Best Albums of 2009: No. 1 - Telekinesis' s/t

"I've got a heart and it's afraid to love. Sometimes I think the damn things full of rust."

And with that, Telekinesis (aka Michael Lerner) starts off the most perfect pop album of 2009.

He's got a knack for taking 3 minutes and cramming the most intense drumming, guitars, and evocative songwriting possible. rarely do you have an album where each and every song is a winner.

One might draw easy comparisons to early Death Cab (mostly due to Chris Walla's production). But step back and you can easily figure out why Merge signed him: he sounds like younger, deeper in love Portastatic. Great Lakes sounds like an extra from the Be Still Please sessions.

The energy of Tokyo, the Beatleness of Awkward Kisser, the simple sweet beauty of I Saw Lightning. This is an album that grabs you instantly and gets better and better with each listen.

Please get this album. It'll be one you return to again and again.

Shimmy Shake interview with Michael Lerner

Best Albums of 2009: No. 2 - Phoenix's Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

What is there to say about this album that hasn't been said?

These French dance nerds have been making awesome music for a decade.

And here we are in 2009 (or 2010 cos I suck at posting), dancing to this album.

Yes you've heard their songs everywhere. And 1901 should make you want to buy a Cadillac.

Buy this album now. You don't want your kids to know you were lame in 2009.

Best Albums of 2009: No. 4 - Jay-Z's The Blueprint III

I was kinda conflicted about ranking this album this high. It's a great album to be sure, and from a legend nearing the edge of his prime to put out work this flawless and this phenomenal is an accomplishment all by itself (let's give it up for old people!)

The truth though is that this album will never compare with the Blueprint I (I'm not even going to talk Reasonable Doubt or The Black Album, which combined form a hip hop trinity that ensures Jigga is bigger and better than Biggie or Pac).

But by itself, in 2009, it is one of the best. Jigga does what he always does: wrangles the best producers, invites the hottest guests, and churns out bangers that even your moms likes. Every old ass cute with a Coogie was singing Empire State of Mind.

But the formula falters sometimes. You invite Kanye to rap, and the Louis Vuitton Don, a notoriously weak rhymer, outshines you on Run This Town. Drake (WTF?) holds his own. The best part of Young Forever is Mr Hudson's crooning. I bought a Jigga album and got singles from seven other people.

But there is no one bringing wordplay, flow, rhyme, swagger and logic so effortlessly like the CEO. Each verse requires a double take. Yes that is him telling you the exact location of where he hid is dope.

This isn't a classic like The Blueprint, but it's still a contender in 2009.

Best Albums of 2009: No. 5 Death Cab For Cutie's Open Door EP

Should an EP qualify as an album of the year?

Probably not. I mean, five songs? Really? Kinda of lazy on the selector's part right?

But this EP makes up for the steaming pile that the future Mr. Deschanel put out in 2008.

Five absolutely perfect DCFC songs. The country twangyness of Little Bribes, the best song about Las Vegas since Elvis shimmied his way through his Viva version. The Talking Bird redo, better than the version on Narrow Stairs.

But it's the masterful songwriting of a Diamond and a Tether that hooks you. Yes Virginia, it is still possible for Ben Gibbard to write a great song.

I figure most albums only have five good songs. Seems this EP just cut out the crap you wouldn't listen to anyways.

Best Albums of 2009: No 6 - Discovery's LP

You know what I love about this album? There are no pretenses.

You are getting to relatively geeky white dudes (Rostam Batmanglij and Wes Miles) who in their own right make arguably very popular indie rock/pop (Vampire Weekend and Ra Ra Riot respectively), making synth and autotuned soaked R&B.

Further, layer that effort with appaling lyrics, like "Every text I get from you is so so serious. And I'm sitting at home drinking my miso."

Yeah, no good right? No chance.

This album was my summer go to JAM. It was my nighttime driving music.

The lyric above, from the song "Orange Shirt" is just as good as anything you'd hear on your local urban top 40 station (which you don't listen to. Don't lie). It's heavy with a thumping bass line and sketchy images of Tokyo. The boys get all Sonic the Hedgehog with reinvented video game sounds in Osaka Loop Line, Carby, and It's not my Fault, blipping and blooping, skittering and scattering.

The covers of the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back" and the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" cement this album's R&B creds.

As side projects go, you could not ask for anything more different or more satisfying.

Best Albums of 2009: No 7 - Langhorne Slim's Be Set Free

To call Be Set Free the album that Ryan Adams should've made almost undersells Langhorne Slim's greatest attribute over Adams.

He's just a lot fucking happier.

For as much as Slim (nee Sean Scolnick) would like to fancy himself as a folk singer, he's essentially trodding down the alt-country, gospel tinged road laid by Adams with Whiskeytown and his solo albums Heartbreaker and Gold. The vocals aren't as strong, but somehow that makes them more evocative.

But the real difference is in the songwriting. Where Adams got off at some point and started sucking and becoming self-indulgent (only to occassionally flirt back with greatness), Slim keeps writing about love, sex, girls he should've had, and girls who'll never have him.

He rollicks and romps through "Cinderella" and "Say Yes" and shines on the slower, more thoughtful ballads "Sunday By The Sea" and "I Love You, But Goodbye." But my favorite is "Land of Dreams," with his baragaining lyric: "Take me tonight I'm yours/for as long as I can be."

On his Twitter profile, Slim writes "I'm not sure there's any other kind, but the songs I write are love songs." Damn right they are. Let's hope Slim can keep it up. This album is pure gold.

Best Albums of 2009: No. 8 - fun.'s Aim and Ignite

We need to reward genre hopping more. Like right now.

What is fun.? Is it gospel? Is it folk? Is it carnival music? Is it Queen?

There's horns, violins, boy girl harmonies, and the soaring vocals of former Format lead singer Nate Ruess. It's cheesy and very senior year drama high school musical to be sure. But hey, you like Glee right?

Ruess doesn't hold back, with the first four songs on the album kinda grabbing you and shaking you down for spare change. Be calm, he skitters and scatters. He channels Freddie Mercury often (All the Pretty Girls) and it's nice when he does (not like Adam Lambert, who you kinda wish would just shut the fuck up).

The sweetest song is the piano recital-esque The Gambler. It dips into treacle at points, but again, you still eat Apple Jacks and watch Glee.

Not all pop has to be serious, or studied. Sometimes it only needs to be fun.

Best Albums of 2009: No. 9 - Pains of Being Pure At Heart's self titled album

There are easy jokes to be made about their horrible name, or disgusting cover art. What the fuck is that anyway?

But the hype surrounding this album is real. I've never found myself so strangely hypnotized by shoegazey noise pop. Fuzzed out guitars, sweet boy-girl vocals, evocations of Black Tambourine, The Arrogants, or Cranberries (that's right, I said it). It's young and it makes me feel young listening to it.

But these John Hughes soundtracked songs are, like John Hughes movies, about teens and their problems. That means mostly sex. Come Saturday, Tenure Itch, This Love is Fucking Right... all teen twee sex songs (dirty sex songs to boot). Hopefully you'll be adding Young Adult Friction to your mixtapes. Nothing says love like doing it on a stack of moldy books in the library. It has my vote for best song of the year

But the other songs are just as sweet. A Teenager in Love bops in with that ridiculous drum and you can't help but dancing. Contender bottles up that loser feeling and makes you feel good.

Next time you watch Pretty in Pink, turn off the sound and play this album. Imagine yourself dancing with Molly Ringwald. All will be alright.

Best Albums of 2009 No. 10 - M. Ward's Hold Time

I want to give it up for M. Ward. With Hold Time, he has made me finally in some small measure appreciate and even love Zooey Deschanel's voice. But M. Ward is doing more here than making me into less of a She & Him hater.

With Hold Time, M. Ward is giving us his own thesis on American rock n'roll, in what the entire time has been his own personal master class on the subject.

There's the dreamy cover of Buddy Holly's Rave On (again, the furture Mrs. Gibbard singing backup). But why ape when you can create your own? He channels Jerry Lee Lewis with To Save Me, with frenetic piano playing, but still there is Ward, crooning - "Save from sailing over the edge" and doo doo dooing in the background.

There's the ghost of The Man in Black hanging over Fisher of Men (complete with not so oblique biblical references). And Phil Spector's Wall of Sound is there always, asking if this could be any louder (seriously, is he just banging stuff on his chords on the last song?).

But when he somehow melds them all together, it works. Stars of Leo, Never Had Nobody Like You, Jailbird - these are the real true keepers you'll find yourself going to again and again.

M. Ward hits magic twice on this album. He makes all the songs hang together. And he makes me kinda sort of look forward to She & Him Volume 2.

2009 Honorable Mentions

I'm going to start writing here, and pretend as if I have updated the blog in over a month.

For the past few weeks, I've been selecting, shuffling and discarding my favorite albums of the 2009. And what a hard and delightful task it was. There were some really stellar releases, way more than 10.

Which leaves us here... the honorable mention pile.

Maybe pile is not the right word. Glorious heap?

Anyway, we're gonna start from the bottom. Today Honorable Mentions. Tomorrow No 10.

Without further adieu...

"Outer South" by Conor and Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band
The former Saddle Creek CEO, Bright Eyes-er has finally given up that tortured ghost and completes 2008's self-titled album with a bookend featuring his chums all touching their inner alt-Mexican country music (or something... he's defying and embracing genre). It's a good album when he sings (Cabbage Town), better at points when his mates do it (Air Mattress), and great when they all pitch in (Ten Women). But it's missing something. It feels slapdash too jaunty, but maybe that makes it better.

"Dark Was The Night" by Various Artists
Every indie artists worth his/her salt in 2009 shows up on this AIDS benefit compilation album. Grizzly Bear, Bon Iver, Conor, Spoon, Dirty Projectors, My Morning Jacket, et cetera, et cetera. It's almost too much. And for every five songs I like (So Far Around The Bend has made me love The National), there's one I don't. But eh. I'd rather have a finally curated tasting menu by one chef than parade by a thousand.

"The Knot" by Wye Oak
Good things are coming out of Baltimore. Probably the best is Wye Oak. The Knot is confounding. Is it shoegaze? Is it noisepop? I have no idea. It's gorgeous is what it is. That loud quiet sound has been rocking my ears for 20 years.

"Adult Nights" by Wild Light
You like Arcade Fire but find wanna turn the pop meter waaaaay up? Yeah, you'll like this. What's not to love about that catchy and profane "California on my Mind"? Or the jangly guitars and synth of "Canyon City"? Did I mention they sound like Arcade Fire?

"Cutting Ties" by We Were Pirates
Listen up. If you're not rocking DC bands, you should be. We like We Were Pirates. My kid likes We Were Pirates. You should like this. You like indie pop about girls and love? You'll dig this.