What? It's 2010? Well, here's the best of 2009

Before we get too far into 2010, I thought I'd pause and take note of my favorite music from the year that has just passed. If you care, these are my favorite albums from 2009:

The xx – XX
Out of nowhere comes a classic. How on Earth do a bunch of 19 year old Londoners come up with this fantastic sound? It’s a sexy he-said, she-said panoply of breathy vocals and “Heart-shaped Box” reverb-laden guitar that, despite relying on a drum machine, has a timeless sound to it. I can’t wait to see where they go from here.

Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Really, who wouldn’t like this album? It is a pop gem. Catchy. Fun. Happy, but not sappy. They sounds so good even Rush Limbaugh would give up his Freedom Fries to embrace these brilliant guys from Versailles. And really, you've already heard it. There's gotta be three different songs of theirs currently featured on car commercials in heavy rotation.

Mos Def – The Ecstatic
Its always hard to pin down Mos Def. And this album is even more all over the place than usual. Afrobeat. Madlib’s jazzy throwback beats. Oh No’s international crate digging. Spanish crooning. But through it all, there is an intense calmness to the album that is kind of breath-taking. That calm masks the fact that he is taking chances all over the place… Almost all pay off, especially the aforementioned Spanish crooning and letting others take over the spotlight. That includes the best moment of the entire album with Slick Rick in the role of a new American Soldier in Iraq on Auditorium; “I don’t understand it, on another planet? Fifteen months of this stuff, how’m I gonna manage?” These are the hallmarks of a mature MC at the top of his craft.

Let’s Wrestle – In the Court of The Wrestling Let’s
I’m a sucker for the English lovable loser pop sops…but these guys kick out a gaggle of simple songs with hooks and lyrics that grab and don’t let go. “We’re the Guys You Will Grow to Love Soon” is about settling, but I’ve already fallen for this group of English teens.

Here We Go Magic – Here We Go Magic
There’s a lot going on at the periphery of this music. Sure, its built along these really comforting fuzzy mood pieces that settle in and carry you along. But before you can get too settled in the headphones, you start to hear stuff at the edges. That’s what keep these longer songs fresh listen after listen.

Real Estate – Real Estate
I am sick of the Yo La Tengo and Feelies comparisons for these low-fi New Jersey shore natives. Yeah, they share a home state…and great drawn out guitar grooves that leave you wanting more even after they have played them into the ground…oh…wait. Well, nonetheless, they sound totally different. These guys are slow, hazy, summer songs that bring a little sunlight onto the couch that they seem to never get off of…

Atlas Sound – Logos
Deerhunter – Rainwater Cassette Exchange
Did you read what I said about Brandon Cox last year? Same thing this year…except that the full-length Atlas Sound is better than the shorter, but very punchy, Deerhunter EP (and that’s likely because last year’s full-length Deerhunter album will probably stand as one of my favorites for the entire decade)… He just gets better and better.

Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
Frankly, not a big Animal Collective fan... The Beach Boys meet Eurotrash Ibiza DJ club tunes. The formula has just never worked for me… Thankfully, they’ve tweaked it enough on this album with more concrete song structures and vocal harmonies that just burrow deep into your brain. Listen to "Summer Clothes." It all comes together...

The Octopus Project – Golden Beds EP
They are quirky. They are weird. They are great.

Future of the Left – Travels with Myself and Another
These guys are angry. In a good way...

Fool’s Gold – Fool’s Gold
Foreign Born – Person to Person
There’s been an interesting embrace of African music in indie circles recently. Most notably, on the East coast it’s the sheen on Vampire Weekend’s songs, but that’s really not particularly deep. African guitar riffs seem to run a lot deeper on the West coast in San Francisco and LA, home music scenes awash with pasty white guys drunk on a global music slurpy. Foreign Born plays those melodic picked string lines against percussive acoustic guitar to color an otherwise poppy sound. I don’t know much of anything about Fool’s Gold---but they move beyond serpentine high life guitar lines, embracing Congotronics-esque electrified mbira to great effect.

Doom – Born Like This
Have you heard Doom previously? Or one of his alter egos: Madvillain, MF Doom, Metal Fingers…? He’s eerie. He’s weird. He’s funny. And he has a crazy, lazy cadence that makes it really hard to stop listening. Madlib takes that infrastructure and overlays it with a quirky throwback facade that draws you in…where Doom is waiting…woo ha ha ha!

Kurt Vile - God is Saying This to You
I am not much for singer songwriters. I find a guy yowling with his acoustic guitar to be boring, limited, and depressing. Unless his name is Kurt Vile, Philly's favorite freak... He is a machine, spitting out quirky, weird and engaging little ditties that are likely saying something I am not perceptive enough to catch, but unlike other’s of the genre, he doesn’t hit me with the lyrics over and over until I catch up---I appreciate that.