10. Sudan Archives - Natural Brown Prom Queen
9. Spoon - Lucifer on the Sofa
8. Animal Collective - Time Skiffs
7. Soul Glo - Diaspora Problems
6. Kendrick Lamar - Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers
5. Yeule - Glitch Princess
4. Nilufer Yanya - Painless
3. Fontaines D.C. - Skinty Fia
2. Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You
1. Alex G - God Save the Animals
This was a bit of a boring year for my music collection, as instead of really getting to know any new bands, I mostly got albums by ones I already knew and discovered The Beatles. This carries through to all the new music I got, with the only release by a group that I didn't already have something by being satirical hip hop. Still, I mostly liked what I heard.
Best of 2009
6. The Lonely Island - Incredibad
Usually comedic albums like this seem to lose their luster after a little while, but Incredibad is still consistently fun to listen to. None of the three guys have particularly impressive rapping chops, but they stick with what they can do and back up funny lyrics with legitimately enjoyable beats. The plethora of guest appearances don't hurt either.
5. Cursive - Mama, I'm Swollen
I listened to The Ugly Organ again recently and was a bit surprised by the difference in Tim's voice. Mama is less concerned with being one of the tightest indie rock albums I've ever heard and more about a precarious mix between loud and soft, but it works for the most part and has enough pleasurable moments to carry you through its run time.
4. ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - The Century of Self
Not quite what I was hoping for (a recurring theme this year), but a darn solid rock album. I appreciated the balance between heavy and soft in the two different halves, and while there really aren't many songs I would put on a list of the band's best, it's a pretty even, balanced release. It's hard to ask for a lot more than that.
3. Brand New - Daisy
I'm still not quite sure what to think of this. It definitely didn't hit me nearly as hard as the band's last two albums, but I do find myself wanting to listen to it a lot more than I'd expect for something I only really like instead of love. At this point I really have no idea what to expect next, because we keep figuring they'll go softer and then they head the other way. Death metal maybe?
2. Dredg - The Pariah, the Parrot, the Delusion
Three of my favorite bands released albums this year, and none of them managed to amaze me. Oh well. This still seemed like the best of the bunch. Dredg refuses to let themselves be nailed down to a single sound, while still sounding like pretty much the same band the whole decade, a tough art to master. This seemed like their most experimental project, and a bunch of really good songs came out of it.
1. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
The only band I know that managed to surpass their previous release this year. I don't feel exceptionally strongly about this as a number one, because for all of its successes it doesn't keep me gripped and listening the entire time the way a proper album of the year should. Still, it does a lot of things extremely well and is hard to dislike, unless you're someone I know. I don't think you can even call Animal Collective rock anymore, but whatever it is is pretty fun.
I still haven't listened to any pre-Strawberry Jam Collective to know what they really sounded like, but they seem here to have fully committed to their transition from experimental rock to some sort of psychedelic electro-pop madness, without a single guitar to be heard. It can be a bit bizarre, but starting from the explosion of noise halfway through the opening track "In the Flowers", it's easy to see that music doesn't have to be familiar to be extremely infectious and fun to listen to. I'm still not very good at telling Avey Tare and Panda Bear apart, besides the fact that Avey is the one singing when the singing's crazy. The two seem to have a tighter interplay here than they did on the last album, and overall it's a more consistently enjoyable and focused effort. More of the songs feel like fully-formed pop with actual structures, even if the different elements seem unusual. The single "My Girls" is the perfect example of this, and pretty frighteningly catchy.
Not every song is like that, with some being more firmly in the band's esoteric oeuvre, although you can pretty much expect electronic twiddling and driving bass on most of them. "Also Frightened" is as close as the album gets to boring, although there are enough interesting touches to keep your attention. "Summertime Clothes" is poppy fun and a good distillation of the essence of what they seem to be going for. "Daily Routine" reminds me the most of their last album, with dissonant beeps providing the core instrumentation, echoing vocals, and the drawn out, starkly unique second half. "Bluish" might be the closest I've seen them come to a love song, although it kind of has their sort of twist on it. "Guys Eyes" does an interesting thing with the vocals that I'm not sure totally works, but it's worth hearing. "No More Runnin" is another slower track, and a solid lead in to "Brother Sport", the final song and of the catchier ones. It's not without some off-putting bits, but the vocals and frequent explosions of musical happiness cap off a very good album quite nicely. I'm sure it's not done growing on me yet, and is a great way to start off a new year musically.
I'm not really satisfied with this list. I listed to quite a bit of good music this year, but most if it was released previously. All told, I only picked up six albums from 2007, but at least they were all listenable. Fear of a Blank Planet by Porcupine Tree was decent, but not nearly as good as their earlier work.
Best of 2007
5. Between the Buried and Me - Colors
A solid metal album that grabbed my attention by branching off into different genres at various points, it was a little long but still managed to hold my interest. They're pretty solid musically and know how to do a variety of things.
4. Coheed and Cambria - No World for Tomorrow
The finale of the concept storyline that has now spanned four albums, the lyrics are obtuse as ever but they still make an enjoyable hybrid of pop punk and harder elements. If you can get past the voice and maybe swallow your pride if you think you hate emo (which it isn't), there's a lot to like.
3. The Good, The Bad, & The Queen
I'm still unclear about whether this is the actual name of the band or not, but it's basically Gorillaz with acoustic instruments instead of electronic ones. Some of the songs are kind of similar but there's a lot of good stuff to be found.
2. Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam
A unique and satisfying album even if it's a bit sparse in parts. The highs are pretty high, and the lows are never too low. They know exactly what they're doing, giving each song just enough to be whole while a feeling of emptiness still exists.
1. Radiohead - In Rainbows
A somewhat strange album, filled with clashing instrumentation, moods, and themes. It was nice to hear some new Radiohead music that didn't seem strange for its own sake. Some of their best work in a while, at least from my perspective.
I'm not really happy with the way I've been reviewing music. In case you haven't noticed, I've been following a pretty stilted formula consisting of one paragraph of generalizations and then a second pointing out interesting aspects of a few different songs. The problem is I just don't really know how to talk about music like other forms of media. What I like about a song or album is just harder to put into words than the story of a movie or feel of a game. But I'll make it a belated New Year's Resolution to try to not be so lame when discussing music.
My enjoyment of Animal Collective is as good an example as any of my tastes shifting towards anything out of the ordinary. If your band is musically competent, has some catchy hooks, and sounds pretty different from everything else, I'll probably like it. Not much on Strawberry Jam sounds at all like traditional rock, the genre of music I associate myself with liking, but it still seems to fit well into the muddled pastiche my collection now is. From the moment the word "bonefish" is uttered and a cavalcade of electronic squeaking bursts forth and slowly evolves into a nice, repeating groove at the beginning of "Peacebone" till the syncopated drumming and formless singing at the end of "Derek", the albums has its ups and downs but still has tons of great moments and sounds that etch themselves totally in your memory. There's only nine songs and a few too many are a little boring, but several are really tremendous, and the freshest I've heard in a long time.
The aforementioned "Peacebone" is the perfect single, seeing as how it enticed me to buy the album without hearing anything else on it. After it settles, it's a nice, catchy song with good singing, especially the periodic falsetto in the chorus, and it has a great interlude as Avey Tare shrieks along. I wouldn't really know since I haven't heard what else they can sound like, but I read it's sort of Avey's album, and I can see it, as his voice is always the centerpiece of the song, accompanied by some unique music built around it. "For Reverend Green" is another great example of this, with the interrupted-distortion sound and vocalizing going on. "#1" is a pretty creepy song with the wavering vocals and keyboard bloops. You know, this is really the same kind of review anyway, despite my efforts. At least it seems less stupid while I'm writing it. "Cuckoo Cuckoo" is really good too. None of the other tracks are bad, they just didn't grab me in the same way as the ones I mentioned. As life goes on and I continue to move away from normal hard rock and towards this weird stuff, I hope there are more bands out there as willing to experiment as Animal Collective.
