Best of 2009

I mentioned end of decade reviews in my last post and promised I wouldn't do something similar. However, I didn't say anything about end of year reviews...

In no particular order (this is just the way they ended up on the playlist) I'd happily lay my knackers on the line and say these were the best ten songs of 2009. Some have trod the boards on a number of these lists, others haven't. Give them a go - the albums they're from are all excellent too.

1. Two - The Antlers: Concept albums are generally a bad idea, a hangover from the three day drum solos of prog past. A concept about a terminal illness is something even the most hardened proggers would've thought was perhaps a shade too far into the ether. However, on Hospice, The Antlers have created something emotionally and aurally breathtaking, and Two is the high point (low point?) of the record.
2. Super Trouper - Camera Obscura: Before I say anything else I have to admit that has always been my favourite ABBA song from when I first heard as a child to the present day (hell, as I write this sentence I've got the video for the original open in another window and I'm in awe of the wooly cardies). As a kid I think it was the "soopapa troopapa" backing vocals that drew me to song. Camera Obscura's version is a lot more downbeat with nary a soopapa in sight but it sounds epically world weary.
3. Winter Winds - Mumford & Sons: Despite sounding like a removal company, Mumford & Sons were responsible for one of 2009's best albums. It kept me sane on many a tedious bus journey into work and for that alone I'll always be grateful.
4. The Lisbon Maru - Fuck Buttons: The Lisbon Maru was a Japanese troop carrier sunk by American forces off Shanghai in 1942. Unbeknownst to the submarine that attacked the ship it was carrying over 1800 Allied POWs at the time and only 750 survived. I knew none of this the first time I heard this song and I'm not going to claim that it acts as a fitting memorial or captures the feelings of those involved. It is simply one of the most affecting pieces of instrumental music I've ever heard.
5. We Want War - These New Puritans: Given the story behind the title of the previous song I'm thinking I should've put more thought into the running order of this top ten. Musically they do follow on from each other I think. We Want War was probably the strangest thing I'd heard in a while and it does sound like it'd be the first choice on the Four Horsemen's playlist - Apocalypse Now (sorry, I should be shot for that).
6. Moon Occults the Sun - Espers: Spectral baroque folk? Ghost blues? Morose rock? Doesn't really matter what people want to call it when it's this good and this unique. I prefer to think of it as the music I would play to misguided Emos in an attempt to demonstrate that there's significantly more to making emotionally engaging music that Kohl pencil and "woe is me" songwriting.
7. Nearly Home - Broken Records: I wrote about Broken Records before when I saw them supporting The National back in summer. Seven months later and the album's still going strong. "Build it all over and start again" - wise words.
8. Summertime Clothes - Animal Collective: Just as well this lot have been such a big hit online as the amount of coverage they've had over the past few months would've decimated several rainforests. This song's ace, 'nuff said.
9. Love Vigilantes - Iron & Wine: Lots of songs get covered and the majority are insipid or uninspired versions, usually knocked out by some TV talent show winner or jaded star trying to get their career back on track. Not all of them though. The best covers usually take a song you thought you knew inside out and show it to you in a completely different light. I'm not sure I've heard this done so effectively as Sam Beam does it here.
10. Arming Eritrea - Future of the Left: FOTL are a band who are pretty much guaranteed to get into a Top Ten playlist I put together provided they release something that year. What's not to like - visceral rage, mad lyrics that somehow make sense and excellent sideburns. Let's get them to number one next Christmas.

And that's that. Same time, same place January 2011?