Best/Favorite Music of 2009 Thread

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So I've seen that Raekwon album on numerous lists now. For anyone that may have heard it, is it legitimately that good? If so, I guess I'll have to pick it up this weekend.

I've never even heard his first solo album, I'll be tempted to grab both. :huh:
 
I do believe IYS... had great things to say about it in one of the Random threads a while back. I love Raekwon on Wu-Tang's first album but, yeah, I haven't heard Cuban Linx Part 1 or 2. I'll get to it eventually.
 
u2popmofo said:
So I've seen that Raekwon album on numerous lists now. For anyone that may have heard it, is it legitimately that good? If so, I guess I'll have to pick it up this weekend.

I've never even heard his first solo album, I'll be tempted to grab both. :huh:
Click to expand...

It's very good. The beats are there (Dilla contributes a few, and they're even ones that he did before his death, so I'm fairly positive they are Raekwon exclusives) as well as Raekwon, Ghostface, and Method Man all putting down solid verses over and over. "House of Flying Daggers" is probably my favorite track.

You should be tempted to, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... is a fucking classic!
 
GirlsAloudFan said:
THE FORK!'s Top 10 is out. Pretty predictable. I need to hear the Raekwon album.

Pitchfork: Staff Lists: The Top 50 Albums of 2009
Click to expand...

Terribly predictable, although I love Veck, Fever Ray and Album.

I can't be bothered writing a list of what I like right now, but it's so much easier to talk about what I didn't enjoy, and as far as the big albums go, that goes for Phoenix, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Bitte Orca on the Pitchfork list, with more to come when I'm sober. I need to listen to The XX album too, I've only heard a bit of it and I enjoyed it, though it was a bit too minimal for me.
 
My top 15:

#15) The Resistance - Muse
#14) Live at Reading - Nirvana
#13) Kingdom of Rust - Doves
#12) The Dreams We Have as Children - Noel Gallagher
#11) Live at the Royal Albert Hall - The Killers
#10) Tonight: Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand
#9) It's Blitz! - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
#8) 21st Century Breakdown - Green Day
#7) The Fame Monster - Lady Gaga
#6) The Hazards of Love - The Decemberists
#5) Sun Gangs - The Veils
#4) Hands - Little Boots
#3) West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum - Kasabian
#2) The Seldom Seen Kid Live at Abbey Road - Elbow and the BBC Concert Orchestra
#1) No Line on the Horizon - U2

Or something like this...
 
u2popmofo said:
So I've seen that Raekwon album on numerous lists now. For anyone that may have heard it, is it legitimately that good? If so, I guess I'll have to pick it up this weekend.

I've never even heard his first solo album, I'll be tempted to grab both. :huh:
Click to expand...

Absolutely. I prefer it to Mos Def's album, personally...the songs are more fully-formed, and the beats feel a lot more old school. Tons of great samples. It'll probably be listed among all the hip-hop classics in a few years.
 
I'm gonna do it the way my man Mr V did...

My top 10 2009 albums
1. Paul Dempsey - Everything is True
2. The Flaming Lips - Embryonic
3. U2 - No Line on the Horizon
4. The Temper Trap - Conditions
5. Passion Pit - Manners
6. Pearl Jam - Backspacer
7. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
8. Ben Harper & Relentless7 - White Lies for Dark Times
9. Deadmau5 - For Lack of a Better Name
10. Hilltop Hoods - State of the Art

... there's only been 10 I've heard so far, though I plan on picking up It's Blitz! and the Florence and the Machine & Bloody Beetroots albums tomorrow.

My songs of 2009
Paul Dempsey - Take Us To Your Leader, Fast Friends, Out the Airlock
Passion Pit - Make Light, The Reeling, Swimming in the Flood, Sleepyhead
Grizzly Bear - Southern Point, Fine for Now
U2 - Fez - Being Born, Moment of Surrender
The Temper Trap - Fools, Resurrection
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll
Calvin Harris - I'm Not Alone

... plenty more but I can't think of the individual artists, and it's fair to say I was more focus on the following:

Pre-2009 Albums
Architecture in Helsinki - In Case We Die
Architecture in Helsinki - Places Like This
Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
The Beatles - Love
The Beatles - Rubber Soul
Bloc Party - Intimacy
Brian Eno - Music for Airports
Brian Eno - Another Green World
The Clash - London Calling
Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours
David Bowie - Lodger
David Bowie - Space Oddity
David Bowie - Station to Station
DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin
Hot Chip - Coming on Strong
Hot Chip - The Warning
Hot Chip - Made in the Dark
Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
Pearl Jam - Ten
Pearl Jam - Vitalogy
Pearl Jam - Vs.
Radiohead - Amneisac
Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
Rolling Stones - Beggars Banquet
Steely Dan - Aja

with my top five there probably being 1. Aja, 2. The Warning, 3. Places Like This, 4. Vs. 5. Ten.

a good year.
 
OK, I had planned to make a huge thread just for the following list, featuring essays on why each one is worth your time. It was going to be a top 20, plus five honorable mentions. However, because this thread has proved so useful and generally awesome, and because I'm not a completely narcissistic fuck, I'm just leaving my contribution to this thread alone. I had a playlist planned as well, and I may still do that (I'll post the track listing later on in the thread once I have all the MP3s available to me, and anyone interested can say so and I'll PM them the link), but this will do for now.

The following list of my top 50 albums of the year was whittled down from a list of 110 albums I've heard this year. The idea to make a list as long as 50 was not an arbitrary one; I will stand behind any of these albums and say they're worth a listen, with a number of them being truly essential (also, I just didn't want my list to blend in with all the other top 10s :wink: ). Without further ado....

LemonMelon's Top 50 of 2009

1. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
2. U2 - No Line On The Horizon
3. The Flaming Lips - Embryonic
4. Passion Pit - Manners
5. Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs
6. The Horrors - Primary Colours
7. Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
8. Super Furry Animals - Dark Days/Light Years
9. St. Vincent - Actor
10. Mew - No More Stories...
11. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!
12. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion
13. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
14. Metric - Fantasies
15. Franz Ferdinand - Tonight: Franz Ferdinand
16. P.O.S. - Never Better
17. Doves - Kingdom Of Rust
18. Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why There Are Mountains
19. Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career
20. Bat For Lashes - Two Suns
21. The Big Pink - A Brief History Of Love
22. The Dodos - Time To Die
23. Bill Callahan - Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle
24. Fun. - Aim And Ignite
25. Wilco - Wilco (The Album)
26. Florence & The Machine - Lungs
27. Annie - Don't Stop
28. Brother Ali - Us
29. Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More
30. Bob Dylan - Together Through Life
31. Karen O And The Kids - Where The Wild Things Are
32. Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...Pt. II
33. Porcupine Tree - The Incident
34. Neon Indian - Psychic Chasms
35. Morrissey - Years Of Refusal
36. M. Ward - Hold Time
37. Dan Deacon - Bromst
38. Atlas Sound - Logos
39. Jarvis Cocker - Further Complications
40. Built To Spill - There Is No Enemy
41. The Mountain Goats - The Life Of The World To Come
42. BrakesBrakesBrakes - Touchdown
43. Black Lips - 200 Million Thousand
44. Röyksopp - Junior
45. J Dilla - Jay Stay Paid
46. Bear In Heaven - Beast Rest Forth Mouth
47. The XX - XX
48. Why? - Eskimo Snow
49. Japandroids - Post-Nothing
50. Real Estate - Real Estate

And I have a few subcategories here as well...

Biggest Disappointment: The Decemberists - The Hazards Of Love

Aside from from some obvious padding (often manifesting itself in the form of an appropriately lazy, metallic guitar riff that all 15 year-olds learn to prove they can rawk/get hired to a shitty metal band), I can't say they didn't try. This is one of the most overwrought, baffling records I've ever heard. Over the span of 58 minutes and 17 tracks, The Decemberists cover a century of Medieval shaggy dog stories, offering up about three decent hooks in the process. Please don't try any harder.

Favorite Guilty Pleasure: The-Dream - Love Vs. Money

Contemporary R&B is often responsible for a handful of quotable, ubiquitous jamz a year. But, if we're being honest with ourselves here, NONE of us would actually attempt to listen to an album of that shit. Well, folks, here's THE EXCEPTION. No less than five great songs reside on this album, and it flows beautifully. Humorously enough, it retains all the embarrassing lingo of a worse contemporary R&B album, so it even feels authentic. I always give this a play when I want to pretend I enjoy mainstream music without causing my eardrums any harm.

Worst Album of 2009: brokeNCYDE - I'm Not A Fan But The Kids Like It

These are the men who conceived this abomination:

YouTube - brokeNCYDE - Webisode 1: In the Studio

I mean, really. Fucking hell.


Well, I hope you guys enjoyed this list for the most part. If anyone found a handful of albums here that they didn't know before and wound up being able to say they were "digging them," it served its purpose. If you have any questions/positive comments/insulting comments, throw them out there. I know I hate mainstream music and think RHCP is a joke, so no need to tackle any of that here. Everything else is all kinds of dandy.
 
El Mel - i didn't know you 'hated' mainstream music.

- did you listen to the Temper Trap album and what did you think.
- cool to see you have No Line so high.
- i'd love to see those 'essays' for your top four.
 
cobl04 said:
El Mel - i didn't know you 'hated' mainstream music.

- did you listen to the Temper Trap album and what did you think.
- cool to see you have No Line so high.
- i'd love to see those 'essays' for your top four.
Click to expand...

-Sorta kidding re: mainstream music; it's a reference to allbecauseofu2's rants in the Rock Hall thread. Of course, I don't listen to the radio much, so maybe you could peg me as a h8r.

-Didn't think of much of it, really. Started of very promisingly, but by the midsection it became obvious how derivative they are as a group. The vocals also went to hell at some point, which I found rather baffling (appropriately, Drum Song or whatever got the biggest rise out me, the album's lone instrumental). They're a good band, but they obviously aren't sure what they want for themselves sound-wise, which kind of killed Hockey's debut for me too. There's eclectic, and there's trying on funny hats to disguise a lack of direction. I'd give it about a 5.5/10, maybe heading upward on future listens.

-Of course. The lows are low, but when a band is still capable of writing songs that resonate and challenge their finest work as U2 did with MOS, Breathe, Fez, Cedars, etc. they deserve a high spot. Much like Embryonic, NLOTH isn't so much a classic in and of itself as it is a signal of future excellence. However, also like Embryonic, it still deserves praise based on its own merits. Flows like a motherfucker too (ALSO like Embryonic)...the sequencing was vastly underrated; I think it's one of their best in that regard.

-Ha, those will have to wait. Oddly enough, I don't have much to say about Veckatimest. I just think it kicks ass. I wrote an "essay" about how and why Passion Pit are awesome over in their thread (that was necessary, I'm sure :doh: ), ditto Embryonic, and my feelings concerning NLOTH are pretty well summed up with the above.
 
LemonMelon said:
-Sorta kidding re: mainstream music; it's a reference to allbecauseofu2's rants in the Rock Hall thread. Of course, I don't listen to the radio much, so maybe you could peg me as a h8r.

-Didn't think of much of it, really. Started of very promisingly, but by the midsection it became obvious how derivative they are as a group. The vocals also went to hell at some point, which I found rather baffling (appropriately, Drum Song or whatever got the biggest rise out me, the album's lone instrumental). They're a good band, but they obviously aren't sure what they want for themselves sound-wise, which kind of killed Hockey's debut for me too. There's eclectic, and there's trying on funny hats to disguise a lack of direction. I'd give it about a 5.5/10, maybe heading upward on future listens.

-Of course. The lows are low, but when a band is still capable of writing songs that resonate and challenge their finest work as U2 did with MOS, Breathe, Fez, Cedars, etc. they deserve a high spot. Much like Embryonic, NLOTH isn't so much a classic in and of itself as it is a signal of future excellence. However, also like Embryonic, it's still ace in and of itself. Flows like a motherfucker too...the sequencing was vastly underrated, I think it's one of their best in that regard.

-Ha, those will have to wait. Oddly enough, I don't have much to say about Veckatimest. I just think it kicks ass. I wrote an "essay" about how and why Passion Pit are awesome over in their thread (that was necessary, I'm sure :doh: ), ditto Embryonic, and my feelings concerning NLOTH are pretty well summed up with the above.
Click to expand...

:up::up:

particularly agreed on the Temper Trap album. it got rave review after rave review over here, but that was primarily because the music it's very derivative of has never been that popular... basically it's the first album of it's kind (here) to break 'mainstream'.
 
Favorite albums of the year...

TWO SUNS by Bat for Lashes
LUNGS by Florence and the Machines


Favorite songs...

Moment of Surrender
Moon and Moon (BfL)
Dog Days are Over (FatM)
Empty's Theme Park (Matthew Good)
Hysteric (Yeah Yeah Yeahs)


I think I need more time to categorize my list, but upon initial reflection of 2009's music, this is what I'm coming up with...
 
Rolling Stone's Top 10 songs of 2009:

1. U2 - Moment of Surrender
2. Jay-Z ft. Alicia Keys - Empire State Of Mind
3. Bruce Springsteen - Outlaw Pete
4. Miley Cyrus - Party In The USA
5. Phoenix - 1901
6. Pearl Jam - The Fixer
7. Dirty Projectors - Stillness Is The Move
8. The Big Pink - Dominoes
9. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero
9. Lady Gaga - Bad Romance

The 25 Best Songs of 2009 : Rolling Stone

Fucking.Awesome.
 
There are some awful songs on that list, but I was pleasantly surprised by most of it. Weird Pearl Jam choice though...Backspacer has much better tracks. But I guess they're bound to pick the single no matter what.
 
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