The rules: The ten best albums (plus five honorable mentions) I picked up in one year, regardless of when they came out. No two albums from the same band. No best-ofs. No games. No drama.
Honorable Mentions:
15. Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca (2009)
14. Panda Bear – Person Pitch (2007)
13. Nick Drake - Pink Moon (1972)
12. Iggy Pop - Lust For Life (1977)
11. The Rural Alberta Advantage - Hometowns (2008)
10. The Velvet Underground – The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967)
“And what shall she do when midnight comes around?" If someone from Rolling Stone were to see that I didn’t rate this album any higher than I have, they’d throw what scientists call a hissy fit and give me three and a half stars out of five, just like everything else. This album was groundbreaking, and I don’t mean that in a head-patting, they-didn’t-know-any-better-back-then sort of way; the musical conceit behind “Heroin,” for example, is satisfying every time I listen to it, as are the darker corners of Lou Reed’s imagination. Moreover, there are plenty of tracks that are gorgeous and haunting, in no small part due to the fact that they’re all mono and sound, in a way, like a relic that’s still powerful; I’m sure I’m not the first one to draw this comparison, but it’s the Cthulhu of albums.
The Velvet Underground & Nico drops a few points because of inconsistency. There are a few downsides to sounding like you’re from the Sixties, especially when your lasting impact is your originality, and “I’ll Be Your Mirror,” “There She Goes,” et al. really sound dated. Meanwhile, there are some occasions where the album gets very juvenile; not, I would argue, in terms of its racy subject matter (drugs, BDSM), but rather in its occasionally grating experimentation (the unlistenable “European Song” comes to mind). Ultimately, it’s an occasionally extraordinary album whose lasting influence doesn’t disguise some very real flaws.
9. Wolf Parade – Apologies to the Queen Mary (2005)
“Give me your eyes, I need sunshine” The second Canadian supergroup to grace this list in as many years, Wolf Parade is a collaboration between the spacey Spencer Krug (now fronting Sunset Rubdown) and the more rockist Dan Boeckner, who share vocals and songwriting duties between them. There are some consistent themes—notably a very Thom Yorkey alienation from modernization—but the real pleasures in the album come when you see the two leads’ sensibilities meshing into something altogether better than what they are apart. There are plenty of examples, but the best are “Shine a Light,” a Boeckner piece that’s vastly improved by Krug’s backing vocals and accompanying synth, and “I’ll Believe in Anything,” a tremendously powerful Krug song that simply wouldn’t be the same without Boeckner’s driving guitar. Taken separately, Boeckner’s work is generally too straightforward and Krug’s too unfocused to be of any lasting interest; taken together, they make for something that’s consistently good and sometimes transcendent.
8. Andrew Bird – Noble Beast (2009)
“Comes—and—goes” We got another strong effort from Andrew Bird this year, which has become something of a biennial tradition. The story on Bird has been that he’s eclectic, like David Bowie but with a violin instead of a saxophone and hipsterism instead of freaky-deekiness; this is a theory I used to buy into, and there’s an obvious disconnect between the two halves of his career. What we didn’t realize at the time, however, was that his occasional tweaks (guitar on Armchair Apocrypha! Less whistling! More whistling!) haven’t been very substantive changes at all, and that the essential Bird formula of wordplay, pop sensibility, and use of untraditional rock instruments/sampling has remained intact ever since Weather Systems.
Taking that into account, Noble Beast is simultaneously satisfying and disappointing. On the one hand, we’ve got Bird’s best album yet, depending on how you feel about The Swimming Hour, featuring him at both his most inventive (“Anonanimal”) and sonically gorgeous (“Natural Disaster” is one of several contenders). On the other hand, it’s not the radical step forward that we all expected after The Mysterious Production of Eggs, and as Bird continues to put out albums like this, those expectations grow ever more muted.
7. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009)
“We’ll feel sublime”I don’t know if I’ve ever heard such an incredible disparity between the complexity of an album’s music and the simplicity of its lyrics. And those lyrics—the only thing keeping this album from climbing higher on the list—range from good (“Summertime Clothes”) to serviceable (“My Girls”) to abjectly poor (“Daily Routine”). Meanwhile the soaring vocals, thumping beats, and creative sampling combine to form something that’s both unique and uniquely delightful. The bridge in the very sweet “Brother Sport,” for instance, is like injecting cotton candy-flavored adrenaline into your eyeballs, or like tattoos of the word “COCAINE!” suddenly appearing on your chest in all the colors of the rainbow. I know I’m the only one who doesn’t consider AC a part of the indie pantheon, but I think that if their lyricism ever starts to rival their musical creativity (a la TV on the Radio) they’ll be first-ballot. We’re looking for all-around game, folks, all-around game.
6. Radiohead – In Rainbows (2007)
“How come I end up where I started?”Hail to the Thief was trumpeted as Radiohead’s return to their more traditional rock orientation after Kid A; even accepting that premise (and I’m not sure that I do), In Rainbows stands as a much more complete synthesis of 90’s Radiohead and 00’s Radiohead. Like every Radiohead album, it’s remarkably consistent, although some songs, like the incredible “Videotape,” benefit from having above-average lyrics for a band that doesn’t seem as committed to that aspect of songwriting as it used to be. Generally speaking, In Rainbows offers most of Radiohead’s old signatures (anxiety about modernization, Thom Yorke’s fabulous vocals, great work on lead guitar and synthesizers from the Greenwoods) combined with the experimentalism and impeccable production of Kid A. It’s no surprise, then, that it’s such a good album; it may suffer from a lack of singularly great tracks (it’s not OK Computer, after all), but it’s another solid effort from the best band of our generation.
5. TV on the Radio – Young Liars EP (2003)
“I will be calmer than cream, making maps out of your dreams”I’ve said in the past that when I listen to jazz, it’s like hearing people speaking beautifully in a language I can’t quite understand; I can certainly appreciate the mood of the conversation, but the nuances are beyond me. Some musicians, like Charles Mingus, have a passion or a wit that’s too strong to be ignored, and they convey a depth of emotion that you really can’t miss. Which brings us to TVOTR’s Young Liars EP; even though it’s occasionally obtuse to the point of being enigmatic, it has the unmistakable power that’s come to define TVOTR’s sound. Each track—from the irresistible opener “Satellite,” to the churning title track, to the brilliant doo-wop cover of “Mister Grieves”—would be a highlight on any other album, and together they constitute TVOTR’s most consistent piece of work, which, coming from a devotee, is no small compliment. Per tradition, however, EPs are secondary citizens on these lists, and even one as good as Young Liars won’t get past fifth.
4. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago (2008)
“This is not the sound of a new man, or crispy realization”If you could generate power off of misery, these next three albums could fuel a small island nation for the remainder of the century.
Some people, when they’re reeling from heartache, will watch Friends reruns and obsess over the ongoing Sam and Diane-ing of the zany but loveable roommates. Some people will shoot heroin and listen to Bitches Brew. If you’re like me, you try to work in a little of both. If you’re like Justin Vernon, you go into the woods for three months and write an unspeakably beautiful break-up album that combines love songs with pastoral elegies. There’s just so much to recommend in the album: it’s simultaneously gorgeous and heartbreaking, straightforward and multifaceted, subtle and powerful. The only real flaw in For Emma is that while it’s nothing if not consistent, its peaks (“Skinny Love” and the title track) give rise to expectations that are greater than the rest of the album can possibly live up to.
3. Modest Mouse – The Moon and Antarctica (2000)
“If you could be anything you’d be disappointed, am I right?”The constant in The Moon and Antarctica is, as with For Emma and I See a Darkness, its unrelenting bleakness, its focus on isolation, meaninglessness, and shame. Just about everything else is inconsistent, leading to a few forgettable tracks, particularly a dragging third act that makes the album seem even longer than it already is. But those songs that manage to do more than take advantage of Isaac Brock’s trembling voice, snaking guitars, and clever lyrics? The ones that convey a level of emotional vulnerability and honesty that only one or two albums, in my experience, can really match? Those are the songs that reinforced a legion of You Sold Outers created by The Lonesome Crowded West. They’re songs that entrance you with tiny, bitter flames that create something truly unforgettable when they flare up.
2. Bonnie “Prince” Billy – I See A Darkness (1999)
“Smile a while, forget the bile, and watch it all come down”Imagine, then, an album that combined the consistency of For Emma and the emotional impact of Moon, and you’d get I See a Darkness. Will Oldham (the bonnie prince himself) inherits country music’s paradoxical values of stoicism and misery, and the result is a very subdued album. The impact is all the greater, then, when Oldham’s emotions peak through his web of hazy lyrics and hushed vocals, and we hear the seething emotion underneath. Nowhere is this more evident than the title track and “Nomadic Revery (All Around),” the latter of which inspired, however subconsciously, the theme of that nonfiction essay I wrote. It took me a very long time to understand both the surface meaning of each song and the tragic undercurrent beneath them; the result I’ve discovered is, I think, the perfect synthesis of Justin Vernon and Isaac Brock’s approaches to these fundamental themes of grief and solitude. We may live in a world where our closest friends are sometimes only “someone nice to hide” us, but there’s no reason we can’t embrace its beauty and defy its ugliness.
1. Talking Heads – Remain in Light (1980)
“I’m walking a line—divide and dissolve”I’ve talked at length about Remain in Light already, but if it’s not my favorite album (In the Aeroplane Over the Sea and Return to Cookie Mountain are certainly in the conversation) then it’s awfully close. I’ve never really heard anything else quite like it—I can’t think of a harder album to imitate—which might be why it still sounds so fresh after 30 years. It’s either that or the inventive and endlessly funky rhythms, the poignant lyrics, or that Remain in Light is the lasting testament of a great band at the very height of its powers.
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