The Top 20 Records of 2009: 11 to 1! (Part 2!)

11. Mariachi El Bronx - Mariachi El Bronx


The best punk rockers on an album this year is this mariachi record. Wait, what? LA-based The Bronx take a detour from putting out a lot of fun but dark rock for an extremely upbeat and almost serene mariachi record. After the surreality of the work is settled, there is a lot of fun to be had. Vocalist Matt Caughthran has to earn credit for going from his trademark yelping to reveal a very solid singing voice. Listen to "Litigation" for some serious happiness, or listen to a couple of songs to understand the pure fun of this record.

10. The XX - XX


While it would seem like sex's taboo and the success of rock through the ages is viewing sex as a mechanical response, art has had a longer history of sex as emotion. All too often, the art is minimalist, as is the case of Japanese poet Ono no Komachi's poem "Autumn Nights." "Autumn Nights" refers to a one night stand that merely ends. Her work, in a few stark lines, occupies both the passion and emotion of eroticism, as well as the mechanical emptiness it underlies.

She seems to have kindred spirits in the strangest of places in Londoners The XX. All of XX is purposefully empty. There's a lot going on underneath the periods of silence throughout the record, including possible periods of warmth on album standouts like "Heart Skipped A Beat." The warmth of the human touch is evident on "Shelter," which says so much in female co-vocalist Romy Croft's asking, "Can I make it better, with the lights turned on?" And once again, emptiness plays a part in even that. Croft's vocals belie a sense of desperation to make this work for longer than a night, to not merely be an act of spontaneity. But by the end, it just doesn't work out. The spontaneous and the rational are not entirely the best of friends.

9. Andrew Bird - Noble Beast


It is hard for me to pinpoint why Andrew Bird's cooing tunes are fascinating, but not quite perfect, although I've attempted to do it before. The Chicago multi-instrumentalist is the only man ever who makes the whistle into a non-annoying instrument, but that statement doesn't really do justice to his music. Neither does noting that he graduated as a music major in college, although his love of the violin does add to the easy beauty of Noble Beast.

Maybe it is the wordplay of Mr. Bird, although, he entirely forgoes trying to interpret what exactly he is doing with his words. I interviewed Andrew Bird for a piece I worked on in September, and he noted (in a line that I stupidly did not include), "Words are just sounds we make with our mouths." Even way out of context, it sounds like he really just loves the verbiage he makes because it sounds good, and that the language he, I, and you use is ultimately not the point. He loves reading, he loves words, but the meaning is a little useless after a while. A fair point, and a fine reason that would describe the lack of verbalizing one could do here. The music's just really great. Nothing more is needed.

8. St. Vincent - Actor


Annie Clark's spontaneous insanity is inspiring and unattainable. The multi-instrumentalist who plays under the pseudonym of St. Vincent just runs on spontaneity in the creation of her music, which is evident from a listen to "Your Lips Are Red" from 2007's Marry Me. In the song, she throws in an amazing horn section and some lovely guitar noodling that progressively gets more chaotic. Actor does this trick at least once on "Marrow" and it still works. Clark is a musical charmer, coercing a lot of fresh energy from her thin frame and making herself the most intriguing female musician to watch since Karen O.

There's also the genius of making a soundtrack to a movie that doesn't exist. Not only that, the album itself is an all over the place narrative that is not quite clear, but fascinating. Songs like "The Bed" and "The Party" are fun narratives on mystery and detail further supplanted with appropriately moving music. And because of this, the narratives and the album are both somehow more beautiful in the process. Something is clearly ticking in Annie Clark's head, and all that comes out of it is just gorgeous to listen to.

7. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest


It is kind of redundant to say that Grizzly Bear had a big year, if you pay attention to the internet in any way, shape or form. Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest shocked many with a top ten debut on the Billboard album charts upon its release in June, similar to the breakout success of Neon Bible in 2007. And it likely won't impress the indie genre's naysayers as far as it being a soft, not totally knockout album on first listen. However, this is an amazing album to digest. It is more accessible than the previous record, Yellow House, but that doesn't mean it is totally easy to understand.

After a few listens, the record actually gets hypnotic to its listener, though. Veckatimest has the amazing "While You Wait For the Others" on its tracklist. It says a lot that the same words can be sung in the low-key tone of vocalist Ed Droste and in the showy voice of Michael McDonald (who seriously sings the whole song on the single) and the message is just as haunting in either form. This is the hallmark of a great song on a great album. "I Live With You" is haunting in technicolor. "Two Weeks" is haunting and fun (and the closest to a pop hook here). "Southern Point" is haunting and continuous. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

6. Neko Case - Middle Cyclone


After being in the best collective of the decade, and making some of the finest songs of the decade, Neko was pretty well set to coast through the rest of the decade. So naturally, the redhead's Middle Cyclone might be the best complete work she's ever done, and there is no sign of coasting at all. The alt-country titan makes more evocative songs that just feel organic. And her voice lets a weight carry on every word. She lets words like "I dragged the clanging notion I was nobody" hang in the air with just the right amount of impact. She is not too light, not too heavy, and the Virginian knows how to belt a chord and weave a folk tale.

5. Lily Allen - It's Not Me, It's You


Pop music sucks. It always does. It always comes to a point to where it always sounds trite (even if most music is written without the lyricist's feelings in mind because most people cannot relate to millionaires). And yet it is always impressive when pop music feels personal and accomplished, as well as pretty damn fun to listen to. Lily Allen's followup to the very cute Alright Still is just this. It's Not Me, It's You sounds like a dance hall record made by a personal spirit. It purposefully undercuts its mechanical exterior for a person who maybe wants to admit that she likes relationships for the sex, and without it, she's pretty disappointed. ("Not Fair") She dissects the famous pop stars around her while analyzing her own self in the process in a meta fashion. ("The Fear") She didn't like President Bush. ("F-ck You")

The dance hall success could be attributed to going for more of a sound akin to Ladyhawke, who made one of the best pop albums of last year simply by being awesome in her first four tracks. And obviously, Allen's bite is still there. She is a perfect pop contradiction. In a genre where less and less of the job of the artist is to be naked and exposed, Allen's willing to admit that she's a screwup, and that she is awesome because of it. Bravo.

4. Raekwon - Only Built for Cuban Linx, Part II


Rap music sucks. It always finds a way to embrace everything idiotic and ignore the intelligence of its parts, and it has seemingly lost its way in figuring out intriguing narratives that truly breathe on wax and only on wax. The mainstream embraces swag and the garbled language of a Lil' Wayne while it nearly forgot the greatness of Wu Tang. In 2009, Raekwon created one of the tightest narratives in hip-hop, a street story that cannot be emulated in any other genre. It might be a bit too much of a takeoff of Clipse's Hell Hath No Fury and its stream of consciousness drug narrative (which was inspired from the first Only Built for Cuban Linx), but Raekwon is on point throughout Cuban Linx.

The detail is not skimped on, either. Ghostface Killah makes many appearances throughout Cuban Linx, including an appearance on "Gihad" where he describes fellatio with the same amount of gusto that most would give to writing a novel. And it isn't done with a bit of change in vocal tone or a child-like excitement to it, either. (This is similar to Raekwon's appearance on Blakroc, where he says "I'm ready to come, she lookin' at me with a relevant stare" with the same amount of lazy admittance. He is unphased by anything, including sex with a woman.) He revels in concepts like re-doing the Wu Tang Clan, robbing the neighborhood, bagging crack, and creating "black Mozart shit" with the same type of calm. All of the cameos on Cuban Linx have a link to old school Wu, and everyone, even the more obscure Inspectah Deck, is totally on point. Maybe Raekwon just knew he would make the best rap record of 2009.

3. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion


After the trippy pop Panda Bear created on his 2007 solo masterpiece, Person Pitch, the growing cult of Animal Collective continued to escalate. After under-the-radar releases like Sung Tongs and Feels, the attention elicited to Strawberry Jam, Water Curses, and their 2009 release Merriweather Post Pavilion showed a night-and-day reaction upon release. Merriweather has already been hailed a classic by the internet. I doubt it, but I don't deny that this is one of the most unexpected releases of the year. Much like the guys in Grizzly Bear, Panda Bear is a shocking pop tunesmith. (If "I just want four walls and adobe slats for my girls" isn't the accidental hook of the year, I'm dying to know what is.)

I doubted its goodness, too. I hated this record on first listen. I didn't understand its noise. But naturally, it is really awesome. Much like the silly (but trippy) cover art, it is entirely meant for a specific appreciation at certain points. "Daily Routine" is going to catch you off guard, and so is "In The Flowers." It will be danceable, and it will be shockingly great.

2. Art Brut - Art Brut vs. Satan


Eddie Argos is probably my favorite person on the music scene right now, and it is probably hard to describe why. To simply say that he is an earnest musician is under-cutting his impact. To say that he is completely spontaneous is not entirely true; a lot of his mannerisms and stage banter is clearly thought about in advance. But I figured out what it was: He is the musician who seems completely awesome and of a different plain, but naturally he is truly just a guy. He doesn't try to pretend that he is an amazing tunesmith and just thinks what he says. Everything he writes down on paper seems like a legitimate concern on the day it was written and is representative of that day alone. Bang Bang Rock and Roll revels in a brash young attitude, It's A Bit Complicated pries through the paranoia of life going right, and Art Brut vs. Satan replenishes the man-child persona and glee of Eddie's voice. He hates science museum rock, but dreams of the day that ART BRUT will defeat Satan. He doesn't like the glut of Brian Eno-produced work because it is repetitive, but he offers to bang it out within a couple of days, faults and all adding to the charm. And he gets Frank Black to produce it all! How is this not one of the best records of the year solely based on the happiness of it all!?

1. Vivian Girls - Everything Goes Wrong


Innocence is always fleeting. The concept of innocence involves a certain degree of ignorance about the world around you. Obviously, we do not entirely have the rationale of children in our present lives (or do not have the exuberance of children at least, even if our behavior still exhibits immaturity). And the saddest moment of life is probably the loss of innocence.

The Vivian Girls' self-titled debut is entirely designed in a world of innocence. With the rush of garage rock splintering the ears, the soft female touch belies the happiness of youth, of first romance, and of the impending doom to come when the rush of happy emotion is shattered. Everything Goes Wrong is the embodiment of the shattered youth. Loneliness, nervousness, and tears rush in instead. "Walking Alone at Night" is the opening track and "Before I Start to Cry" is the closing track. None of these songs are happy, and yet still flow with rushed spirits. Excluding an amazing breakdown for "Tension," the album blitzes from track to track, and things feel the same as before. The music sounds almost exactly alike to the debut. However, something is different about the girls. They never really change, they will always be the same people, but the world that they know is lost to them. Their first brush with the sadness of real emotion does make them change, or at least see that the innocence is gone.