I like to write a blog post at the end of each year to sum up what happened during the year and how i felt about it. This year has been a huge one, however, and it’s also the end of a pretty significant decade, so i’m breaking my post up into multiple parts. To kick things off, let’s talk about music.
I acquired about twenty albums this year, and i think it’s worth mentioning that i only stole a handful of them. That’s right, i actually purchased most of the albums i’ll be talking about here. Not that i really think it matters, but it’ll make my mom happy. 
I started the year off by buying We Started Nothing by The Ting Tings, and that’s a reflection of the sort of tunes i listened to all year long. Very dance-y, high-energy stuff with just a few exceptions, including last year’s old-west-flavored Fleet Foxes and nineties-alt-punk-y Girl In A Coma, whom i was delighted to discover at the 80/35 festival this summer. I decided to buy their older album, Both Before I’m Gone, but i hope to also acquire their 2009 release soon.
Other indie/dance albums i enjoyed in 2009 include: Fantasies by Metric, Manners by Passion Pit, Miike Snow’s self-titled album which is very good, Phoenix’s very popular Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix which, in my opinion, is rather overrated as a whole, and probably my favorite album of the year: It’s Blitz! by Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Many an impromptu kitchen dance party was inspired by each of these albums, but i think It’s Blitz! entertained us the most. We also streamed a lot of La Roux and Lady Gaga for a while, but i never actually got the albums. Poker Face really started to grate on my nerves after a while.
Another album i’d stick in the same genre is The Rhumb Line by Ra Ra Riot. I love this album, and i spent half the year thinking it was an ’09 release, so i’m mentioning it in this post despite the fact that it was actually released in ’08. It’s such fun, and you’ve gotta love a rock band that includes a cello and violin on (i think) every track.
Ursa Major by Third Eye Blind has been growing on me steadily. It’s a pretty sad album, though, and these days i prefer to listen to happier music. Swoon by Silversun Pickups just wasn’t as good as Carnavas. The Resistance by Muse got a lot of people excited, but not me. I’ve listened to it a few times and it just never really grabbed me. The New Moon soundtrack, on the other hand… I can’t stop listening to it. It’s fantastic. And i wouldn’t be ashamed of that fact if it weren’t for the utter scorn that half of my friends feel toward anything and anyone associated with the Twilight Saga. But more on that in the Movies post.
Some older albums that i got this year include: Third by Portishead, which i didn’t think lived up to all the hype even though “Machine Gun” is a really great track, Red Letter Year by Ani DiFranco which disappointed me pretty thoroughly, The Con which is a good solid Tegan & Sara album, The Shepherd’s Dog by Iron & Wine who never really makes a bad album, Neon Bible by the Arcade Fire for whom i discovered a whole new appreciation and a bunch of Ryan Adams albums which i find quite enjoyable.
So, to wrap up, here are a couple of lists:
Steph’s favorite albums of the year:
- It’s Blitz! by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
- The Rhumb Line by Ra Ra Riot (yeah, 2008, whatever.)
- The New Moon Soundtrack
- Miike Snow by Miike Snow
Steph’s favorite tracks of the year:
- “Sleepy Head” by Passion Pit
- “1909″ by Phoenix
- “Zero” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
- “Silvia” by Miike Snow
Have yourself a little dance party.
Since this is also the end of a decade, i’d like to crown Coldplay as the band of the aughts. A lot of my favorite bands hit their peak back in the nineties – Third Eye Blind, The Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead (this is arguable), Bjork, and Ani DiFranco to name a few. But Coldplay released their first album, Parachutes, in 2000. Since then, we’ve watched them go from little-known newbies to one of the biggest bands in the world, and with good reason. They’ve released four studio albums and two live albums in that time. I’ve seen them in concert twice, and it was one of the best shows i’ve seen. Of all that they’ve accomplished, though, Parachutes is still my favorite piece of Coldplay work, and it’s also my favorite album of this decade. If you don’t own it, i think you should.
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 1:37 pm • music
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December 31st, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Metric >> all
September 17th, 2010 at 8:17 am
[...] believe i wrote last year about how much i loved Ra Ra Riot’s 2008 album The Rhumb Line. It’s truly a great work, so i was very excited to hear that the band would be [...]