And so, filled with Christmas piss and vinegar, I verily unveil my next twenty albums on my Top 100 of 2009...
80. The Fame Monster by
Lady GaGa
NME: "She uses pop, its producers and masks and all its artifice, as her tool of self-expression ... this becomes essential for anyone who even remotely likes pop."
Link
Slant: "Something real, maybe even poignant, lurks beneath all that gothic makeup and those elaborate headdresses, and if given enough time, she might even reveal it to us."
Link
What I Said: "A triumphant riposte to those who doubted her pop authority or as a gracious kiss to those who’ve helped her achieve global pop infamy."
79. Yes! by
k-os
Vessalis Award Nominee = Best Hip Hop/Rap Album Of The Year
NOW: "Comfortably walking the line between backpack and commercial rap, he delivers thought-provoking rhymes that never sound strained or self-conscious."
Link
RapReviews: "The strength of the album stems from k-os's unique ability to write terrific pop-rap while maintaining his unmitigated originality."
Link
What I Said: "Brereton’s world is one more contemplative and uncertain than those of his peers who appear more adept peddling thug-boy fantasies and misogynist raps about bitches, and is doubtless more rich and enthralling for it."
78. The Invisible by
The Invisible
BBC: "This debut is a rich, dense, complicated work that becomes more appreciable with each return visit ... It's refreshing to hear a consistently intriguing first effort made within the M25 that shimmies between experimental and pop so fluidly."
Link
Clash: "In terms of producing an introduction of intriguing depth and no shortage of surprises, this trio have succeeded spectacularly."
Link
What I Said: "This motley crew have made an album chock full of different genre hooks and quirks that have been whipped into a singularly unidentifiable concoction that no doubt presents them as the new Thinking Man’s Rock Band."
77. Two Fingers by
Two Fingers
Vessalis Award Nominee = Best Hip Hop/Rap Album Of The Year
BBC: "For brave lovers of electronic music and rap unconcerned with genre boundaries or obvious pop melody, it’s a must."
Link
Contact: "The music is outstanding. There's no bad track on this album. All have a unique flavour and hip mystique that can't help but make you feel your listening to quality."
Link
What I Said: "The album is fraught with the kind of paranoid fluorishes and production gambits to make fans of
Burial and
Martyn happy, inhabiting a soundscape that ducks and dives with regards to genre classification and one that remains intelligently urban and sophisticated."
76. She Wolf by
Shakira
Vessalis Award Nominee = Best Single/Video Of The Year (
She Wolf)
NME: "We’re pleased to report that her third English-sung studio effort is as nutty as ever; combining Neptunes-esque beats with flamenco, post-punk riffs, synths, Arabian strings, gongs and disco."
Link
Slant: "So it was to my surprise when it was reported that Shakira would once again be largely abandoning her Latin roots on the title track and lead single from her new album, this time exploring electro-pop. It was an even bigger surprise to find that she takes quite well to the sound."
Link
What I Said: "It’s the difference between a good pop star and a great one that can adapt to a new sound without letting it crush them into submission and still sound fresh and interesting."
75. The Way I See It by
Raphael Saadiq
Pitchfork: "Works under the simple belief that those styles created in Philadelphia, Detroit, and Memphis during the 1960s speak as loudly now as they did then ... few artists live so vitally in the past as Saadiq."
Link
PopMatters: "Raphael Saadiq’s
The Way I See It falls somewhere between the two poles that delineate superior examples of homage and examples that are no more than carbon-copies of the real thing."
Link
What I Said: "arrives in the wake of countless pretenders as a genuinely thoughtful piece of work, not just in Saadiq’s utilizing various riffs, signatures and arrangements, but also by demonstrating the fine line of plagiarizing and honoring the past."
74. Rated R by
Rihanna
Vessalis Music Award Nominee = Best R&B/Soul Album Of The Year
Pitchfork: "Based on Rated R, Rihanna's artistic aspirations are currently loftier than her abilities. Then again, her tenacity in the face of the unimaginable public humiliation this year is beyond brave."
Link
Guardian: "An album that arrives packed with songs in which relationships are linked with violence and criminality ...
Rated R is revealed as the kind of disparate album people tend to make in the wake of a single like
Umbrella."
Link
What I Said: "It’s more daring, emotional and crystal clear in its motives and darkness than any hip pop princess album has any right to be."
73. Bitte Orca by
Dirty Projectors
Pitchfrok: "It's breezy without a hint of slightness, tuneful but with its fair share of tumult, concise and inventive and replayable and plain old fun ... as solid and variegated a display of songwriting acumen and instrumental virtuosity as any you'll hear this year."
Link
NME: "They almost sound like a brilliant pop band, thanks to their silvery hi-life guitars, gorgeous strings and tense, wiry rhythms, only to put curious bystanders to the ultimate test."
Link
What I Said: "All acoustic rabble and sophisticated harmonies (the kind that would sound completely random and freeform if it didn’t all fit together quite so elegantly)."
72. The BQE by
Sufjan Stevens
Pitchfork: "
The BQE is a bubbly, fun, fast-paced, and deftly written piece, full of compositional fireworks, jazzy interludes, and stylistic detours ... best classified as an unusually successful vanity project, as well as evidence of Stevens' restless creativity."
Link
BBC: "At 40 minutes and comprised of seven movements, three interludes and pre- and post-ludes, this is a proper composition – no vocals, full orchestra, so get your ears primed and brain concentrating."
Link
What I Said: "Members of the classical community may turn their noses up at yet another pop artist making an ill-fated stab at contemporary classical arrangements, but even all of that won’t detract from one of the more beauteous curios 2009 will have yet heard."
71. Them Crooked Vultures by
Them Crooked Vultures
Onion: "Them Crooked Vultures doesn’t equal the considerable awesomeness of its ancestors; it sounds like a second-tier Queens Of The Stone Age record ... The biggest pleasure of Them Crooked Vultures is hearing three supremely gifted players fall together quickly and easily on songs built on simple riffs that sound like they were made up on a lark five minutes earlier."
Link
DrownedInSound: "It's not particularly memorable and entirely lacks the type of yee-haw exuberance that might have made it a sloppy treat."
Link
What I Said: "Unquantifiably epic, heartfelt, nonsensical and featuring some of the most exemplary rock instrumental moments of the year."
70. Hold Time by
M. Ward
Vessalis Music Award Nominee = Best Country/Folk Album Of The Year
Pitchfork: "With increasingly expansive production and broader lyrical themes, Ward's sixth studio album polishes away a little bit more of the individual character that makes his best recordings so human and rewarding."
Link
DrownedInSound: "The dusty, Americana vibe that so strongly informed his debut resonates equally some ten years down the line (though finding itself in admittedly lusher surroundings), while his cracked, soulful voice remains as emphatically warm and languid as ever.."
Link
What I Said: "It’s awash with the same alt-folk acoustics that drew so much praise to
She & Him last year, but there is a more refined technique deployed here that at once make this album appear more laidback and more sophisticated."
69. The Element Of Freedom by
Alicia Keys
Vessalis Music Award Nominee = Best R&B/Soul Album Of The Year
Slant: "It's not a stodgily reverential retro fest, nor is it a formulaic synthesis of smooth vocals and trendy hip-hop beats ... having the right approach to songwriting is only a preliminary step on the way to a great song, and the offerings on Freedom make that clear, suggesting a surfeit of competence undone by a serious lack of inspiration."
Link
Independent: "eys is that most frustrating of things: a stunning talent who’s too happy to give the world more of which it already has a surfeit. Maybe next time she’ll push herself further."
Link
What I Said: "Keys’ LP still stands as a finely made, elegant and sexy piece of work in its own right, the title being particularly apt in that Keys hasn’t sounded so confident and serene."
68. Dance Mother by
Telepathe
BBC: "All their debut album proves is that there definitely is such a thing as 'too cool' ... this album simply isn't worthy of the hysterical plaudits being thrown at it."
Link
Slant: "This isn't pop as we know it, rather it's an avant-garde distillation, twisted and transformed into something genuinely exciting and pleasantly challenging but which thankfully never veers into the impenetrable."
Link
What I Said: "The result is pure gothic-punk electro enhanced with tablas and drum sequences, the duo coming across as a better-behaved older sibling to
Crystal Castles."
67. To Lose My Life... by
White Lies
Pitchfork: "White Lies could even get away with a little heavy-handed somberness if anything of their own (other than unintentional humor) shone through their reconstituted gloom-rock. A little less death, a little more love-- of creativity, of life in all its urgent particulars rather than just the hand-me-down cliches that stand in for them-- would go a long way."
Link
NME: "They’re OMD, Echo And The Bunnymen, The Psychedelic Furs, Depeche Mode, Magazine. At times, when the drum echo booms and the visions of being strapped to a massive wheel and dunked head-first in a fire-swathed pond kick in, they’re even Duran Duran’s ‘Wild Boys’."
Link
What I Said: "They manage to break through with enough authentic stadium rock power to solidify their standing as one of the UK's more exciting breakout acts to come out this year."
66. Walking On A Dream by
Empire of the Sun
Vessalis Music Award Nominee = Best Pop Album Of The Year
Pitchfork: "If a metaphor could describe such an utterly puzzling sense of scale, it would surely fall somewhere in between throwing pasta at the wall and hunting the White Whale ... while some material is about as sublime and immediate as anything either Steele and Littlemore have done, just as much crashes and burns."
Link
PopMatters: "This is an album that undeniably embodies the music of these two musicians’ childhoods. I just can’t understand why."
Link
What I Said: "A reliance on warm falsetto-enhanced melodies and an undeniably more laidback motivation for most of the songs on offer."
65. See Mystery Lights by
YACHT
Pitchfork: "Regardless of influence or intent, however,
See Mystery Lights is a triumph. It's a feel-good album for an era that could use a little happiness, a sweaty collection of heady, hedonistic tunes just in time for the hottest days of the year."
Link
BBC: "Lacking none of the individuality and ingenuity of Jona Bechtolt's previous work, it's a record that's engaging, inspiring and, most of all, an awful lot of fun."
Link
What I Said: "This is as fine a major-indie label dubet from an alternative-electro-pop-performance artist that you're likely to come across."
64. Duke Pandemonium by
Marmaduke Duke
NME: "
Duke Pandemonium is meant to be a laugh, a light-hearted muck-about that provides more fun in its five best songs than most albums can muster in a dozen or so."
Link
RockSound: "Fuelled by clashing sonic styles and awkward time signatures ... this album is a truly mind-blowing experience."
Link
What I Said: "A more conventional, tighter set is the result (a trim 35 minutes actually), but rest assured, their is still a thick air of inscrutably arty chaos ... It could easily attain the title of being the most annoying album of the year, precisely because it’s hard to tell whether songs are being played straight or for
Flight of the Conchords-style laughs."
63. It's Blitz! by
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Pitchfork: "With these unremarkable tools, however, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs still create great, compelling pop-rock, largely because of the way the songs themselves are organized, with conventional verse-chorus structures repeatedly eschewed in favor of detours, miniature grooves, and lengthy asides that produce the sensation of a band and a singer impulsively following their own emotional whims."
Link
NME: "So sure, it’s no revolution, but ‘It’s Blitz!’’s heartfelt love letter to the transcendent possibilities of the dancefloor is an unexpectedly emphatic reassertion of why Yeah Yeah Yeahs are one of the most exciting bands of this decade."
Link
What I Said: "Electro-tinged pop power, forlorn balladry and, literally, everything in between, all held in place by one of the most charismatic frontwomen of the current indie scene."
62. Kingdom of Welcome Addiction by
IAMX
AbsolutePunk: "There is enough progression and new approaches on this album, however, to show that IAMX are definitely not a one trick pony and are definitely here to stay."
Link
PlugInMusic: "
Kingdom of Welcome Addiction is far more effective packing a punch in a strong tone that is unfailing. The album will have you dancing but also thinking and perhaps even shedding a tear."
Link
What I Said: "The influences of
Depeche Mode are inescapable (as with pretty much any electro-rock album released these days), but give Chris Corner his due in being able to sweep you into his industrial miserabilism so effectively anyway."
61. Foma by
Lukid
ResidentAdvisor: "Luke Blair manages to seamlessly combine the impetuous wooziness of his fuzzed-up psychotropics with an impeccable heap of punchy post-
Dilla drum programming."
Link
BoomKat: "Deep, heavy, righteous wares = Essential Purchase."
Link
What I Said: "The result doesn't have as urban an edge as Burial in its marriage of urban nightscapes and electronica ... but it still has a mercurial charm all of its own."
Well, that took forever... Will give you the lowdown on positions 60-41 in a few days... in the meantime, Merry Christmas everyone!
xxx
Depeche Mode
