Martin's Top 10 albums of 2009

It's the most wonderful time of the year, and that means year-end, "best of" lists. (If you are the blog Largehearted Boy, it may mean LOTS of lists...)

This year I found myself in the something of the same mindset as Greg last year, bemoaning a lack of "greatness." Perhaps this past year I slacked off on finding new & exciting artists, or perhaps the collapse of the record industry has winnowed major-label options down to only mass-market superstars, most of which don't appeal to me, or perhaps the rise of the "music-blog-overhyped band" made cool new musicians rise and fall too quickly to catch my eye. Or maybe -- and I think there may be something to this in my case -- I was simply inundated with too much easily accessible music to let anything properly take root and flourish in my mind (and heart). It felt like a year I listened to a lot of music but nothing really STUCK with me. It's also the first year in a long time I had to scrape to come up with 10 albums I really loved -- usually I'm guiltily grafting 3-5 extra albums onto the end of my list. Not this year. So, without further ado, my top 10 albums of 2009:

1. Andrew Bird – Noble Beast
I hate to say that I predicted this back in February, but I did. And while a hard-hearted cynic might make the case that it's easy for me to self-fulfill my own prophecy, as it were, I guess you will just have to trust me when I say I would happily have found an album I liked more in the intervening ten months, if only one had presented itself. Regardless of the quality of the year overall for me, this is a great album. Like I already said.

2. Noah and the Whale – The First Days of Spring
Greg introduced me (and us all) to these guys, who put together certainly the biggest surprise of 2009. It's a breakup album -- my favorite kind of album -- at heart, and nicely balances heartbroken folk with lush orchestration, and a lo-fi aesthetic with some elaborate production values.

3. AC Newman – Get Guilty
This solo project from one of the New Pornographers' brain trust stands right up there with anything that favorite band of mine has released. Catchy, smart songwriting on top of a sound that is almost indistinguishable from the NPs (and that's a good thing). Again, a tip of the cap to Greg for mentioning this one back in May.

4. Great Lake Swimmers – Lost Channels
This album, the Great Lake Swimmers' latest jam, doesn't rise to the sublime heights of their second-to-last album, Ongiara (as I have mentioned previously), but it's still a solid effort from beginning to end. Bonus points for having been recorded in and around The Thousand Islands in upstate New York, my favorite place on earth.

5. The Low Anthem – Oh My God Charlie Darwin
Unabashedly pulled from an NPR piece I heard in July, this album pulls off a tricky mix of shimmering, beautiful, sad, folk songs with a couple of Tom Waits-style rock & roll rave-ups. For those folks who don't want to listen to an entire album of depressing music, unlike me.

6. Allen Toussaint – The Bright Mississippi
The surprise of the year for me -- an album that, as I listen to it again now, I wonder if I should move up in this list. It has the feel of an effortless, instant classic. I don't know hardly anything about Allen Toussaint, and don't even really care. This album of New Orleans jazz/blues/pop (or something?) is almost entirely instrumental and is absolutely terrific.

7. Monsters of Folk
Yes, I lauded them in October...it's a great album, I stand by my guns. Some folks (Greg) have opined that they'd rather hear an M. Ward or Jim James solo record, but I think this whole ends up managing to be just as good as the sum of the parts -- not always the case with "supergroups"! Easygoing, low-key collaborations, like the unavoidable Travelling Wilburys comparison, can be a lot of fun when they don't take themselves too seriously but aren't a joke. The unfortunately named Monsters walk that line impressively well, to my tase.

8. M. Ward – Hold Time
Just a great, solid, album from one of the aforementioned "Monsters." Loved it in March, still love it today.

9. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
Much buzzed-about, acclaimed indie-rock boys are pretty hit-or-miss, but these guys don't get too indie that I get annoyed, and yet don't really sound like anybody else. Where lots of electronic music gets repetitive and overly weird, Grizzly Bear pulls off super-produced, baroque pop songs like nobody else I've heard. Again, these guys have previously appeared here at the Culturephiles.

10. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz!
This is where I start scraping the bottom of my barrel for the year. This is a super-fun album from another much-buzzed-about-band that I didn't really know much about. I debated putting Buddy & Julie Miller in this slot, but once the initial bloom wore off their album "Written in Chalk", I haven't found myself drawn back to it. In contrast, whenever I need some good pump-you-up music, I find myself drawn back to this danceable, hook-filled record. And wanting to listen to an album again seems to me to be a prerequisite for making a top ten list.

There you have it, Culturephiles. Anybody want to take issue with me or fill in any blanks I may have missed?