Top 21 Albums of 2009

Earlier in the decade, Neko Case was best known in indie circles for her occasional power vocals for the New Pornographers. This was kind of crazy, since by the time her spooky, entrancing solo release Blacklisted came out in '02, she had handily outstripped the NPs' discography. Now, at the end of the decade, a lot has changed. Middle Cyclone debuted in Billboard's Top 5. The New Yorker sang Case's praises. Here in Philly, she's made her way from the Tin Angel to Verizon Hall. Of course, due to the fragmented, downsized pop landscape, Case can achieve all this and never have to worry about the temptation or threat of a celebrity-culture-friendly makeover. But isn't that something to applaud? If Case on one level epitomizes NPR-friendly indie-rock, she also stands outside it, something Middle Cyclone makes clear. While the album contains more pop and warmth than 2006's sometimes dauntingly arty Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, it is still far from easy listening. Her commanding, bold vocals alone ensure that. The music and lyrics to songs like "Polar Nettles" and "Fever" are unpredictable, unwilling to be pinned down. She can just as easily interpret Harry Nilsson's quirkily tender "Don't Forget Me" as she can deliver the line "The next time you say 'forever,' I will punch you in the face." When she combines these two sentiments on "This Tornado Loves You," the ache and emotional weight are palpable. Simply put, don't fuck with her. Why would you even want to?

—Michael Pelusi

As 2010 creeps up on us, most things early 2009 are fading fast. (Nobody cares about the Octo-Mom anymore. Have all the babies you want, lady.) But somehow, Animal Collective's eighth studio album, Merriweather Post Pavilion — released in January — still feels undiscovered and fresh. It's a wonderful anomaly; when this record isn't demanding a wide-open field to play in, it's hiding under the covers, sustaining its power at whisper volume. Patchwork rock anthem "Summertime Clothes" bounces and builds, while danceable love song "My Girls" flits around dreamily. "Lion in a Coma" opens with a sample that stitches a didgeridoo bass line to what sounds like rhythmic human panting. In just under one hour, the 11 tracks swirl, throb and undulate. Each song is a collage of synthetic blips, organic soundscapes, curious samples and terrestrial rhythms, like Hieronymus Bosch paintings come to life.

—Hillary Rea

This is postmodern rock revelry at its best, and you can tell from track one. Named for the Beatles-caliber frenzy that virtuoso pianist Franz Liszt inspired in the 1800s, "Lisztomania" inserts a bouncy, Strokes-like backbeat behind lyrics that root around in indie rock's emotional grab bag: "So sentimental/ Not sentimental no/ Romantic not disgusting yet." It should be angsty and befuddling, but damn if you can't dance to it. And so goes French band Phoenix's thoughtful, playful, piano-heavy fourth record, which pays tribute to heavy-hitting classical composers without disqualifying itself from the Best Alternative Music Album category at the Grammys. Which they should surely win. From "Rome" ("1,000 years remain in a trash can/ I burned the cigarette somewhere") to "Countdown" ("True and everlasting/ Didn't last that long/ We're the lonesome"), Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix makes love look like a hopeless pursuit. But for every cloud of doomsaying poignancy that comes out of Thomas Mars' mouth, there's an upbeat sunburst of '80s pop nostalgia to remind you it's not the end of the world.

—Natalie Hope Macdonald

Fake-blood-drenched getups notwithstanding, Lady Gaga insists it's not fame she's after. "I want to create a space for my fans where they can feel free," Gaga recently told Ellen DeGeneres in an oddly familiar quasi-British accent, explaining that she's always felt like a bit of an outsider. To her credit, that might be 2009's greatest understatement. Gaga — whose '08 debut The Fame broke records for most No. 1 hit singles by a new artist — introduced its follow-up, The Fame Monster, at exactly the right moment. Because even if you'd brushed aside party-girl hits like "Just Dance" and "Poker Face," there is no ignoring Fame Monster. Breaching contract with candy-coated formulaic pop, "Monster" delves deep into the depraved beast that is celebrity, while the gorgeous ballad "Speechless" begs for second chances, and bass-heavy "Bad Romance" begs for the truth no matter how fucked up it is. Let's just say "I want your ugly/ I want your disease" is a far cry from "I wanna take a ride on your disco stick." In Gaga there are flashes of Bowie, Jackson, Madonna and Cher, yet delightfully, she's brand-new. She's the icon we didn't know we needed.

—Carolyn Huckabay

And so it came to pass that the musicians of the aughts were lost.

Postmodern pastiche reigned, and popular music was mired in an endless cycle of derivative nostalgia — limpid, soulless, identity-less, doomed.

And then arrived a man from Fishtown, by way of Lansdowne, who could see beyond the fog. Now that's not to get all messianic on Kurt Vile this holiday — though he does rock some admirable Jesus hair — as much as it's to illustrate a point: From The Strokes of 2001 to the Free Energy of 2009, rock artists this decade were and are all about being fashionably retro and referential, while bringing nothing remarkably new to the conversation.

And if you tried to align them to those who inspired their work, they'd lie and say they were really into Built to Spill or something. Conversely, not only does Mr. Vile proudly cop to his influences, from Neil Young and Tom Petty to Can, he does something fresh with them on his powerhouse Matador debut, Childish Prodigy. Teeth are carved out of a drumloop drone on "Freak Train" with well-placed guitar lines and cathartic screams frighteningly reminiscent of a certain other rock 'n' roll Kurt. The pre-grunge noiserock '90s are reimagined as a blissful pop reverie in a cover of the Dim Stars nugget "Monkey," while the Spaceman 3 atmospheres in "Heart Attack" are augmented with the decidedly non-psychedelic banjo.

For those who've followed Vile since his CD-R days, this collection is nothing short of monumental (remember the song that referenced the "ovulating ovarians inside of Ovaria"? I'm sure Kurt would prefer if we don't).

For fans of music at large, this album and this artist — the first Philadelphian to crack CP's top 10 since The Roots in 2002 — represent hope for progression over stagnation. You can listen to Childish Prodigy and have a fair idea of what might be in Kurt Vile's record collection. But he takes those collected thoughts and synthesizes them into something novel, something enthralling, something wholly his own.

Like so many pop stars and indie darlings, Ida Maria hails from Scandinavia, but she really lives in the red. "Oh My God" is the most propulsive opener any listener could hope for, with the Norwegian native demanding attention over nervous guitars and bashing drums, and Fortress 'Round My Heart just keeps avalanching from there. Ida Maria Sivertsen's volatile emotions play out in the lyrics of the supremely confident come-on "I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked" and the out-of-control "Queen of the World," while her band's sonic urgency breathes life into sketchy characters like the middle-aged hooker in "Stella" and the smashed narrator of "Louie." Even the ballads are raw. "No, I don't wanna stage any theater for you /I don't wanna play a single piece for you," she sighs on "Keep Me Warm." Those lines took on a deeper meaning when she croaked her way through them during a September meltdown in Boston before she ran off stage with a quick apology and dropped off her tour claiming exhaustion. It'd be a damn shame if those were her final public words, but you can't say she didn't give her all on this stunning debut.

—M.J. Fine

The knock on Far from the criterati is that it isn't Spektor's beloved 2006 smash Begin to Hope, the soundtrack to many a Grey's Anatomy episode and the sonic godparent of every gadget ad jingle for the last three years. But the Russian-born chanteuse has traded that album's demon-sweet melodic audacity for the polish and maturity of a piano-pop master, and the resulting album bears a confident cohesiveness from start to vital bonus-track finish. The commonalities: superficially quirky narrative details (a macaroni computer, a porridge lake, whispering saint portraits) matched to jaunty, mostly major-key instrumentation and Spektor's impish vocal carillon. But the sprightly arrangements belie startling lyrical themes of loneliness, religious uncertainty and the primal struggles of life and love. The songs trick you into feeling great, even as they get sadder with every listen.

—Ryan Godfrey

Actor makes a lot more sense than St. Vincent's 2007 album, Marry Me. Helmswoman Annie Clark — born in Dallas, relocated to Brooklyn, bused into Polyphonic Spree Shire (she was the one in the white robe) and then saved by Sufjan Stevens (she played guitar for his touring band) — had no business making something that, while flawlessly pretty, was as proper, highbrow and wannabe-Norah Jones as Marry Me. Actor, though, is just right: We get distorted songs about black holes, black eyes and restless women; '80s robot rhythms made perfectly artificial with '00s production; and enough choral backings, strings and French horns to subvert the whole thing. Plus, "The Sequel" may be the best scorned-woman song since Neko Case's "Hex." In it, Clark imagines the dark, dirty, satisfying details that Norah never would: "Bodies like wrecking balls fuck, fuck, fuck with dynamite."

—Holly Otterbein

When David Longstreth's voice pops into falsetto halfway through asking "What hits the spot, yeah /Like Gatorade? /You and me baby /Hitting the spot all night," it becomes obvious that his performance on "Temecula Sunrise" is earnest, studious R&B. Transfigured soul music runs throughout Bitte Orca, but it's this year's earlier charity-compilation single, "Knotty Pine," with David Byrne, that makes the Dirty Projectors playbook clear. Where Byrne made his bones stripping funk out of disco and filling the space with neurotic Downtown dread, Longstreth's vocal embellishments, and the blue-note harmonies Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian make, refract and warp stock Power99 moves. Bitte Orca decontextualizes all sorts of elements the same way: sunny high-life guitars, tortured prog-rock time signatures, even an Eddie Van Halen arpeggiated shred. Longstreth meticulously recombines all these fragments, imbuing them not with Byrne-ish nerves but absolute unhinged bliss.

—Justin Bauer

Just when it seemed like Americana had finally run out of gas (as if the genre had much to begin with), in come the Avetts. Singing, songwriting bros Scott and Seth, along with harmonist/bassist Bob Crawford, have slowly built a case for progressive bluegrass and hard, rich folk since 2000. They won a rabid fan base for the sort of catchy melodies and weary ruminative lyrics that filled Mignonette and Emotionalism. One Avetts appreciator, Rick Rubin — who has got to win something for producing A-Bros, Gossip and Metallica in '09 — signed and nudged them to grandeur. They didn't need much of a push. The results: I and Love and You's mix of the Stanley Bros.' crusty country and the plinking glam of Sparks, with all manner of heartbroken tones, lyrical and melodic, at the forefront. If you don't go into a full-body swoon hearing "Kick Drum Heart," you're dead, son. Get buried.

—A.D. Amorosi

Both MTV and Sonic Youth were born in 1981 but during the nearly three decades to follow, only one of them has redefined what it means to be cool. The other one, of course, has all but given up on music. With age, Thurston Moore and co. have perfected and tightened their signature sound without ever losing the edge, the sexual frustration, the punk angst. They're still art rockers, and they still have riffs that sound like metal teeth gnawing guitar strings. From the abrasive opening track "Sacred Trickster" right on through to the epic closer "Massage the History," The Eternal is comforting because it's Sonic Youth sticking to what they do so well: near-sexual glorification of guitars fused with abstract lyrics of love, loss, fame and alienation. They're not interrupting the music you love to bring you the story of seven strangers picked to live in a house.

—Julia West

Though intensely serious and spiritual, the 10 tracks on The Crying Light are exquisitely controlled, transcending melancholy depths to find the unbearably bright light at the center of the world. In that androgynous and powerfully emotional tremolo, Antony Hegarty grieves for the devastation that patriarchal society has wrought on the planet in songs like the single "Another World." Relationships, whether between lovers or parent and child, are explored and connected to gender identity and politics (see "Aeon"; "Her Eyes are Underneath the Ground"). Musical collaborators The Johnsons expertly manipulate cello, violin, guitar and drums beneath Hegarty's rolling, minor-key piano, resulting in a layered, baroque sound that counts influences from a little classical to a lot of cabaret. Spellbinding.

—Felicia D'Ambrosio

Before Veckatimest became the massive hit that shifted all talk about Grizzly Bear from measured praise to fawning adoration, it was just the name of an empty spot of land off the Massachusetts coast. Fresh from a tour with Radiohead and hunkered down in Cape Cod to hash out their new album, the band had visited the uninhabited island and taken a liking to its American Indian name. From the opening chords of "Southern Point" — which seem to channel a less virtuosic Richie Havens — to Nico Muhly's sweeping string arrangements on "Ready, Able," Grizzly Bear strikes a rare and confident balance: They are not afraid to experiment (witness the plaintive, vaguely dissonant "Hold Still"), but they also know how to make a song infectious without dumbing it down. "Take your time," they croon in "Two Weeks," the album's catchiest track — but it only took Grizzly Bear three tries to make an album as thoughtful and complex as any out there.

—Lauren F. Friedman

Matt and Kim are almost too cute: The stereotypically earnest Brooklyn boy met the stereotypically earnest Brooklyn girl; they dated for years, they fell in love, and instead of having babies they had a little indie-pop band. Their relentless cheeriness is almost abrasive, but it's hard to watch the two of them banging away at their keys and drums without cracking a smile. Grand, their second release, completely outstrips their self-titled, but it stays true to their hometown-hero style and super-poppy tone. Something about their sound just squeezes rainbows and puppies out of any situation.

—Cat Grubb

The last time we heard from The Thermals, Hutch Harris was making a break for the sea in an attempt at reverse evolution. Apparently, things didn't go so well for him out there, as Now We Can See opens with Harris recounting his own drowning and sets the stage for an album swimming in watery imagery, irresistible choruses and hummable melodies. Lyrically, this feels like a process record created in the aftermath of some unspecified broken relationship ("I was holding on to a love I knew so long/ I thought it must be keeping me afloat/ Only when I was down, only when I was drowning/ Did I finally feel the hands on my throat"). Each song carries the cathartic punch of epiphany — looking back, taking stock and moving on with clearer vision. The album's brilliance lies in never explicitly saying what set these anthemic declarations, heart-torn reflections, celebratory hand claps and chunky guitar riffs in motion. It's all open for interpretation, and the Thermals deliver this abstractness with rambunctious conviction.

—Jesse Delaney

Japandroids looks simple on paper: Brian King and David Prowse. Two guys singing. A drumkit. A guitar. But on Post-Nothing, their introduction to the world outside Vancouver, it sounds like so much more. King and Prowse bash their way through eight songs, sugary enough to make them catchy, fuzzy enough to give them an edge. Vocals are sung-shout over it all and you can only imagine the two of them onstage, standing back to back and wailing into a single microphone — if only it were physically possible for drummer and guitarist to do so. Really, Post-Nothing is post-adolescent: mature enough to be an excellent record, snotty enough to be fun.

—Molly Eichel

Are they the Belles (and Sebastians) du Jour? Only underneath. On the surface — where every indie-popper knows it counts — The Pains of Being Pure at Heart don't just lilt, but fizz and screech and hum. Opener "Contender" might sound vaguely track-and-field-related, but "Young Modern Friction" plinks with synths, just as "This Love is Fucking Right," their cheery little incest love song, peppers its niceties with swears. For all those adornments, the twee underpinnings pace the record: Through the whiz and jangle, there's the purposeful whisper of Peggy Wang and Kip Berman, mumbling together at the speed of thought.

—Juliet Fletcher

My Maudlin Career opens like an indie-pop IED with the jaunty "French Navy," in which a lover is warned, "Relationships are something I used to do" and then implored, "Convince me they are better for me and you." Welcome to Camera Obscura's fourth full-length album, where jaded sentiments crash headlong into upbeat orchestral arrangements. With a Scottish lilt somewhere between Shrek and Groundskeeper Willie, lead singer Tracyanne Campbell's lyrics are often inscrutable, but her garbled Glaswegian is never anything but sadly affecting when you can actually make out the words. "You kissed me on the forehead," she sings unapologetically on the title track, "now this kiss is giving me concussions." Sweetness always gives way to frustration and irony. "Fan-tas-tic idea," Campbell wails to an aspiring writer on "Swans." You get the feeling she doesn't mean what she says, but you don't care.

—David Faris

Befitting their name, Mastodon do everything big: their intimidating beards, their long songs, Bill Kelliher's enormous Gibson Explorer guitars, their staggering — and probably dangerous — intake of drugs. Their latest LP, Crack the Skye, is an immense effort, with two songs breaching the 10-minute mark and a terrifyingly massive and sludgy sound throughout, especially in stand-out tracks like "The Czar" and "Quintessence." Skye makes the argument that life is an epic adventure, and for that you need an appropriate soundtrack. This is music to crush your enemies, fight the gods and rend reality itself. Never an easy task, but you can do it.

—Will Dean

Starting with beatdowns and ending with let-downs, the 2000s weren't kind to anyone. And so Erika Wennerstrom's powerfully weary voice — the sound of sore muscles and bruised bones — felt appropriate for 2009, singing tales of unwise choices and rising floods. Thankfully, Wennerstrom and her Bastards knew when to cut through their album's gray-skied, open country vibe, especially in the soaring loneliness of The Mountain's title track opener and on determined album standout "Hold Your Head High." The latter's heartfelt vow that "Things will work out soon/ Things will come around again" offers just the right motivation to ride out the winter of a decade of discontent.

—Bob McCormick

It's no surprise that Illinois' debut LP is a crazy, hazy monsterpiece. Hell, the thing took two years to land on Earth, and did so as a series of thumb drives. And the 20-track final album — that was reportedly frankensteined from a freaking 114-song demo. Who does that? But that's how The Adventures of Kid Catastrophe really roars, not just as some freaky would-be greatest-hits comp, but as a pile of ambitious, schizophrenic but mostly easygoing status updates from a Philly band that can't sit still. Here's a hip-hop beat, there's some raw fuzz-folk, now some nervous R&B, gritty dance synths, sing-along choruses, lightly distorted vocals. And every time that righteous banjo comes plinking to the surface, you wonder how rock 'n' roll ever gets along without it. Oh yeah, the whole thing comes with a fascinating, baffling 22-minute movie. No really, who does that?

—Patrick Rapa