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 the second 1/2 of my 27 favourite albums of 2009: (read choices #27-#14 here)
As is so often the case, I’ll have to start this post with an apology. The thing is, I have been hammering Metric’s sophomore album “Fantasies” ever since their PR sent it to me, which, I can safely assume, was before it was even out. However, the summer solstice has come and gone, I’ve finished the month of hell known popularly as “AS Levels” and winter is drawing quickly in (ish) and still no word of Metric has passed by my increasingly infrequent musings. I can’t really explain why not; largely because I do not know myself why this has happened. However, I made a promise some time last year that I wouldn’t let my opus of posting every song or album I genuinely love be swayed by the increasingly brash way the internet community passes by albums. They would say that 2 weeks after the album’s release date is too late to be writing about it, but I disagree. I disagree because, although the majority of you reading this will have already made your minds up on Metric, even if I only introduce 2 or 3 (or 50 or 60) people to their new favourite record, it will be worth the minimal effort.
For those of you who are yet to discover “Fantasies”, it is a strange mélange of Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ more electronic, sagacious moments and the scuzz rock aggression that is perfectly exemplified by Japandroids recently acclaimed album. A happy medium between two of the years’ finest releases? It sounds as aurally pleasurable in practice as it does in theory.
Hmmmm… So a précis of the current situation would probably be that I completely and majorly ballsed up the ID tagging and naming of 3 of the remixes in Part II of the most epic and drawn out series of remixes in the history of the curmudgeonly titled blogosphere. In a blatant attempt to try and placate the masses, then, Part II.V is following (that’s two point five if you go to a comprehensive school) (ONLY JOKING!) with two extra remixes hooked onto the end that I have been enjoying in the brief cessation between posts. There will probably not be a part III unless I seriously fail again, so enjoy!
On another, more cogent, point; two of the remixes involve Calvin Harris, who was recently announced as the headliner for this year’s fantastically curated and organised Liverpool Sound City. It’s sort of like England’s SXSW, except with Mr Chips instead of barbeques and the M57 instead of Austin’s dusty expanse. Luckily, I seem to have a soft spot for Mr Chips, so it looks like it’s going to be incredible! Check out the link above for the full (fantastic) line up. More to follow…
