December 2009
72 posts
1 tag
D-A-N-C-E: Playlist
Click here: D-A-N-C-E
In order to spruce up your NYE parties a little bit, here’s a playlist entirely devoted to dancing the night away. Themey goodness.
5 tags
Radiohead - In Rainbows →
Best Albums of the Decade: #1.
A record that defined the decade in more than one way, In Rainbows will be remembered for its pay-what-you-like model but it should be remembered for so much more. A fitting cap to Radiohead’s decade, the production, song-writing and music are almost flawless on In Rainbows as Thom Yorke & co. effortlessly blend their experimental edge with a more...
5 tags
Arcade Fire - Funeral →
Best Albums of the Decade: #2.
When this first came out at the beginning of 2005 I remember burning copies for all of my musically-inclined friends (sshh… don’t tell the RIAA) and telling them enthusiastically about how this was the best debut album ever and quite probably the best album of the century. They’d look at me sceptically and put the CD in their pockets. And then...
4 tags
LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver →
Best Albums of the Decade: #3.
Whilst James Murphy burst onto the mainstream scene with the self-titled LCD Soundsystem album, it is with Sound Of Silver that he really refined the sound into a full album of perfect indie-dance gems. From the funky opener Get Innocuous! to the more sombre New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down this album is packed full of pop culture references,...
5 tags
The Shins - Oh! Inverted World →
Best Albums of the Decade: #4.
Now forever known for Natalie Portman’s recommendation in Garden State, The Shins debut album, Oh! Inverted World, is a wonderful slice of dreamy indie pop, making it sound like the last 40 years of music never happened and yet it doesn’t even matter.
(Not on Spotify yet)
6 tags
Radiohead - Kid A →
Best Albums of the Decade: #5.
Kid A came like a lightning bolt out of nowhere in 2001 with no promotion or singles and provided the perfect antithesis to all the strutting, shallow guitar-rock being pushed by the NME at the time. A bold step into the experimental world, this marks the point where Radiohead were more than just a great rock band and became pioneers. Really a double album with...
1 tag
Best Albums of 2009: The Playlist
Click here: hotspotmusic - Top 25 of 2009
Featuring 22 of the Top 25 Albums of 2009 as published by hotspotmusic in the Christmas Countdown.
Alternatively, check out the extended mix featuring 100 of my favourite tracks from the last year and rate the playlist (for an end-of-year competition) on sharemyplaylists here: http://sharemyplaylists.com/hotspotmusic-top-tracks-2009/
5 tags
Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca →
Best Albums of 2009: #1.
Best Albums of the Decade: #6.
And finally we have a result! For me, this Dirty Projectors album is an absolute masterpiece. Theatrical arrangement, lyrical trickery, layers of lush instrumentation and alternating vocals this record sets a new blueprint for pop music at just the point when it seemed like the album was dying. I’m surprised to see it not topping...
5 tags
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot →
Best Albums of the Decade: #7.
Stepping away from their more traditional alt.country sound, Wilco recorded Yankee Hotel Foxtrot at the beginning of the decade with producer Jim O’Rourke. After an agonising process, the resulting record is one of those albums that has so much complexity and heartbreak to it, you keep on going back to it time and time again. Easily their best work and one...
5 tags
Sufjan Stevens - Songs For Christmas →
Now that Santa has delivered his payload and you are currently passing out from family overload or a turkey-based heart-attack, perhaps it would be a good time to stick on some soothing music. Sick of all the schmalzy, Christmassy elevator music and need to prove you’re still indie enough without wanting to be a Grinch? Stick some Sufjan on the stereo and enjoy the remaining mince pies.
4 tags
The White Stripes - White Blood Cells →
Best Albums of the Decade: #8.
It’s hard to a remember a time before Jack White was the undisputed king of pretty much anything guitar based. White Blood Cells came crashing onto the scene in 2001 and ripped out any semblance of faddishness in the so-called New Rock Revolution with its powerful, bluesy garage rock full of magical riffs and distinctive hooks. Including his work as a...
7 tags
Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion →
Best Albums of the Decade: #9.
Best Albums of 2009: #2.
Putting this on the best of the decade chart before the best of 2009 might give you a clue as to what’s left to come in that one but this album, on repeated listens, is fully deserving of its place at the top end of both. Schizophrenic, joyous, disruptive, cryptic, hallucinogenic, danceable and downright fun, this builds strongly...
4 tags
Sparklehorse & Danger Mouse - Dark Night Of The... →
Best Albums of 2009: #3.
Whilst this never got an official release (after a dispute between Danger Mouse and his record label EMI), the album was widely available on torrent sites and streaming on music blogs (such as NPR). You could even buy a blank CD from his website that just happened to come with artwork created by David Lynch. Despite the controversy, it’s lucky for us all that this...
5 tags
Hot Chip - The Warning →
Best Albums of the Decade: #10.
Over and Over and Over and Over… like a monkey with a brand new CD. This Hot Chip record marked their arrival on the mainstream scene with a great slice of danceable, clever indie music.
5 tags
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - The Pains Of... →
Best Albums of 2009: #4.
Jesus & Mary Chain meets My Bloody Valentine meets Teenage Fanclub meets a nice warm sunny day in Spring meets rocking out after dark in New York City
5 tags
Manu Chao - Radio Bemba Sound System →
Best Albums of the Decade: #11.
Manu Chao’s live show is probably the most fun concert I’ve ever been to (so much so that I ended up going two nights in a row and then praying, unsuccussfully, that he’d come to Barcelona to repeat it again sometime soon). This record manages to capture the majesty and chaos of the performance and might well be my favourite live album of all...
4 tags
The Strokes - Is This It →
Best Albums of the Decade: #12.
Yes.
5 tags
Bill Callahan - Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle →
Best Albums of 2009: #6.
Bill Callahan’s brooding voice has such gravitas and effect that he could be singing the theme tune to Spongebob Squarepants and it would still sound like an emotionally wrought, dark and profound song. On Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle, he continues his move away from the lo-fi ethos of Smog and seems to add an entire orchestra to some tracks. The result is a...
7 tags
Elliott Smith - Figure 8 →
Best Albums of the Decade: #13.
Ten years is a long, long time… so much so that I had completely discounted the earlier Elliott Smith albums from this countdown. However, after spotting this in another end-of-decade-list it had to find a place somewhere. Probably the apex of his work, only three years before his sad death, Figure 8 deserves its place in the list with his distinctive,...
4 tags
Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest →
Best Albums of 2009: #7.
The song ‘Two Weeks’ is good enough on its own to earn Grizzly Bear a spot in the top ten this year but the strangely named Veckatimest earns the spot throughout. It is produced almost to perfection and is full of bold, curious and mysterious songs that capture the imagination and takes your subconscious on a fantastical joyride.
(Not yet on Spotify)
6 tags
The Feelies - The Good Earth →
A re-release of their 1986 second album, a follow-up to one of the most under-rated but most important post-punk albums of all times, Crazy Rhythms, The Good Earth arrived this year re-packaged with bonus goodies just in time for Xmas. With Peter Buck on the production desk, the sound moves away from jaggedness towards jangliness and loses a little along the way. However, it still remains worth...
6 tags
Panda Bear - Person Pitch →
Best Albums of the Decade: #14.
Noah Lennox, one third of Animal Collective, released his third solo album in 2007, a sprawling cornucopia of droning sounds, wispy loops and melodic, layered harmonies. Every listen to this album reveals something new, a different influence, a new instrument, a twisted meaning.
(Not on Spotify yet)
5 tags
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz →
Best Albums of 2009: #8.
Never a band to give you just what you’re expecting, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs flip the record once again to a more dance-oriented sound and in the process create one of the years most beguiling yet addictive albums.
7 tags
Deer Tick - More Fuel For The Fire EP →
Probably my favourite act from Primavera Club last week, Deer Tick put on an incredible live show, mixing their rootsy americana with a real will to rock. Here’s a new EP, including one live track, which apparently is out in 2010. Hotspotmusic loves sleuthing.
4 tags
Hefner - We Love The City →
Best Albums of the Decade: #15.
Hefner’s turn-of-the-millennium magnum opus is a cynical homage to the deadbeat city we all know and love. Tales of discontent and disillusionment wrapped, as ever, in Darren Hayman’s bittersweet and humorous style. We love it all because sometimes, even though they’re hard to find, it contains all the virtues we lack.
5 tags
Afternoon Naps - Parade →
Nothing could be more fitting than a band called Afternoon Naps as we head into the festive season packed with post-Turkey-gorging, midday snoozing. Contrary to its name though, this album is full of summery, bouncy indie pop that won’t ever let you sleep through - in fact, I bet you’ll be up and dancing by the time track three comes on.
6 tags
Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The... →
Best Albums of the Decade: #16.
Out of the mire of Kevin Barnes’ personal depression, Hissing Fauna came truly out of leftfield. He used to write quirky songs about strange characters and those odd little moments in life. But this album diverges both lyrically, to a more sombre personal place, and musically, which is some of the most funky, uplifting tunes in Of Montreal’s catalogue.
5 tags
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Higher Than The... →
Not many bands can follow up one of the best albums of the year (and a debut album at that) with an EP of brand new material only months later. And the tracks on Higher Than The Stars arguably surpasses their eponymous first album with a much cleaner production revealing that, behind all the noise, hype and claims of over-influence, TPOBPAT are actually making some of the best indie pop music on...
5 tags
Brendan Benson - Lapalco →
Best Albums of the Decade: #17.
Contractual obligations caused a long hiatus between Benson’s first album, One Mississippi, and Lapalco but it was well worth the wait. Chocked full of solid gold power-pop songs this can be marked alongside Mass Romantic as one of those records that just always seems to sound like a good option. It’ll always be… good to me.
4 tags
Emmy The Great - First Love →
Best Albums of 2009: #11.
This is a really charming, folky album with little more than a single strumming guitar and Emma-Lee Moss’s voice, the fragile grace of which belies the sharpness of the stories she tells and the strength of her songs. For fans of Laura Marling wanting something equally awkward and hauntingly beautiful.
4 tags
The Rural Alberta Advantage - Hometowns →
Released on Saddle Creek Records in 2009, this would’ve made the Best of the Year list were it not for the fact that it was only a re-release after their self-promoted album became a deserved internet sensation in the latter part of 2008. This is an album of romanticised indie pop full of energy and bright ideas. Highly recommended.
4 tags
Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala →
Best Albums of the Decade: #18.
Whilst his early demos and EP collections showed Jens Lekman’s quirky, wry pop side, this album (released in 2007) is a grand opus of orchestral pop songs rich in sampley goodness with a tender, sweet inner centre. He brings to life the amusing, small stories in his own, grand emotional style.
4 tags
Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why There Are Mountains →
Best Albums of 2009: #12.
Playing in a small venue just off the Ramblas in Barcelona for Primavera Club 2009 this weekend, Cymbals Eat Guitars didn’t exactly fulfill expectations set by this album. Influenced by Pixies and Pavement, CEG’s debut record full of epic indie rock songs is, however, still very much worth a listen.
6 tags
Richard Swift – Ground Trouble Jaw EP →
Since 2005, Swift has been re-creating the sound of the 1950s and 60s in his lo-fi tributes to the era of tin pan alley pop. His unique alto delivery on this 5 track EP combined with the lo-fi, piano rhythms ensures that his perfect R&B songs can be enjoyed in their own right, not just as a pastiche to a bygone time.
4 tags
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell →
Best Albums of the Decade: #19.
Yeah Yeah Yeah’s particular brand of arty, garage punk is most at its most direct and powerful in this, their raw debut longplayer. One of the most original bands coming out of the post-Strokesian NYC scene their longevity has been a product of their inventiveness. Several classic tracks on this album.
5 tags
The Kabeedies - Rumpus →
A celebration of wild, shouty 2 minute indie pop songs. Trading boy-girl vocals over jaunty guitar rhythms, The Kabeedies can be bundled with their Norwich-based comrades, Bearsuit, and Los Campesinos!
6 tags
The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots →
Best Albums of the Decade: #20.
Together with their insanely fun live shows around this time, The Flaming Lips have to be one of the best bands of the decade. This album is probably the one that best balances their crazy experimental side and the side that just writes damn good pop songs. Do You Realize? is the epitome of this - a beautiful and bewildering song that has since become...
5 tags
Wilco - Wilco (The Album) →
Best Albums of 2009: #14.
Big bonus prize for Wilco. Not only did they finally release an eponymous LP but it’s also a cracker (back to a simple kind of rock album that they’d steered away from during the last few releases). And the cover art is absolutely genius (comparable only to Raditude)
4 tags
Telekinesis – Telekinesis! →
Great indie album full of your new favourite songs, Telekinesis promises to pick you up and magically transport you back to a time when things weren’t so complicated, when you could just sit in the basement and listen to rock and roll on your oversized headphones for hours on end.
5 tags
The Postal Service - Give Up →
Best Albums of the Decade: #21.
This is an album that I can always go back to and never feels old. If it was just an album of indietronica (a much under-utilised genre title in my opinion) songs, the fact that it was made by Ben Gibbard & Jimmy Tamborello trading cassettes over the, ahem, postal system would just be a novelty. But the songwriting remains strong on repeated listens and the...
5 tags
Kurt Vile - Childish Prodigy →
Another one playing in Primavera Club this week (along with his band the Violators), Kurt Vile plays traditional indie rock in the style of Springsteen with a lo-fi, atmospheric and almost vacant twist.
5 tags
The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree →
Best Albums of the Decade: #22.
John Darnielle is arguably the most prolific man in indie, releasing 12 albums in the last 10 years. Whilst his vocal style may be an acquired taste, the imagery he uses in his songs and the ability to tell a story within three and a half minutes is unparalleled. This is the most personal of all The Mountain Goats records and strikes an awkward and cathartic...
5 tags
Richard Hawley - Truelove's Gutter →
Best Albums of 2009: #16.
You can always rely on Sheffield’s finest (yes, that’s right Arctic Monkeys fans… the finest) to produce and this years Truelove’s Gutter is no exception. Full of his trademark lush production and perfect old-school pop songs, this is an album that grows on you like Araldite-enabled ivy.
5 tags
Little Joy - Little Joy →
Not quite hot off the press but merely temporarily revived for this weeks Primavera countdown, Little Joy is the side project of Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti. While containing the trademark sounds of NYC’s finest, the other band members are clearly able to influence as this record contains a more laidback, almost folky, album.
7 tags
Brian Wilson - Smile →
Best Albums of the Decade: #23.
Delayed for about 37 years, Brian Wilson’s long-forgotten opus, Smile, even manages to put Chinese Democracy to shame. When it was eventually revived, along with Wilson’s sanity, Smile showed the world exactly what it had missed with trademark Beach Boys harmonies juxtaposed with some tripped out arrangements and mysterious instrumentation (including...
6 tags
Slow Club - Yeah, So? →
Best Albums of 2009: #17.
Another ramshackle album of frantic guitars and sweet boy-girl vocals. Full of hooks that will be swimming around your head for days, witty wordplay and tales of love forever lost, forgotten or burned.
(Not on Spotify yet - a couple of random tracks to sample)
7 tags
Neon Indian – Psychic Chasms →
Soon after releasing a couple of tracks, Neon Indian became heavily hyped on blogs and this eventually translated into debut album: Psychic Chasms. A crazy 31 minutes of synth-laden, schizophrenic pop - this is what your screensaver would sound like if it rose up and went completely and utterly insane.
4 tags
Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights →
Best Albums of the Decade: #24.
Arriving in 2002, Interpol were grouped together with the rest of the ‘New Rock Revolution’ but never quite seemed to fit. Whilst a lot of the other bands were about the brash return of rock and roll, Interpol’s dark, brooding songs had more in common with Joy Division and Television and this first album is full of huge, atmospheric indie-rock...
4 tags
Various Artists - Worried Noodles →
This double CD began life as a collection of poems or lyrics for unwritten songs by pop artist David Shrigley. Eventually, he was encouraged to add the missing element and lined up a whole host of awesome bands to go wild on his lyrics (inc. Hot Chip, Grizzly Bear, David Byrne…). The result is Worried Noodles, a curious and fun compilation.
5 tags
Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker →
Best Albums of the Decade: #25.
It’s better to burn out than to fade away.
Never has a cliché been more deserved or more fitting for an artist than Ryan Adams who seems to be able to simultaneously burn out and fade away. His first album in 2000 was a beautiful, gut-wrenching slice of country music which quickly garnered him fame (in part thanks to Elton John’s recommendations). ...