Lists and Numbers
2009 WB Album of the Year - 50 - 41
Featuring: Real Estate, Neko Case, Harlem Shakes, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Passion Pit, Camera Obscura, The Wooden Birds, Fuck Buttons, Future of the Left, Sparklehorse
Written by: Wireless Bollinger
Published: Feb 24th '10
Many of you may have noticed the absence of Wireless Bollinger from your computer screens over the past several months. That gaping void in your musical web-surfing experience didn’t mean that we had stopped listening. No, we here at WB are tirelessly consuming every scrap of music we can lay our ears on, whether we can share with you or not. Now that we have returned, bigger and better, we finally have a chance to unleash all of our pent up opinions on the music from 2009.
The result is the list we present for you now: the (belated) 50 best albums of last year as voted by the WB staff. While there seemed to be universal consensus on some of the biggest albums of the year, quite a few surprises popped up in the lower rungs. So, please accept this as an apology for our prolonged hiatus. Sit back, relax, and reminisce with us as we take you through our favourite music from 2009…
50. Real Estate – Real Estate
The Brooklyn by way of Jersey quartet Real Estate released an unassuming debut towards the end of the year, and it managed to sneak its way into many hearts by December. A potent mix of sunny, summery guitar chimes and almost subterranean vocals, Real Estate was as much a grower as it was instantly accessible. The gorgeous pop of ‘Beach Comber’ and ‘Fake Blues’ was matched by the sly groove of ‘Pool Swimmers’ and ‘Suburban Dog’’s rhythmic stomp for what was perhaps 2009’s number one summer album.
49. Neko Case – Middle Cyclone
If occasional New Pornographer Neko Case hadn’t established herself as the undisputed queen of the still-kicking alt. country scene with 2007’s Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, she more than likely did with this effort. Tacking away from the country beginnings that her incredible voice keeps her firmly rooted in, Middle Cyclone found a more expansive, aggressive and sexy Case comparing herself to all manner of natural disasters and phenomena. Tornadoes, cyclones, glaciers, you name it; and with that voice, and her skill with a tune, few would really argue.
48. Harlem Shakes – Technicolour Health
Technicolour Health opens on a riff that sounds suspiciously like an old Nintendo entertainment system on the blink, which is as good a metaphor for the music that was to follow. Bouncy, relentlessly fun, a bit quirky and the kind of thing that sounds edgy today but will almost certainly be dated in a decade, Harlem Shakes’ debut was the kind of thing that almost required handclaps and shouts of ‘yeah!’ to feel like it was working. Thankfully, there were plenty of both.
47. Cymbals Eat Guitars – Why There Are Mountains
Early-1990s indie revivalism has tended towards the kitsch pastiche over the past few years; few have felt comfortable referencing their teenage idols without keeping their tongue in cheek for the sake of modesty. Not Cymbals Eat Guitars. Where fuzz and profundity have been mixed with a large helping of an undeniable pop aesthetic, Why There Are Mountains is resolutely earnest, intense and cathartic. What stops it being nothing more than a dirge-like Loveless rehash is the skill with which those moments of catharsis catch the ear unawares and turn what could be the funereal into joyous, life-affirming moments of spine-tingling melody.
46. Passion Pit – Manners
Surely a love-or-hate album if ever there was one, Manners is the The Warning of 2009. The crossover indie-electro hit of the summer certainly riled up many, and appealed greatly to the masses; Passion Pit quickly found themselves on the festival tours with their name in surprisingly bold font. Punchy, lively, yet with a dark heart, Manners demonstrated the very young band’s penchant for adolescent melodrama with a vigourously youthful bounce. Yes, love them or hate them if you will. We think they’re pretty neat.
45. Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career
As always, Camera Obscura’s bouncily twee pop polarized WB’s writers. It came either near the top of a writer’s list, or failed to appear. Yet this makes little sense, as music this plainly aimed at the pleasure centres, while frontwoman Tracyanne Campbell’s distinct brand of Scottish fatalism should be familiar enough by now to only scare off the occasional initiate. Campbell’s ongoing growth is reflected in her songwriting as much as her delivery, which seems to grow stronger with every album, and here she’s magnificent. Perhaps it’s the constant presence near the best of each year’s releases that make Camera Obscura’s constant quality appear less than it is. Either way, they have enough fans to see them represented here.
44. The Wooden Birds – Magnolia
The fact that ‘country’ music can be traced so far back along music’s extensive family tree makes dropping it as a genre tag almost obsolete in this day where any non-hyphenated label is merely the sign of a lazy journalist. However, The Wooden Birds’ Magnolia has no other influence so obvious, despite the myriad sounds it replicates. Reformed from the American Analog Set, Wooden Birds’ debut is a hushed, complex recording steeped in a nostalgia that the listener can’t quite put their finger on, making it very much a black slate of remembrance for any fan to sit back and think of better times. Because for country singers, now always sucks.
43. Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport
Street Horrrsing, the Fuck Buttons’ previous long-player, was rightly lauded as a venturesome journey into a new, 21st century noise-rock. Little did those doing the lauding know that it was merely a warm-up. While no one will ever accuse Fuck Buttons of joining the easy-listening crowd, Tarot Sport undoubtedly opened up new melodic frontiers for the resolutely experimental duo, incorporating the viciously squalling ‘Space Mountain’ with moments of brief respite, enough to lull the listener in before pummeling them with the next sonic assault. Do not expect to hear this at your local shitty café any time soon.
42. Future of the Left – Travels With Myself and Others
While perhaps not reaching the bile-spitting, non sequitur-riddled brilliance of predecessor Curses!, former McLusky/Jarcrew amalgam Future of the Left’s second effort Travels With Myself and Others was an undoubted step forward. Sure Andy Malkous' vitriol remained vitriolic – see opener and lead single 'Arming Eritrea' and its poor protagonist, 'Rick' – but the anger and irony came with a leavening helping of sly self-awareness. Oh, and it rocked the fuck out, too.
41. Sparklehorse – Dark Night of the Soul
Dark Night of the Soul hits so many indie-hipster pleasure points that it's amazing it doesn't nestle comfortably in every indie top ten list this year. Then again, considering one of those trigger points is that it has barely seen the light of day due to distribution conflicts with EMI, it's amazing it shows up here at all. Sparklehorse (aka Mark Linkous) assembled a hall of fame of indie cred – James Mercer, The Flaming Lips, Gruff Rhys, Jason Lytle of Grandaddy, Julian Casablancas , Frank Black, Iggy Pop, Nina Persson of The Cardigans, Vic Chesnutt and David Lynch (yes, David Lynch wrote a 100-page booklet to accompany) – and set to work battling his depression, with the help of Danger Mouse. The result, available almost entirely via nefarious means, is a four-part mini-epic, from moody rock to swirling psychedelia, and showed again that Linkous' ability to choose collaborators can go a long way to making his music shine.
