Best Music of 2009. Period.

It's the end of 2009 now... actually it's 2010 as I write this... and this year for the year end list I decided to keep it to the number I could fit on one disc for my brothers. Also, I had to have heard most, if not all of the album and either own it or desire it with more than a passing desire. One trend that I noticed that I'm sure you will too, is the presence of female singers. Other critics I have read this year are noting the same things in their lists. Women are taking a larger portion of their top whatever lists. Powerful and creative female singers are breaking further into the music world and, as you'll see from my list, are creating some of the most fascinating music out there. Without further ado...Happy New Year.


#1: The One with the Voices - Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest

I had only heard a couple songs off of Yellow House before I caught the mind blowing "Two Weeks," the first single off of the confusingly titled Veckatimest. It didn't take long for me to be hooked on the slippery lyrics and the harmonies. It took me longer to appreciate the rhythms. Intricate percussion throughout, compliments each song. Veckatimest is a warmer album than Yellow House, but in many cases has just as little to hold on to. I love this about it. Grizzly Bear have crafted an album that sounds, with the exception of a few strange detours, like something you might've heard before. It was my soundtrack for the ride to work through Whatcom Falls Park in the pitch dark. Slightly unnerving and memorable to race across the bridge and be sprayed by foam from the waterfall that is roaring somewhere in the dark and listen to Ed Droste croon "I'm cheerleading myself/I should have made it matter." My favorite and most returned to album of the year.

#2: The One that Doesn't Make Sense - Dirty Projector's Bitte Orca

I can't help but think that David Longstreth is totally mad. His vocals do nothing but encourage this line of thought. And the music, disjointed and crazy as it is, holds together by a fingernail. "Useful Chamber" was my introduction to their latest album and it grooves a little jazzy R&B ish at the beginning before exploding into rock chaos for the chorus. Though they are the indie hipster darlings for the moment... in fact, my top three seem to be the most talked about and hated/obsessed over bands of the year... they really have made an album filled with beautiful vocals, strange guitar lines, and explosive riffs. Plus, you add a video for what could be the best R&B track of the year "Stillness is the Move" and stage it with llamas and dancing girls in huge white cloaks up in the hills? Come on now.

#3: The One Like a Fine Wine - Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion

It took me a while to listen through the new Animal Collective. Sure I was familiar with Strawberry Jam and the Panda Bear side project, but Merriweather Post Pavilion was a tough initial sell. Sure "My Girls" was catchy and smart, if not a bit nonsensical, but I didn't know about the rest of the album. "Lion in a Coma" and "Also Frightened" were slow builds. I realized halfway through the year that I was continually going back to this album. It was rich in a way that I hadn't mined early on. One reviewer said that this album was the equivalent to our generation's Pet Sounds... if of course the Beach Boys had been taking even more drugs and had access to computers. I hear that, but with Brian Wilson still chugging out rehashed pop tunes, I don't think that even the Beach Boys would have pulled out something this crazy.

#4: The One with the Weather - Neko Case's Middle Cyclone

There are very few powerful voices in music these days. There are many that are pretty or interesting, but few that command attention. Neko Case may or should be at the top of the list. Her voice is epic. I can imagine her narrating some of the great tales of our time to great effect. With an album filled with natural imagery, both destructive and creative, but continually reverential, Case has staked her claim in the annals of grand songwriting. Middle Cyclone is expansive. I suppose that's the best way to put it. With each listen the songs seem to get bigger and deeper. Tracks like "Prison Girls" may initially echo in a solitary cell, but after the tenth listen, Case's voice is shattering and breaking off of the walls of the whole cell block. It's both beautiful and scary.

#5: The One with the All Stars - Various Artists' Dark Was the Night Benefit Comp.

There were no shortage of benefit compilations this year. Benefit comps for humanitarian organizations, for disease research, for the memory of someone who passed away. None matched the scope or brilliance of Dark Was the Night. The Dessner brothers of The National fame, along with the Red Hot organization for AIDS research, gathered some of their favorite artists and had them either write new tracks based on the album title or cover some classic tracks meant to invoke a certain mood. The result is splayed out over two discs which you could listen to on repeat for hours. It just doesn't get old. You can't argue with the Dirty Projectors teaming up with David Byrne or Antony covering Bob Dylan with Bryce Dessner. It's way too much fun.

#6: The One from Back In Time: Elvis Perkins' In Dearland

It just sounds like it might be about thirty years old... or more. Perkins' voice is smooth and the tracks shuffle along melding jazz, blues, and folk.

#7: The One that Fights - Dananananackroyd's Hey Everyone

After hearing "Song One Puzzle" and air guitaring while cleaning toilets at 6 in the morning, I knew I needed this album. I knew it even more when I described the band and said the name to the clerk at our local record store and he just laughed, patted me on the back, and said, "good luck son." They call themselves "fight pop." If that helps.

#8: The One that is Schizophrenic - The Low Anthem's OMG, Charlie Darwin

There are songs on this album I don't like, but the incredibleness of the others far outweigh the bad. I think the album would have made my list regardless with a song like "Charlie Darwin." It was worth the whole album.

#9: The One with the Ooooo's - Camera Obscura's My Maudlin Career

Hooked on the single "French Navy" and now slightly obsessed with the depressing love song "The Sweetest Thing," Camera Obscura is a scottish band that plays distinctly 70's sunny pop tunes. But like everything from the seventies, the silver lining was often just another raincloud.

#10: The One with the Alcohol - David Bazan's Curse Your Branches

I've been a fan of Pedro the Lion from the beginning. Having been introduced to David Bazan and his rotating cast of bandmates back when WWU hosted quality shows for super cheap in the crappy back concert halls on campus. (No complaints for the acts their bringing to town now though). Curse Your Branches is both a treatise of lack of faith and a terrifying confessional. His battle with alcoholism and falling out of faith are chronicled both beautifully and brutally.

#11: The One with the Percussion - Patrick Watson's Wooden Arms

All Songs Considered introduced me to Watson this year with the song "Beijing," another song that would qualify the album for year end status solely by being one of the best songs of the year or last few years. The whole album, though, is filled with creative, percussive energy. Remember, the piano is really a percussion instrument.

#12: The One with more Whistling - Andrew Bird's Noble Beast

I am fascinated by words regardless of their actual place in meaningful sentences. Some have criticized Bird for spouting Thesaurical nonsense here for the sake of sounding smart. I'm sure others did the same when Lewis Carroll wrote "The Jabberwocky." Humbug on them.

#13: The One with Death - The Antler's Hospice

I can thank Brian Rush for introducing me to these guys. Sure, Hospice has made it's way onto a great many Year End lists, but for very good reason. It's just a fantastic album, grandiose, depressing, anthemic, and almost nightmarish. "I'd happily take all those bullets inside you and put them inside of myself" from "Atrophy."

#14: The One with Disney - St. Vincent's Actor

They all sound like the start of another Disney showtune, but there's always something a little wrong. Like looking at a Kincaide painting where the lights of the little house are glowing with "love" and knowing that the family inside is all screaming at each other. Actor is filled with these moments. Poppy, electronic-y, and subversively fun.

#15: The One Out of Tune - Micachu and the Shapes' Jewellery

I didn't know what to do with the awkward breathing that introed "Golden Phone" and I still don't know what to do with the trainwreck that is "Lips, but I do know that I can't look away. It's just too much fun.

#16: The One with Only One Season: Bon Iver's Blood Bank EP

Justin Vernon, at this point, only lives in one season... Winter. When the title track was released critics and fans alike gasped... "he really can top what he already has done!" And then they came to the song "Woods." With a year of Billboard songs replete with Auto-tune, why would an emo-folker overlayer his own vocals in autotune! For shame! Ah, but a good musician is never done pushing the limit of his fans. Once you settle, you play casinos.

#17: The One with the Quick Speak - Mos Def's The Ecstatic

I lost my affinity for rap back when I was all about DC Talk and whatever christian rap I could get ahold of. It became so terrible I gave it up, vowing never to go back. So, when my musical tastes broadened, I'd moved on to Weezer, then Death Cab and now for the likes of the aforementioned bands. I totally missed the good Mos Def albums as well as Blackstarr. This album though... it didn't take much of a listen to get me hooked. Mos Def brought me back and who better.

#18: The One with Straight Up Pop - Harlem Shakes' Technicolor Health

It hasn't happened to me in quite some time that I come to a band after they've broken up. However, in the case of Harlem Shakes, they put out their debut album to mild acclaim and then called it quits. It may not be the most revolutionary album, but for certain, it is a fantastic pop album.

#19: The One with the Bob Dylan Vocals: The Tallest Man On Earth's Shallow Grave

He is our generation's Bob Dylan. Sure, we brand everyone with vocal delivery that is nasally and "sucks" with this. Conor Oberst outgrew his label. The Tallest Man On Earth sings from his nose and sits behind a guitar. That's it. It's Bob Dylan, in that it's hard to listen to, but ultimately rewarding folk music.