Nathan’s Best Albums of 2009

Narrowing my list down to just ten was quite a task this year.  But it was a problem I am grateful to have.  With a year so heavily saturated with good new music, it has made it extremely difficult but tons of fun to come up with a list of my favorite albums of year, which I am happy to present to you today.

10. Regina Spektor – Far

She can be a little kitschy but she is so stinkin’ talented. Her vocal abilities never cease to amaze me . And she has cooked another great batch of interesting, contemplative, and downright enjoyable pop tunes. I think this album is exactly what you’d expect from Regina and more.  It’s goofy, but you’re her voice will knock you off your feet.  She’ll bark like a seal, and then slap you up side the head with one of the most profound lines you’ve heard all year. Don’t ever stop paying attention to this girl.  She ain’t just messin’ around.

9. Gomez - A New Tide

This veteran indie pop band has finally hit its stride. I was actually really suprised that this album stuck with me.  I just assumed that it would be just another pop record that I would just eat up and then allow to fade into the noise.  But that was far from the case. I have had this album since February and it only gets stronger with time. A New Tide just has a really fun and diverse sound.  But there is also a lot of depth to these songs.  If Britain doesn’t want to claim them anymore we’re more than happy to sing their praises here in U.S. of A.

8. Bat  For Lashes - Two Suns

Natasha Khan may have outdone herself on this one. Those who have heard a track or two off of this record might find its inclusion on this list slightly puzzling.  That is because this album is more than just a collection of singles. It is an experience.  Khan has invited us into a world inhabited by her “desert-born spiritual self” and her “destructive, self-absorbed, blonde femme fetale” alter ego, Pearl.  Take a moment to sit down and put this record on from start to finish. The stories and the music that Khan brings to us are just absolutely mesmerizing.

7. Neko Case - Middle Cyclone

Neko Case has one of the most beautiful and soothing voices I have ever heard.  Thank goodness she’s also one hell of a songwriter. I’ve been a fan of this New Pornographers collaborator for quite some time now, but Middle Cyclone has turned me into an enthusiast.  This was her first solo venture away from her alt-country roots.  Not that she left her sound behind, but she simply infused the power pop that she learned from her good buddy A.C. Newman into her own musical stylings.  And what we get  is a simply wonderful album, through and through.

6. Bad Veins – Bad Veins

The debut album from this little known indie rock band from Cincinnati has  been probably the biggest surprise for me. Not surprised that I like it.  I knew it would be on this list before the first track was even over.  What I’m surprised by is that this album is still virtually unknown.  I have yet to see this record on another year-end list and that is a shame.  There is a lot of depth to the music being played in this record, music that I believe will stay with me for a long time.

5. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

“From the mess to the masses.”  That is where French pop band, Phoenix has gone with their 4th studio album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.  This album is a pop masterpiece.  Easily one of the catchiest records of the year with the two most danceable songs I heard all year (“Lisztomania” & “1901″).  They have come leaps and bounds since their 2006 “breakthrough” album, It’s Never Been Like That.  Not only have they created some of the best musical hooks of the year, but I am so jealous of their lyrical ability, especially for a group that is writing in their second language.  I am eagerly anticipating what they will give to us next.

4. The Avett Brothers – I and Love and You

One of the best folk groups of all time have just completed what may be looked back upon as their masterpiece.    With the help of producer Rick Rubin, this album is much more polished than any of their previoius works, much to the chagrin of their hard-core fans. I actually enjoy the change in flavor. But I could take it or leave it. The reason this album makes this list is because of the words.  Seth and Scott Avett have a way with words that in the past decade has gone completely unmatched.  This album picks up where Emotionalism left off, with brand new batch of personal, heart-wrenching ballads that speak to the very core of what it means to live and to love.  I urge you all to head to your local record store and pick up this album. For one of the greatest aspects of this record is the epic poem about love that Seth wrote and included in the album insert.

3. Fanfarlo – Reservoir

This band has drawn comparisons to several of my favorite indie acts of the past decade, from Beirut to the Arcade Fire to the National.  Let’s use that as a reason for you to listen, and that alone. For these guys have no reason to exist in their shadow for even a moment longer. What they have accomplished on their debut album, Reservoir, is worthy of all the fame and accolades of the aforementioned acts. This album is sweet. It’s hypnotic. It’s bombastic. It’s grandiose.  And it is simply gorgeous.  Some of the best string and brass arrangements of the year.  And to think that I got all of this for only a dollar.

2. Passion Pit - Manners

I have been absolutely in love with these guys from the moment I first heard “Sleepyhead” off of their 2008 debut EP, Chunk of Change.  I loved it, but I wasn’t excited about what they would release next. Rather, I was nervous, because Chunk was an accident, nothing more than a Valentine’s Day present for lead singer Michael Angelakos’ current girlfriend. I was worried they wouldn’t be able to recreate the magic.  Fortunately for us they couldn’t but they were able to make something even better. The best indie dance-pop album of the year was born in Manners.

1. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest

How can an artist that has never had a record so much as graze my top 20 all of sudden create what I consider to be the best album of the year? The answer is simple they started channeling the spirit of my favorite artist of all time (Brian Wilson). The vocal arrangements and overall production quality of this album are absolutely breathtaking.  The vocal harmonies on this album are incredible and to a quality rarely achieved outside of Brian Wilson and his surfin’ buddies. Two weeks is one of the catchiest and most enjoyable song of the year, but outside of that, this album needs a little room to grow. So give the time it needs and you won’t regret it.

Grizzly Bear + Dead Prez = Awesome

While Cody is preoccupied with moving and is unable to provide you all with a sweet remix for the week, I will not let you down.  I don’t remember when or where I found this glorious track, but what I do know is that it is simply glorious.  Brought to us by the lovely people over at The Hood Internet, I bring to you the unlikely “Two Weeks of Hip Hop”, which brings together Dead Prez’s classic, “Bigger Than Hip Hop,” and Grizzly Bear’s new hit single “Two Weeks.”  This was a match made in heaven.  As great as these two songs are individually, it will be much harder for me to listen to one without the other in the future.

ABX – Two Weeks Of Hip Hop (Dead Prez vs Grizzly Bear)

Here’s a little bonus video remix for ya that I just stumbled across on MOKB.

Lessons From Late Night

Here is the next installment in our series “Lessons From Late Night” where we attempt to school you in the way of good music, through live performances from late night television.  This past week, “The Late Show with David Letterman” was really solid.  It started off a little rocky with a Kelly Clarkson performing a track off of her new album, “Already Gone.”  It may be a just another mediocre break-up ballad from an American Idol winner, but this girl can really sing.  But don’t worry it gets better from here.

On Tuesday David had Wilco performing one of my favorites off of their new self-titled album with Feist joining Tweedy on vocals.  It was a great performance, that finds the band sounding better than ever.

Wilco & Feist – You And I (Live on Letterman)

Wednesday marked one of the more historic performances in the past year.  Paul McCartney returned to the Ed Sullivan Theater where he played atop “The Late Show” marquee, 45 years after his first appearance with the Beatles.  I’m not quite sure why they didn’t just wait til the 50th anniversary to do this big shin dig, but it seemed to be a pretty exciting event either way.  The streets were packed with screaming fans, and Paul and the band sounded great.  Here is “Band on the Run.”  Head over to Youtube and search for “Paul McCartney Letterman” if you want to see the rest of the songs he performed.

Paul McCartney – Band On The Run
On Thursday Dave had Grizzly Bear performing “Ready, Able” off of their newest record, Veckatimest, which is becoming one of my favorite albums of the year.

Grizzly Bear – Ready, Able
Friday wasn’t quite as strong as the middle of the week, but it was still a great performance by a band that I have really been getting into lately.  I wasn’t a huge fan of this performance.  This was definitely not the track I would’ve liked to hear them play.  But their new album, Fantasies is really strong and I definitely recommend it.

Metric – Help I’m Alive

Review of “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix”

Could anyone plausibly dislike this record? One might whine that France’s Phoenix is coasting on a wave of 80′s revivalism or that the production is too glossy, but these objections buckle within the first listen of the joyfully dynamic Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.

This is a maddeningly likeable record, as evidenced by the endless acclaim of buyers and critics alike. From “Lisztomania,” maybe the most immediate opener since Boxer’s “Fake Empire,” through the two-part climb of “Love Like A Sunset,” Side A is surprisingly diverse. Each song glows in neon, painted in a 1980s sound palette (think tense, muted guitars and expensive synths). Thomas Mars’ lovely melodies are double-tracked and the rhythms are always danceable. Subtle, but effective parameters.

The cocky title, the singer’s romance with Sofia Coppola, the name checks of Grizzly Bear and Steve Reich – all are hallmarks of an outfit that wears its affluent intellectuality on its sleeve. But, honestly, it’s not as contrived as it sounds. The most classical quality of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is its expert use of dynamics, its obsession with tension and release (“1901” and “Rome,” especially). It’s perfect pop, dressed up and having fun with a classical motif, an ambition at which Coldplay continues to fail.

Phoenix was always the least arresting of their Versailles brethren (fellow synth abusers Daft Punk and Air), but after 10 years, the quartet has outshined them all, producing the most complex and realized work of their careers. Who’s sparkling now?

Phoenix – 1901