411 Music Ten Deep 12.18.09: Top Ten Albums from 2009

Posted by Andrew Moll on 12.18.2009

Take a look at the best music of the year in this week's edition of Ten Deep! From Pearl Jam's Backspacer to Mos Def's The Ecstatic to Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion, see what made the list and came in at number one!


(Disclaimer: All opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of 411 Music and its staff.)


Welcome everybody to not only the twenty second edition of 411 Music Ten Deep, but it's also the final look at the best albums from each year of this decade. Yep, we've finally reached 2009 and I don't know if you feel the same way, but I've had a lot of fun going back and looking at some great music from the last ten years. And now we reach its conclusion and hopefully have a bit more fun before the end. Before we get to that, though, we'll look back at last week and your feedback to the Top Ten Albums from 2008:





I know your taste in music seems to verve more towards the indie side of the spectrum, but COME ON, how can you not include The '59 Sound by The Gaslight Anthem? That album came totally out of left field and shocked me with how good it was. While im here, i would of at least gave an honourable mention to Youmeatsix, Genghis Tron, This Will Destroy You and Moving Mountains who put put superb albums aswell. Keep up the good work though, its good to finally see columnists actually base things of their OWN opinions and not what the majority likes.
Posted By: ShaneSilver (Guest) on December 11, 2009 at 05:51 AM

I didn't mention any of those bands because I can honestly say I've never heard of any of them. Even my indie sensibilities only go so far, but I'll be sure to take your recommendations and check out those records.

How is 808's And Heartbreak not on this???
Posted By: Ian (Guest) on December 11, 2009 at 01:49 AM

"How is 808's And Heartbreak not on this???"

Because this is a list for the best albums of 2008, not the worst.

Nice list. 2008 was a somewhat weak year for music, but I loved the debut from Have A Nice Life. Also liked the new stuff from Cynic, Portishead, and Boris.
Posted By: Guest (Guest) on December 11, 2009 at 05:19 AM

Alright, 808's and Heartbreak isn't that bad; I mean, it's not that good and the novelty of it has worn off quite a bit in the last year. And maybe you or somebody else can explain what it is I'm missing with Portishead, and trip-hop in general. They're a band I just never could get into.

How bout Metallica - Death Magnetic?!?!
Posted By: Blodger (Guest) on December 11, 2009 at 05:32 AM

No All Hope is Gone, Indestructible, or Death Magnetic?
Posted By: Ojj (Guest) on December 11, 2009 at 12:40 PM

Death Magnetic!!!!!!!
Posted By: Freeman (Guest) on December 11, 2009 at 08:10 PM

I've not heard of any of those, but I think I can safely say Metallica's Death Magnetic shits on all 10
Posted By: Guest#0965 (Guest) on December 12, 2009 at 10:09 PM

Death Magnetic is good, not great. It's a classic when compared to St. Anger, but I didn't find it to be the blow away a lot of other people did. The sound quality, which has been discussed ad nauseum but with good reason, detracts from it quite a bit.



Top Ten Albums from 2009



What a crazy year it's been. Jacko died, the Obama Era hasn't gone exactly as some of us may have hoped it would go, and for about 90% of the year, everything was going pretty well for Tiger Woods. All good things must come to an end, though and as the year reaches its conclusion we'll look at the year in music, with some great new bands, great older band, and one great album that stood high above everything else. First, let's look at the albums that didn't quite make the cut.


Some Honorable Mentions: A Place to Bury Strangers - Exploding Head; Atlas Sound - Logos; Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest; Mission of Burma - The Sound the Speed the Light; Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Pains of Being Pure at Heart; Raekown - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Pt. II; Sunset Rubdown - Dragonslayer; The xx - xx




10. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix


From the moment you first hear the pop perfection that is "1901," you're immediately taken aback by just how catchy it is and how clean the production is, giving the song a disco shine to it that helps make it probably the most infectious song of the year and the type of song a band can spend a career trying to match. The great thing about Phoenix is that the rest of their album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is that the other tracks are just about as good as creating a vast array of dance hooks that most bands would kill for, but Phoenix seem to be able to just toss off onto album cuts. The album's opener, "Lisztomania," hops along effortlessly as a jubilant rock/pop song that kicks the album off perfectly.





From there the album remains consistently great, from the great ambient build of "Love Like a Sunset" to the jagged rhythms of "Lasso" and the melancholy yet still excitable "Countdown." What each of these songs have in common is, aside from killer hooks, is a sense of cool that can't be forced in anyway, but instead is the product of a band with a natural ability to create pop music without trying too hard. Singer Thomas Mars youthful voice is perfectly fit to blend in with the instruments as well, with all of them working in unison. In the aforementioned "1901," Mars sings, "Think it's not what you say, what you say is way too complicated," and he has a point; when you've got songs and hooks this good, you don't really need to have anything to say.





9. Dan Deacon - Bromst


The player piano may not be the sexiest instrument in popular music, but for Dan Deacon it was the perfect choice to both clean up and speed up his sound. His debut Spiderman of the Rings had been a pretty lo-fi album full of manic electronic sound collages that were meant for drunken parties in basements and made good use of a loop of Woody Woodpecker's voice. But for Bromst the quality improves in both song and production as Deacon's better output sounds like it should. He still distorts his voice into a high-pitched squeal, and the pace is still at times manic but this is the type of step forward for an artist that can take him out of the basements and into, well, maybe some higher-class basements.





The collages that Deacon did before were mostly impressive kitchen-sink pieces of work, where a number of different sounds and ideas were piled on top of each other to make something fun and unique that perfectly befitted Deacon's wacky persona. Bromst on the other hand feels like a hand-crafted and meticulous work or maturity and artistic growth. The improved production and instrumentation play a large role in that, as the player piano allows the songs to be played much faster than any human could do while sounding clearer and more professional. Deacon's sound will never be embraced by a large audience, it's pretty much designed not to, but Bromst proves that the man deserves as large an audience as he can get.





8. The Antlers - Hospice


These aren't really the days for high-reaching concept albums for indie rock, and it's partially for that reason why Hospice should be celebrated. Another reason is because it's one of the most emotional albums in recent memory that has no shame for attempting epic drama and has no problem reaching it. With a similar back story to Bon Iver's Justin Vernon (man comes out of "social isolation" with beautiful album) and a similar expressive falsetto, you might expect Hospice to be Peter Silberman's insular folk rock album; instead Hospice is full of broad anthems, detailing a story of personal pain involving a hospital worker and a dying cancer patient. This is the type of stuff that could make for a sappy Hollywood movie, but Silberman makes it a moving tale that doesn't bow to conventions about what the album should be like.





An album with such a subject matter shouldn't have a song like "Sylvia" that is so tender while managing to rock so hard, or an elegant song like "Bear" that also rocks at the end and contains the lyric, "And all the while I'll know we're fucked/And not getting unfucked soon." Hospice is an expansive album with lots of big sounds and crescendos and one that should be listened to in isolation on headphones in order to get the full impact of the songs and story. As the album goes along and the songs explore the themes of love, life and illness, while making detours for topics like abortion, you become enveloped in the story; by the time you reach the absolutely heartbreaking conclusion "Epilogue," it's almost too much to bear. The whole thing is so personal that you swear Silberman must know too much about the subject, but that's why the album is so great. Not many concept albums can be so large and touching at the same time.





7. The Mountain Goats - The Life of the World to Come


When it was announced that the new Mountain Goats album would feature songs named after Bible verses, I'm sure there were plenty of people fearful that John Darnielle had gone all Christian rock. Those fears would be unnecessary since The Life of the World to Come uses those verses as a jumping off point for his stories about life and death, people's relationship with God and also about Faith and its evil twin brother Doubt. Musically, this isn't much different than any other Mountain Goats release, not that there ever has been much of a difference, but it's the context given to the songs that help make this one of the group's most outstanding albums. The charging "Psalms 40:2" is a great rocker, taking to another level by Darnielle yelling, "He has fixed his sign in the sky/He has raised from the pit and he will set me high." A song about connecting with God by standing in complete opposition to Him, it's one of the album's best tracks.





In Darnielle's own words, the album is about "twelve hard lessons the Bible taught me, kind of," and he uses the book to guide him though stories about racing to see a loved one before their death, going back to the place where you once lived, or even a drug addict torturing someone to death. In some ways, The Life of the World to Come travels some of the same paths that Hospice, but does it in a much more hushed way, both musically and lyrically. Where the Antlers sang about not getting "unfucked" soon, Darnielle sings, on "Romans 10:9", "If you will believe in you heart and confess with your lips/Surely you will be saved one day." Life, death, love and redemption have always been topics that Darnielle has tackled, but this time around they're used to frame an album about God and his role in our lives, and we've learned as well.





6. Mos Def - The Ecstatic


2006's True Magic was such a disaster, a contractual obligation that Mos Def apparently sleepwalked his way through and that neither he nor his record label had any interest in promoting, so much so that they didn't even bother coming up with an album cover, that it wouldn't have shocked anybody if Mos just focused on being an actor full-time. So out comes The Ecstatic an album that not only makes you forget True Magic ever happened, but considering the neo-soul of 2004's The New Danger serves as the proper rap follow up to Mos' debut Black on Both Sides, released a decade ago. The thing about The Ecsatic is that Mos doesn't sound angry or like he has something to prove, but instead sounds relaxed and in control, like a man who knows he's still good and just does what he excels at.





The album sounds like Mos Def's verion of M.I.A.'s "world rap" that infuses sounds froma number of different cultures and hit a number of spots on the globe; but Mos' version, other than some beats from Ed Banger's Mr. Flash, has been funneled through the Stones Throw collective thanks to work from Oh No and Madlib. (He and Talib Kweli also makes good use of a beat from J Dilla for the Black Star reunion track "History.") I mentioned earlier that Mos doesn't sound like he has anything to prove, but that doesn't mean he doesn't re-energized and vibrant; these tracks also find him playful, sounding nothing like the guy that was on True Magic. If anything, The Ecstatic proves that that guy shouldn't have existed at all and that he still is capable of being amongst the best in the game.





5. Morrissey - Years of Refusal


Years of Refusal is a pretty apt title for Morrissey's most recent effort, album that finds him at his most defiant and taking all comers. And really, only the Moz could get away with a lyric like "I know by now you think I should have straightened myself out/Thank you, drop dead," as he sings on the album's opener "Something is Squeezing My Skull." It continues on for the rest of the album, as Morrissey's modern day take on muscular rock that brought him back into the limelight with 2004's You are the Quarry provides the perfect accompaniment for threats like "You're gonna miss me when I'm gone," from "All You Need Is Me."





At this point I have to assume that most people have made up their mind if they're a Morrissey fan or not, and I also have to assume Morrissey himself is quite aware of this as well. So it makes sense that he would make an album that excels at the things he does well, namely croon some tongue-in-cheek diatribes against life that sometimes manage to hit close to home ("Did you really think we meant all those syrupy sentimental things that we said?" from "It's Not Your Birthday Anymore"), while big guitars rail on behind him. Morrissey isn't concerning himself with winning over non-believers, but with more great albums like this one they, like the diehard Moz fans, certainly will miss him when he's gone.





4. Wavves - Wavvves


Wavvves just goes to show you what a bored kid with a guitar, some crappy equipment and a bunch of pot can accomplish when they're put together. And yes, you may or may not have heard that Nathan Williams, the man behind Wavves, can be a petulant brat who or might have an alcohol problem, but don't let that stop you from immersing yourself in this great album. Packed with a bunch of catchy surf-punk songs that are as lo-fi as lo-fi can get, Wavves second album draws you into its world of loud, distorted guitars and indecipherable vocals. Like with a lot of other great noise bands, there are superb pop songs hiding underneath all that noise; in Wavves' case its harmonies taken from 1960s girl groups that end up sounding creepy and menacing in this context.





The album's D.I.Y. production does a lot for its success and gives it an eerie quality that wouldn't be present otherwise. It also helps further the album's claustrophobic feel; most surf music gives the feeling of being outside and enjoying life, like the kid pictured on the album cover. But Wavvves is insular, the sound of someone staying inside and playing music because they feel like there's nothing better to do, making it seem like Williams doesn't even really enjoy what he's doing. As he sings on "Gun in the Sun," "I'm just a guy with nothing to say/I'm just a guy with nothing to do." This isn't music with a grand purpose; it's music as a means to avoid boredom and maybe get out and do some stuff. As Wavvves proves, sometimes that's much more than good enough. All you need are instruments and some great hooks and melodies. And maybe some weed, too.





3. Pearl Jam - Backspacer


I imagine that the Bush Presidency wasn't always the easiest time for Pearl Jam. I say that not necessarily because of their output during those eight years, but rather because of their first album post-Bush, the terrific Backspacer, which features no political songs and features the band at its tightest and most energetic. Clearly with a weight having been lifted off of their shoulders, the group pounds through rockers and eases their way through ballads without any strain, making it seem easy. I hesitate to call it a return to form since I think that unfairly criticizes some of their other recent work, but it's clearly the best Pearl Jam album since at least Yield, an album that reminds people of just how good the band is despite not really sounding like the songs that made them so popular in the first place.





Taking a cue from his Into the Wild work, Vedder's ballads, namely "Just Breathe" and "The End" are tender like the best Pearl Jam ballads are and he plays and sings them with relative ease, sounding incredibly comfortable. But the album has its biggest impact at the beginning and the first four songs, "Gonna See My Friend," "Got Some," "The Fixer" and "Johnny Guitar." One after another, they pack a hell of a punch and make good use of the newfound appreciation for melody and new wave sounds that the band seemingly embraced. Pearl Jam will never be the insanely popular band they were at their height but albums like Backspacer show why they still need to be taken seriously as a modern rock band capable of making changes at this point in their careers. Who knew that the most earnest band in the land could improve just by lightening up just a little bit?





2. Japandroids - Post-Nothing


The title of Japandroids' debut is pitch-perfect, even if it's a tad snarky. This type of guitar rock is a timeless sort that would have fit in just as well in 1989 as it does in 2009. The duo is a pop band at heart, with plenty of shoegaze reverb and punk energy to boot, but these songs are catchy bursts of rock music that can't be ignored. Opener "The Boys Are Leaving Town" is much more than just a nice reference to Thin Lizzy; it's an energetic songs full of questions and desperation. Like a lot of great music these days, Post-Nothing ably captures that feeling of getting older and all the doubts and expectations that come with it. In Japandroids case, they deal with it by rearing back and unleashing eight examples of tight guitar rock enhanced by great hooks that make growing up sound like it might actually be kind of fun.





A big help to the album is the fact that it sports one of the year's best rock songs in "Young Hearts Spark Fire," a garage rock take on that journey into adulthood perfectly encapsulates both youthful trepidation and youthful exuberance. Guitarist Brian King sings the key lines, "We used to dream!/Now we worry about dying," with plenty of passion that makes it seem like he's the unfortunate spokesman for this generation. He then lays his proverbial cards on the table by quickly adding, "I don't wanna worry about dying," and it's at that point he does speak for many of us preparing to enter our older lives. The rest of the album delivers as well, from the charging "Heart Sweats" to the rousing closer "I Quit Girls," this is from top to bottom a great rock and roll record that shows that while trying to prepare yourself for being a mature adult is a timeless thing, so too is quality pop music.





1. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion


Merriweather Post Pavilion was released on January 6 and leaked at least a couple weeks before that, which means it has been a year long search to find an album that might be even just comparable, but it's been a fruitless effort. Animal Collective's most recent release is their best yet and one of the decade's best, an album that no other band could make and shames anyone who would attempt to recreate. Panda Bear's solo album Person Pitch, with its warped vision of the Beach Boys swimming in loops and guitar feedback, must have had an influence on the group's work. Their harmonies have always been there, but now they're front and center, paired with beats, loops and samples that distort them and make them special. The result is pop music unlike any you've ever heard before, with Panda Bear and Avey Tare's harmonies blending together perfectly as part of the meticulously crafted pieces.





For the first time, Animal Collective songs feel like less sonic collages and more like actual songs, albeit unique ones with unconventional structures. Everything circles around in your head, creating a sonic experience totally unique to the band and one that can be easily called a stunning achievement. Much like TV on the Radio did last year, Animal Collective have made the giant leap from impressive to great, no longer a band to be admired and instead a band to love and immerse yourself in. That idea of moving ahead is central to the album and the development of the band; much like with Post-Nothing one of the themes of Merriweather is growing up, namely with "My Girls," my choice for the song of the year. When Panda Bear sings, "I just want four walls and adobe slabs for my girls," it feels monumental, a statement about the important things in life. That focus and maturity is what makes the album so great, as it feels like the logical progression for a band that's been so good for song long and has finally delivered an undisputed classic.



That'll do it for this week folks, thanks for reading. If you have any questions, comments or concerns feel free to let me know, and make sure to leave your own lists in the comments. I'll see you all next week. And if you're out on your bike tonight, do wear white.