You had to guess it was coming - an end-of-the-year ranking of the year's best albums! It was a good year for music with a tough race for the #1 slot and a relatively late entry taking the prize by a clear margin. So, in the spirit of eating your dessert first...
1. The Arcade Fire Funeral A funeral should sound so good - all the catharsis with very little grief. Give it time, it may be your new favorite album too.
2. Secret Machines Now Here Is Nowhere Breaking the sound barrier and redefining space-rock.
3. Franz Ferdinand s/t “…feel the word and melt upon it…”. Ohhh yeaah.
4. Sufjan Stevens Seven Swans This guy can write one beautiful song after another, and with his ambitions set on scoring an album for each of the 50 states (last year's "Greetings from Michigan" = 1 down, 49 to go) it's a good thing.
5. Iron & Wine Our Endless Numbered Days Sam Beam puts a new beard on southern ballads with higher production quality and deeper instrumentation than his debut “Creek Drank the Cradle."
6. Interpol Antics Turn on the Bright Lights” is pretty hard to beat. They wisely opt not to reinvent themselves but plunge deeper into what they do best. And it works.
7. Greg Davis Curling Pond Woods Atmosphere is everything on this fluid and sonicly rich laptop-folk (folk-top?) disc. Plus there's mention of obscure Canadian ice sports in the title, c'mon!
8. Modest Mouse Good News For People Who Love Bad News Ohmygod did Isaac Brock really just eat Tom Waits’ copy of “Notes of a Dirty Old Man”? No, it just sounds that way.
9. Wilco A Ghost Is Born It must be hard living up to such high expectations, especially when you make exceeding them look so easy. Besides, there are poems to write and books to publish…
10. The Album Leaf In A Safe Place Dreamy sound-scaping blurs the use of traditional instruments and twiddling with knobs. Good music for flying on airplanes and other thin-air activities.
11. Mission of Burma OnOffOn They're back and have picked up right where they left off. It's almost as if they have been stored in an influence-tight plexiglass case for fourteen years. Given some of the crap that's gone on in that time this proves to be a good thing. Rock!
12. Of Montreal Satanic Panic In The Attic Don’t let the title fool ya, there’s no need to panic. More wiggly weirdness than evil prevails here.
13. various artists Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs of Stephen Foster Performances of standards you didn't know you knew so well by folksy artists you wish you knew better.
14. Liars They Were Wrong So We Drowned How can you not love a post-punk, no-dance, no-pop noise-noise album about English witch trials? How?
15. Steve Earle The Revolution Starts… Now Timely though hardly timeless, Steve Earle is the closest thing our generation gets to Bob Dylan now that the latter has committed himself for permanent display at the Smithsonian.
16. Comets on Fire Blue Cathedral You thought Santa Cruz was all surfing and drum circles and poser kids scammin’ quarters downtown but it is soooo much weirder… and louder! Actually the Comets are based in San Francisco now but it doesn't matter, they're louder, more chaotic and further out there than anyone in that town too. Next time you need to freak out you need the Comets.
17. Dizzee Rascal Boy In Da Corner Hearing this is like discovering porn for the first time. It's startling, intriquing, confusing, and leaves you feeling guilty for having enjoyed it. Again. And again...
18. The Fiery Furnaces Blueberry Boat Forget whatever you thought you knew about them from "Gallowbird's Bark" and imagine Flannery O'Connor writing a rock opera. No? Agreed, it's a little weird, but not bad.
19. Jay-Z + DJ Danger Mouse The Grey Album How would you piggy back onto the biggest hip-hop money train in town? Skip the $75 million lawsuit and remix Jay's "Black Album" vocals over the Beatles' "White Album" score. If only all the gutsy genius it took to make it happen came through the speakers. Still... and of course the totally illegal download of the album.
20. Castanets Cathedral After hearing a toy piano in the opening track I am reminded of The Simpsons episode #272 "Homer the Moe" wherein Moe explain's his bar's new decor as weird for the sake of being weird (paraphrased). This is fractured, backwater-tinged ear art not for those afraid to experiment. And also not too bad.
2. Secret Machines Now Here Is Nowhere Breaking the sound barrier and redefining space-rock.
3. Franz Ferdinand s/t “…feel the word and melt upon it…”. Ohhh yeaah.
4. Sufjan Stevens Seven Swans This guy can write one beautiful song after another, and with his ambitions set on scoring an album for each of the 50 states (last year's "Greetings from Michigan" = 1 down, 49 to go) it's a good thing.
5. Iron & Wine Our Endless Numbered Days Sam Beam puts a new beard on southern ballads with higher production quality and deeper instrumentation than his debut “Creek Drank the Cradle."
6. Interpol Antics Turn on the Bright Lights” is pretty hard to beat. They wisely opt not to reinvent themselves but plunge deeper into what they do best. And it works.
7. Greg Davis Curling Pond Woods Atmosphere is everything on this fluid and sonicly rich laptop-folk (folk-top?) disc. Plus there's mention of obscure Canadian ice sports in the title, c'mon!
8. Modest Mouse Good News For People Who Love Bad News Ohmygod did Isaac Brock really just eat Tom Waits’ copy of “Notes of a Dirty Old Man”? No, it just sounds that way.
9. Wilco A Ghost Is Born It must be hard living up to such high expectations, especially when you make exceeding them look so easy. Besides, there are poems to write and books to publish…
10. The Album Leaf In A Safe Place Dreamy sound-scaping blurs the use of traditional instruments and twiddling with knobs. Good music for flying on airplanes and other thin-air activities.
11. Mission of Burma OnOffOn They're back and have picked up right where they left off. It's almost as if they have been stored in an influence-tight plexiglass case for fourteen years. Given some of the crap that's gone on in that time this proves to be a good thing. Rock!
12. Of Montreal Satanic Panic In The Attic Don’t let the title fool ya, there’s no need to panic. More wiggly weirdness than evil prevails here.
13. various artists Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs of Stephen Foster Performances of standards you didn't know you knew so well by folksy artists you wish you knew better.
14. Liars They Were Wrong So We Drowned How can you not love a post-punk, no-dance, no-pop noise-noise album about English witch trials? How?
15. Steve Earle The Revolution Starts… Now Timely though hardly timeless, Steve Earle is the closest thing our generation gets to Bob Dylan now that the latter has committed himself for permanent display at the Smithsonian.
16. Comets on Fire Blue Cathedral You thought Santa Cruz was all surfing and drum circles and poser kids scammin’ quarters downtown but it is soooo much weirder… and louder! Actually the Comets are based in San Francisco now but it doesn't matter, they're louder, more chaotic and further out there than anyone in that town too. Next time you need to freak out you need the Comets.
17. Dizzee Rascal Boy In Da Corner Hearing this is like discovering porn for the first time. It's startling, intriquing, confusing, and leaves you feeling guilty for having enjoyed it. Again. And again...
18. The Fiery Furnaces Blueberry Boat Forget whatever you thought you knew about them from "Gallowbird's Bark" and imagine Flannery O'Connor writing a rock opera. No? Agreed, it's a little weird, but not bad.
19. Jay-Z + DJ Danger Mouse The Grey Album How would you piggy back onto the biggest hip-hop money train in town? Skip the $75 million lawsuit and remix Jay's "Black Album" vocals over the Beatles' "White Album" score. If only all the gutsy genius it took to make it happen came through the speakers. Still... and of course the totally illegal download of the album.
20. Castanets Cathedral After hearing a toy piano in the opening track I am reminded of The Simpsons episode #272 "Homer the Moe" wherein Moe explain's his bar's new decor as weird for the sake of being weird (paraphrased). This is fractured, backwater-tinged ear art not for those afraid to experiment. And also not too bad.
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