Tomorrow I'll post my best of the year list, and then this blog will spend the rest of the year highlighting some of my favorite, overlooked albums of the decade the ones that have been mostly ignored by other decade-end recaps but first I'd like to give some extra love to some of my favorite albums of 2009 that didn't make my top 10 list. Here are 10 additional, fantastic albums that I kept returning to this year:
Sharon Van Etten – “Because I Was in Love”
Sharon Van Etten’s wounded soprano invites comparisons to similar songwriters like Jana Hunter and Julie Doiron (as well as the reflexive Cat Power comparisons all songwriters of her ilk are saddled with), but she differentiates herself from these peers by tempering her simple folk songs with elegant, Appalachian accents. And then there’s her crushingly sad voice, a weapon of mass destruction she tries to use for good instead of evil. Just when these songs threaten to become almost oppressively somber, they take unexpected, hopeful turns. That’s the difference between Sharon Van Etten and Cat Power. A great Cat Power song leaves you feeling dead inside. A great Sharon Van Etten song leaves you feeling better for the wear.
The xx - xx
The xx write songs in the R&B tradition, all sweet sentiments and sultry come-ons, but they sure don’t play them like R&B songs. Instead, they give them a stripped down, chilly post-punk treatment, with gently thumbed bass and steady drum-machine beats filling in for imagined, fierier grooves the band is too self-aware to attempt. There’s a great album to be made if a real R&B singer an Amerie, perhaps were to attempt this same material with a more contemporary treatment, but there’s also something to be said for how The xx work within their means. Singers Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim lack the big voices to make these songs showstoppers, so they settle instead for a more intimate interpretation. With each softly cooed stanza, the two seem to be inching ever closer toward each other, as if maybe just maybe their hands might touch.
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Paramore – “Brand New Eyes”
The usual firecracker comparisons for Paramore singer Hayley Williams have been rendered inadequate on the band’s third album. Here she’s more like a bundle of dynamite, if not a Molotov cocktail, and she gives a brute, almost primal performance, wailing these songs with venomous conviction. Paramore’s last album was a great guilty pleasure, loaded with teenage drama and cheap thrills, but Brand New Eyes is something more, a smart, visceral break-up record, and easily the best thing to happen to modern-rock this year. There’s nothing guilty about it.
Double Dagger – “More”
The Baltimore trio Double Dagger released their third album this year on Thrill Jockey Records, but you can be forgiving for mistaking this for vintage Dischord release. This is the type of record the label used to special in: vital, purposeful, youthful. These guys aren’t entirely D.C. classicists, though. In place of guitar they use a very eager, over-tuned bass, which lends a novel, playful rumble to these spring-loaded screeds.
Lil Wayne – “No Ceilings” (mixtape)
In 2009 Lil Wayne’s quickie guest verses were grafted on to any pop song with the budget for them, no matter how ill-fitting, so Wayne’s brand was tarnished by lifeless collaborations with Madonna, Chris Brown and Shakira. It was refreshing, then, to hear his free No Ceilings mixtape return him to his comfort zone: straight rap music. Like a wild wolf with a limitless bladder, Wayne marks these stolen rap hits as his own, spinning verse after endless, free-form verse, with barely any breaks for guest rappers, skits or product placements (sometimes he doesn’t even pause for a chorus). Lil Wayne is bona fide pop star now, but No Ceilings reminded us that he’s still the best rapper alive, too.
The Thermals – “Now We Can See”
The Thermals’ Now We Can See certainly isn’t the first concept album about death, but it may well be the happiest. Over buoyant pop-punk riffs, Hutch Harris sings of his many deaths, usually in the past tense. “When I died, my head did swell,” he recalls, putting on his game face: “I said to myself, ‘Nature sure took its sweet time.’” Harris usually doesn’t go out in a blaze of glory, but whenever the time comes to leave it all behind, he does so with his head held high, as if the decision was his.
Fake Problems – “It’s Great to Be Alive”
No, I don’t like his voice either. Fake Problems’ Chris Farren sings with the exaggerated brashness that soils otherwise fine roots-punk bands like The Gaslight Anthem and The Hold Steady, but for those who can get past his barrel-chested groan and trust me, if I can, anybody can there’s a treasure trove of delights here. Each song is packed with sonic surprises clever guitar licks, warm organs, uplifting horns but most unexpected is the record’s big, tender heart. Who would have guessed something so initially off-putting could leave behind such a pleasant aftertaste?
Cymbals Eat Guitars – “Why There Are Mountains”
Nothing new here: One part Built to Spill-styled, oversized indie-rock, two parts frantic Modest Mouse spazz, a dash of Broken Social Scene grandeur. New York upstarts Cymbals Eat Guitars didn’t invent these sounds, but they sure do know how to play them for maximum impact.
Camera Obscura – “My Maudlin Career”
All the pomp and girl-group prettiness on My Maudlin Career mask a surprisingly cynical set of tunes about being unable to love. “Relationships are something I used to do,” Tracyanne Campbell sings to a dashing sailor on “French Navy,” “Convince me they are better for me and you.” Like all her suitors on the album, he fails, yet she continues to dream of being swept off her feet again, clinging to a notion of romance that she fears she’s outgrown.
Jay-Z – “The Blueprint III”
Jay-Z emerged from his short-lived retirement unsure and rusty, but The Blueprint III is his first post-retirement album that justifies his return. Its singles made Jay-Z relevant on mixtapes and radio in a way he hadn’t been since The Black Album, and its flashy, boldly forward-looking production made clear Jay-Z’s refusal to rest on his laurels. This is an album that actually takes risks. At age 40, Jay-Z isn’t content just being considered one of rap’s all-time greats. He still wants to be a pioneer, too.
Update: My best albums of the year list is posted here.
