Music: Best Albums of the Year Series: 2009

[Saturated Fats]

1965: The Beatles - Rubber Soul
1966: The Beatles - Revolver
1967: The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
1969: The Beatles - Abbey Road
1970: Black Sabbath - Paranoid
1971: Led Zeppelin - IV
1972: Neil Young - Harvest
1973: Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
1974: Supertramp - Crime of the Century
1975: Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
1976: Eagles - Hotel California
1977: Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
1979: Pink Floyd - The Wall
1980: AC/DC - Back in Black
1981: Rush - Moving Pictures
1982: Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast
1984: Metallica - Ride the Lightning
1985: Tears for Fears - Songs from the Big Chair
1987: Guns 'n Roses - Appetite for Destruction
1988: Metallica - ...And Justice for All
1989: Pixies - Doolittle
1991: Nirvana - Nevermind
1992: Alice in Chains - Dirt
1995: Oasis - (What's the Story) Morning Glory?
1996: (TIE) Soundgarden - Down on the Upside // Rage Against the Machine - Evil Empire
1998: (TIE) Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill // System of a Down - System of a Down
1999: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication
2000: Radiohead - Kid A
2001: The Strokes - Is This It
2002: Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf
2004: (TIE) Madvillain - Madvillainy // The Killers - Hot Fuss // Green Day - American Idiot
2005: Coldplay - X & Y
2006: Tool - 10,000 Days
2007: Radiohead - In Rainbows
2010: The National - High Violet
2011: No definitive winner
2012: (TIE) Kendrick Lamar - good kidd, M.A.A.D. city // Deftones - koi no yokan
2014: Behemoth - The Satanist

1997: (TIE) Radiohead - OK Computer // Foo Fighters - The Color and the Shape (14 votes)

2nd Place: The Verve - Urban Hymns (6 votes)
3rd Place: Elliot Smith - Either/Or (5 votes)
4th Place: 6 albums tied with 4 votes

Well, I suppose I should've given more credit and consideration to the Foo Fighters album that has 'Everlong' on it. Really thought that OK Computer was a shoo-in, all things considered. But this board continues to surprise me.

2009 is what I'd consider a pretty lean year in terms of top-level content. There are some albums I really like, but I don't find a ton that jumps out to me. Doesn't even seem to be a big year in terms of popular stuff. Struggling to put together my list. Which, of course, means that the rest of y'all will have 57 albums that you absolutely adore on the year. Seems to be how it works!

11/3: 1986
11/5: 1968
11/7: 2015

Click to read more...

 

[Cas]

Woo, Monoliths and Dimensions on Halloween! I used to blast that across the neighborhood on Halloween - it really freaked people out.

Not in front of my collection now, so my list is forthcoming, but I had to put in a mention of one of the perfect Halloween albums on Halloween!

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Again a pretty long list (next two should be a lot shorter - and better).

1. Vladimir Bozar 'N' Ze Sheraf Orkestär ‎– Universal Sprache
2. Lightning Bolt – Earthly Delights
3. Benjamin Biolay – La superbe
4. Zu – Carboniferous
5. Eels - Hombre Lobo: 12 Songs of Desire
6. Circulatory System – Signal Morning
7. Sylvester Anfang II – Sylvester Anfang II / Sylvester Anfang II – Untitled (Luchtrat #3) (don't mind the first track of the self-titled album on which the voice is kind of a repellent, the rest is trippy and great and dark – The Devil Always Shits In the Same Graves is a very troubling song title (!) – the untitled mini album is cool too, but not on that level)
8. Broadcast and The Focus Group – Broadcast and The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age
9. Grunt – Petturien rooli (damn I hate the juvenile fascist/wanna-be-shocking imagery that comes with a lot of industrial, noise and power electronics bands from the East, but I still like a lot of their music)
10. Church of Misery – Houses of the Unholy (also pretty juvenile & dumb, but too much fun)
11. Mario Diaz de Leon – Enter Houses Of
12. Fuzz Orchestra – Comunicato Nº 2
13. Ahleuchatistas – Of the Body Prone
14. Greymachine – Disconnected
15. Future of the Left – Travels With Myself and Another

I'll give a special HM to these:
Natural Snow Buildings – Daughter of Darkness / Natural Snow Buildings – Shadow Kingdom (not the best albums by NSB, but DoD is 6h long, plus 2h30 for SK, and add to that the albums from their solo projects, TwinSisterMoon and Isengrid, and that's a LOT of music for a single year)
Isengrind - Journey of the 7 Stars (title track is a little weaker, but the rest is great)
TwinSisterMoon - The Hollow Mountain (I think it's better than the two Natural Snow Buildings, there's just a little too much of her “medieval” soundscape for my tastes)

HMs:
HEALTH – Get Color
Jean Leloup – Mille excuses Milady
Andrew Douglas Rothbard – Exodusarabesque
Wappenbund – Heaven (EP)
Richard Skelton – Landings
Melvins – Chicken Switch (interesting project with mixed results, certainly worth a listen)
Beck – The Information
Jon Hopkins – Insides
Ruins (as Sax Ruins) – Yawiquo
The Chariot – Wars and Rumors of Wars
Li Jianhong – Lovers With Cloisonné Bracelet
Reformed Faction – I Am the Source of Light, I Am Not a Mirror
Califone – All My Friends Are Funeral Singers
Every Time I Die – New Junk Aesthetic
Juliette Lewis – Terra Incognita (if you don't know her as a singer, listen to Hard Lovin Woman and you're in for a surprise – the album would be ranked higher if not very uneven, stuff like Uh Huh is pure garbage to my ears)
uSSSy – USSSY
Sajjanu – Pechiku!!
AMute – Infernal Heights for a Drama
The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation – Succubus
The Swell Season – Strict Joy
Pharmakon – Pharmakon (EP)

Curiosities:
John Frusciante – The Empyrean (subpar album for Frusciante, but Before the Beginning, kind of an homage to Eddie Hazel, is truly beautiful - on its own might the best thing of the year)
Andrew W.K. – 55 Cadillac (if you know who AWK. is, this is really a surprising album, and not bad at all)
Cyro Baptista's Banquet of the Spirits – Infinito
Pere Ubu With Sarah Jane Morris – Long Live Père Ubu!
Utarm – Panic Chamber
Land of Kush – Against the Day
Esplendor Geométrico – Pulsión
f*** Buttons – Tarot Sport
Paul White – The Strange Dreams of Paul White
Charlotte Gainsbourg – IRM
Antony and the Johnsons – The Crying Light
Yo La Tengo – Popular Songs
Dan Auerbach – Keep It Hid
Magma – Ëmëhntëhtt-Ré
A Place to Bury Strangers – Exploding Head (once again, poor vocals kill an otherwise very cool sound)
Micachu and the Shapes – Jewellery

Didn't list the Soulsavers album, not really my style overall, but this is one hell of a song:

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Oh well, second time I have nothing from my list + HMs in the poll - still voted for Frusciante for that one song.

 

[plank]

1. We Used to Think the Freeway Sounded Like a River - Richmond Fontaine
2. Josephine - Magnolia Electric Co.
3. s/t - Wilco
4. Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey - Cracker
5. American Central Dust - Son Volt
6. s/t - Them Crooked Vultures
7. For the Whole World to See - Death
8. s/t - Wussy
9. The Mountain - Heartless Bastards
10. Painters Hands and a Seventh Son - Courtney Marie Andrews
11. White Lies for Dark Times - Ben Harper and Relentless7
12. Townes - Steve Earle
13. Haymaker! - The Gourds
14. Singlewide - The Dexateens
15. Blood and Candlesmoke - Tom Russell
16. To Willie - Phosphorescent
17. Farm - Dinosaur Jr.
18. Before the Frost - The Black Crowes
19. Born On Flag Day - Deer Tick
20. Backspacer - Pearl Jam
21. Noble Beast - Andrew Bird
22. Last Exit to Happyland - Gurf Morlix
23. Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King - Dave Matthews Band
24. Beware - Bonnie "Prince" Billy
25. s/t - Molina and Johnson
26. North Hills - Dawes
27. Brain Cycles - Radio Moscow
28. Potato Hole - Booker T.
29. When the Devil's Loose - A.A. Bondy
30. One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Music from Kerouac's Big Sur - Jay Farrar and Benjamin Gibbard

Sorry Fats, couldn't come up with 57

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Sorry Fats, couldn't come up with 57

Do I have 57? (I promise the next ones will be shorter!)

Funniest thing is we don't have a single album in common. I checked Wussy's self-titled, and it couldn't be much further from uSSSy's self titled album, but that's still the closest we got!

 

[Teemu]

The xx - The xx
The Antlers - Hospice
Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
Japandroids - Post-Nothing
Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
Arctic Monkeys - Humbug
Wilco - Wilco (The Album)
Antnony & the Johnsons - The Crying Light
Andrew Bird - Noble Beast

A lot of you guys would probably like that Japandroids album

 

[ItsFineImFine]

I'll go with Röd by kent as best overall. If anyone wants a couple really under-the-radar albums that were strong from that year then Post-Electric Blues by Scottish band Idlewild and Trees Dream In Algebra by Irish band Codes are a couple of great indie albums. I think the White Lies debut also came out this year and while it isn't really a good enough album to revisit much, I still listen to the singles on it like Death and To Lose My Life and Farewell To The Fareground, probably had the best singles.







Also was listening to Doves' 2009 album (Kingdom of Rust) recently and the opening 4 tracks are definitely worth a listen.

 

[kihei]

Metric: Fantsies

Muse: The Resistance
U2: No Line of the Horizon

Brazil
Mali
Congo
Nigeria
Ivory Coast
Zimbabwe
Jamaica

 

[Ceremony]

Other: In the Cold Wind We Smile - The Xcerts

 

[MoreOrr]

#1 Wait For Me - Moby
#2 The Resistance - Muse

 

[Langdon Alger]

Them Crooked Vultures sounded like it would be amazing with a lineup of Josh Homme, John Paul Jones and Dave Grohl, but the songs didn’t do much for me to be honest. I could have seen them in concert on my birthday ten years ago, but decided to pass. Maybe I should have gone just to see Paul Jones play live and to see Grohl on the drums. Oh well.

 

[Cas]

2009 was a very doom-filled year.

Ahab - The Divinity of Oceans
Candlemass - Death Magic Doom
Emperor - Live Inferno
God Dethroned - Passiondale
Insect Warfare - World Extermination
Iron Man - I Have Returned
Panopticon - Collapse
Portal - Swarth
The Ruins of Beverast - Foulest S**** of a Sheltered Elite
Spiritus Mortis - The God Behind the God
Sunn O))) - Monoliths and Dimensions
Ulcerate - Everything is Fire
Vader - Necropolis
Yob - The Great Cessation

Passiondale is a great blackened death metal concept album about the titular campaign. I've been listening to it a lot over the last week.

Collapse is the best anarchist Panopticon album (I like Roads to the North best out of all of them, but the anarchism is very light on that).

Live Inferno is the best black metal live album. I'm also a big fan of Emperor.

Monoliths and Dimensions is a monster of an album, but it's also not for everyone. Play it and Swarth back to back and see how many of your friends have strong constitutions.

I'm actually going to go with Passiondale here, which might be recency bias, but I've been listening to it for most of the decade. It helps that I'm a WWI geek.

 

[frisco]

Other:
#23 Untitled-The Church
Working On A Dream-Bruce Springsteen

My Best-Carey

 

[Teemu]

Them Crooked Vultures sounded like it would be amazing with a lineup of Josh Homme, John Paul Jones and Dave Grohl, but the songs didn’t do much for me to be honest. I could have seen them in concert on my birthday ten years ago, but decided to pass. Maybe I should have gone just to see Paul Jones play live and to see Grohl on the drums. Oh well.

The problem with supergroups--chiefly ones like this one that function more like side groups--is that none of the members want to waste their good material in them. Why wouldn't they save their best stuff for their own groups? Consequently, while the members may be very talented, they struggle with divergent ideas for the project and are only really putting in a 50% effort.

 

[Soldier13Fox]

The problem with supergroups--chiefly ones like this one that function more like side groups--is that none of the members want to waste their good material in them. Why wouldn't they save their best stuff for their own groups? Consequently, while the members may be very talented, they struggle with divergent ideas for the project and are only really putting in a 50% effort.

That's very true. About the only "supergroup" that has ever really impressed me (or at least that comes to mind) is Down. Nola is one of my top 3 albums of all time, depending on my mood it's #1.

 

[Azathoth]

Other:
Nile-Those whom the gods detest
Obscura-Cosmogenesis
Ulcerate-Everything is Fire

 

[Mescaleroman]

Bahamas - Pink Strat
Cracker - Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey

 

[Langdon Alger]

The problem with supergroups--chiefly ones like this one that function more like side groups--is that none of the members want to waste their good material in them. Why wouldn't they save their best stuff for their own groups? Consequently, while the members may be very talented, they struggle with divergent ideas for the project and are only really putting in a 50% effort.

I suppose so, but if you put three talented musicians in a room together, you’d think they could come up with some good stuff together. It’s not that TCV were bad, I just don’t find the songs to be very memorable.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Metric: Fantsies

Muse: The Resistance
U2: No Line of the Horizon

Brazil
Mali
Congo
Nigeria
Ivory Coast
Zimbabwe
Jamaica

Good call on Fantasies, only Metric album I ever bought because it was fairly loaded. Really good singles plus that song they had in FIFA plus Twilight Galaxy. I guess that style isn't really good enough to make me go back and listen to it too much. Or that isn't right because the album I nominated is the same sort of indie synth rock but maybe it's less sugary than Fantasies.

I didn't like The Resistance all that much but the singles from it were great. United States of Eurasia is an amazing track. Last good Muse album.

 

[Mikeaveli]

Respect +1 for putting sweet trip in the poll options

 

[Ouroboros]

Iannis Xenakis - Œuvres Pour Orchestre [Tamayo/Luxembourg Philharmonic] [Modern Classical]
Teitanblood - Seven Chalices [Death/Black Metal]
Katharsis - Fourth Reich [Black Metal]
Tetuzi Akiyama/Erik Carlsson/Toshimaru Nakamura/Henrik Olsson - In Search Of Wild Tulips [EAI]
Arizmenda - Within The Vacuum of Infinity... [Black Metal]
Arktau Eos - Ai Ma Ra [Ambient]
Ulcerate - Everything Is Fire [Death Metal]
Sunn O))) - Monoliths And Dimensions [Drone/Drone Metal]
Alva Noto/Ryuichi Sakamoto/Ensemble Modern - utp_ [Ambient/Modern Classical/Glitch]
Portal - Swarth [Death Metal]
Alva Noto - Xerrox Vol. 2 [Ambient/Drone/Glitch]
Max Corbacho - Ars Lucis [Ambient/Drone]
Troum - Eald-Ge-Stréon [Ambient/Drone]
The Chasm - Farseeing The Paranormal Abysm [Death Metal]
Government Alpha - Resolution Of Remembrance 1992-1999 [Compilation] [Noise]
Alberto Posadas - Liturgia Fractal [Quatuor Diotima] [Modern Classical/Spectralism]

 

[Saturated Fats]

Not my favourite year, but there's some music that I really love. My favourite album on the year is Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest, their magnum opus. Like Deerhunter, this was a late-oughts indie band that I thought would be the standard bearer for the genre for a decade+ to come - but they just kind of... fell off after 2012's Shields. But, no matter, the psychedelic fervour and gently ironic melancholy of this album is enough for me. It's a great year for Emo, post-hardcore, and folk, which dominates my list.

1. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
2. The Brave Little Abacus - Masked Dancers: Concern in So Many Things You Forget Where You Are
3. A Place to Bury Strangers - Exploding Head
4. Dan Mangan - Nice, Nice, Very Nice

5. John Frusciante - The Empyrean (thought I'd finally echo @Pranzo Oltranzista with this one!)
6. Converge - Axe to Fall
7. Bomb the Music Industry! - Scrambles
8. Bat for Lashes - Two Suns
9. Altar of Plagues - White Tomb
10. Gregory Alan Isakov - This Empty Northern Hemisphere

 

[Spring in Fialta]

The Ecstatic + You Will Never Know Why but it's not letting me vote and I guess I just don't know why?

 

[Teemu]

The Ecstatic + You Will Never Know Why but it's not letting me vote and I guess I just don't know why?

The polls are only open for a few days. We're currently voting on 1986