Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Bill's Music Roundup: 2009 (Part Three--Misc. Debris)

Honorable Mentions (which are all pretty great but didn't make my top ten)
  • Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest - Yeah, that's right: it didn't make the top ten. Replace a couple of the water-treading mood pieces with "Two-Weeks"-worthy singles and this would have been a contender for album of the year.
  • Dan Deacon, Bromst
  • St Vincent, Actor
  • Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
  • Japandroids, Post-Nothing
  • Handsome Furs, Face Control
  • The Raveonettes, In and Out of Control
Thanks But No thanks
  • Dirty Projectors, Bitte Orca - After five spins I gave up and admitted that hyper-arranged quirky vocal pop isn't for me.
  • Passion Pit, Manners - "Sleepyhead" makes me want to go back in time and destroy whatever caveman combination of tapping and grunting resulted in the creation of music.
Disappointments
  • Yeah Yeah Yeahs, It's Blitz! - Things that should never be uttered to Nick Zinner: "Would you mind playing less guitar on this one?"
  • Franz Ferdinand, Tonight! - Not exactly a pile of crap but nor can it hang with anything from their back catalog.
  • The Decemberists, Hazard of Love - We only care about shapeshifting forest dwellers and babykilling rakes if you've got the tunes to back them up, kids.
  • Muse, The Resistance - The beginning and end consists of some of their finest work to date, too bad about the uninspired stretch in the middle that seems to consist of B-sides from previous albums.
Top 10 Singles of the Year
  • 10. Muse, "Uprising"
  • 9. Grizzly Bear, "Two Weeks"
  • 8. Das Racist, "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell" (Wallpaper. remix)
  • 7. Dorrough, "Ice Cream Paint Job"
  • 6. The Lonely Island, "I'm On a Boat"
  • 5. Jason DerĂ¼lo, "Whatcha Say"
  • 4. Kanye West, "Heartless"
  • 3. Animal Collective, "My Girls"
  • 2. Sean Jean, "Down"
  • 1. HEALTH, "Die Slow"
And on that note, I believe I have finally exceeded my generous capacity to rank and write about music. Roll on 2010, and Happy New Year!