Acclaimed Music Top 30 Albums from 2009 poll

finally back!

and will finish out albums now.

Journal for Plague Lovers. A great rock album.

Sunday, Monday, GAPDY Days

This is either Bitte Orca or Monoliths & Dimensions. Tough choice!

yeah yeah yeahs out of these choices, but the two best albums of 2009 were made by the-dream ("love vs money" and electrik red's "how to be a lady, vol 1")

Bat for Lashes

Dan Deacon's Bromst not on the list? What the hey

Either It's Blitz! or Journal For Plague Lovers

I listened to Embryonic a lot at the time, but haven't really felt the need to dig it out in recent years. Humbug may just be Arctic Monkeys finest work, which isn't saying much.

Voting for It's Blitz!

Animal Collective can fuck off, as usual.

Oh shit, Fever Ray is on here...

...ah well, it's still It's Blitz!

Wow, hadn't noticed that Love vs Money isn't on there. That's crazy.

This has to be the worst of all these lists. Total peak of indie critical dominance crowding out what was actually amazing that year. That said I do like about 10 of these albums.

Actual best albums of 2009:

Electrik Red - How To Be A Lady, Vol. 1
The-Dream - Love vs Money
Shafiq Husayn - Shafiq En' A-Free-Ka

Best albums on this list:

Fever Ray - S/T
The XX - S/T
Lady Gaga - The Fame Monster

there is some good stuff in here but mostly yikes @ this list

too bad them crooked vultures didn't quite make the top 30

Shocked that Bromst isn't on here. Love so much stuff that came out this year: YESTERDAY'S WORK by Ecstatic Sunshine especially, look that one up. Javelin's record, s/t i think? the last Sonic Youth album isn't very good but I'm glad I got to see them live before the split. Paul Banks' Julian Plenti album SKYSCRAPER is great, but that whole thing is really fans only... but I saw Animal Collective play two days in a row that May, Dan Higgs opened the first, Grouper the second....up front for Higgs but behind hundreds of chattering heads during Grouper, got DDD on cd at that show and i played it almost as much as Merriweather that year... so yeah, it's gotta be Merriweather, a record I anticipated for a year and a half that leaked on Christmas, I'll never forget listening to that thing for the first time late at night, stoned, with the same Sennheiser headphones i still have, and when those drums kick in on "In the Flowers"... to bottle that feeling... pure magic... love so many records on this list though, it was a very exciting time for sure...

to me and my friends, they were our Beatles... age of course a major factor here... but i'm so grateful to have had that experience and relationship with a band like AC, where i saw them move and grow for five years from record to record, each better than the last. Merriweather is the peak of that, and it's tied with some very intense feelings for me... still love it, but i really wore the thing out...

Two Dancers

what an absolute shit show. the only ones here I really care for any more are SunnO))) and St Vincent

Amazing year for hiphop but you'd never know it from this top 30 :(

Wow, not a lot to choose from here. Neko Case is my favourite by a mile, St. Vincent a distant second.

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.

yuck ugh christ

xx album is still great

no

GAPDYX really was a thing, and it really was fucking awful. at least Fever Ray is in there ruining its primacy

I guess some of these albums have good stuff on them (FR, Horrors, Flaming Lips, St Vincent, Mastodon, Sunn O))), maybe even Lady Gaga) but I'd hardly describe any of them as a good album these days. What WAS good from 2009, though? According to my records, Thumpermonkey, Devin Townsend and Cheer-Accident, all of whom all of you have heard of. Ugh

These were the best electronic albums of 2009 (besides Fever Ray, of course):

Hell - Teufelswerk
Reagenz - Playtime
TBA_Natalie Beridze - Pending
Etienne Jaumet - Night Music
Dinky - Anemic
Ada - Adaptations
DJ Sprinkles - Midtown 120 Blues
Namlook / Le Mar - Namlook / Le Mar

Playtime especially is a slept-on classic, one of the best house albums of the last 15 years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HTQ_gB9pHA

top 5 this year

Washed Out - Life Of Leisure EP
Neon Indian - Psychic Chasms
Memory Tapes - Seek Magic
Chilly Wavezales - Fuckaducktails
Various - Wave Up America, Your're Chill

Here is the ILX EOY list for this:

50 -- Gucci Mane - Burrprint 3D (89.5 points, 9 votes) (dnp in p4k, 195 in p&j)
49 -- Matias Aguayo - Ay Ay Ay (91 points, 11 votes) (dnp in p4k, 226 in p&j)
48 -- Girls - Album (92 points, 10 votes) (10 in p4k, 10 in p&j)
47 -- Baroness - Blue Record (92 points, 11 votes) (41 in p4k, 19 in p&j)
46 -- Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career (93 points, 8 votes, 1 #1 vote/s) (dnp in p4k, 30 in p&j)
45 -- Fall Out Boy - Folie a Deux (96 points, 6 votes, 1 #1 vote/s) (dnp in p4k, dnp in p&j)
44 -- UGK - UGK 4 Life (96.5 points, 10 votes) (dnp in p4k, 311 in p&j)
43 -- Henrik Schwarz, Âme and Dixon - The Grandfather Paradox (98 points, 9 votes) (dnp in p4k, 816 in p&j)
42 -- Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest (98.5 points, 10 votes) (6 in p4k, 6 in p&j)
41 -- NOMO - Invisible Cities (101 points, 7 votes) (dnp in p4k, 356 in p&j)
40 -- El Perro Del Mar - Love Is Not Pop (104.5 points, 8 votes, 2 #1 vote/s) (dnp in p4k, 1558 in p&j)
39 -- Meanderthals - Desire Lines (104.5 points, 9 votes) (dnp in p4k, 877 in p&j)
38 -- JJ – jj n° 2 (104.5 points, 9 votes, 1 #1 vote/s) (35 in p4k, 105 in p&j)
37 -- Horrors - Primary Colours (106.5 points, 11 votes) (dnp in p4k, 65 in p&j)
36 -- Neko Case - Middle Cyclone (107 points, 12 votes, 2 #1 vote/s) (21 in p4k, 3 in p&j)
35 -- The Mountain Goats - The Life Of The World To Come (110.5 points, 10 votes) (45 in p4k, 80 in p&j)
34 -- Lady Gaga - The Fame Monster (111.5 points, 10 votes) (dnp in p4k, 31 in p&j)
33 -- Mariah Carey - Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel (112 points, 8 votes) (dnp in p4k, 332 in p&j)
32 -- Broadcast & The Focus Group - ...Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age (112.5 points, 9 votes, 1 #1 vote/s) (dnp in p4k, 88 in p&j)
31 -- Miranda Lambert - Revolution (115 points, 9 votes) (dnp in p4k, 25 in p&j)
30 -- Junior Boys - Begone Dull Care (115 points, 10 votes, #1 vote/s) (dnp in p4k, 199 in p&j)
29 -- Röyksopp - Junior (116 points, 9 votes, #1 vote/s) (30 in p4k, 301 in p&j)
28 -- Omar-S - Fabric 45: Detroit (123 points, 10 votes) (dnp in p4k, 134 in p&j)
27 -- Mungolian Jet Set - We Gave it All Away...Now We Are Taking It Back (128.5 points, 10 votes) (dnp in p4k, 744 in p&j)
26 -- Lily Allen - It's Not Me, It's You (136 points, 10 votes, 1 #1 vote/s) (dnp in p4k, 22 in p&j)
25 -- Dâm-Funk - Toeachizown (138 points, 13 votes) (dnp in p4k, 47 in p&j)
24 -- Death - ...For the Whole World To See (145.5 points, 12 votes) (dnp in p4k, 151 in p&j)
23 -- Rihanna - Rated R (152.5 points, 16 votes) (dnp in p4k, 125 in p&j)
22 -- Future Of The Left - Travels With Myself And Another (163 points, 11 votes, 1 #1 vote/s) (dnp in p4k, 67 in p&j)
21 -- St. Vincent - Actor (167 points, 12 votes, #1 vote/s) (13 in p4k, 12 in p&j)
20 -- Mastodon - Crack the Skye (170.5 points, 12 votes, 1 #1 vote/s) (dnp in p4k, 18 in p&j)
19 -- Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II (172 points, 15 votes, no #1 vote/s) (5 in p4k, 8 in p&j)
18 -- Bat For Lashes - Two Suns (181 points, 15 votes, no #1 vote/s) (7 in p4k, 23 in p&j)]
17 -- The Flaming Lips - Embryonic (182 points, 15 votes, 2 #1 vote/s) (4 in p4k, 9 in p&j)
16 -- Maxwell - BLACKsummers'night (190 points, 17 votes, no #1 vote/s) (dnp in p4k, 14 in p&j)
15 -- Sunn 0))) - Monoliths And Dimensions (212 points, 17 votes, no #1 vote/s) (31 in p4k, 42 in p&j)
14 -- The Juan Maclean - The Future Will Come (240 points, 22 votes, 2 #1 vote/s) (dnp in p4k, 126 in p&j)
13 -- Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport (265 points, 24 votes, 1 #1 vote/s) (11 in p4k, 39 in p&j)
12 -- DJ Sprinkles - Midtown 120 Blues (270 points, 19 votes, 3 #1 vote/s) (dnp in p4k, 82 in p&j)
11 -- Lindstrom & Prins Thomas - II (285.5 points, 22 votes, 1 #1 vote/s) (dnp in p4k, 359 in p&j)
10 -- Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca (290.5 points, 23 votes, 3 #1 vote/s) (2 in p4k, 5 in p&j)
9 -- Taylor Swift - Fearless (292 points, 19 votes, 2 #1 vote/s) (dnp in p4k, 186 in p&j)
8 -- Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (300 points, 23 votes, 3 #1 vote/s) (8 in p4k, 2 in p&j)
7 -- Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion (348 points, 27 votes, 1 #1 vote/s) (1 in p4k, 1 in p&j)
6 -- DJ Quik and Kurupt - Blaqkout (353.5 points, 27 votes, 1 #1 vote/s) (25 in p4k, 62 in p&j)
5 -- The Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz! (386.5 points, 34 votes, 1 #1 vote/s) (12 in p4k, 4 in p&j)
4 -- Electrik Red - How to Be a Lady Vol. 1 (455.5 points, 28 votes, 6 #1 vote/s) (dnp in p4k, 148 in p&j)
3 -- The xx - xx (514 points, 39 votes, 2 #1 vote/s) (3 in p4k, 7 in p&j)
2 -- The-Dream - Love vs. Money (538.5 points, 34 votes, 10 #1 vote/s) (dnp in p4k, 16 in p&j)
1 -- Fever Ray - Fever Ray (636.5 points, 44 votes, 5 #1 vote/s) (9 in p4k, 13 in p&j)

I was hoping this would throw up a few more good ones, but there's still not a lot here that makes me very excited. Maybe it's just too much in that middle-ground between recent and long ago to get passionate about.

TFW you realize you were so out of the loop in 2009 that you didn't hear ANY of the Acclaimed Music top 30 albums (or any of the ILX top 31 albums) all the way through.

looking at that list, it really feels like things have moved on quite significantly since it was compiled. Fuck Buttons came up on my Spotify Discovery Weekly the other day and it has not aged very well at all.

Fever Ray, but only because DJ Sprinkles isn't on the list

While the ilx list has Love vs Money, and therefore almost by definition is the better list, it's... not that good either, right? At least the top 30. Anyone here really still thinks the sound of 2009 was Junior Boys, Royksopp or Lily Allen?

Checking the website, The-Dream isn't even on the 'bubbling under' list. Wtf? That's something that will surely be changed with some historical perspective.

Anyone here really still thinks the sound of 2009 was Junior Boys, Royksopp or Lily Allen?

They were all (arguably over)benefiting from previously rated works which is typical list fare, I don't think anyone was claiming they were career peaks for any of them or particularly representative of trends of the time.

definitely the xx album for me.

Yeah, Electrik Red, DJ Sprinkles and The-Dream would be my Top 3 for this year but Fever Ray is close behind so I'll vote for that. Lots of other good stuff missing:

Oneohtrix Point Never - Zones Without People
Baroness - Blue Record
Wolves in the Throne Room - Black Cascade
Gucci Mane - Burrprint
Paramore - Brand New Eyes
The Jacka - Tear Gas
Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas - II

Rifts is from 2009! That's surely also an album that will make it unto the list in time.

Omg I forgot that Fall Out Boy was this year. And Maxwell.

But I think of DJ Sprinkles as 2008.

I don't think anyone was claiming they were career peaks for any of them

I would claim that's Lily Allen's best album, at least.

I was going to vote for Two Suns, but then I noticed that Gaga was on the Acclaimed list and I voted for that.

Prob St. Vincent or Bat for Lashes or Phoenix.

That xx album is such a boring nothing for being a widely-hailed album.

Between Two Dancers and It's Blitz.

Where is Blaqkout?????

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix still holds up

Embryonic was pretty thrilling on first listen, but I haven't returned to it much since

Toeachizown is a pretty glaring omission, how do you ignore 5 LPs of pristine funk like that

oh yeah dam-funk and blaqkout are each in my top 5 from this year i think

2009 was probably the year i listened to the most music and i remember it fondly

Fever Ray is probably most deserving here, but the Mastodon album is the one I come back to the most

Fever Ray is alright but I'd much sooner listen to Silent Shout or Shaking The Habitual. There've been a hell of a lot of other records before and since that share the same sonic qualities as that album.

Teen Dream came out in 2010

A Sunny Day in Glasgow's "Ashes Grammar" was the big album for me at the time. Of the options here I guess it's Callahan or Bat for Lashes.

Teen Dream came out in 2010

So it did! Not sure how I remembered it so clearly along with other 2009 albums. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

pretty sure it came out in january or february 2010

none that were really that great on here either

a few major omissions

toe's for long tomorrow was on heavy rotation this year for me

fuck, _the visitor_ came out in '09!

My favorite and by far most-played album from 2009 is Polvo's In Prism.

Best song: The Mountain Goats - "Ezekiel 7 and the Permanent Efficacy of Grace"
Close second: Bat for Lashes - "Daniel"

ya in prism wasn't bad

but i dig their older stuff way more

was just listening to cor-crane secret yesterday

Oh man, can't believe I forgot The Visitor!

I listened to General Elektriks "Good City for Dreamers" a lot in 2009, still holds up pretty dang well imo

japandroids. woulda voted for miranda had she been on there, though.

isn't The Vistor, ABBA?

jim o'rourke

oh i see, ABBA is the Visitors. you must be talking about UFO then?

oh, haha.

UFO wasn't making sense (as metal is not that big around here) but they did release an album called The Visitor in 2009.

or i should have said, this isn't Rate Your Music so UFO made no sense.

don't know any of this. my faves of that year are:

lindstrom & prins thomas
dj sprinkles
reagenz
leyland kirby (blech sentimental emo ambient done right!!)

i guess i liked that bat for lashes album ok.
wait, the fame monster, i'm voting for that.

don't know it's different from the fame, tbh

don't know how it's different, i meant to say

GAPDYX

gucci
ace hood
plies
???
young money
???

GAPDYX

Gucci
Ace Hood
Plies
DMX
Young Money
X Gon Give It To Ya

Girls, St. Vincent and Neko Case are classics in my collection - voting Girls

Went Fuck Buttons. Girls a close second

there's enough I like here but nothing really great, a pretty weak list (though very skewed)

xx over Fever Ray, I guess

Other's I like from this list:

Top:

4 595 Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
5 626 Fever Ray - Fever Ray

Just Under:

1 184 Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
2 304 The xx - xx

A Bit More Below:

12 1035 The Flaming Lips - Embryonic
6 627 Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
7 801 Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!
16 1586 Arctic Monkeys - Humbug
19 1739 The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
8 803 The Horrors - Primary Colours

I must the only one who thinks Crack the Skye is one of the finest albums of the last decade at least. Oh well. And I've never heard them but The Pains of Being Pure at Heart must be one of the most irrationally(?) infuriating bandnames ever.

Some great rediscoveries from a smart playlist of the 2009 songs I gave a rating of 3 stars or more over the years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GzjCG0JjI4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJuziTMtXKk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Scx9fVHPHA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OysOL_Xn-Ik

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QASe0nt_Lng

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Finally decided and voting for Dirty Projectors.

Where the fuck did the GAPDY thing come from anyway?

god, I'd forgotten how out of control the animal-centric band naming was back then

it was bad. but now there are a lot of sports-centric names in indie rock. one thing i miss about this era is the sense of experimentation and somewhat avant garde stuff that permeated indie music. now we're stuck with boring 80s/90s indie/college rock revivalists like Parquet Courts, Car Seat Headrest, Modern Baseball, Speedy Ortiz, Metz, The Men, etc. Even dross like Fuck Buttons and Ear Pwr was compelling in a way that all of those R.E.M. and Pavement clones are not.

yeah but even by 2009 it was all that lonely cabin woodchopper crap

i'll take that over car seat fucking headrest any day

i mean, For Emma, Forever Ago is great, but it's like In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, so hard to separate it from all the cultural detritus caused by it. the weird new america/last great generation of noise rock bands were still active and relevant i feel (the Lightning Bolt LP from 2009 is great, and Black Dice put out their best work REPO in 2009. same goes for Eric Copeland). that lasted until 2010/2011. i don't think vest rock/cabincore became omnipresent until 2011.

boring 80s/90s indie/college rock revivalists like... Modern Baseball

uh

Emo bullshit, whatever. They're still boring as fuck & doing absolutely nothing new. Can't wait for them to fade away

one thing i miss about this era is the sense of experimentation and somewhat avant garde stuff that permeated indie music.

The problem was, a lot of the acts that were doing it really shouldn't have been doing it. A lot of them were fucking awful at it and the music has aged horrendously.

Metz fucking rule.

Seriously, 2007-2010 is probably one of the worst times in... *groans* ... "indie music" I can ever remember. Just endless amounts of utter, utter shit.

the reason for my Dirty Projectors vote is this story: i was working for a rental car company and they asked if i wanted to go to Las Vegas to pick up a Camaro, the one that is in all those Transformers movies. left the night before and actually won some money, paid for my trip and then some. anyways, i put on Bitte Orca and started to rock out. before i knew it i was up to 95 MPH and didn't i get pulled over. if i was going any faster i would have went to jail, nonetheless it still cost me a pretty penny. i played the album twice as this was going to be a memory of my Vegas trip in 2009.

the real answer is probably Fever Ray but not going to get my vote here.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Thank you, Fever Ray!

Close enough :)

another strong showing for Neko :)

I knew it wouldn't get very many votes - and even I wouldntve voted for it - but I still think Hospice is a great sadsack indie rock record along the lines of In the Aeroplane over the Sea or The Meadowlands

Hospice is beyond sadsack melancholy though, I think I'd rather have cancer that listen to it again

Missed this one.

Would have voted Phoenix