Sábado 2 Jan 2010, 18h:00
Note: because apparently I am much too long-winded for this site, I have been forced to split this into two posts. Part 2 is here.
You must understand. Since I joined Last.fm in 2006 one of my number-one tags has been "synthpop". Or "New Wave" or "darkwave" or any of a dozen other labels for what adds up to be glorious beauteous 1980's-era synthesizer-laden pop music. I liked it enough the first time around, but ever since I picked up The Human League's "Dare" in a dollar bin early on in the 2000's and went on to obsessively collect New Wave vinyl records I have been rapturously in love with the sound. Not, I must hasten to explain, the drippy wallpaper synths that come up as background for cheesy soft rockers like Phil Collins and people who ought to know better like Fiona Apple. I mean front-and-center synths, Thompson Twins synths, Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark synths, DAN-CING WITH TEEEARS IN MY EEEEEYES synths.
(As usual for me, There's a Playlist For That: kiss them for me.)
So you can imagine the past year has been H-E-A-V-E-N. It's been coming for awhile, what with the indie girlpop explosion (as gleefully documented in Phonogram, go read it, it's marvelous) that happily embraced 80's pop with both arms and both hips (hi there, New Young Pony Club!) and a decade of attention-deficit past plundering of styles from post-punk to (doom)folk to that Beach Boys revival that was 2008. Once the indie rockers collectively decided that disco wasn't so bad after all, it was only a matter of time before we all returned to Devo for inspiration.And thus we now have the Yeah Yeah Yeahs making an electro album, dance artists like Little Boots all over Last.fm's best of 2009, and new kids like Passion Pit making a synth-tastic splash, bringing several years of 80's flirtation to a climax.
And of course what happens in the indieverse will eventually trickle over to the mainstream, and this was the year it mainlined. Ever since Kanye's 808s and Daft Punk samples the hip-hop and R&B hits have been laden with synthesizers. And after all, what is Lady Gaga but a repackaged Robyn for american airwaves? Not for nothing does LadyG come up right next to synth duo Ladytron in my library - Lady bookends for a decade that started fabulous and ended fabulous, with a year in which I could come up with an all-female Top Ten Albums without even trying. Seriously y'all, and I hope the magazines don't notice this because then we have to put up with another series of bullshit Year Of The Woman covers, but for real, female artists in music have never had a better showing than 2009. I could go on for the rest of this journal about the worthy musicians out there right now who are both female and doing great work, not great women's music but great music in general. But TANGENT. I have to cut myself off now and get to the nitty gritty.
First the Miscellany, then the Songs, and then the Albums.
2009. Here it is.
Best avoidance of the sophmore slump: Bat for Lashes
Best comeback from a sophmore slump : Franz Ferdinand
http://stereogum.com/img/album_covers/bat_for_lashes-two_suns.jpg
Two Suns and Tonight, respectively, were both very pleasant surprises for me. Bat For Lashes, who IMO were merely pretty good before, took a tremendous leap forward on their rapturous second album. Featuring a haunting appearance by Scott Walker on the closing track The Big Sleep, Two Suns was a much more confident piece of work than the debut and a fascinating glimpse into the inner life of Natasha Khan. (Two Planets and Daniel being the other standout tracks).
http://www.franz-ferdinand.com/img/album-cover-tonight-280x280.jpg
After a not-awful but sort of misguided second album Franz Ferdinand came back with Tonight, which is all quality from beginning to end. I imagine that after the dancepunk trend more or less fizzled FF decided they might as well drop any attempt at post-punk and just make a disco album, and it WORKED. More than any other album this year, Tonight made me want to go out dancing, and that's no mean feat. (No You Girls is the track I want to hear on the dance floor whilst singing the lyrics with my hands in the air. Lucid Dreams and Ulysses are close behind.)
Best Lyrics: Planet Health, by Chairlift.
I am a sucker for songs with a kind of disconnect between the sound and the words. Properly managed, the tension between the two can be very compelling - Belle and Sebastian of course were masters of this trick. And here I'll add Chairlift, who came up with this lush Cocteau Twins soundscape and layered this lovely snarkiness over it.
(This song only I'll quote in full)
When i arrived on planet health
In the state of being well
So i altered my self consciousnesses
And body images
I visited the food pyramid
In the desert of vitamins
I found a desired heart rate
And a mouth to mouth resuscitate
I am feeling great tonight
I was trained in diversity
In the garden of puberty
Where they heimlich maneuvered me
And they showed me how to make a baby
I found my friends in the forest of loves
Where we just said no to drugs
Our intercourse was well protected
We made love with each others' eyes
We're feeling great tonight
Then i found out where you're sent
When you're sick and sad and old
They kick you off of planet health
Into a universe of cold
Stop drop and roll
Just stop drop and roll
Stop drop and roll
Stop drop to put out the fire
Feeling great tonight
It makes me laugh, somewhat bitterly, every single time. Perhaps you have to have some experience with illness or disability to really get this, but Chairlift captures our society's ideas about health and associated sloganeering pretty much perfectly.
Best bad lyrics: Lay it Down by Peter Bjorn and John
And then sometimes you don't want clever. You just want this.
Hey, shut the fuck up boy.
You are starting to piss me off.
Take your hands off that girl.
You have already had enough.
(repeat x100)
This should be incredibly annoying. But by virtue of the bouncy melody and cheerfully infectious production that's their trademark, it's not. It's actually rather charming.
And it will be stuck in your head FOREVER. You're welcome.
http://thehelplessdancer.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/eels.jpg?w=358&h=359
The Really, We Didn't Expect You To Still Be Around Much Less Be Awesome Award: The Eels
Runner-up: Gomez
Did you know these guys were still around? Did you know that they sound terrific? Just play Fresh Blood, Prize Fighter, or That Look You Gave that Guy, and tell me Mr. E isn't better than ever. And Gomez, well, I'd sort of forgotten all about them, even though they've never not been good. But they got my attention once again with tracks like Airstream Driver and Little Pieces. What both these bands do isn't flashy or terribly innovative, and they aren't scenester bands (if they ever were), but they make good solid indie rock and are really underappreciated in comparison to a lot of lesser bands of this ilk.
Best Album Cover : Atlas Sound - Logos
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/files/2009/10/logos.jpg
Runner-up: The Lonely Island - Incredibad
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Wn-QLU6CLDc/SY3NMna1PZI/AAAAAAAABXI/dkKusgeZW-k/s320/Incredibad.jpg
Best song about someone you love dying of cancer: The Mountain Goats Matthew 25:21
Best album about someone you love dying of cancer: The Antlers, Hospice
What the hell, you guys? A few years ago the word was "funeral", now it's "cancer". Everyone not on the dance floor was living the Bummer Decade, or at least everyone descended in some way from Neutral Milk Hotel. I think The Antlers win, though, for their devastating album-length car-crash-I-can't-stop-looking-at-because-it's-so-beautiful. I'll say a bit more about this elsewhere, let's get to The Mountain Goats. John Darnielle's standout track is the emotional hook for a project I admittedly like more as an idea than an album, though I suspect it's going to grow on me with time. The source bible verse for this song is from (I had to look this up) The Parable of the Talents, and it says: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord." From this, bitterly I imagine, the song gives us a man steeling himself to visit a dying patient's bedside, where medication drips fight off the cancer that's destroying them anyway. This is the reward for a good and faithful servant, the same reward we all get. <i>"Tried to brace myself / you can't brace yourself / when the time comes, you just have to roll with the blast."</i> In the end you can't explain it, what none of us are prepared for, it's unfathomable, ordinary, staggering, like this song.
Great great music in both cases. But please y'all, let's set aside the death themes for the 2010s before we have album-length tributes to SIDS or something.
The Nelly Furtado Memorial I Don't Know Why I Love You, I Just Do Award : Lady Gaga
http://www.homorazzi.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/lady-gaga-bad-romance-still-6.jpg
Yes, I love her. She's a truckload of hooks backed over New Order with Bjork's wardrobe. What's not to love? (Don't answer that.)
Best Heavenly Creature : Antony
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thecultureshow/antony_live.jpg
MVP of 2009: Karin Dreijer
http://vesperinlimbo.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/feverray-by-johanrenck-400.jpg
If you can't tell from my icon, I am a BIG fan. Her duo The Knife is the only sure spot on my Decade List whenever I get around to that, and this year her solo project Fever Ray is all over every credible top 10 list and is (SPOILER) my Album of the Year. Her video for "If I Had a Heart" was also my favorite video this year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HvjK29Gpn0
But that's not all! Karin also appeared on Röyksopp's tremendously fun album Junior this year with fellow electro-divas Robyn and Likki Li, singing on the tracks Tricky Tricky and This Must Be It. Like everything else Karin touched this year, it was pure gold. 2009 was her year for sure.
Best Cover Album : Easy Star's Lonely Hearts Dub Band, by the Easy Star All Stars
Best Cover Songs: Transmission by Hot Chip and Search and Destroy by Peaches
Prodigy award for scariest 19-year-old: Soap&Skin
http://thousandlittledances.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/4236.jpg?w=390&h=488
What the crap! She did Lovetune for Vacuum by herself! She's only a teenager! And this is legitimately great, not just "great for a teenager". Imagine what she'll be doing in ten years. IIEEEE.
Best 80's revival track in a year of 80's revival tracks: Warm in the Shadows by Music Go Music
Best song that sounds just like a Hot Chip track with annoying singing over it: In For the Kill
Best song that sounds just like an Oh No track with annoying rapping over it: Supermagic
Best literary reference: God's Pink Laser
Best literary reference, part 2: Sylvia
http://www.superfuture.com/supernews/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/jarvis-cocker.jpg
Sexiest midlife crisis: Jarvis Cocker, Further Complications
Yes, Jarv, you can read the dictionary to me. Mind if I objectify you a bit? Ok then. As you were.
Funniest Breakup: Not Fair, Lily Allen
Sweetest Breakup: Pretty Wings, Maxwell
OH MY GOD: How Insensitive, Iggy Pop
He croons! He CROONS!!!
Best big ole mess of noisy bliss: Wavves
Best drums : Percussion Gun, White Rabbits
Best Last.fm friend/artist: LOSTFREEQ
Best artist that I discovered just by randomly playing one of my friends radios: Emmy The Great
Best New Supergroup: Them Crooked Vultures
Dave Grohl. Josh Homme. John Paul Jones. It rocks.
Best Just Plain Motherfucking Rock'n'roll: Wolfmother
Best inadvertent Twilight theme song (which would make that crappy movie 100000x better): Lust for A Vampyr
Song that I cannot get out of my head for some damn reason: For Kate I Wait
Best Mashup : Jaydiohead
Granted, this really only works for the lesser tracks of either JayZ or Radiohead, like "Fall in Step" or "Wrong Prayer", and it's probably time to let go of the JayZ mashups about now, but it's still a lot of fun.
Song that I'm kind of surprised isn't a radio hit: This will be our year
This totally sounds like a song that should be playing over one of those reality show montages when someone is going home and they play back all their memorable moments while a sad pop song plays. Someone get on that.
2009 : The Songs
This is hard enough for me to narrow down to a manageable level from my tag radio, without having to also rank them. I'll also give you a break from my blurbing after the first 20 or so. You're welcome again.
Japandroids : Heart Sweats
It's funny how everyone seems to have to preface any praise of this band with some sort of apology for it not being groundbreaking enough. Well, I don't think Japandroids have anything to apologize for. This song just plain kicks your ass, picks you up and dusts you off and then kicks your ass again. There's nothing wrong with that, and a whole lot right.
Florence and the Machine : The Dog Days are Over
This song is an annoucement: Florence is here. Pay attention.
Passion Pit : Little Secrets
I don't know anyone who can resist the singalong chorus of this song, and I don't really want to. Higher and higher and higher.
The Antlers : Sylvia
You wouldn't guess from the lyrics sheet ("Sylvia, get your head out of the oven") that this song would be as breathtakingly sympathetic and generous as it is. When crashing waves of guitars wash over Peter Silberman's gentle delivery of lines like "let me do my job" and take us into the aching entreaty of that chorus, it's one of the high points of music in general this year. And when the horns come in for the bridge, I just want to hug everyone everywhere. It's that good.
The Decemberists - The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid
It sounds like a pretty typical Decemberists song, until a new voice comes on and starts Jefferson Airplaning all over their Jethro Tull. Did NOT know they could do that. Excellent.
Phoenix - Lisztomania
Obligatory Phoenix Praise.
The Bird and the Bee: Polite Dance Song
At first it's just cute, but the more you listen to this track the more oddly sexy it becomes. It's like a librarian strip tease, shushing you with one hand and beckoning invitingly with the other.
Black Moth Super Rainbow - Born on a Day the Sun Didn't Rise
Imagine taking ecstasy and then watching 1970's educational filmstrips. That's sort of what this sounds like. And it's pure bliss.
Noah and the Whale : Blue Skies
This is a song for anyone with a broken heart. I totally think they were going for Maps with this. Just listen to the epic drums at the beginning and the way the song gradually opens up. It's a very nice song anyway, and it really grows on you.
...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead: Bells of Creation
Trail of Dead is hit and miss with me, but this track is a definite hit. This, this, is what they've been aiming for all along. Huge sound. Grandiose without crossing over to overblown. Evoking 70's stadium rock without souding a bit dated. The only thing that's even come close to this for me is It Was There That I Saw You, and that was mostly for the wall of machine gun guitars. This track is all greatness.
Antony and the Johnsons : Aeon
The song that finally won me over to Antony's magical, hyper-emotional world. There are so many little gems sprinkled through the lines of this song, and his performance is nothing short of brilliant.
The Mountain Goats : Isaiah 45:23
I won't get better, but someday I will be free. Cause I am not this body that imprisons me.
The Flaming Lips - Convinced of the Hex
It actually took me a few minutes, on my crappy iPod Shuffle, to realize that HOLY CRAP IT'S THE LIPS!! I see now how they had fallen into a sonic rut after plowing and replowing the Yoshimi tract this decade. Somehow now the circle is complete as they return to psychedelia of Hit to Death in the Future Head while bringing along the gravitas they've been accumulating ever since. On Convinced of the Hex, Wayne steps back a little bit and lets the band do its thing. For anyone who was thinking the Flaming Lips IS Wayne Coyne, this will be a revelation. Let loose, the rest of the Lips rock out 13th Floor Elevators-style, sounding reinvigorated and reinvented and absolutely fucking terrific. If I'd had a few more weeks with Embryonic before this I suspect it would show up on my top albums list.
Lady Gaga - Poker Face
Actually this isn't an obligatory pop track to not look too elitist, I really love this. I love the stuttering synths, the 90's dance remix "Ma-ma-ma-my" voice, the rat-tat-tat verses that are really the best bit, and how oh yeah there really ought to be a chorus right about CHORUS thrown in as an afterthought before getting back to the good stuff again. This song here's my exhibit A that Lady Gaga is pretty much Robyn V.2. There's even TERRIBLE RAPPING. Hilarious terrible rapping. Just for the "bluffin' with my muffin" line alone, I want to hit this track again and again. I also love Bad Romance, which is really 3-4 different songs crammed into one mutant Voltron of a pop monster, but I think Poker Face is just slightly better.
The Phenomenal Handclap Band - You'll Disappear
What was I saying about the indie kids and disco? This is pure disco. They don't have one foot firmly planted in electro like Midnight Juggernauts did a couple years ago, this shit is funky. Carol C is no Donna Summer; she sounds more like a blissful hippy who wandered into the wrong studio and decided to give it a whirl anyway with what-the-hell gusto, and she takes the track straight into outer space. A standout track from a tremendously fun debut.
Oh hell, here are a bunch more songs that you should listen to, every one.
Sister Suvi – The Lot
Deerhunter - Disappearing Ink, Game of Diamonds
Girls - Hellhole Ratrace
Dirty Projectors - Stillness is the Move, No Intention
Woods - Rain on
Neon Indian - Deadbeat Summer
The Appleseed Cast – As The Little Things Go
PJ Harvey and John Parish - Black Hearted Love, Sixteen, Fifteen, Fourteen
Soulsavers - Some Misunderstanding, Revival
Art Brut - DC Comics and Chocolate Milkshakes
Great Lake Swimmers – Pulling On a Line
Bill Callahan - Too Many Birds
Jarvis Cocker - I Never Said I Was Deep
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Young Adult Friction
Speech DeBelle - Searching
Telepathe - So Fine
dd/mm/yyyy - Infinity Skull Cube, Digital Haircut
YACHT - Summer Song, Professionals
Beirut - My Night With the Prostitute from Marseilles
A Place to Bury Strangers - Exploding Head
Morrissey - Something Is Squeezing My Skull
The Rifles - The Great Escape
The Phantom Band - The Howling
The Gossip - Men In Love (WITH EACH OTHER!)
Howling Bells – Cities Burning Down
Televised Crimewave - Listen and Repeat
Bowerbirds - Northern Lights
White Lies - To Lose My Life
Kid Cudi - Heart of a Lion
Little Boots - Stuck on Repeat
Cymbals Eat Guitars - Indiana
Papercuts - Future Primative
Mew : New Terrain
Mos Def - Life in Marvelous Times
Little Dragon - Blinking Pigs
Sunset Rubdown: Silver Moons Idiot Heart
Apse - All Mine
Bear in Heaven - Lovesick Teenagers
And now the Finale, the best albums of 2009, which you'll find in Part Two. No really, go there, there's more.
(EDIT: WELL, I can't seem to code this very last link here, my journal is tired, it's starting to breach, it can't take much more of this captain, so please, go back to the top of this entry for the link to Part 2. Sorry.)