1. Beach House - Teen Dream
You: Boo, boring, go home! I agree and don't like it any better, but this will be the year's first album that I'll come back to and repeatedly play in 2016, it can single-handedly spin my mood in a positive direction, and it consistently glides through to a clean and fulfilling conclusion while never tempting the skip forward hair trigger. The disc, like their studioesque sounding concert, which the Philistines and I gave an A+, inspires no affinity, but more than enough respect and anticipation.
Considering my enthusiasm for groping under rocks in the singer/songwriter desert it's disconcerting that I recently my need for the snake bite kit has been so rare. This Swede stunned me with the first three tracks and kept re-burying the fangs on subsequent listens with new and already ipod starred songs. Your well meaning but backwards friend might recoil at the sound of tall guy's voice, but tell him that while M. Buble has his time and place The Swede is worth a second listen because Nick Cave is a more interesting person than songwriter and for all that Dylan still is he isn't 27 and doesn't banjo.
The only reason this isn't number one is because their myspace page and EP made them my top/fav/bestest band of 2009 and by last July I'd already thrown two rods (simultaneously I assume) in this ride and been thumbing for hours. If you hate the equation Rock+Fun=Awesome don't bother with number three. Not that it matters, because I only care how a band sounds in my buds, but their live shows burn venues to the ground.
4. The Radio Dept. - Clinging to a Scheme
I'll cop to it. I haven't heard any of their other stuff and this was a tenth hour addition made possible only by the shuffling a 2010 albums playlist. How I listened to just half of the album before ejecting last spring only to play it for ten hours straight some weeks ago I'll never be able to reconcile. That I didn't know they were from Lund before I signed up for the fan club newsletter made the connection even more satisfying.
5. She and Him - Volume Two
Volume One was great, Two is too. I hope they keep it up or at least show another duo how to make it look so easy.
I can't understand how a person wouldn't fully enjoy at least a couple of these tracks, if not the whole thing, the first time through so I would agree that these aren't heady sounds but there's still a lot to grow in to and gain appreciation for on repeated passes. Toss out the wonderful lyrics that squared off permanent quarters in my brain and you still have an arrangement that is all the more compelling because they aren't using any instruments or samples you with which you aren't already on a hugging basis.
7. jj - jj n°3As I said back in my Q1 report this jj record benefited from a degree of latitude that my limited mental faculties are rarely able to dole out. When it finally worked for me the price of all that marching seemed like a tremendous deal in my favor.
8. Yeasayer - Odd Blood
This album was the second biggest revelation of the year. Ambling Alp, O.N.E, Madder Red, and Rome are just knock down drag out fun that reverberate like not much else.
9. Magic Kids - Memphis
Upon first meeting them one might become concerned that this band is just straight alitame (a Pfizer developed sweetener I just google/wiki'd whose sugar punch is 2000 times greater than sucrose), but with the exception of their "sailing is back in style" lyric they do sugar so well that I completely bought into their teeny bopper, is any buddy going to moonlight skate with me m.o./aura.
10. Twin Shadow - Forget
I like Toro's stuff, which is probably more layered and complex, but he never hooked my ear like this bro of Sammy Sosa. Maybe that's because the lyrics are more audible on Forget. Again I think there's aspects here to enjoy on the first and the twenty-fifth time through.
Those get an honorable mention. Here's last year's top ten and consider dialing in the same Bat Channel for a rundown of the Top 25 Songs.
