a reflection on the music of 2009 for ilx

Loved it then, still do: The xx, La Roux, Röyksopp, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Gui Boratto, The Bird and the Bee, Annie, Horrors

Liked it then, less so now: Phoenix, Lily Allen, Girls

Hadn't heard then, love now: Discovery-LP, Fuck Buttons-Tarot Sport, Jon Hopkins-Insides

Have still never heard: Electric Red, Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear

Can't find any lists I made at the time, but I know my favorite albums were Dananananaykroyd's Hey Everyone! and the Fever Ray s/t. I'll still vouch for the former, though I barely ever listen to it, while I increasingly think of the latter as a classic. My #1 single was "Daniel" by Bat for Lashes.

2009 was also the birth of chillwave, as coined by Carles to refer to Neon Indian, Washed Out, and Memory Tapes, all of whom debuted in 2008-09.

people moaned about GAPDYX but fuck me did the singles poll have a lot of Lady Gaga in it

had a look at the 2009 p4k eoy list today and discovered Warm Heart of Africa by the Very Best which i'd never heard or heard of before and have really enjoyed today

my favourite underappreciated 2009 indie albums are Why There Are Mountains by Cymbals Eat Guitars and Ashes Grammar by A Sunny Day In Glasgow which are both classics to me. i hadn't thought about jj in a while but jj no 2 still rules so much

This was the list I pulled together at the time...

1. Flaming Lips - Embryonic
2. Baroness - Blue Record
3. Mastodon - Crack the Skye
4. Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Dimensions
5. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
6. Oneida - Rated O
7. The xx - xx
8. Converge - Axe to Fall
9. Shrinebuilder - Shrinebuilder
10. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
11. Kylesa - Static Tensions
12. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
13. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
14. Wooden Shjips - Dos
15. Isis - Wavering Radiant
16. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!
17. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport
18. Bat For Lashes - Two Suns
19. Dinosaur Jr. - Farm
20. Cobalt - Gin

For the most part, still fairly happy with the list. I'd probably bump Sunn O)) up to #2 now and push the Mastodon down a little bit. I'd probably swap out Kylesa for Eletrik Red (which I didn't hear until 2010). Definitely guilty of contributing to GAPDY love.

I listened to Rival Consoles on a recommendation the other day and thought, 'it's like Fuck Buttons never happened'

Obviously this year was a massive uk funky year for me and any time I think of the period 2008 - 2010 I will think of that music first. I think I voted for Marcus Nasty's official Rinse mix out of loyalty but I didn't listen to it much compared to all the radio sets (the best of which in 2009 was probably a DJ Mak-10 set with MC Shantie on Deja Vu FM (https://www.mixcloud.com/Classic_UK_Funky_Sets/dj-mak-10-mc-shantie-deja-vu-fm-26-march-2009/).

After that, definitely The-Dream/Electrik Red etc. is what I remember 2009 for.

I didn't keep any record of what I voted for, but looking at ILM's top 50 the albums I would have voted for and still listen to the most are Fall Out Boy and Meanderthals (which alongside the first Smith & Mudd album from 2007 is one of my two main balearic "background music" go-to records). DJ Sprinkles as well but I think of that as a 2008 record.

I think I was also really into the DJ Quik/Kurupt, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Animal Collective, Paramore, XX, Mungolian Jet Set, Fever Ray, Gucci Mane, Juan Maclean, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Dam-Funk albums.

Pretty sure I either didn't hear or underrated the Maxwell album until later. The other big album in that category would be Me'shell Ndgeocello's 'Devil's Halo' which is often my favourite of hers.

But looking at Matt DC's list upthread reminds me of how much more tracks-focused I was back then.

My favorite that year was Miranda Lambert's Revolution

Oh yeah and Miranda! Although it's not my favourite of her albums.

My favorite was and remains the Maxwell record.

Forgot that Dam-Funk album was 2009, that'd be on my updated list too - another one I didn't discover until the following year.

my ballots were

albums:
the-dream - love vs. money *
taylor swift - fearless
fever ray - fever ray*
junior boys - begone dull care
electrik red - how to be a lady vol. 1* (10 years old!)
DJ quik and kurupt - blaqkout*
OPN - rifts
the yeah yeah yeahs - it's blitz!
baroness - the blue album
dam-funk - toeachizown

tracks:

the-dream - fancy
darkstar - aidy's girl is a computer**
DJ quik & kurupt - 9x's outta 10
guido - way U make me feel**
hot toddy - I need love**
sade - soldier of love
joker & ginz - purple city**
joy orbison - hyph mngo**
kelly clarkson - my life would suck without you***
lady gaga - bad romance***

*still rate & listen to often
**have not listened to this since 2009
***waht

hah didn't realize that OPN's Rifts and Toeachizown came out the same year, those both struck me as spiritual cousins

It's depressing that so many artists who were a big deal 2009 are still a big deal in 2019. Or maybe I just mean Drake.

joker & ginz - purple city**

this is a good song

In my memory 2009 was a year I was really enthused about new music and there's a lot of stuff I still like, album-wise that would include:

Electrik Red
The-Dream
DJ Sprinkles
Flaming Lips
Animal Collective
Fever Ray
Gucci Mane (Burrprint)
Baroness
Lindstrom & Prins Thomas
Sunn O)))

The post-dubstep sound was the other thing I really took to at that time - the people mentioning 'Aidy's Girl Is a Computer' OTM, also 'Hyph Mngo' and the singles Joker put out that year.

I'm listening to Hey Playa now and it still bangs.

the whole album holds up pretty well, do you know, whatcha wan do, fuck y'all, 9x

JUELZ SEZ RELAPSE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl15PlIXHIk

This was during the era when I paid attention to everything Gucci Mane was doing, really focused in.

My top 2009 albums in no particular order. I didn't make a list at the time so I'm going on my recollection:
Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
The Bads - So Alive
Dimmer - Degrees Of Existence
Githead - Landing
Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3 - Goodnight Oslo
Don McGlashan - Marvellous Year
New Model Army - Today Is A Good Day
Wheat Pool - Hauntario
Astrid Williamson - Here Come The Vikings
Dead Guitars - Flags

Probably could've swapped a few with Twilight Sad, Joe Pernice, Wild Beasts, Puressence and the whole family loved They Might Be Giants - Here Come Science.

God but it's hardly a 'classic year' for music is it? is there such a thing any more? I know we've had threads about this kind of thing, where people cite 1967, 1977, 1979, 1987, 1994 etc as iconic years for one reason or another like a new style bursting into the scene or a glut of fantastic albums... ILM even had a nice 'I love 1998' moment a wee while back..
But I don't really think of many years post-2005 as being particularly remarkable either way. they all just feel like a jumble of good/bad/okay music that aren't really marked by a pivotal event

I think we're just old.

oh yeah, that

cool thread deej. found my complete best-of doc for '09, I had italicized the ones that were top ten:

Rio en Medio, Frontier
Zombi, Spirit Animal
Laura Barrett, Victory Garden
Tombs, Winter Hours
Junior Boys, Begone Dull Care
Buried Inside, Spoils of Failure
Blackout Beach, Skin of Evil
Cattle Decapitation, The Harvest Floor
Matteah Baim, Laughing Boy
Blut Aus Nord, Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue With the Stars
Defeatist, Sharp Blade Sinks Deep Into Dull Mind
Tiny Vipers, Life on Earth
Smog, Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle
James Blackshaw, The Glass Bead Game
Umberto, From the Grave
Reigning Sound, Love and Curses
Jon Hassel, Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street
Mark Lockheart, In Deep
Mgla, Groza
Eric Copeland, Alien in a Garbage Dump
Polvo, In Prism
Gwynbliedd, Nostalgia
Bloody Panda, Summon
Zola Jesus, The Spoils
Irritate, Ten Stabs of Demented Violence

I'd still enjoy any of these, most likely (though I don't remember Rio en Media AT ALL -- maybe something ambient? I'll look it up); what's interesting to me are the two that point toward what'll interest me most in 2019 -- Mark Lockheart (jazz), Eric Copeland (weirdo "noise" though not super noisy), Jon Hassell ("jazz" but also ambient, which has become a staple food for me). I also still listen mainly to metal, and will wholly rep for the Cattle Decapitation & Irritate records on this list, and the Buried Inside record and the Defeatist one too -- but none of those are really where I'm at metal-wise any more, I've gotten way more into oddball power metal & super chopsy stuff & of course the OSDM revivalist stuff that I feel weird repping but so much of it is GOOD.

Smog, Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle

oh forgot about this one, which is weird bc i stole my band's name from it. but maybe not so weird bc it seems to exist outside of time. the best callahan record imo

memoria vetusta ii too! my god

the best bill callahan record is always whichever one I'm spending a bunch of downtime with

2009 is the definition of a classic year for music. 2007, too

I feel like 2013 was when folk/primitive/drone/psych all coalesced into a scene or at least a POV that defines one side of this decade.

Jon Hassel, Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street

Was just listening to some of this last night. It sounds really good.

Oh shoot, I have a top 10 list in my old blog for every year except 2009 because I was distracted doing a top 200 songs of the decade list.

I actually don’t have any 2009 album in my top 50 albums of the 00’s list... I guess I wasn’t very into 2009 but in retrospective these would have been my top 10:

1. Fever Ray - s/t
2. Broadcast and The Focus Group - Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age
3. Seijiro Murayama / Éric La Casa - Supersedure
4. Atlas Sound - Logos
5. Jesse Somfay - a catch in the voice
6. Moritz von Oswald Trio - Vertical Ascent
7. Girls - Album
8. Neon Indian - psychic chasms
9. Jj - no. 2
10. Micachu - Jewellry

Also liked the Phoenix, Raekwon and XX singles from that year, the Animal Collective album felt overhyped to me but it still had some of the best songs in their career. I never got into Grizzly Bear.

Oh the Yeah Yeah Yeahs singles were also pretty good, really like that album but I always feel frustrated over its production, it sounds like it’s playing from another room.

I was right into ambient/experimental/drone stuff in 2009, so my list had a lot of that stuff on it:

Kevin Drumm - Imperial Horizon
Richard Skelton- Landings
Moritz Von Oswald - Vertical Ascent
Leykand Kirby - Sadly... Vol.1
Ramses III - I Could Not Love You More
Cobalt - Gin
Richard Youngs - Under Stellar Stream
Ben Frost - By the Throat
Alva Noto - Xerrox Vol.2
Sunn O))) - Monoliths and Dimensions
Sky Ramps - Days of Thunder
Nicholas Szczepanik - The Chiasmus
OM - God is Good
Funeral Mist - Maranatha
Russian Circles - Geneva

I'd still enjoy most of these, I think, but only really listen to Skelbo and Sunn with any regularity.

I do have a favorite songs list without ranking

Ariel’s Pink Haunted Graffiti - Can’t Hear My Eyes
Atlas Sound - Quick Canal
Black Moth Super Rainbow - Iron Lemonade
Bot.ox - Blue steel
Burial + Four Tet - Moths
Crystal Stilts - Love is a wave
El Perro del Mar - Change of Heart
Family Portrait - Mega Secrets
Federico Aubele - Otra Vez
Fever Ray - Keep the Streets Empty For Me
The Field - Leave it
Fuck Buttons - Lisbon Maru
Here We Go Magic - Fangela
Joy Orbison - Hyph Mngo
Kills - Black Balloon
Koudlam - See You All
Tame Impala - Remember Me
Matias Aguayo - Rollerskate
Memory Tapes - Bicycle
Michachu - Golden phone
Mount Kimbie - Maybes
Noor Jahan - I am very sorry
Odawas - harmless lover’s discourse
Oni Ayhun - OAR003-B
Parallel Dance Ensemble - Weight Watchers
Siriusmo - Nights off
Thee Oh Sees - Tidal Wave
Twin sister - I want a house
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Soft Shock
XX - Islands

turn of the decade eras feel consistently strange to me. like the two before it, 2009-2011 feels in and of itself, transitional, and not especially reflective of "the '00s" or "the '10s" overall. that's probably just my perspective tho.

I wish Pill had stuck around longer. I still love his mixtape from that year. And he still tweets "another beautiful day. gotta thank the lord for that" several times a week.

Most of my favorite releases from this year were singles, mixtapes, EPs, and those weird bonus albums like "The Fame Monster." Albums were kinda not fun at all in 2009.

Stuff I remember liking or still enjoy:
Animal Collective "What Would I Want? Sky"
Pill - 4180 The Prescription
No Age - Losing Feeling EP
Beak> - self titled
Ringo Deathstarr - Sparkler
The first Ovlov EP
The first Merchandise EP
Black Dice
FNU Ronnies
Nunslaughter / Syphilitic Vaginas split 7-inch
Gnaw Their Tongues
Sun Araw
Virtuoso Bosses "Delirious"
Miley Cyrus "Party In The USA"
The first half of the Silversun Pickups album and "Substitution"
Pearl Jam "The Fixer"
Neon Indian
Lady Gaga - The Fame Monster
The XX
Amerie "Why R U"
Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Heads Will Roll"
Taylor Swift "Forever and Always"
Japandroids "I Quit Girls" & "Young Hearts Spark Fire"
The first Drake EP
Ke$ha "Tik Tok"
Gucci Mane "Lemonade"
Tyler The Creator "Bastard" came out this year but I probably haven't listened to it since 2011.

In my head I'm hearing Plies "Becky" as still sounding ridiculous and awesome.

all thoughts are prey to some beast

I forgot Tik Tok - now that's a song that really couldn't have come out in 2006 or 2012.

2009 was probably my most successful year musically - it seemed like at that point in time anyone from Bristol who produced halfway passable dubstep could get booked, so I spent a fair bit of time DJing in Eastern Europe / Amsterdam / various Bristol dives. Also had a remix I did for Si Begg doing the rounds which eventually came out on Tigerbeat6, good times.

Musically, aside from the neverending dubstep promos I remember really getting into Squires of Gothos / really obnoxious bassline house - nothing that has aged well at all but was great fun at the time..

Also Flying Lotus - LA came out so that automatically makes it a good year

"Heads Will Roll" was my single of the year. A karaoke banger.

Don't remember much about this year, but this was my favorite album - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_Going_Away

I don't have a lot of positive feelings about the music of 2009... I like the Matrix Metals album (RIP Sam Mehren).

listened to a lot of Gucci and nudisco probably

some songs I liked:

Best Coast - When I'm With You
Cold Cave - The Trees Grew Emotions And Died
Converge - Losing Battle
Fukpig - Bombs Of War
Headlights - Telephones
Liechtenstein - All At Once
Napalm Death - De-Evolution Ad Nauseum
Rusted Shut - Shot In The Head
Sic Alps - L. Mansion
Thee Oh Sees - Enemy Destruct
Tokyo Electron - Don't Need You
Transmittens - Meet Me At The Swings
Vivian Girls - Before I Start To Cry
Wankys - Hey Crusty, Have A Fucking Bath
Xeno & Oaklander - Saracen

I find it hard to remember tracks by year but would absolutely co-sign 2009 as peak UK Funky, the Petchy / Sweep Dem Gally Live FM sets of that era remain totally exhilarating. Dunno if Benny B still posts here but he did sterling work recording and sharing those as I recall.

blimey, I made a list in 2009 :

circlesquare – songs about dancing and drugs
rebotini – music components
cabaret voltaire : kora kora kora remixes
the black dog – further vexations
king cannibal – let the night roar
kid koala – the slew
the soundcarriers : harmonium
lindstrom & prins thomas : II
spektre : live at the glade
madness : liberty of norton folgate

and to be fair, I stand by that list.
I still listen to all of those albums and love'em.

The Funky / London / UK House thread on Dissensus had some great petchy mixes on it back then - I'm guessing probably posted by the same guy?