We didn't get into the list-making business because it fills us all with a sense of harmony and good feelings for each other. In fact, it's safe to say that around Christmastime—when we should have been making other kinds of lists and expressing our love for each other and for the music—melophobe came close to full-on mutiny, rebellion, and collapse. Each of us made our own lists, and then spent days checking the other contributors' lists as well. And, surprise surprise, we found each others' lists wanting. To say nothing of how some of us found the master list.
So here we present the albums that didn't make the Top Ten of 2009, but by all rights should have. And we gave people the opportunity to do a little venting, too, figuring that general attacks on the collective ego are better than blood in the streets.
There is no place for competition in the arts. The value of a work is purely subjective and no one can prove that something like Banksy’s sassy street art is more clever and beautiful than Anne Geddes’ torrent of babies misplaced in oversized flowers and eggshells. But, for sake of compromise, we will momentarily wrap the baby of healthy competition in the mutant eggshell of art and take a snapshot of how the Builders and the Butchers should have totally kicked Mayer Hawthorne’s ass down a couple rungs, if not completely out of melophobe’s top ten albums of 2009.
Hawthorne’s A Strange Arrangement is no doubt a well-crafted piece of neo-retro. All twelve tracks are lighthearted and respectful to the Motown sensibilities they replicate. Hawthorne is clearly inspired by the likes of Smokey Robinson, Curtis Mayfield, The Jackson Five, and The Supremes (“Your Easy Lovin’ Ain’t Pleasin’ Nothin’" is a too-obvious throwback to “You Can’t Hurry Love”), and such a fine-tuned homage to vintage music is hard to debate against. However, an album that virtually copies an established style and adds no more soul or innovation to the genre shouldn’t end up as a top album. Bands like The Builders and the Butchers pour their souls and bodies into every song; exposing ugly truths while sustaining the energy and passion to look at it, yell about it, pound on things, and express their frustrations in the healthiest way possible—through music. A Strange Arrangement, in light of albums like Salvation is a Deep Dark Well, is a baby wrapped in a tulip, blown up poster-size, and complacently mounted on the crumbling wall that The Builders and the Butchers are working tirelessly to restore.
At best, It’s Blitz is a glittering, glamour soundtrack, but that's just a drop in the bucket when compared with the rest of an album. Honestly, who signs off on something full of lyrics a 7th grader could and probably would write? Add the non-stop “why does someone keep pinching me?” yelp courtesy of Karen O and about as much emotional depth as a Playmate audition, and I just can't fathom why this is on our list.
Girls’ Album is what should replace it.
This is a record that focuses on substance over style, where the battered man has a mic and has decided to use it, telling the world around him about the rigors of life and love. It’s real and it’s messy and it won’t take very long to find a piece of your past somewhere in its words. Luckily, those words are accompanied by a fuzzed-out, 60s-lovin’ core of slight psychedelia and garage-rock leanings. The songs are sharply written, the melodies are memorable and dare I say, two of the year’s best songs (“Lust for Life” and “Hellhole Ratrace”) live in its 48-minute world. It’s like getting hit with an emotional sledgehammer, but the songs are so good, you can’t help but press on. And in the end, we are reminded of a valuable lesson . . . when we show others how we are defined by our scars, sometimes we redefine the scars in the process.
In all fairness, I and Love and You is a perfectly nice album. It’s got some nice songs, and listening to it generally puts me in a nice, pleasant mood. It is, in short, nice. Nice in the way that that shy kid in high school who helped you with your math homework was nice. Sure, he was friendly, but he didn’t have a lot of friends. And maybe he had some decent tunes in his car, but he wasn’t about to blast them in the parking lot. And he probably was on a first name basis with some of the cheerleaders, but it’s not like any of them were going home with him. Because really, nice is nice, but it’s not usually the first thing you want people to think of when your name comes up. And “it’s nice” is about all the feeling I can summon for this album.
Granted, I have some personal pet peeves at play here too. The lyric that lends the album its name, for instance, is dreadful: “Three words that became hard to say: I and Love and You.” I’m not sure if/when it became acceptable to use colons in song lyrics, but it’s still a faux pas in my book. More to the point though, I just don’t believe this album has the grit to stand the test of time. At its heart, it is innocuous, and sooner or later—sooner for me, later for others, clearly—that renders it uninteresting. If it’s soulful, thoughtful, folk-tinged pop that you desire, Langhorne Slim’s Be Set Free may be a better bet. No, it didn’t make my personal top ten, but it’s a strong album with great pop sensibilities and enough of an edge to keep things interesting. It may be one man’s opinion, but it’s hard to believe that many would choose this Rick Rubinized version of the Avett Brothers over Langhorne Slim in a side-by-side comparison.
The Rural Alberta Advantage is adorable. Have you seen these portraits? Freakin' adorable. 2009's Hometowns is chock-full of sweet, sincere, quirky pop. Thoughtfully written and humbly performed, it's a respectable and compelling debut. But Hometowns is in no way Top 10 worthy. In fact, I present four sweet, sincere quirky pop albums that surpass Hometowns. First and foremost, the sweetest, sincerest, quirkiest pop album of 2009 was Freelance Whales' debut, Weathervanes. Fortunately, the Whales made our Top Ten list, so let's move on. Second, you want heartfelt and depressing (and nasally vocals, to boot)? Clem Snide did it better with Hungry Bird. You want thematic and lighthearted? Pomegranates did it better with Everybody, Come Outside. Finally, you want moody and melodic? The Pains of Being Pure at Heart did it better with their self-titled debut.
But surpassing all of these albums and sadly missing from our Top Ten list is the Antlers' Hospice. And, hey, Nils Adenloff of the Rural Alberta Advantage agrees with me! Likewise, Peter Silberman of the Antlers put RAA in his top ten list, so we all win! More than any artist on our list, the Antlers created an ALBUM. With a strong theme and narrative thread, Hospice has a beginning, middle and end that tell a full (morose, haunting) story. A truly deep album, Hospice can be read in many ways. Focusing on lyrics, the listener learns of a man's emotional journey dealing with death. But even ignoring the lyrics, the music itself takes the listener on the journey of sorrow, confusion, isolation, respite, and peace. It's a breathtakingly emotional album that demands repeated listens.
I think we all can agree that the Dirty Projectors did something amazing with Bitte Orca. They've been doing it through the previous releases, too. Bitte Orca is tighter, the multidimensional sound both more chaotic and controlled at once. It's compelling and groovable, certainly. But I think we all got caught up in quasi-indie group-think on this one. It isn't SO MUCH BETTER than other things that came out this year. It isn't startlingly new territory or trailblazing through the musical darkness, though it is certainly a profoundly impressive feat. I just wish that people had used some more of their voting shares on something like The xx. Though also not the best album of the year, xx slides into and through a person in a way that Bitte Orca doesn't, or can't. xx is more straightforward, is less challenging, to be sure. And though I realize that it could be counterrevolutionary to suggest that something need not be blazingly smart to be good, putting xx on the headphones will always make me smile. Bitte Orca will probably always make me dash for a pen and paper to try to untangle the thing, or shout to a nearby friend, "Hey, have you heard this? You're not going to believe how it's put together." Both are worthy of praise; I just don't want to need to furrow my bushy brow to enjoy a Top Album of the Year.
Call me lazy.
Calling Keep It Hid Dan Auerbach's first solo album is something of a misnomer, given that it features triple the number of musicians in his usual band, The Black Keys. Yet despite the large ensemble, one crucial piece of the puzzle—longtime collaborator and drummer Patrick Carney—is still missing, and it shows. With a few folksy, M. Wardian exceptions like "Trouble Weighs a Ton" and "When the Night Comes," everything here sounds to my jaded ears like a watered-down Black Keys demo, and one or two are downright bad (I'm looking at you, "Real Desire," with your drum machine intro and clumsy organ).
Just because we're ditching Keep It Hid, though, let's not throw the sad bearded dude out with the blues-rock bathwater. Instead, we should call on that most prolific and eccentric of hirsute bards, Will Oldham. His 2009 release Beware (recorded under his best-known moniker, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy) shares a striking number of qualities with its top ten placeholder: it was recorded in the midwest, with plenty of help from session musicians; its mostly black cover art belies the burgeoning energy within; and its best moments are confessional, stark, and delicate. Beware is not the best Bonnie 'Prince' Billy album in recent memory (see instead Master and Everyone or Lie Down in the Light), but Oldham on his worst day is still a sight to behold, and what he manages on "Heart's Arms" or "There Is Something I Have to Say" easily outmatches any of Auerbach's offerings.
