Not Many Experts

Condensing an entire year of music that you’ve listened to is an absolutely impossible task. And yet, it’s so tempting to gaze at the year that hasn’t even gone and attempt to squash it all into one post. At the same time, end of year lists are exceptionally popular, and yet all anyone seems to do is complain about them. “What the hell? I was expecting your top 50 to be exactly the same as mine!”. Which, blatantly, is a ridiculous way to look at things. Personally, I think that end of year lists are more than a romantic glance back at a year, they’re simply the best way to introduce people to music that they might have missed. I guess that it’s also a great way to stimulate debate about albums, and an interesting way to think about the ways that we find music. For example, I had something of an epiphany back in 2007 when everyone’s end of year lists made me realise that I had better start using blogs to find music and the NME only for mopping up spilt coffee.

Most of all, though, we’re all guilty of using end of year lists as a sort of test. How many of my favourite albums are there? All I can ask is that you take into account that I am not saying that these are not the best albums of 2009. They are my favourite albums of 2009, nothing more. I’m sure you’ll disagree, and I’d love to hear your thoughts below. However, at the end of the day, I couldn’t allow myself to be anything less than 100% honest. These lists aren’t the place for posturing or flexing your musical muscles; the only question I asked myself when ordering these incredible albums was which one I liked more. At the end of the day, the whole compiling of end of year lists process is very time consuming and complicated, but it really shouldn’t be anything more complex than a question of which albums you liked the most. And that is all I intended this to be, so please let me hear your thoughts and which albums I missed that would be on your list, but all I can say is that I am absolutely and completely correct, because these are 1/2 of my 27 favourite albums of 2009: (read the quite epic second half here)

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Do you remember that at the start of virtually every Harry Potter book there was the inevitable line of “Harry had only been back for a day and already felt like he was two weeks behind with work”? Well… I do, and it used to annoy me due to the fact that it seemed so unlikely. However, I’m getting that feeling right now. So, apologies, Ms Rowling. The truth is that there’s an insane amount of amazing music pouring out of every crevice of record companies right now, and recently I just haven’t had time to cover everything. Just one of these records is Bibio’s Ambivalence Avenue, a record that challenges every connotation you hold of the word “pop”. Ambivalence Avenue is tirelessly avant-garde, and yet retains a sense of carefree playfulness and pop majesty that 2009 has been so much lacking. His glitchy bedroom productions sound something like SebastiAn being pickpocketed by Of Montreal. And if that isn’t an appealing sounding felony, then I don’t know what is.

Bibio – Fire Ant

Bibio – Lover’s Carvings

A few months back, I posted Alex Metric’s remix of “Lisztomania”, and it has since become my most listened to song on iTunes! However, the internet police must have been on form that day, because the post not-so-mysteriously disappeared, despite the fact that it was only a remix that appeared as a b-side to the single. Dogmatic springs to mind.

Anyhow, I didn’t let the sanctimonious cretins put me off Alex Metric, who is fast becoming my favourite remixer. With his remix of “One More Chance” he made an average Bloc Party song better, perhaps showing them how electronic music is done. The only disappointing thing about the remix is that it didn’t come with a “get back to your guitar heroics” message for the band. I was further astounded when he actually made Reverend & The Makers sound delicious. His own productions aren’t quite up to his remixes, but they are fast improving. Like an electro Gandi.

Bloc Party – One More Chance (Alex Metric Remix)

Bloc Party – One More Chance (Tiesto Remix)

Reverend and the Makers – Silence Is Talking (Alex Metrix Remix)

Alex Metric – Head Straight