With comments!
1. Girl Talk - Feed the Animals - Yet again, Girl Talk has just the most enjoyable, most listened to album of my year.
2. Blitzen Trapper - Furr - I loved how weird these guys were, but mellowing out was somehow a winning move. Wonderful, rocking, soulful album.
3. Why? - Alopecia - Just killer rhymes, the best hooky one-more-listen bridges of the year.
4. No Age - Nouns - Great, propulsive, noisy album.
5. Beck - Modern Guilt - People take Beck for granted, I posit that if this was a band's first album, it'd make everyone's top 10.
6. The Hold Steady - Stay Positive - It makes me nervous that each of their last few albums is less amazing than the last, but this is still a great one.
7. Jay Reatard - Singles (06-07) - Add this guy to the list of musicians I want to be for some reason, right under david bowie and dan deacon.
8. Los Campesinos! - We are Beautiful, We are Doomed - Happiest album of the year, most heartbreaking album of the year.
9. Vivian Girls - Vivian Girls - Oh girls, you know so much.
10. Islands - Arm's Way - Half of an incredible album.
This is as I originally posted it at the end of the year, I already have regrets though. The human highway album (moody motorcycle) would probably be as high as number 3 or 4 if I had paid it proper attention before now. Also, I just listened to (previous number 1 album of the year winner) Wolf Parade's album 4 times straight tonight. It lacks the hooky propulsiveness and overal roar of their previous one, but it would probably at least crack the top 10 if I were to redo it. Maybe, it bumps islands, but maybe not the vivian girls, so it depends it the human highway album is taken into consideration. Might still have just missed out. Complex.
Bonus!
Favorite 10 tracks of the year!
(With links to the songs in some form or another [don't watch the max tundra video, its distracting and vaguely bad].)
1. Deerhunter - Nothing Ever Happened - Just builds perfectly, the most satisfying, well crafted, hit out of the park, one more time, song of the year. Backing parts grow to solos and soon you're drowning in hooks, exhausted on the shore at the end of the song. Throw in a killer crunchy bass sound and a perfect, disaffected, defeated, post-grunge sentiment and you win.
2. Why? - These Few Presidents - I'm sorry Yoni. Its not fair. The Vowels or Fatalist Palmastry could also totally make this list, but I feel like spreading the love. There are several songs on this album that are equally crammed with good hooks, this one will have to stand in for them, if nothing else on the strength of the wasp bridge. Great bass sound too.
3. The Hold Steady - Constructive Summer - Great propulsive energy, great song to open a show with.
4. Cut Copy - Feel the Love - I do.
5. Max Tundra - Will Get Fooled Again - The glitch version of nothing ever happened; great buildup, strangely relatable lyrics for me this year. Love it love it love it sometimes.
6. Fuck Buttons - Sweet Love for Planet Earth - Might have made the top 10 anyway, but one post-dawn german train ride listen propels it right on up. Noisy, awful, gorgeous.
7. Los Campesinos - We are Beautiful, We are Doomed - God fucking dammit.
8. Human Highway - The Sound - Simply killer beat, I miss the unicorns. Once again, a band gets cheated, Pretty Hair could just as easily occupy this slot, or one near it.
9. The Cool Kids - 88 [original version here, actually like the clean version better, but still good] So raw. Bonus points for kicking off my favorite mix of the year (thanks chad!).
10. The Dodos - Ashley - Really pretty, ethereal song. Probably deserves to be higher, but this was more of a batshit high energy year for singles for me; I just didn't have that much time for pretty.
Finally, two discussion questions / gripes on the year:
- Where was all the good rap? And no, I couldn't get into Tha Carter III.
- Where is the band with the holy shit new sound? Where's this year's The Books, The Go Team, Jason Forrest or Dan Deacon? I wasn't quite as voracious in finding music this year, who did I miss?
Hope you found somethinig you dig. Peace!
