January
So it's time to start compiling my list of the best music of the year. Unlike my reading, which fell away this year, music is perhaps the one thing I have kept up with this year. In fact, I'd venture to say I've bought more new music than any other year, and explored a lot of new bands I'd not heard before.
So I'm going to go through month by month and pick out the best on my way to the uber-list.
Contenders for January:
The Lovetones
Jessie Kilguss | Dimensions (actually Christmas eve 2008) Nocturnal Drifter |
| Mark Olson & Gary Lourie | Ready for the Flood |
| Animal Collective | Merriweather Post Pavillion |
| Antony & the Johnsons | The Crying Light |
| Robert Pollard | The Crawling Distance |
| AC Newman | Get Guilty |
| Franz Ferdinand | Tonight |
| Franz Nicolay | Major General |
| Andrew Bird | Noble Beast |
| Ben Kweller | Changing Horses |
January wasn't a huge month for new releases but there are still some good albums in there.
My picks would be:
Dimensions... The Lovetones.
I have been a huge fan of Matthew Tow since his days with Drop City, but until this album his Lovetones output had left me a little nonplussed. This is a great album, though, and he seems to finally have found the right balance of psychadelic pop, of catchy and meaningful. I could name about five songs off the album that would be in my favourite songs of the year list. If you like Beatle-influenced, jangly pop songs, check this album out. Drop City were one of the most chronically overlooked Australian bands of the nineties and it's good to hear Tow back on song, as it were.
Merriweather Post Pavillion... Animal Collective
Perhaps the most critically anticipated and lauded album of the year. I hadn't heard Animal Collective before, but there was a lot of hype on music blogs about this album, along with Grizzly Bear's, being the albums to watch for this year. I don't know if I liked this album as much as the critics did. It straddles that boundary between a difficult, experimental album that rewards repeat listens with depth and brilliance, or just an album of not-very-catchy noise. My Girls is a great song, and there are a couple of others. Overall, it was an interesting enough album to stand out, but perhaps the hype was too much for it to live up to.
Major General... Franz Nicolay
This album was my major surprise of the year. It's also testament to the usefulness of taking a chance on new music. I had never heard of Nicolay, who it turns out is the keyboard player for The Hold Steady, another band I hadn't really heard before this year. But I heard the beautiful "Note on a Subway Wall" on a music blog early in the year, and it was a slow period for new releases, and so I decided to take the chance on this album. It was the best decision I made all year. Nicolay shifts between cabaret influenced rock and wordy, thoughtful ballads. His lyrics are never half-hearted; it's easy to be held captive by his words. And there are easily half a dozen really catchy melodies in here, as well as just an... energy... that you can feel when an artist is throwing themself into creating a strong work. Note on a Subway Wall remains my favourite song on the album; a truly beautiful, understated ballad of relationships lost.
I also recommend the Robert Pollard and AC Newman albums.