2009: The Year in Music Feb 16 '10    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Popular Products in Music Jersey Boys [Original Broadway Cast Recording] by Original Broadway Cast From $8 Mai by Eri Sugai From $4 The Bottom Line 2009 was a very good year for music. I had nine 5-star albums that made my top ten, but you'll have to read to see what they were. This year I listened to a total of 94 albums.  All of these were titles I had an interest in, so there will be no "worst albums" ranking. I compiled a list of the top 50, as well as some other rankings. The rules: It had to be first released in 2009 (so no rereleases), and I count studio albums only: no live albums, compilations, or EPs. Let's start the awards! BEST EP: Mae - (A)fternoon BEST COMPILATION: The Snake The Cross The Crown - On A Carousel of Sound We Go Round BEST SIDE PROJECT: 1. The Dead Weather - Horehound 2. Two Tongues - Two Tongues 3. Mariachi El Bronx - Mariachi El Bronx BEST LIVE ALBUM: 1. Leonard Cohen - Live In London 2. Protest The Hero - Gallop Meets The Earth 3. Coheed & Cambria - Neverender BEST SOUNDTRACK: 1. Moon (Composed by Clint Mansell) 2. Up / LOST Season 4 (Composed by Michael Giacchino) 3. Drag Me To Hell - Christopher Young 4. Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince (Nicholas Hooper) / Where The Wild Things Are (Karen O & The Kids) BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT: 1. Hedley - The Show Must Go 2. Chris Cornell - Scream 3. Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown / Our Lady Peace - Burn Burn ------------------- TOP 50 ALBUMS OF 2009 (50 - 26) 50. Dredg – The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion 49. Sonic Youth - The Eternal 48. Billy Talent – Billy Talent III 47. Mariachi El Bronx – Mariachi El Bronx 46. Dave Matthews Band – Big Whisky & The GrooGrux King 45. Attack In Black – Years (By One Thousand Fingertips) 44. K'naan – Troubadour 43. Switchfoot – Hello Hurricane 42. Killswitch Engage – Killswitch Engage 41. Two Tongues – Two Tongues 40. Lady Gaga – The Fame Monster 39. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix 38. Passion Pit – Manners 37. Norah Jones – The Fall 36. Project 86 – Picket Fence Cartel 35. BLK JKS – After Robots 34. The Chariot – Wars And Rumors Of Wars 33. Muse – The Resistance 32. Monsters of Folk – Monsters of Folk 31. Jay Z – The Blueprint 3  30. Metric – Fantasies 29. Silversun Pickups – Swoon 28. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It's Blitz  27. AFI – Crash Love  26. Wilco – Wilco (The Album) (25 - 11) 25. The Dead Weather – Horehound 24. Lily Allen – It's Not Me, It's You 23. Thursday – Common Existence 22. The Mars Volta – Octahedron 21. Jars Of Clay – The Long Fall Back To Earth 20. Alexisonfire – Old Crows/Young Cardinals 19. Regina Spektor – Far 18. Moneen – The World I Want To Leave Behind 17. Paramore – Brand New Eyes 16. U2 – No Line On The Horizon 15. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion 14. Derek Webb – Stockholm Syndrome 13. Tegan and Sara - Sainthood 12. Say Anything – Say Anything 11. Brand New – Daisy                                     (10 - 01) 10. Mos Def – The Ecstatic  Mos Def’s 16-track fourth album bursts from the margins of society like concentrated nuggets of revolution, dropped from a modern-day Malcom X without the chip on his shoulder. Def weaves his socially-conscious rhymes into a tapestry stitched with Latin, African, Reggae, funk, and neo-soul influences and becomes a catalyst for Obama-era change like a hip hop Bruce Springsteen.  “We are alive in amazing times.” 09. Pearl Jam – Backspacer  On their best album in a decade Eddie Vedder & Co. trade righteous indignation for celebratory optimism, and they enjoy every minute of it. At 37 minutes, Backspacer refuses to waste a second, exposing the lean and urgent punk soul underneath. Vedder muses on life, death, and redemption on rock jams like “The Fixer” and ballads like “The End” and “Speed of Sound” and does it all with conviction and an uncharacteristic sense of fun.  “If there’s no love I wanna try to love again.” 08. MewithoutYou – It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All A Dream! It's Alright!  Abandoning the instrumental fury and angry slam poetry vocals that became MewithoutYou’s trademark could have been the death of the band. Instead it only finds them showing their versatility. Trading in his aggression for whimsy on this collection of experimental acoustic tracks, Weiss comes off as a troubadour, telling folktales around a campfire. And it works. These are thoughtful and often humorous parables about love and lust and life and God through the eyes of plants and animals, and Weiss’s lyrical dexterity shines against rich instrumentation. It’s enduring more so than immediate, growing stronger with each listen. Sing along.  “Come down join our band, and we’ll cut you like a sword and sing forgiveness songs.” 07. Mastodon – Crack the Skye  Conceptually ambitious and sonically diverse, Crack the Sky is the sign of a band refusing to stop at their own horizons. The risk when making a concept album is always that the scope of the execution will not match the scope of the idea, but these guys nail it. The album challenges the definition of not just “metal” but also “prog”, blending elements of rock and country.  The sound is as astrally awe-inspiring as the universe itself, safe because you know it is ordered, but it teeters on its axis as if always on the edge of becoming chaos and swallowing everything. The album’s narrative arc follows the story of a paraplegic whose soul becomes trapped after it leaves its body, and Mastodon fully realizes every step of the journey.  It is a kinetic exercise in pain and perseverance.   “I flew beyond the sun before it was my time…” 06. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest  Transforming indie folk into soaring psychedelic chamber pop is no easy feat, but Grizzly Bear’s  third album cements their status alongside The Arcade Fire as one of the few bands who can do it. The album plays like a hymn in reverence of musical historicism. The complex and richly textured musicality unfolds like a flower, exposing its best parts within. This is a truly gorgeous piece of work.  “Our haven on the southern point is calling us.” 05. The Flaming Lips – Embryonic  Soaked in bass and reverb, Embryonic is a far cry from the familiar Flaming Lips who spray glitter and balloons on their audience. This moody masterpiece plays like Coyne and Co’s world-weary and sinister doppelgänger, pulling listeners to the other side of the mirror and assaulting their senses. Plays best with headphones and a taste for the surreal.   “Why do we fear to try to fly near, just beneath the machine.”  04. David Bazan – Curse Your Branches  On his first solo full length since the disbanding of Pedro the Lion, David Bazan – never a stranger to murky spirituality – turns in his most aggressively conflicted collection of songs yet. They are also his most honest, written from his own perspective rather than as part of a dramatic monologue. From blaming God for pre-ordaining the fall of man to being the agnostic anomaly in a faithful family, Bazan is not afraid to wrestle with the tough questions, even if he doesn’t come up with any answers. Pedro alum TW Walsh and a handful of other musicians come along to craft a catchy yet sorrowful tragic-comedy that is nothing less than powerful.  “All fallen leaves should curse their branches for not letting them decide where they should fall, and not letting them refuse to fall at all.” 03. Manchester Orchestra – Mean Everything to Nothing  Eleven tracks of pure rock bliss, Mean Everything to Nothing surges and swells, marrying indie playfulness with post-modern cynicism, and explodes into a haze of gloriously emotive pop-rock gems. The focused interplay between hard and soft, both musically and vocally, bring to mind the Foo Fighters and Brand New, and Manchester Orchestra is poised to take up the mantle of those bands. A lyrically rich and emotionally nuanced search for redemption, this is a journey well worth taking.   “You mean everything to nothing. You mean everything to nobody but me.” 02. Neko Case – Middle Cyclone  Like the weather phenomenon of the title Neko Case’s fifth album surges like a force of nature, simultaneously beautiful and powerful. Her melodies are haunting and her voice cascades with incredible force. Lyrically, Case explores the need for love as an animal instinct that is nevertheless profoundly human. The results can be chilling (the gothic ballad “Polar Nettles”) or deviously witty (the humorous “People Got A Lotta Nerve”) but they are always captivating. “The next time you say forever I’ll punch you in your face.”  01. Thrice – Beggars The culmination of all of The Alchemy Index’s experimentation comes to fruition in Thrice’s sixth album. The simultaneous urgent honesty and nuanced intimacy showcased on the album can only come from playing relentlessly with the same group of friends for over a decade. With influences as diverse as Radiohead and Nirvana and hints at blues, grunge, and roots rock undertones, Beggars finds the band in full jam mode, feeding off each other’s creative energy in compelling symbiosis that results in a masterpiece of astounding detail. Kensrue’s vocal work is better than it has ever been. From the airy crispness of “Circles” to the rawness of “Talking Through Glass” and “Beggars”, he whispers and wails with a vulnerably honest passion. Ever since 2005’s Vheissu, the band has eschewed expectations and assumptions in favour of creative evolution, and Beggars is the sound of a band with nothing to prove.  All of this is intensified in how the band tracked the album live, so the energy feels not just natural but necessary. Though not a concept album, the operatic emotional arc of Beggars plays out like a doomsday prophecy covering everything from humanity’s failings (“All the World is Mad” and “Circles”) and a desire to leave them behind (“In Exile”) to the best song about marriage since Journey’s “Faithfully” (“The Weight”) and culminating in the chilling and humbling lament of “Beggars”, the album’s brilliant closer. This is an ode to progress, a chastisement of the status quo, and undeniably a work of art. “If there’s one thing I know in this life, we are beggars all.”

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