not to be wacky or hipper-than-thou; it's to say that if you like The-Dream and Fuck Buttons, you should really check out Kutiman.
Not that anyone gives a shit what _I'm_ pushing, but that's the principle I play with.
Hand-in-hand with that is the fallacy that people who work as professional critics or in the music industry necessarily have greatly deeper and broader exposure to the nooks and crannies of music. One major critic discussed on this thread has told me that he feels he hasn't had much of a chance to listen to anything this year outside of what deadline demanded and i know at least one lead booking agent at a major venue who has confided to me that he couldn't name his favorite album of the year because he hasn't heard a full album all the way through. the people who, by and large, get to hear more music than anyone else are internet nerd aficionados who really really focus on this shit because they love it. god bless em.

i don't know if 'imagination' is the right word, you can't just pull a unique-looking year-end list out of your ass with the sheer power of creativity. ultimately i think it's about how you hear music and seek it out. about a third of my favorite albums of '09 is stuff i don't expect anyone here to have heard of unless they read a thread where i talked about it or something, mostly random little bands that happened to play somewhere in Baltimore the night i was seeing another band or semi-obscure favorites i've been following down rabbit holes to even more obscure offshoots and collaborators over years and years. because that's how i have fun discovering music, not blindly downloading pitchfork 'best new music' albums or even really taking recommendations from friends much, not to pat myself on the back or anything but i think a lot of people have forgotten how rewarding it is to just kind of amble down your own path instead of trying to keep up with everyone else.

i think a lot of people have forgotten how rewarding it is to just kind of amble down your own path instead of trying to keep up with everyone else.

There's truth in this. I used to "amble down my own road." I still try to. But I don't have the time I used to have, so some recommendation sources I trust are helpful. For me, the key is to have a few diverse sources (my short-list is P4K; RA; Dusted Magazine; eMusic; and sometimes AllAboutJazz) as a platform, and then explore outside that -- admittedly narrow -- framework when I have time.

(Oh, add ILM to the top of that shortlist).

all our frameworks are narrow; there's no way for them not to be. whiney's got his thousand albums this year and that's still only a fraction of yearly output.
Whiney, I keep meaning to ask you if, ultimately, you feel like listening on that level has been good, bad, helpful, distracting, what?

i dont think you can make that try hard cuss stick with MPP in the wire, its a poll of the writers rather than a consensus. Sung tongs was rubbished in the when reviewed then was in the top 10 at the end of the year.

Im on the 5 listen to the Oneohtrix record since I picked it up yesterday, absolutely breathtaking. Its like all of my favourite stuff stuck together

Okay, so these are not albums but whatevs...

THE WIRE - CRITICAL BEATS

Brackles - LHC
Conforce - Cruising
Cooly G - Narst/Love Dub
Darkstar - Aidy's Girl Is A Computer
Dorian Concept - Trilingual Dance Sexperience
Millie & Andrea - Temper Tantrum/Vigilance
Joker - Do It/Psychedelic Runway
Kode9 - Black Sun/2 Far Gone
Monolake/T++ - Atlas (T++ Mix)
NB Funky - Riddim Box
Joy Orbison - Hyph Mngo
Peverelist - Jarvik Mindstate
Mark Pritchard & Om'mas Keith - Wind It Up
Rustie - Bad Science
Untold - Gonna Work Out Fine

Also, by popular demand...

THE WIRE - HIPHOP

Big Boi featuring Gucci Mane - Shine Blockas
Busdriver featuring Nocando - Least Favorite Rapper
The Clipse featuring Cam'ron & Pharrell - Popular Demand
Doom - Born Like This
Edan - Echo Party
Freeway - The Beat Made Me Do It
G-Side - Huntsville International Project
Kurupt & DJ Quik - BlaQKout
Lil B - I'm God
Lil Boosie - Thug Passion
Lil Wayne - No Ceilings
Gucci Mane & DJ Drama - The Cold War: Guccimerica
Gucci Mane & DJ Holiday - Writing On The Wall
Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Pt. II

What did the Critical Beats column cover before dubstep took root? (Not a snarky question, I honestly can't recall)

I think Critical Beats was previously more techno, but that seems to have shifted over to Electronica, which in turn was previously more about ambient and avant stuff.

Also Critical Beats was drum'n'bass too, way back when. I might be fucking up these genre distinctions though.

haha The Wire has the best hip hop list in this whole thread

i would love for someone to make me a flowchart of the wire's genre specifications, how they fit into each column, and how this has evolved over the past 20+ years

I think a lot of it depends on how the writers of the monthly column want to interpret their given briefs.

nah, i'd rather have it in flowchart form so i can get it tattooed on my dick

so when some music nerd fanboy is all "but what about the great forgotten power electronics/drill and bass crossover of 1997?" i can unzip, get some meta-critical fellatio and be all "woop dere it is"

all our frameworks are narrow; there's no way for them not to be. whiney's got his thousand albums this year and that's still only a fraction of yearly output.
Whiney, I keep meaning to ask you if, ultimately, you feel like listening on that level has been good, bad, helpful, distracting, what?

I mean, I discovered MORE great music in 2009 than I did any other year, so that's a blessing. But the cost of every great album is slogging through 10 mediocre or shitty ones.

The real problem is that there's so much music that pretty much every critic has to listen to other critics just to decide what to LISTEN to. I'm not innocent of it either. But it's not like records just fall from the sky.

haha The Wire has the best hip hop list in this whole thread

― some dude, Monday, December 21, 2009 7:50 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol dude noz writes for them now

Was not expecting The Wire's rap list to look vaguely like my own (as much cos I'm ignorant). I like noz's blog

http://perpetua.tumblr.com/post/293484776/pitchfork-top-10-albums-in-us-sales

That's . . . eye-opening. I would have never guessed that Passion Pit was the No. 1 seller among the P4K top 50, or that Muse would have outsold Wilco.

deeply surprised that phoenix sold 205K; is that US?

duh, it is; I really can't believe that.

they were on SNL and the radio and shit

They were on a real label.

So with all this unending critical hooplashit and some TV ads, they've only moved 6000 copies of Merriweather Post Pavilion since release week. Wake me up before you go-go.

Billboard had AnCo's first-week vinyl-only sales down as 1500 (despite Domino selling out all 4500 available copies) and its first-week CD/digital sales as roughly 25K, so they've sold a bit more than 100k records since then acc to soundscan.

had they actually sold 120K in their first week they'd have easily had a #1 LP considering that week's actual #1 sold only half that.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1603665/20090128/swift__taylor.jhtml

Silent Ballet has begun.

http://www.thesilentballet.com/tsbt/2009/50_41.html

I just wish they'd do it a bit earlier. I hadn't heard any of them, but I'm spent, and am finalizing my list.

My mistake, thanks Scott. Added a 1.

would anyone post the WIRE compilations list please?

I've discovered great music after investigating some names of the 50 best wire records...

That Passion Pit number has been updated to 82k now, fwiw. Not so mindblowing now.

haha The Wire has the best hip hop list in this whole thread

― some dude, Monday, December 21, 2009 8:50 AM (10 hours ago)

yeah amazing, it kind of makes me want to check out their other stuff even though ive never heard of 2/3 of it

ill ask noz but im pretty sure that list wasnt devised by, like, the entire staff or something

this is the text version:

1 Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
2 Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
3 The xx - The xx
4 The Flaming Lips - Embryonic
5 Raekwon - Only Built for Cuban Linx... Pt. II
6 Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
7 Bat For Lashes - Two Suns
8 Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
9 Fever Ray - Fever Ray
10 Girls - Album
11 Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport
12 Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!
13 St. Vincent - Actor
14 Neon Indian - Psychic Chasms
15 Japandroids - Post-Nothing
16 Antony and the Johnsons - The Crying Light
17 The Very Best - Warm Heart of Africa
18 Atlas Sound - Logos
19 The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
20 Real Estate - Real Estate
21 Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
22 Wild Beasts - Two Dancers
23 Memory Tapes - Seek Magic
24 Bill Callahan - Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle
25 DJ Quik & Kurupt - BlaQKout
26 Bon Iver - Blood Bank EP
27 Various Artists - 5: Five Years of Hyperdub
28 Micachu and the Shapes - Jewellery
29 Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs
30 Röyksopp - Junior
31 Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Dimensions
32 Bear In Heaven - Beast Rest Forth Mouth
33 Bibio - Ambivalence Avenue
34 Passion Pit - Manners
35 jj - jj n° 2
36 Dinosaur Jr. - Farm
37 The Antlers - Hospice
38 Major Lazer - Guns Don't Kill People-- Lazers Do
39 Jim O'Rourke - The Visitor
40 Mos Def - The Ecstatic
41 Baroness - Blue Record
42 A Sunny Day in Glasgow - Ashes Grammar
43 Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why There Are Mountains
44 tUnE-yArDs - BiRd-BrAiNs
45 The Mountain Goats - The Life of the World to Come
46 Dan Deacon - Bromst
47 Zomby - Where Were U in '92?
48 DOOM - Born Like This
49 Cass McCombs - Catacombs
50 Woods - Songs of Shame

would anyone post the WIRE compilations list please?

THE WIRE - COMPILATIONS

An Anthology of Chinese Experimenatl Music 1992-2008 (Sub Rosa)
Baku: Symphony of Sirens (ReR)
Fire In My Bones: Raw, Rare & Other Worldly African-American Gospel (Tompkins Square)
Five Years Of Hyperdub (Hyperdub)
Fly Girls! B Boys Beware: Female Rap (Soul Jazz)
Ghana Special: Modern Highlife Afro-Sounds and Ghanaian Blues 1968-81 (Soundway)
Grind Madness At The BBC (Earache)
Induced Musical Spasticity: BC Free Music Society 1984-2009 (Private)
Legends Of Benin (Analog Africa)
Nigeria 70: The Definitive Story Of Funky Lagos (Strut)
Open Strings: Early Virtuoso Recordings From The Middle East, And New Responses (Honest Jons)
Panama! Volume 2: Latin Sounds, Cumbia Tropical & Calypso Funk On The Isthmus 1967-77 (Soundway)
Psych Funk 101 (World Psychedelic Funk Classics)
Raks Raks Raks: 17 Golden Garage Psych Nuggets From The Iranian 60's Scene (Raks Discos)
Relay: Archive 2007-2008 (Manual)
Siamese Soul: Thai Pop Spectacular, Vol 2 (Sublime Frequencies)
The Sound Of Wonder: Rare Electronic Pop From The Lollywood Vaults 1973-1980 (Finders Keppers/B-Music)
Spectra: Guitar In The 21st Century (Quiet Design)
Warp 20 (Warp)

Fucking long-arsed titles, but some of those sound great.

The Ben Frost CD that keeps appearing on these lists is bloody great btw. I've only just picked it up, but it's an epic listen. Beautiful sonic detailing, kind of like a Susumu Yokota record in that regard. It's all been relocated to the Arctic Circle though, you keep getting these creepy wolf pack sounds dropping into the mix, and the whole scene is constantly getting eclipsed by these huge waves of doom-ungous drone that rise up from out of the darkness. Thought from reviews it would maybe be like yer old school isolationism, but thankfully it's a heck of a lot more playful than that.

Can you post the Wire reissues list please.

I have only just heard the Ben Frost, but yes you are right, it is beautiful...

The Wire: Reissues A-Z

Derek Bailey, Lot 74
Bizzy B, Retrospective
Company Flow, Funcrusher Plus
Luc Ferrari, L'Oeuvre Électronique
Flaming Tunes, Flaming Tunes
Harmonia & Eno, Tracks and Traces
Incapacitants, Box Is Stupid
King Crimson, Lizard & Red : 40th Anniversary Editions
Kraftwerk, The Catalogue
Loop, A Gilded Eternity/ The world In Your Eyes
The Monks, Black Monk Time
Moondog, More Moondog/ Story of Moondog
Pandit Pran Nath, Earth Groove
Evan Parker, Saxophone Solos
Public Image Limited, Metal Box
Sun Ra, The Antique Blacks
The Raincoats, The Raincoats
Roll Deep, Street Anthems
The Shadow Ring, Life Review (1993-2003)
Terror Danjah, Gremlinz
Pere Ubu, Datapanik In The Year Zero
The Units, History of The Hunits: The Early Years (1977-1983)
Source Records 1-6; Music Of The Avant Garde 1968-1971

forgot St Etienne, the fools

Lot 74 by Derek Bailey is the worst record I've ever heard in my life.

And I've heard the Raygun album.

The Village Voice's 50 Worst Songs of the '00s: The Complete List
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/archives/2009/12/the_50_worst_so_43.php

50. brokeNCYDE, "Bree Bree"
49. LL Cool J feat. Jennifer Lopez, "Control Myself"
48. The Moldy Peaches, "Who's Got The Crack"
47. Akon, "Sorry, Blame It On Me"
46. Dynamite Hack, "Boyz-N-The-Hood"
45. James Blunt, "You're Beautiful"
44. Aaron Carter, "America A O"
43. Basshunter, "Please Don't Go"
42. 3 Doors Down, "Kryptonite"
41. Vanessa Hudgens, "Sneakernight"
40. Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, and the Wu-Tang Clan, "For Heaven's Sake 2000"
39. Aubrey O'Day feat. Roscoe Umali, "Never Fallin'"
38. Say Anything, "Got Your Money"
37. Satellite Party feat. Jim Morrison, "Woman In The Window"
36. Lady Sovereign, "Food Play"
35. Hampton The Hamster, "The Hampsterdance Song"
34. Happy Mondays, "Jelly Bean"
33. Heidi Montag, "Higher"
32. Smash Mouth, "I Wan'na Be Like You (The Monkey Song)"
31. 50 Cent, "Amusement Park"
30. Swizz Beatz with Ja Rule and Metallica, "We Did It Again"
29. John Mayer, "Your Body Is A Wonderland"
28. Xiu Xiu, "Support Our Troops OH (Black Angels OH)"
27. Kelly Osbourne and Ozzy Osbourne, "Changes"
26. Beastie Boys, "In A World Gone Mad"
25. Weezer, "Heart Songs"
24. Gummibar, "I Am Your Gummy Bear (The Gummy Bear Song)"
23. Santana feat. Chad Kroeger, "Into The Night"
22. The Notorious B.I.G. ft. Bob Marley, "Hold Ya Head"
21. Crazy Frog, "Last Christmas"
20. Gym Class Heroes, "Taxi Driver"
19. Nickelback, "Something In Your Mouth"
18. Toby Keith, "Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue (The Angry American)"
17. Simple Plan, "Perfect"
16. William Hung, "O Come All Ye Faithful"
15. Hinder, "Born To Be Wild"
14. Korn, "Ya'll Want A Single?"
13. Sugababes Vs. Girls Aloud, "Walk This Way"
12. Disturbed, "Land of Confusion"
11. Darryl Worley, "Have You Forgotten?"
10. Fieldy's Dreams, "Baby Hugh Hef"
9. Ashlee Simpson, "La La"
8. Limp Bizkit and Johnny Rzeznik, "Wish You Were Here"
7. Nicole Scherzinger, "Puakenikeni"
6. Hot Action Cop, "Fever For The Flava"
5. Alvin & The Chipmunks, "Get Munk'd"
4. Blue October, "Jump Rope"
3. Tila Tequila, "I Love U"
2. Artists Against AIDS Worldwide, "What's Goin' On (Fred Durst's Reality Check Mix)"
1. Counting Crows ft. Vanessa Carlton, "Big Yellow Taxi"

so many usernames