2009

MUSIC

I had been thinking that 2009 was a pretty bad year for music. And while pound-for-pound that may be true, there were plenty of good things to hear. These were my 25 favorites.

25. Passion Pit - Manners I know this is annoying, but there's a lot of things I like about it.
24. The Horse's Ha - From The Cathmawr Yards - Open tuning acoustic stuff, like Kozelek or Nick Drake.
23. The Meat Puppets - Sewn Together This is so clean. Whichever Kirkwood sings has one of the best voices.
22. Ducktails - Landscapes Not much different from all the other Not Not Fun lo-fi cassette stuff, but I've trusted Matthew Mondanile since hearing the II album and Predator Vision/Sun Araw split on the blogs a few years back.
21. Cursive - Mama, I'm Swollen This is like a veteran workhorse album. Writing about writing: Ooooooh!
20. House Boat - The Delaware Octopus Pop-punk, emphasis on the pop. And the punk.
19. Summer Cats - Songs For Tuesdays Stylistically ideal, if "The Tenure Itch" is the best song of the year, "Wild Rice" is #2.
18. Pants Yell! - Received Pronunciation Polite, but effective. Like Maritime.
17. Tyvek - S/T Pride of the D!
16. Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs Plenty of great, great songs, but I wish this was better.
15. Shook Ones - The Unquotable A.M.H. Lifetime-style punk. Dynamic and fast. "Double Knot That" is an incredible song.
14. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - S/T Good.
13. The Evening Rig - Is Doin' Stuff Minneapolis-style Replacements/Hold Steady rock. This dude's voice shreds.
12. The Flaming Lips - Embryonic Uncharted territory, international waters.
11. The Word Play - How I Became Illustrated These songs are old, but ever-awesome.
10. Cheap Girls - My Roaring 20s Everyone compares them to 90s alt bands like The Lemonheads and Sebadoh, but they're too distinctive to be that kind of a rip.
9. Vivian Girls - Everything Goes Wrong I don't listen to this very much, I don't even own it yet. But I still love you, Viv Girls.
8. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca I really flipped for this at first, but I kinda feel like it's a little ballad-heavy now. I still feel a lot of the same things I initially felt, but there's too much music to get bogged down on stuff that doesn't own all the time.
7. Junior Boys - Begone Dull Care I love Junior Boys. This sounds like they've grown past the point of perfection. Which is fine. It's still interesting, and they still have one perfect album. Other than Small Brown Bike, this was my favorite show of the year.
6. Dinosaur Jr. - Farm Does anyone else think this and Beyond are significantly better than any of their classic albums?
5. Hidden Ghost Balloon Ship - S/T Magic bowie great weird.
4. Dear Landlord - Dream Homes This is a perfect punk album for me. I don't even want to explain what that means, I just want to point to this album.
3. Alec Jensen - Waterparks What? No, I'm not gay! Whatever, Alec's the best. I listened to this as much as anything.
2. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion This is a really incredible music, I'd even go so far as to call it "art." It's new, which is really hard to do. It's definitely the best album of the year, and I figured it was going to be my #1 for most of the year. I think very highly of it, but I haven't listened to it in months.
1. Real Estate - S/T This is boring, and so am I. But I'm definitely attracted to this album in an indescribable way. New Jersey is a little slice of heaven.

DISCOVERIES/REVELATIONS

These aren't all "Discoveries" in the literal sense, sometimes it's something I heard before but didn't fully embrace. I spent about 85% of my listening time with older stuff this year.

10. The Beach Boys - Surf's Up (1971) I became more interested in albums that had a couple of bad songs on them. Carl rows the boat ashore, hallelujah.
9. The Promise Ring - The Horse Latitudes (1997) Emotional Songing.
8. Miracle Legion - The Backyard EP (1984) Polaris dude's original band, more PETEROCK.
7. Various Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven Songs - Specifically "Eye Of Fatima, Pt.1," "Sweethearts," "Teen Angst." I wish David Lowery could have put together one full, great early 90s alt-rock album.
6. Husker Du - Candy Apple Grey (1986) & Flip Your Wig (1985) Super inconsistent, but each has some stone-cold classics. Don't be misled by Zen Arcade like I was.
5. The Slits - Cut (1979) So-o-oh oh TUFF!
4. Can - Ege Bamyasi (1972) & Future Days (1973) I am embarrassed that I never actually knew what Krautrock was. It sounded like a dirty word, but it's way better than anything I thought it would be.
3. The Stone Roses - S/T (1989) I had heard this a couple of times over the last two years but never really focused on it. Sometimes it takes a reissue for me to calm down for a second and give proper attention. It's terrific.
2. My Bloody Valentine - Sunny Sundae Smile 12" (1987) This year I learned that Loveless actually probably ranks somewhere in the middle of their catalogue.
1. The Bats - Daddy's Highway (1987) This slid in next to Only Life as one of my absolute all-time favorites.

TV

I had been complaining about the last few years being pretty bad TV years. But toward the end of this year, I realized there are some pretty great shows that were on this year. I didn't watch everything because we don't have HBO, so no 7th season of Curb yet. Mad Men is boring and 30 Rock has taken a sharp, sharp dive. And The League improved exponentially toward the end of its season. Otherwise, if it's not here, I'm probably not that interested.

1. Eastbound & Down - I've seen all six episodes four times. The Jody Hill/Danny McBride/Ben Best team has been flawless. Unique and dark and fantastic.
2. Party Down - Almost any other year this would've been my favorite. It's awesome. Adam Scott and Martin Starr are top notch.
3. Parks And Recreation - Whoa whoa whoa! When nobody was watching, this show became nearly perfect. I had to watch it on Hulu. Why didn't anyone tell me? It's gotten to the point where I've become so conditioned to laughing at the characters that I start when I see Ron Swanson's face in the opening credits. Also, the theme song is up there with Taxi ("Angela") and Pete & Pete ("Hey Sandy") as one of the best ever.
4. Jersey Shore - Everything I hoped it would be. It's hard to define how I feel about these people. I don't have that typical reality show despicable-but-fascinating relationship with them. I kinda like most of them. Plus, they offer immortal quotes like Ronnie's "We smooshed" after consummating his relationship with Sammi Sweetheart, and JWoww's absolute deadpan "I love it" after Pauly D shows her his Prince Albert. Also, Ronnie dancing. And it's only been on for 4 weeks!
5. Big Brother 11 - Much like Jesus, you cannot be lukewarm toward any BB11 cast member. This was on three times a week, and I still looked forward to it.
6. Several Adult Swim Shows - One of the most pleasurable things in my life is staying home on my nights off, listening to music and watching Adult Swim.
7. The Office - I miss the days when this was uncomfortable and sad and less wacky. But syndication has helped remind me of its greatness and even helps reveal some of the best parts of the early seasons in the new ones.

MOVIES
Adventureland, Observe & Report. I saw like 3 movies this year.

BOOKS
I didn't read nearly as much as I had for the last few years. But my favorite things I read this year were Lolita and Consider The Lobster. Nabokov amazes me. Wallace is Wallace. The Pale King in 2010!