Oh Nashville.

End of the Year 2009

2009 had a lot of releases. I mean A LOT. almost every band I can think of seemed to release SOMETHING this year. Some of those releases were great, some were good, and some were incredibly mediocre. In 2009, a lot of established acts underwhelmed with their releases while some up and comers killed it with their debuts. This was bound to happen in some cases, but it happened a lot more than I expected. Even with that fact, I am afraid for 2010 music-wise. why? because it has a lot to live up to. 2009 boasted what seemed to be another bad ass album each week. So, 2010…your move. under the cut you’ll find the best of 2009. i should be studying right now…First, I haven’t updated this blog in forever because Twitter stole my soul this year. Thanks Twitter.

Best EP:

5. Man Overboard/Transit – Split EP

this EP came out a few weeks ago and DAMN is run for cover records KILLING it this year. their bands are some of the most up and coming pop-punk I’ve heard in forever. expect big things from both of these bands in 2010.

4. Man Overboard – Dahlia

this EP introduced me to my 12 year old self and for that I am grateful. it took me back to a time when new found glory and blink-182 owned my stereo. it’s a swift kick in the nuts at only 4 songs, but the full length coming from these guys in summer 2010 is gonna be huge…

3. Animal Collective – Fall Be Kind

what would I want? sky.

2. Republic of Wolves – His Old Branches

do you like brand new? yeah. these guys sound like brand new. not only that, but they add their own twist to the sound. this is relatively new but i’ve been listening to it pretty much non-stop. it definitely deserves this spot. plus, for an EP it’s definitely a lengthy listen.

1. Bon Iver – Blood Bank

4 songs. every one of them is amazing. I thought for sure justin vernon would fall off in some way from the still immaculate “for emma, forever ago”, but it wasn’t to be. the ep came out early in 2009 and starts out with the title track – which is one of the best song vernon’s ever written. so in a way i guess you could say he went up in my eyes….if that’s at all possible. plus, seeing the track played at Exit/In with the urgency that the world was ending as everyone stood  jaws to the floor definitely helped it’s cause. if you still aren’t on the bon iver bandwagon, i feel very very sorry for you.

Best Songs:

I attempted not to put anything released in ’08 on here…even if it became a hit in ’09. like “use somebody”…that would have been on here….or “paparazzi” or….you get the point. so if you think it sucks that it’s not on here it’s probably because the song sucks or it was released in ’08 and your ears slept on it till ’09. btw gaga obviously owned ’09 pop music-wise.

50. Pretty Lights – Sunday School

this is a banger. I can’t believe I missed the show. check it out for the biggie sample and stick around for the dance class.

49. Julian Plenti – Madrid Song

the lead singer of interpol’s solo record definitely went under the radar this year. don’t let it continue to go that way.

48. Temper Trap – Sweet Disposition

one of the key tracks from the movie (500) days of summer, and the song that single-handedly launched this band.

47. Grizzly Bear – Two Weeks

the band itself is extremely overrated. boring even in spots. however, this is a great tune. they say every band writes ONE, right? the video for this song is awesome, so that doesn’t hurt either.

46. John Mayer – Assassin

this is one of the only rockers from mayer’s new album. and the lyrics are sick.

45. Fightstar – The English Way

the lead singer used to be in a boy band called busted. now he rocks for a living. this song proves it. check out the song “mercury summer” if you dig this.

44. Jeremih – Birthday Sex

from the first time I heard this song I knew where this guy was coming from.  will always be a reminder of 2009.

43. KiD CuDi – Up, Up, And Away

the stoner’s anthem of ’09 this song ends CuDi’s debut full length with a bang and a good promise of things to come.

42. Thrice – In Exile

a great great track with even better lyrics.

41. Volcano Choir – Island, IS

justin vernon (bon iver) lent his voice to this collaboration. this is the best track on the album they made. it owns pretty hard.

40. Wale ft. Lady GaGa – Chillin’

one of the best rap songs released this year. it should have been everywhere this summer. Wale’s label hates him.

39. Taking Back Sunday – Everything Must Go

the last track on an awful album. but somehow…somehow one of the best songs taking back sunday have ever written…or at least written since tell all your friends. lazzara goes hard about his ex-fiancee who sucked the life outta the party.

38. Miley Cyrus – Party in the USA

i’m not immune to this song. it infected me like the flu and wouldn’t leave me alone. I like it more now that i saw miley cyrus said she’s never even heard a jay-z song. cool.

37. Panic! at the Disco – New Perspective

the first GREAT song to come from this band – ever. check it out, because I doubt a lot of people have heard it. it was a definite summer jam. i mean P!ATD have written some catchy stuff before, but this one owns all that stuff and it’s not emo.

36. Silversun Pickups – Panic Switch

a rocker that brings back memories of 90′s grunge.

35. Sleigh Bells – Crown on the Ground

listen to this one. their about to blow up in 2010. say you were one of the first.

34. Passion Pit – The Reeling

one of many great songs on this album.

33. Matt & Kim – Daylight

you probably heard this in quite a few commercials. these two people never stop smiling. i swear.

32. Girls – Lust For Life

record is a little overrated. but just fun summer rock. good stuff, and pretty mindless.

31. Foo Fighters – Wheels

one of the best bands in rock today showing all the other tools how it’s done.

30. A Day To Remember – Have Faith In Me

the song that made me change my mind about this band. i was so sure they were a bro-mobile but i was wrong.

29. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads Will Roll

yeah yeah yeahs show that they can dance too.

28. Third Eye Blind – Dao of St. Paul

stephen jenkins lyrics in this song kill it. this is one of the best songs third eye blind have ever written for sure and almost makes me forget about the rapping part in that one song on the new album….almost.

27. Thrice – The Weight

Thrice’s > The Band’s

26. Cobra Starship ft. Leighton Meester – Good Girls Go Bad

yeah. gabe saporta sucks. he sold out. this song is catchy as all hell. i rocked out to it all summer. gabe saporta sucks.

25. Friendly Fires – Kiss of Life

i don’t know why this is here. it’s such an awesome song. it should be higher. check out the video. SO cool.

24. GagaGagAGAGAG – Bad Romance

she did it again. that’s what i said when i heard the song the first-the tenth times. now i just nod my head.

23. Drake – Best I Ever Had

i remember when the mixtape first came out with this on it in january. i thought it should be a single, then it was, and now drake is on every song known to man. that’s what we call in demand.

22. The Swellers – 2009

attention: you need to download this song. now. and listen to it before 2009 ends. preferably on repeat during new years. this is the anthem for 2009. read the lyrics. sing the song. pump your fist. and get ready for 2010 in style. the swellers hit it big this year with paramore’s tour and the signing to fueled by ramen. this is why.

21. P.O.S. – Purexed

the best song on one of the best rap albums released in 2009. i implore you to check this one out. stef goes hard on this one.

20. Passion Pit – Little Secrets

this is the track where passion pit said yeah, our lyrics are going to be all sad, but you will dance, dammit. you will dance.

19. Say Anything – Cemetery

max found a wife and wrote probably the sweetest love song i heard all year. i’m tearing up just thinking about it. not really…really though.

18. John Mayer – Edge of Desire

mayer says every single thing that you think in your head when you want something or someone on this song. therefore it should be played in every sexual situation you are ever in for the rest of your life.

17. Cassino – Ghost

if for no other reason than the line “I still feel you in my throat when I swallow, it’s just that close”…but there are other reasons. cassino rules. nick torres writes better lyrics than you.

16. Avett Brothers – The Perfect Space

wow.

15. Brand New – Vices

i first listened to this in my room by myself with my speakers on full blast and i honestly got scared when it started. i jumped. i still don’t believe this is the same band that wrote jude law, but that’s exactly why i love them.

14. The Devil Wears Prada – Assistant to the Regional Manager

RAAAWWWRRR. this is metalcore at it’s finest. if you like metalcore, or if you like to punch things check it.

13.  The Dirty Projectors – Stillness is the Move

avant garde pop. avant garde pop. avant garde pop. that’s all i kept hearing about these guys. and yeah, this is avant garde. and yeah it’s poppy. this is like if britney spears smoked a pound of chronic and hooked up with animal collective. wow, i just thought how awesome that would be when i said it.

12. Jay-Z ft. Alicia Keys – Empire State of Mind

Innnn Newww YAAWWKKK where theese little something something made oooffff. i love this song. blueprint 3 is actually a good album from jigga too for a change.

11. Animal Collective – What Would I Want? Sky

what would i want? more animal collective in 2010.

10. Mute Math – Clipping

on an album full of singles it’s hard to pick one or even a few awesome songs, but this one gets a nod because it’s just to good to pass up.

9. Bon Iver – Blood Bank

perfection is hard to do. justin vernon has come close on just about everything he’s recorded as bon iver.

8. The Big Pink – Dominos

holy shit. you wanna talk about a banger? here ya go. video rules too. i listened to this song so many times this year. and every time those girls fell like some dominos.

7. Manchester Orchestra – I Can Feel A Hot One

andy hull has a kid. andy hull writes about the experience of driving to the hospital while his wife is going in to labor with said kid. if you said the song is bound to be epic, then you would be right.

6. Phoenix – 1901

phoenix were everywhere this year. even at bonnaroo…where i unfortunately missed them because we had trouble setting up camp.

5. Kevin Devine – Brother’s Blood

this song deserves to be heard by every manchester orchestra and brand new fan alive. actually, by everybody who has been touched in some way by war. so that is everyone then, huh. the most emotional ending to a song you may have ever heard. if you don’t get chills while listening to the end of this song, you don’t have a pulse.

4. Manchester Orchestra – Shake It Out

the reason i love this song is because it’s got every single emotion conveyed in like 6 minutes. check it out.

3. Animal Collective – Brother Sport

the second best song on merriweather post pavillion.  the end of this song makes me long for a late night animal collective set at bonnaroo. f this 4 pm on a friday because one of them has to go to a wedding bs. bring them back in 2010 and let them lay the wood to every single a-hole at the roo.

2. Say Anything – Ahh Men

as already said – max finds a wife and writes one of the best love songs ever. on this one: max finds God and writes one of the best religious songs ever. you’ve come a long way since “i’m eating rat poison for dinner”, bemis.

1. Animal Collective – My Girls

can i just say that i hated this band 12 months ago and thought they were just noise. then in the first week of january i heard this sweet slice of awesomeness along with the other tracks on mmp. and ever since then all i’ve wanted is 4 walls………….(finish it)

Best Albums:

25. KiD CuDi – Man On The Moon: The End of Day

CuDi really broke through to the mainstream in 2009. this album is definitely rap for hipsters. i dig that.

24. 30 Second to Mars – This Is War

yeah, i don’t even like this band that much. so when i listened you could definitely say i was skeptical. and wow. this is the biggest album i might have ever heard. 30stm take u2′s sound and massive-fy it. this record is so huge that when i listen to it i find myself plotting how i might take over the world.

23. Julian Plenti – Julian Plenti is…Skyscraper

the best solo album released from a dude in an awesome band (sorry julian casablancas). paul betany owned his sound on this. it’s a definite fine hold-over until we get another interpol record.

22. As Cities Burn – Hell or High Water

definitely not as good as the genre shifting “come now sleep” but this one is pretty great too. i miss this band already. “gates” closes this record on a great note.

21. Fun. – Aim & Ignite

if i can’t have the format, then a band by the lead singer that sounds almost exactly like the format will have to do. this one is fun as shit. period.

20. Third Eye Blind – Ursa Major

this wasn’t liked by some fans because they said it played it to safe after such a long break, but for me this was the record i’d been wanting stephen jenkins and co. to make since the self-titled. hope next year’s ursa minor is even better.

19. blessthefall – Witness

i listened to this record more times than maybe any other this year. talk about getting you pumped up. blessthefall really really stepped it up on this one. the addition of beau as singer is a definite plus for the band.

18. Clipse – Til The Casket Drops

not as crazy as hell hath no fury, but this one will definitely do. Clipse are trailblazers in the rap game. it’s just a shame most people are missing it.

17. Paramore – brand new eyes

that lost song man. i’ve always been a fan of hayley’s, but when she wails on that last song, 60% of the time…it gets me every time.

16. Brand New – Daisy

yeah, okay, it could have been better. it could have been less jarring, more cohesive, less, less, more, more…but it wasn’t. it was, however, exactly what brand new needed to do. an album filled with songs that make their live show insane. the heaviest music the band has ever written. they needed this in their catalogue. because, believe me, the way all the haters of this record were jumping up and down and screaming every word to these new songs along with jesse, they can hate but at least they know they were wrong when they walked out of that concert hall. this is the record that puts the “balls” in brand new.

15. A Day To Remember – Homesick

i thought this band was rubbish at the beginning of this year. their other releases i laughed off because i thought them trying to combine something happy like pop-punk and something broootal like hardcore was retarded. it’s safe to say after listening to this album 900 times – i get it now.

14. Cassino -Kingprince

they went even more alt-country on this one and less folk. it definitely works. the whole album feels like you’re sitting by a campfire listening to nick torres play music. highly recommended…support local music.

13. P.O.S. – Never Better

the king of doomtree put out the most brutal rap album of the year in february of this year. the beats are second to none. it’s definitely not for the everyday rap dude, but it is some of the best indie rap you’ll hear this year. “purexed” is a prime example.

12. Therefore I Am – The Sound of Human Lives

talk about a surprise. man. i had no idea i would like this as much as i did. these guys take punk and pop-punk and hardcore and mix it in to a barrel and this is what comes out. it works to say the least.

11. John Mayer – Battle Studies

i don’t think anyone was expecting this from mayer. after continuum i think everyone was expecting him to continue to go in that bluesy direction, but he returns here with an album of soft acoustic songs and several minimal ones, with almost 0 upbeat and fast paced tunes. it all sounds great by the way. some of, if not THE best production from this year.

10. Relient K – Forget and Not Slow Down

relient k is a joke band, right? not any more. and maybe they never were. i just stopped listening after i turned 17. but wow, this new one is dead serious. at the same time though, the central theme of the album is loss and dealing with that loss, and yet they put that relient k spin on it and show that loss can be a good thing. they show the upside to a very depressing topic as only relient k can. they won back a fan definitely. and this record, like nfg’s ‘coming home’, is their most mature to date.

9. Mew – No More Stories are Told Today….

this record just wouldn’t go away. i kept trying to stop listening to it when i went to bed every night…but there it was. it’s still not up there with ‘frengers’ but then few records are. this could have been higher. it’s art. it’s like a sigur ros album mixed with a little queen. so good.

8. Thrice – Beggars

the album of thrice’s career. finally they completely dropped the post-hardcore stuff and just went balls-in to an indie rock record. and you cannot go wrong with dustin kensrue’s lyrics. i love you thrice.

7. The Antlers – Hospice

so a guy breaks up with his girlfriend who is sick and writes an album about it. it turns out to be the saddest and most depressing thing released this year….but wait the ending has hope. keep listening. you’ll see.

6. Avett Brothers – I and Love and You

when i read paste magazine’s review of this i laughed thinking there was no way it could be true. they said something to the effect that every reviewer they have took a copy home with them to listen and possibly review and every reviewer returned the next day with a story of how they were listening on the way home and started to cry. every single one. the avett brothers have always been good. but this one is…great.

5. Mute Math – Armistice

this one almost didn’t get made. it almost broke the band up, but i’m thankful it didn’t. 10x what the first album was, this monster has more rocking, better lyrics, and is all around a better listen. the best live band on the planet just keeps getting better. i seriously worried if they were a one hit wonder for a while. i suck.

4. Manchester Orchestra – Mean Everything to Nothing

anyone who was listening to MO when ‘like a virgin losing a child’ came out knew this was coming. they knew this band was going to write a great album instead of just a good one for their sophomore release. what they didn’t know though is that the band was going to start sounding like nirvana and old-school weezer, but with better lyrics. andy hull has like 10 projects set up for 2010 so get ready.

3. The Dangerous Summer – Reach For The Sun

this could have easily been number 1. without a doubt no other record said exactly what i’ve been thinking for the last 7 or so years better than this one this year. this is a record about growing up. it’s about all the bullshit that comes along with it too. and they get it right every step of the way.

2. Say Anything – Say Anything

max bemis returns to form. with the crap that was ‘in defense of the genre’ out of the way bemis comes back and returns to talking shit and talking about the injustices of the world….but wait. it’s different. there’s no ‘woe is me’ bs this time around. why? bemis got married. bemis found God. basically bemis stopped complaining and grew up. and just like every other say anything record, this album is a mirror of max bemis’ life over the past 2 years. oh, and also it just so happens to be the best thing he’s ever written. and his voice doesn’t grate on this one either.

1. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion

if you had said to me on january 1 that an album was going to come out a week later and that nothing better would come out all of 2009, i would have laughed. if you had said it would be an animal collective album i may have hit you in the face for being a hipster. this not only made me change my mind about this band, and dive head first in to their back catalogue, but it had me dancing all year. in my car. on the way to class. you name it. mixing sound after sound after sound on top of layer upon layer upon layer of music, this is the most expansive and crazy thing i’ve ever heard….so crazy, it just – works. every song blends. so many sounds that sometimes i think the only way this album can be understood is to be high as balls. it’s crazy. really. finally animal collective found their niche. they moved from the left of avant garde pop more to the poppish middle. and i couldn’t be happier. yeah, they are the beach boys of our generation. 100 years from now this is the music that will be blaring from your great grandkids spaceships when they want to sound retro. but for now, it’s the future.

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