Best of 2009 in Music

Here is my 2 cents on the world of music this past year. My top 5 albums for the year, chosen more towards albums that changed and shaped my musical tastes rather than just albums with tracks that had the highest playcounts in my iTunes library. Included is a band that after seeing live, catapulted themselves into my Top 5, one of the best compilations ever, as well as a fantastic debut album.

Here we go:

#5- Dark Was The Night



Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National produced the best compilation of the year and I wouldn't hesitate to put this one up against any other previously. A host of artists including Arcade Fire, Beirut, Bon Iver, and The Decemberists (and that's just a few) get together for AIDS charity "Red Hot" and contribute some new material as well as some previously released. But I don't think you'll find a grouping quite like this anywhere else. If you haven't had a listen, you would be kicking off 2010 in a great way by checking this one out.

#4- The Felice Brothers- Yonder is the Clock



On a rain soaked day in Austin, Texas this past October, I was able to see The Felice Brothers live at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. I will tell you, these guys know how to put on a show. Back at the hotel, drying out that evening, I downloaded Yonder is the Clock and it has been on heavy rotation ever since. This is what American folk at its best sounds like- fiddles, washboards and stomping the stage. We have ballads about baseball (Cooperstown), an homage to their days busking in New York City stations (Penn Station), as well as just good old foot stomping fun on tracks like "Run Chicken Run" and "Memphis Flu". Seeing this band on stage for 30 minutes only left me wanting more and though this studio album cannot compare to their live performance, it'll have to do until I have the chance to see them live once again.

#3- Why?- Eskimo Snow



Why? Why not? Their previous effort, Alopecia, caught my attention, but overall that album was just not my thing. Their newest release finds this band seeming to come together with some sort of direction. There is less hip-hop beat and more melody, but plenty of Yoni Wolf's lyrical wordplay that makes much of this album such fun to listen to. Like:

"the small fry in the bow tie dies first,
acting wild like the spirit of god moving after church,
faking he's hard like he's packed down dirt,"

from "This Blackest Purse" or:

"and now my bike tire's flat,
i must have ran over some glass, in the dark
or it mighta got slashed,
'cause i was messing around with someone's, ex-girlfriend, again"

from "January Twenty Something"

There is not one song on this album that I would leave off the loop when I listen. Though the subject matter is sometimes on the dark side, the lyrics and instruments tend to brighten it up just a bit. Why? is making a name for themselves and that name is no longer a question.

#2- Fanfarlo- Reservoir



Thanks to Captain Obvious, this band came to my attention. If you haven't seen this gentleman's blog, please click on the link above. After my first listen, I went looking for more. To my surprise, this gem of a band was just releasing their debut. I have always loved a band with a trumpet player ever since I was turned on to Modest Mouse years ago. This group plays and writes songs like they've been together for generations. Like Beirut, we can hear pieces of the world within their melodies. But unlike Beirut, this music is not "throwback". This is fresh. It'll make you want to dance. It'll make you wish you played a ukulele. From the mesmerizing back-beat on "I'm a Pilot" to the Talking Heads-like upbeat tempo on "Harold T Wilkins..." and the piano anchored "If it is Growing", every track of this album is a masterpiece. I'm a sucker for great lyrics and this set has plenty.

"Fire Escape" concludes with:

"We were raised by strangers
The life that you had in mind
Was just a moth and a light...
was just a moth and a light... "

Overall, a very close second to:

#1- The Antlers- Hospice



I'll have to admit that many times I pull music a la carte from iTunes and the web. But there is always merit to listening to an album from beginning to end. My first experience with a "themed" album was "The Wall"- Pink Floyd, though I much preferred the less highly acclaimed and sometimes disparaged "The Final Cut", which left my friends at 16 years old perplexed, but I digress. With the The Antlers "Hospice", there is no other way to listen in my opinion. But I caution you, be prepared. As the album title suggests, the "theme" of this work is not for the light-hearted.

From what I understand this epic derives from personal loss or hardship by front-man Peter Silberman. Much like "For Emma" from Justin Vernon's Bon Iver, this album has an honesty that goes unmatched. Set in cancer wards, bedsides, and before "snowy televisions", the album conveys a mood of loss, hardship, and dealing with the death of a loved one. Yeah, well, I said it is not for the faint of heart.

From the shimmering, crackling intro aptly titled "Prologue" that sets the tone for what is to come, through the hauntingly honest "Kettering":

"you said you hated my tone
it made you feel so alone
so you told me i had to be leaving

but something kept me standing
by that hospital bed
i should have quit but instead
i took care of you

you made me sleep and uneven
and i didn't believe them
when they told me that there
was no saving you "

These songs are filled with lyrics like this that will send shivers down your spine. An almost up-tempo "Two" is probably the most accessible song on the album. Yet it's lyrics describe the moment of realizing you cannot save someone you love:

"There was glass inside my feet and raining down from the ceiling,
it opened up the scars that had just finished healing."

"Wake" is beautiful, mesmerizing, and sums up the entire feeling of the album before launching into the "Epilogue" which closes this work of art as it began, with a skipping, scratchy music box fading out. Art like this doesn't come around too often and I congratulate Silberman on turning such a difficult subject into a work of art.

I have to part with my honorable mentions:

Manchester Orchestra- Mean Everything to Nothing
Deer Tick- Born on Flag Day
Wilco- Wilco (The Album)
Pearl Jam- Backspacer
Modest Mouse- No One's First and You're Next

Looking forward to 2010!
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