Like every year there was a tremendous amount of music that I listened to for the first time this year that wasn’t actually released this year. On prior years I’ve just figured that since I missed giving them year end attention the first time around, I shouldn’t bother listing them now. This year I figured in addition to my “Best of 2009″ I’d also do a “Favorites of 2009″ and hope that the word ‘favorites’ makes it obvious that these releases aren’t from 2009 but other years that have passed.

To be totally honest… I like a most of the stuff on this list a lot more than most of the stuff released in 2009.

1. The War on Drugs – Wagonwheel Blues

If this had been released in ‘09 instead of the middle of ‘08, or had I discovered it back in ‘08, I am pretty sure this would be #1 on some Best of in my collection. My love for this album is impossible to properly articulate. It’s easy to explain what it sounds like to people: imagine Bob Dylan singing Bruce Springsteen songs (with incomprehensible Bob Dylan lyrics) backed by Sonic Youth doing their own version of shoegaze. If that doesn’t sound inherently good to you, then maybe you won’t like it, but damn if this isn’t the best album I listened to this year.

2. Archie Bronson Outfit – Derdang Derdang

Derdang Derdang is consistency perfected. There is never a moment on this album that doesn’t feel pensive. I don’t even know how to describe the mood… it’s like the whole world is heartbroken but that’s the only way it could ever be, so it’s not like we’re not resigned to it, but we’re still going to soak an album in it… or something. I don’t know. I had this album on my computer for years (two is enough to pluralize), and I probably listened to it sometime once back when it came out and didn’t like it and forgot about it. I discovered it this year when I went through my collection looking for stuff I didn’t recognize. This was one of them. From the very first minute of Cherry Lips I was absolutely in love.

3. Parts & Labor – Receivers

Sometimes when making these lists I feel bad for the albums that end up with albums in front of them; Receivers is one of these albums. There is so much joy in this album (and my #1 listened to song this year was off this album) that it seems unfair that both The War on Drugs and Archie Bronson Outfit come out ahead of it (and by joy I don’t really mean joy but noise, lots and lots of noise that sounds really pretty and powerful and epic and all that good shit). Receivers accomplishes so many things well, like Mount Misery’s broken robot lament which actually sounds like a broken robot lament, like something out of some sinister art house take on Wall-E in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where Marvin the Paranoid Android is Marvin the Schizophrenic and Perpetually Lonely Robot, wandering through the wastelands wondering if he’ll ever be useful again. (Most of the time I have no idea what they’re singing but that’s OK.) This shit is epic and I love it.

4. Andrew Jackson Jihad

Andrew Jackson Jihad get the “Band I am pretty happy to have discovered” award this year, though when I think of assigning that sort of award a bunch of other bands spring to mind, but none other had such a wealth of material for me to dive into, and all of it so consistently enjoyable. Andrew Jackson Jihad is a “folk punk” band, meaning mostly acoustic instruments (a guitar and a stand up bass if I know correctly) played with punk enthusiasm over morbid, macabre, ironic lyrics. Sean Bonnette sings about smoking crystal meth, killing people, and how unfortunate life is but he never does it bitterly, or too frighteningly. I’d compare them to Eels, in that they write happy songs about sad things, though sometimes AJJ just writes angry songs about sad things, or sad songs about guilty things, or… I don’t know. I love ‘em!

5. Tulsa – I Was Submerged

It’s like they know that their album sounds like you’re floating around underwater in a tranquil ocean, so they named it that. Genius, really. Tulsa plays really emotive and beautiful guitar riffs over a usually gentle somewhat folky shoegazey backdrop of sound. It’s easy to drift off into this album and give yourself over to warm fuzzies if you really want to, or if you have enough drugs in your system. Either way, sober or stoned, Tulsa is my kind of chill music.

6. Holy Fuck – LP

HOLY FUCK!!! Seriously, I want this to be the future of dance music. It’s like someone took the Crystal Method, gave them a really awesome drummer or two, and… made them really awesome. I mean, I don’t know, I just don’t know why Holy Fuck is so awesome, maybe they just know what the fuck they’re doing and god bless them for that. If they release a second LP, I can’t imagine they could screw it up. The first time I really listened to this album, me and my buddy listened to it on a loop for five hours while we drove around Southern California just exploring. It was epic and this was the best thing to listen to while doing it.

7. Dr. Dog – Fate

I would have liked for Dr. Dog’s Fate to be really high on this list, but it isn’t because the songwriting is so consistently terrible across the record that sometimes I can’t even listen to it. For about a week I listened to Fate over and over again and I managed to keep myself blissfully ignorant of how awful the lyrics are pretty well, because I really dig how solidly they remind me of The Beatles and other such rock music (sometimes playing riffs that sound so much like George Harrison I want to crap myself) that I want to love them. I really really want to love them. Unfortunately the only song I really like anymore is My Friend, which I like so much I would go and see Dr. Dog live just to hear that song. Unfortunately there is no guarantee that they’ll play it when I see them so I probably won’t ever go to one of their shows.

It’s taken me a long time to write up this top of 2009 list because I’ve already written about most of these artists. I spent about a month staring at this list, rearranging it, wondering what I could write about each album and then it dawned on me: There isn’t really much I can say about any of these albums that matches the hyperbole-laden superlatives I used to describe them when I originally posted a song off them, so for the most part this is just a list, with links to my original posts.

Here’s links to prior years: 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005 (in which I insult Wolf Parade and betray that 4 years ago I had NO FUCKING IDEA what I was talking about), and 2004. Be warned, up until this year my music listening habits sucked so these prior lists mostly suck but if you’re looking for good stuff from years ago that you might have missed, they might be useful.

On to the list…

01. Marnie Stern – This Is It and I Am It and…

This wasn’t number one for the first month this list was in existence (Passion Pit was) but then I realized something: Marnie Stern’s album will stick with me for far longer than Passion Pits will. Marnie Stern absolutely floors me, her songs are so melodic and powerful and her lyrics, while relatively simple (even repeating search motifs across the album) describe the noise that goes on inside my head pretty well. This album, if it isn’t already, will become a security blanket for me as time goes on, I can already feel it. For that, I must thank you Marnie Stern.

02. Passion Pit – Manners

I don’t have much to say about Passion Pit except that I am glad they taught me that music that makes me want to shake my ass isn’t always retarded bullshit and for that they are awesome.

Live Note: I saw Passion Pit live and never did a write up for them. Here it is in short: Passion Pit is a great band that is obviously destined for bigger venues. They play their music professionally and without many blemishes, and the audience loves them unlike anything I seen (seriously, the mass of people up against the stage was scary looking, surging and undulating like you’d imagine hordes of sinners being tortured in hell to look like—like that stupid ass rave in that one Matrix movie). However, I don’t think I’d go see them live again unless I felt like doing drugs and dancing my head off, because there’s nothing at one of their shows that I can’t experience on the record. I suppose that is just a measure of my true “fandom” of Passion Pit (meaning that a lot of my appreciation is based on the fact that they’re GOOD and not that they’re a unique love of mine).

03. Ha Ha Tonka – Novel Sounds of the Nouveau North

This album makes me really happy I started this website, because I can’t imagine I would have discovered it otherwise. Recommended to me by a reader who’s friends with one of the band members, I didn’t have high expectations—I mean, how can you trust a friend of the band to be objective? But from beginning to end Ha Ha Tonka had me transfixed, which then spread to my girlfriend. When we saw them life they were amazing performers, clean playing, very professional, but most of all they looked like they were having a lot of fun even though they were playing in front of a very small crowd of people in a tiny little venue, which is more important than anything else. I went to too many shows this year where the bands didn’t seem to be having a good time (Vampire Weekend, everyone in Passion Pit except the singer). Ha Ha Tonka is one of those bands that I feel like it should be my personal goal in life to make sure as many people as possible listen to them.

04. Stellastarr* – Civilized

Stellastarr* is one of the biggest surprises for me this year, as when I listen to it I can’t help but think, “Damn, I would have loved this back in middle school,” but there’s no denying that Stellastarr*, who I’d never even heard of before I impulse-bought this album on LaLa, crafts songs that are exciting, interesting, and full of lush layers of guitars and melody. Their songwriting is pretty much completely retarded, but it doesn’t matter, because every song on this album is 100% enjoyable beginning to end. This is definitely not my “style” but it makes me feel pretty good when I listen to it.

05. Bear in Heaven – Beast Rest Forth Mouth
06. YACHT – See Mystery Lights (Live review)
07. Viva Voce – Rose City
08. The xx – xx
09. Handsome Furs – Face Control
10. Saint Motel – ForPlay

If Saint Motel isn’t one of those “artists you should watch” then I don’t know who is. If they don’t make it real big I will be shocked, because their music is good clean dirty fun. Even after four of their shows in one month I wasn’t tired of their songs, and that says a lot.

***

Here’s the rest of this year that was worth ranking…

11. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
12. Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
13. Sea Wolf – White Water, White Bloom

Sea Wolf’s latest cuts out a lot of the “emo” from their first album and replaces it with what I can only describe as “Renaissance Faire Chic”.

14. We Were Promised Jetpacks – These Four Walls
15. Dan Deacon – Bromst (Live review)
16. Dead Man’s Bones – Dead Man’s Bones
17. The Builders and the Butchers – Salvation is a Deep Dark Well
18. Eels – Hombre Lobo
19. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
20. Red Wire Black Wire – Robots and Roses
21. Akron/Family – Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free (Another song)
22. Blue Giant – Target Heart EP

I recently got to see Blue Giant live, opening for The Builders of the Butchers, and they were pretty much excellent. They’ll be releasing an album sometime this year and I’ll preemptively promise you that it’ll be something you want to check out.

23. Circulatory System – Signal Morning (Another song)
24. Beirut – March of the Zapotec
25. Andrew Bird – Noble Beast

Best Live Show of 2009 goes to A Hawk and a Hacksaw for a very intimate show at Spaceland, which was only intimate because over half the audience left while they played because hipsters are fucking retarded, but we benefited: the crowd became so small that the entire band came out into the audience and played, unmic’d, in a circle while we watched. This is a group of INCREDIBLY talented musicians and I hope they keep making music for years upon years to come, because their music is beautiful and the skill and passion with which they play their instruments is beautiful and inspiring to boot.

Edit: I promise in the future to better proof read things I publish because these 1100 words are so chock full’o typos that I feel a little embarrassed.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

It’s been nearly a month since I’ve posted a song and for that, I apologize. I’ve been “working” on my “Best of 2009″ and “Best of the 2000’s” lists, and by “working” I mean that I formed the lists, fiddled with them, wrote a couple paragraphs for them, and then found the whole situation so daunting that I became paralyzed with fear and I’d say something like, “But this week I’ll crank them out and get them up,” but I probably won’t and I don’t want to lie to you. They’ll turn up eventually, with at least one really awesome downloadable playlist for you to listen to.

Another reason I haven’t posted anything is that with the exception of one song, that I haven’t posted because I’m a lousy music blogger, this last month nothing has really stuck out to me. Luckily the new year brings new releases, and one of them is Spoon’s Transference, which is officially the first release of 2010 that I am genuinely floored by.

I am a big fan of Gimme Fiction and practically nothing else by Spoon. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga never did it for me, it seemed to be a grab at the mainstream of sorts, which was weird from a band who’s only point of reference for me their prior very literary, dark, and cinematic album. I’ve since fallen in love with Don’t You Evah, but for the most part I’d never consider myself a fan of Spoon. Transference might change that, because it betrays Spoon as one of the most skillful bands I listen to.

Transference takes Spoon back into Gimme Fiction’s more foreboding moments, where the mood of the music is full of apprehension and dread. Unlike Gimme Fiction, Transference isn’t literary at all, there’s no Two Sides, no story telling, no sinister parks in the night, just confusion, longing, and worry that it’ll never end. It’s almost jarring, how similar yet entirely different this is from Gimme Fiction, the moods are alike but… not, you know?

It’s just impressive, how they change sides, and keep so consistent. Last years Eels‘ album was a mishmash of different periods, different sounds and styles, but Transference is nothing like that. Most Spoon albums aren’t, they nail down a mood and they stick to it. Gimme Fiction never wavers, Transference never wavers…

I’m mostly rambling at this point. I’m on my fourth or fifth listen, and I’m running out of things to say. I like how the album cuts songs off in the middle of words, the subtle and not-so-subtle vocal effects… the fact that unlike Vampire Weekend’s ridiculously disappointing Contra, these songs have hooks and they make me want to sing or dance or fuck, even if they’re not really pop songs at all, and even though the mood isn’t really the kind that makes me want to sing or dance (definitely fuck, though) they still make me feel good, and there’s nothing more important than that.

In short: Thanks Spoon!