It has come to my attention that 2009 has ended. If I'm going to get this done at all it needs to be now, I guess.
It turns out to be a good thing that I waited until now, though. Until yesterday I had decided to leave my number 1 slot blank as a way of expressing my disappointment with 2009. I thought there had been nothing that thoroughly moved me, or that I played compulsively, or that played itself in my head. Nothing seemed to have the quality and stature of a Highway 61 Revisited, or Born to Run, or The Joshua Tree. In fact, nothing seemed to occupy securely the rank below them, either.
Then I downloaded Hospice by The Antlers from eMusic. I am finally fully satisfied: this is what I was missing. It is the story of the grief, anger and eventual death of a woman with cancer, of her involvement with a health care worker, and of his grief after her death. Not light stuff, but it's handled with insight and honesty. The NPR video linked to below shows that in concert these heartbreakingly intimate songs can be vehicles for powerful, thundering majesty, too, even though there are only three musicians performing them.
Let me say something about the absence here of an album that has been rated number 1 all over, like on Pitchfork, eMusic, The Hype Machine, and Tiny Mix Tapes, and probably elsewhere, too. That's Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective. I've listened to it repeatedly, and I have to admit it's upgraded my opinion of the band. I've gone from despising them to being neutral about them. That still doesn't earn this album a place on my Best of list. Maybe this is a generational thing, but to me it sounds like a muddled, formless mess.
Here, then, is my list. There are links to a review of the album and the performer's site for the first several items. I sort of ran out of steam, but I may come back and add more links later. There are a lot of honorable mentions, and two set off at the end because live albums and cover albums are special, problematic cases. The farther down the list you go, the more the relative ranking becomes approximate. It may all seem idiosyncratic to you, but it is after all my list, not yours!
1. Hospice - Antlers videos: Two NPR concert excerpt (20 minutes long, but really great)
2. The Crying Light - Antony and the Johnsons videos Another World Daylight and the Sun
3. The Liberty of Norton Folgate - Madness videos: The Liberty of... Clerkenwell Polka
4. Middle Cyclone - Neko Case video: This Tornado Loves You
5. xx - The xx video: Crystalised
6. Tres Tres Fort - Staff Benda Bilili (select "Read Full Biography") video: Na Lingui Yo
7. Noble Beast - Andrew Bird video: Anonanimal
8. Monsters of Folk - Monsters of Folk video: Temazcal
9. Together Through Life - Bob Dylan video:Jolene
10. Hold Time - M. Ward video: Rave On (feat. Zooey Deschanel)
11. The Mountain - Heartless Bastards video: The Mountain
12. Get Guilty - A.C. Newman video: Like a Hitman, Like a Dancer
13. Blue Lights on the Runway - Bell X1 video: The Great Defector
14. It's Blitz - Yeah Yeah Yeahs video: Zero
15. Rainwater Cassette Exchange - Deerhunter
16. The Hazards of Love - Decemberists
17. Sigh No More - Mumford & Sons
18. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix - Phoenix
19. Grrr… - Bishop Allen
20. Hombre Lobo - Eels
March of the Zapotec / Realpeople Holland - Beirut
I'm Going Away - Fiery Furnaces
Touchdown - Brakes
Veckatimest - Grizzly Bear
Yonder Is the Clock - Felice Brothers
1372 Overton Park - Lucero
Floodplain - Kronos Quartet
Forget the Night Ahead - Twilight Sad
Keep It Hid - Dan Auerbach
Living Thing - Peter Bjorn & John
Born on Flag Day - Deer Tick
So Cow - So Cow
Now We Can See - Thermals
Spinnerette - Spinnerette
Untitled #23 - Church
White Lies For Dark Times - Ben Harper and Relentless7
The Last Pale Light In The West - Ben Nichols
Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl - Van Morrison
Play Some Pool - Wave Pictures
