The lonely thump of late-90s techno that was formerly a major influence on popular music gave way to a movement of open-minded, more cerebral musical ideas.

This year, the iPod generation embraced a quasi-disco revolution, the music industry’s funeral procession is halfway through and music is an almost-free commodity. And Beyoncé is still making hits! (She is one of our generation’s icons) Pop music culture is diverse, fertile and constantly inventive. These are the top records of 2009.

10. Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free – Akron/Family

Bands like The Very Best, Animal Collective and Akron/Family consciously incorporate rhythms and textures from all points of geography, but the last group is special in its technical proficiency. The nods to Afrobeat are subtle like they should be, the songwriting is sound and diverse and if this music has anything, it’s spirit. Wild sounds like a utopian hippie commune, where everyone gets to sing lead.

9. Drift – Nosaj Thing

When I met Nosaj Thing, prior to his opening set for Bassnectar at George’s in November, I behaved like a giddy little girl. I stuttered and posed eloquent compliments like, “your music is nice.” But what could I say? Jason Chung, the 24-year-old L.A. native behind Nosaj Thing, made one of the year’s most compelling records, an unsolvable hip-hop nightmare straight out of “Mega Man.” Eventually, Drift’s tracks sound a little too similar, but no one cares when the beats are as hypnotic as these. For nighttime activities.

8. Logos – Atlas Sound

Fall has been more than kind to Logos, a record that stayed with me through road trips home and back. As a whole, it’s a contemplative record. Bradford Cox, the man behind the moniker, makes songs that get pleasantly lost in a cloud of introspection, and these are no different: “The Light That Failed” sounds like a swamp dive on barbiturates while “Attic Lights” meditates on the leisure of paradise. But Logos is never lazy. Like his recent work with the more popular band, Deerhunter, Cox integrates his affinity for doo-wop into many of these tunes. It sounds like it shouldn’t work, but…

7. Alien in a Garbage Dump – Eric Copeland

So you’re throwing the most bumpin’ party of the year. You need a record the fellas can nod their heads to, some beats that make the ladies get down. This record is undoubtedly the poorest choice for that scenario. Alien is skuzzy, violent and downright ugly. The record mashes noise with hypnotic bits of song, sometimes letting them wander (a bold move, especially on the first two tracks), sometimes fencing them in (the excellent “Reptilian Space Beings, Shapeshifting Bloodsucking Vampires”). But Copeland somehow structures his noise experiments into a cohesive record. It won’t make you lots of friends, but Alien is the ideal headphones album, filled with hidden sounds and subconscious melodies.

6. Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street – Jon Hassell

Isn’t jazz supposed to swing? Or does it saunter? I know very little of jazz music and all its folklore. But I know that composer Jon Hassell’s newest record sounds like no jazz I’ve heard. Night creates a voyage through an Istanbul night, shrouded in fog, dotted with silky trumpet lines. Electronics burble for a few seconds, never to be heard again. The grooves are implied, meditative and forlorn. Delicious, like pipe smoke.

5. Childish Prodigy – Kurt Vile

The cover finds a bookish, fancily dressed kid staring into purple dusk as if his date had just abandoned him for a dance with the prom king. The songs of Childish Prodigy sync nicely with this scene: the only thing lonelier than Vile’s thick, groaning voice (think early Velvet Underground) is the swirling chorus of acoustic guitars. With titles like “Hunchback” and “Freak Train,” it’s obvious Vile’s got a case of the outcast blues, but he puts them to good use in psychedelic takes on Nick Drake (“Heart Attack,” “Dead Alive”). Who wants to be prom king anyway, right, kid?

4. Tarot Sport – F**k Buttons

My roommate listens to Explosions in the Sky when doing homework, which I accept but do not understand. Does post-rock lend hydrocarbon extraction a certain sense of urgency? Anyway, this Bristol duo win “best improved” by combining elements of that genre, with its endless, sincere crescendos, and danceable techno beats. It’s no coincidence that Tarot Sport’s best songs are also its most ambitious, with “Surf Solar” and “Olympians” clocking in at over 10 glorious minutes. The group is unafraid of experimenting with sounds, and this set of songs is paradoxically diverse and cohesive. If you want an A in geology, buy this album.

3. Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle – Bill Callahan

The 2007 film, “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” is one of my favorites. Brad Pitt’s depiction of the infamous Western criminal is sinister, yet always vulnerable. There are moments when, as a saddled James looks out over the sweeping plains, his eyes are glowing pools of reverence and sadness. Bill Callahan’s appropriately-titled Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle is one of those moments. Each song is a thunderhead with pockets of sunshine, minor-chord dirges (“The Wind and the Dove”) interrupted by subtle strings and French horn (“Jim Cain”). Callahan sing-speaks poetry in a baritone as thick and tall as the Smoky Mountains and on Eagle, his unrest has never sounded so at peace.

2. Merriweather Post Pavilion – Animal Collective

Much has happened in the world of Brooklyn sensations Animal Collective since this album leaked on Christmas Day of last year. Merriweather nearly reached the Billboard charts in vinyl sales alone (in the dead of winter, no less!), performed on Letterman (“Paul, do you have anything for the trick-or-treaters?”) and got praise from everyone from M.I.A. to Twilight author Stephenie Meyer. What’s the fuss? Merriweather combines the group’s penchant for repetition with very shiny production in their bounciest, most contagious songs yet, from “My Girls” to “Summertime Clothes” to “Brothersport.” Lyrically, the collective is less secretive, focusing on the communion of domestic life, the simple value of “Daily Routine,” strange and joyful monogamy. Next up: a record about bittersweet fame?

1. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix – Phoenix

All my friends love this album: the one that loves racing cars to the thrash of Metallica, the one that has a (worrying) crush on Ron Weasley, the sloppy-eyed burnout, the earnest farm boy, even my mom. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is not the most innovative release of the year, but it is the most universally likable. It’s your favorite child, skipping, grinning and forever curious. Thomas Mars sings in earnest questions: “Who’s the boy you like the most?” and “Where would you go with a lasso?” and “Could you go and run into me?” This French quartet has been playing together since childhood, and it shows in the fake out into of ”Lisztomania” and the rushing two-part “Love Like a Sunset.” Wolfgang is so clearly the work of a band, an album so pure in spirit and a piece much too fun to describe.

Merriweather Post Pavilion

Fall Be Kind, the group’s new EP, remedies this by collecting the scrapped songs from the sampler-heavy Merriweather sessions that lean toward a darker aura. The production (dense as ever, with punchy bass and doctored harmonies on top) is the same, but these songs are more indulgent.

“Old ideas worth doing are taking their time,” Dave Portner sings on the opening “Graze.” Only this band would end their most commercially successful year with a release like this.

Simply put, the group takes chances. As a result, their releases are categorically uneven, dotted with skeletal song sketches, non sequitur excursions and (more often) classic tunes. “Bleed” and “On A Highway” are conscious mood pieces that serve as transitions and little more, while the bookends “Graze” and “I Think I Can” are enjoyable exercises in dichotomy.

But wouldn’t you know it: Fall Be Kind’s best song is also its outlier. “What Would I Want? Sky,” which contains the first licensed Grateful Dead sample, is a pop masterstroke that easily outshines all of Merriweather. With a hop-step rhythm and shimmering synthesizers, the song is the best thing the group has ever recorded and, hands down, the song of the year.

The group is desperate to transform the blasé into the surreal, so the lyric sheet conjures symbols, not stories. These are songs of taxicabs, flesh wounds and roadside workers, everyday images decorated with rhythm and meaning. “I Think I Can” is a balance of self-doubt and self-help, while “On A Highway” imagines a nightmarish road trip (perhaps the consequence of touring for three years straight?).

Animal Collective is a band that self-consciously moves from era to era; they’ve spoken at length to their disdain of stasis and their want of reinventing the songwriting process. They’ve made blunders, but they’ve also succeeded in every step of their growth throughout the decade.

As a new decade begins and the group moves to another era, the future is unsure. For Animal Collective, the climate is ideal.

20. Dave Matthews Band

Right now I don’t know much about this one, except that a new album is due out April 14th.  The records is still unnamed and even unheard as they just dropped into the studio last week to begin recording.  I know that DMB doesn’t really fit with a lot of the music we cover, but we’re all crossing our fingers, hoping that he will take us back to our middle school days and shock the music world by proving that he still has the chops to write a great record.  I have a feeling that after losing their saxophonist Leroi Moore to an ATV accident this summer that they will all be really inspired to do something great in his name.  And I don’t think that their music will suffer too much from his loss.  Don’t get me wrong, he was pretty incredible. But the guy they have replacing him, Jeff Coffin, of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones is no slouch.  All this to say, that I do not believe myself foolish to expect great things from these guys once again.

Dave Matthews Band – Typical Situation

Dave Matthews Band – Proudest Monkey

19.  Antony & the Johnsons

On the 20th of this month, Antony and the Johnsons will release their 3rd full-length studio album, The Crying Light. The extremely creepy album art accompanying these new songs features a 1977 portrait of renowned Butoh dancer, Kazuo Ohno.  “He is kind of like my art parent,” says Hegarty abotu the great dancer he has dedicated the new album to. He is definitely a strange one, but boy does he have an incredible voice.  I continue to be impressed with both his songwriting and his vocal abilities.  After sampling two tracks from the forthcoming album, I doubt he will disapoint any time soon.

From all that I have read and heard, this album will have more in common with last year’s Another World EP than featuring the same subject on the cover.  Musically it is supposed to sound similar to and build upon their most previous work.  Which sounds great to me, because I thought Another World had some of the best work yet.

Antony & the Johnsons – Another World (EP version)

Antony & the Johnsons – Daylight and the Sun

Here is the tracklist for The Crying Light:
01 “Her Eyes Are Underneath The Ground”
02 “Epilepsy Is Dancing”
03 “One Dove”
04 “Kiss My Name”
05 “The Crying Light”
06 “Another World”
07 “Daylight And The Sun”
08 “Aeon”
09 “Dust and Water”
10 “Everglade”

18. Fiction Family

So we all new that when Nickel Creek was laid in the grave, that wouldn’t be the last we heard of those great musicians.  Thile was first to strike when he released Punch in early 2008 with his new bluegrass collective The Punch Brothers.  And now Sean has beaten his sister Sara with his new project with Switchfoot frontman, Jon Foreman.  I’ve only heard the one single, but I’m already a fan.  I’ve loved Foreman’s voice and songwriting for a while now.  But I have been pretty disappointed with the direction that Switchfoot has gone on the past two records.  But I have a feeling I will like what a collaboration with Watkins will produce.  His best stuff has been just his voice and a guitar, so hopefully two voices and two guitars will be twice as good. Look for the record in stores this Tuesday (1/20) or order it online now.

Fiction Family – When She’s Near from ATO Records on Vimeo.

Fiction Family – When She’s Near

17.  Animal Collective

Merriweather Post Pavilion, the eighth studio album AC has delivered in as many years, is set to see its official US release later this month. Never been a huge fan of these guys, but with all the buzz this album is receiving before its official release on the 20th. Everyone and their mom is talking about it.  They have been the most blogged artist on hype machine for a couple of weeks now.  Paste gave them 91 rating, which puts them in the category of phenomenal and is quite possibly the highest rating I’ve seen since they switched to this numerical system.  I’ve listened to a few of the tracks and personally, I don’t see what all the buzz is about.  Fortunately for you, one of our writers does.  Check out Brady’s complete review of the album.

Animal Collective – My Girls

So, amidst snaking power cables and the warm glow of their samplers, Animal Collective has created their most accessible and complete work to date, an alien record strangely enmeshed in daily life.  Lyrically, Merriweather Post Pavilion finds the psychedelic warriors putting aside the mystery and angst of 2007′s uneven Strawberry Jam for the sake of simple relational pleasures. There is a warm transparency in the understated chorus of “Summertime Clothes,” in which Dave Portner (aka Avey Tare) joyously bleats, “I want to walk around with you.”  The Afro-beat rapture of closer “Brother Sport” finds Noah Lennox (aka Panda Bear) consoling his sibling after their father’s death. There is no irony or pretense, only clarity.

Musically, MPP expands upon the Collective’s signature textural palette while borrowing a melodic bend from Panda Bear’s critically acclaimed solo release, Person Pitch.  The group’s relentless, ever-innovative output continues to amass, and it’s remarkable how they’ve perfected their art.  The twinkling arpeggios of “My Girls,” the euphoric, thumping climax of “In the Flowers,” and the obscure jaw harp sample in “Lion in a Coma” illustrate (again) the band’s talent at sifting pop through their innate weirdness.  Merriweather Post Pavilion is an absolute sonic labyrinth, a layered haze of found sounds and dense harmonization to be explored and memorized. Even Charles Gibson digs it.

Animal Collective – Summertime Clothes