My limbic system took in the sounds of 2009 and sent me into some distant world. Passing the sounds to my cerebellum as I danced the year away. Now I am back with my most “nerdy” excel sheet, straight from the cerebrum, giving my take on The Top 20 Albums of 2009.

Enjoy!

(just in case you have no clue what I am talking about find my top albums from 2000 – 2005, my intro will explain how “nerdy” this process is)

1.  The Pains of Being Young at Heart:  The Pains of Being Young at Heart

2.  The XX:  XX

3.  Lookbook:  Wild at Heart

4.  …and You Will Know us by the Trail of the Dead:  Century Self

5.  Girls:  Album

6.  Cold Cave:  Love Comes Close

7.  Matt and Kim:  Grand

8.  The Little Girls:  Concepts

9.  A Place to Bury Strangers:  Exploding Head

10. Animal Collective:  Merriweather Post Pavilion

11. Sonic Youth: The Eternal (that’s right, they are easy to pass up but they still have it!)

12. Bear in Heaven:  Beast Rest Forth Mouth

13. Throw Me the Statue:  Creaturesque

14. Say Hi: Oohs & Aahs (I am a sucker for the “hook”)

15. The Wooden Birds: Magnolia

16. The Papercuts: You Can Have What You Want

17. Yo La Tengo: Popular Songs

18. Cymbals Eat Guitars: Why There Are Mountains (Bring me back to the beginning of it all)

19. Fanfarlo: Resevoir (Sound like many but sound good)

20. Julian Plenti: Julian Plenti … Is Skyscraper (Who cares what everyone else says!?!?)

Others to listen to, not that they were next in line but wanted to pint them out.  Some great songs on these albums and some bands that deserve attention:
Minor Kingdom: My Back Will Bend (any folk music fans?); Jack Penate: Everything is New (Pure Pop from the other side of the Atlantic); Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros (2 of the top 10 songs of the year off one album?); Washed Out: Life of Leisure – EP (waiting for the full length); The Mumlers (from my neck of the woods and a lot of fun)

Thanks for reading.

Rock out like you get paid to disturb the peace

I was introduced to Nomo at my apartment, and it instantly took me back to the first time I had heard head hunters. I haven’t been able to stop listening to it since. I called my brother in New York to tell him about it. He was at work as I was describing them and did a quick search. “Ann Arbor, MI based post-afrobeat dance explosion?” he asked. Exactly. It would be impossible to review the album as a whole as each independent track has a unique flavor and texture to itself, but I can say that the juxtaposition of modern beat sampling, funk-inspired rhythms, thick and crunchy horn choruses, and sax solos makes Ghost Rock incredible. It definitely gives you a direct order to rock the fuck out.

Check the album here:

back in high school 1990-1995 there was no internet, no myspace, no pitchfork. we had NME (courtesy of the local public library), Select Magazine (courtesy of the bookstore at the mall), Rodney on the Rock, MARS 103.1 (first time I heard Field Mice was on MARS) and catalogs from labels like Creation, 4AD, Merge, K,  Sarah, and Slumberland.  So many great bands on Slumerland, I miss them all.

Rocketship, The Ropers, Lilys, Velocity Girl, Stereolab, and now The Pains of Being Pure At Heart (SLR 89, released February 2009).

I also miss watching Are You Being Served and Eastenders on Friday nights (courtesy of KOCE), but we’ll save that for another post. Or not.