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Saturday, May 22, 2010

I Know I Am Late, but I Needed Time to Really Evaluate: The Best Albums of 2009


10. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Everyone's favorite French guys lit up the peppy sound check with danceable synth tunes and impeccable vocals.

9. Girls - Album
Possibly one of the most oddly-looked at album of the year, Album by the San Francisco duo Girls (ironically two long haired guys) lights up the depressed party carrying along a mixture of Beach Boys sounds, with Morissey mentality.

8. The xx -xx
If you sit in a dark room while listening to one of the greatest debuts in the past decade provided by English newcomers The xx, you will fall deep into the synchronized hums and bleeps of a staggering four-piece feeling every second of the disk that is a silent boom of a step forward for the future of indie rock.

7. St. Vincent - Actor
It may have been St. Vincent's (alias of the wonderful Annie Clark) roaring guitar with mysterious lyrics clashed with the wonderfully sadistic mystical backing instruments that made this complex album ahead of it's time creatively, but I can speak for myself that it's when St. Vincent sends out the lyric like a dangerous siren in "Marrow": "Help Me".

6. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
With every word that Ed Drowste seems to spill out like smooth butter, the more and more you fall in love with his voice and the paradigm of the past musical traditions put into one brilliant album. "About Face" and "Two Weeks" bring in such different emotions, yet they stay true to their personal mission in their folksy work of genius.

5. The Horrors - Primary Colours
The Horrors did for shoegaze that The Strokes did for garage rock, they revitalized a monumental genre and made it reach a crowd that guarantees a beautiful near future. Primary Colours speaks in extremes with vague lyrics, and an even more vague personality that stands above all the rest with leadman Faris Rotter moving mountains with his blank slate of vocal expression that explains more about the group than if a band were to write an entire book on what they mean.

4. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
Someone asked me, after checking out my obsession with Dirty Projectors being played out on Facebook, what kind of music that Dirty Projoectors play. I caught myself speechless. Bitte Orca delivers multiple styles ranging from easy listening pop, to country, to hard rock in a brilliant concoction that delivers with a large experimental vibe that loses you in its intellectual value. Your mind is saying yes as you stand back in awe at it. Also of note, Amber Coffman's stunning voice is perhaps one of the most darling things I have ever heard.


3. Julian Casablancas - Phrazes for the Young
It's hard to believe that an actually good solo career could flourish, and Julian Casablancas is the one behind it. Casablancas interprets a Utopian 2042 with distress and modern angst matched with even higher chants and his absolutely legendary vocal appreciation. Glamorous dance hall electro beats power up a wonderous imagination of history and it all ends with a sorrowful realization that Julian so simply conveys. You can tell that it is a great album when I didn't have to mention The Strokes once, cant you?

2. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion Animal Collective's beautiful Merriweather Post Pavilion showed everything that they can succeed at, which is layering synthesizers and other beats, and reckoning blockbuster status while still keeping an intimate and welcoming nature among others. "My Girls" will go down in history as such a magnum force of triumphant feat for love and everything that may prosper. Every track is an abundant oasis of sympathetic vibes with a hopeful outlook that succeeds even more then their previously known stature.

1. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz
More bliss than blitz, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs changed sweetly this year in a testament to the dance floor and synth dreams while holding onto all of their previous heart. Karen O has always pushed the juxtaposition between banshee queen and poised darling, but she opts for both in this tremendous effort filled with as much remorse and girt with rocking charisma as their legendary debut.Nick Zinner's always-perfect-amount of synthesizer and Bryan Chase's heartbeat drums along with Karen O's guiding voice bring you to a land of unexpected fixed emotional roller coaster. The album has the rare power to pick you up in the beginning, then rock you to splendor all within the best fifty minutes of music recorded for 2009.

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