Pitchfork Top 50 [2009]

[gammonize]

www.pitchfork.com
Anyone changed their musical taste slightly as a result yet?
I have four of the albums in the top ten. Yay~!

P.S. Is anyone else playing the new Final Fantasy XIII game? (Not to be confused with Toronto-based music project 'Final Fantasy')

[nocturn]

The number of bands in that list I have heard of is quite minimal
I have 45, 13 and 6.

[ragamuffin]

I've heard 10 from the first 2 pages and only 1 from the remaining 3 ._. (which is Micachu and the Shapes, that is one of my top favorites this year).

8 of 10 of the others, I heard before Pitchfork reviewed them. I listened to Girls after it got a 9.0, and I barely liked that at all. It's an ok pop-album, but it quickly got boring. I find it extremely overrated.

I think it's pretty ridiculous that Bell Orchestre isn't on any list.

And that Dark Was the Night isn't on the list.

[Alyssa!]

Lessee...I have 49 (although I haven't gotten into it yet), 45 (of course!), 38, surprisingly not 37 or 36, have 34, been meaning to get 33, have 30 (and am so happy Royksopp is getting press), 21, 16 (hoorah antony!), 15 (good record, that), been meaning to get 13, 11 (SO HARD YES FUCK BUTTONS!), 9 (Fever Ray deserves far more press too, I think), 8, been meaning to get 7 and 6, 4 (wonderful album, great live act), been meaning to get 2, and have 1 really hard, though it's nowhere near their best record. I knew maybe half those artists.

Wow, A Sunny Day in Glasgow! My ladyfriend has one of their earlier releases, I'll tell her to pick this one us.

Dec 18, 2009 11:33:57 GMT -5 ragamuffin said:

I think it's pretty ridiculous that Bell Orchestre isn't on any list.

And that Dark Was the Night isn't on the list.

I agree with you wholeheartedly on the first count, but Dark Was the Night was epic for me because of the Sufjan Steven cut and having a non-live version of the Arcade Fire track. On the scale of compilations it was pretty good, but a lot of the tracks just weren't that interesting.

[emyli]

It also had Sleepless, Knotty Pine and Train Song. Those were all pretty brilliant IMHO.

[Thomas]

I have all the albums in the top ten, and 5 in the 20s, and a few sprinkled throughout the upper (lower?) echelons.

[ragamuffin]

Dec 18, 2009 12:25:32 GMT -5 Alyssa! said:

Dec 18, 2009 11:33:57 GMT -5 ragamuffin said:

I think it's pretty ridiculous that Bell Orchestre isn't on any list.

And that Dark Was the Night isn't on the list.

I agree with you wholeheartedly on the first count, but Dark Was the Night was epic for me because of the Sufjan Steven cut and having a non-live version of the Arcade Fire track. On the scale of compilations it was pretty good, but a lot of the tracks just weren't that interesting.

While some of the tracks are uninteresting, the good moments more than weigh up for that, and the good moments are many.

[vestenet]

I have been really out-of-touch/disillusioned with the "indie" scene this year, but there are some albums I'm glad to see have made the list.

Bromst, while not the definitively and awesomely mindscrewing album I was hoping it to be (i.e. not this year's Parallax Error Beheads You), was still quite good.

Kudos for including tUnE-yArDs, but I'd put it MUCH higher--top 10 hands down.

Same goes for Röyksopp.

Fever Ray, Grizzly Bear, The Flaming Lips, and Dirty Projectors all earned their spots.

MPP being Pitchfork's #1 surprised me about as much as the sun rising in the east. I still fail to hear what is so transcendent about the album, but I've been saying that for almost a year, so eh.

Oh, and Sufjan's contribution to Dark Was the Night, "You are the Blood," is probably track of the year.

[Richie]

Dec 18, 2009 10:58:18 GMT -5 gammonize said:

(Not to be confused with Toronto-based music project 'Final Fantasy')

Oh yeah, I remember them..

shit, there were alot of great records on that list. good for them.

not only Soof's cover of "You are the Blood" though, I actually thought his album this year (the BQE) was by far his most impressive release to date. not pitch-worthy I guess.

[Ren]

I can't believe Junior Boys' "Begone Dull Care" didn't make the top 10, much less not make the top 50! That album is a revelation.

[Alyssa!]

The BQE was very, very good, but Pitchfork has never been very good at getting the "baroque" side of "baroque pop"...especially when it's really classical music. But I loved hearing how he took his amazing skill with sonic texture, apparent in Enjoy Your Rabbit as much as Illinois, and took the sense of melody that his later albums had, and enclosed it all in the "orchestra suite" medium.

[vestenet]

Oh, totally agree about the BQE. I only had to listen through the leak once before I pre-ordered the hell out of it. I don't know if it's my favorite release by Sufjan, but it's certainly one of the best things to come out of 2009, if not THE best (instrumental-wise at least). I had a huge grin plastered on my face throughout the entire fourth movement when I first heard it.

It's really a shame it wasn't as well-received as it should have been. I suppose a youth of classical music snobbery helped me appreciate it more than somebody expecting another Illinoise, but I wish more people had been more receptive towards the album, since, as Alyssa! excellently points out, it's very congruous with his older work. Also, the packaging was godly. In fact, now that I am home, I need to hunt down my old View-Master.

[Richie]

Dec 19, 2009 11:07:29 GMT -5 vestenet said:

In fact, now that I am home, I need to hunt down my old View-Master.

Ah Ditto!

And the unexpected songs at the end of the film! Oh what fun.
also, Julia's new nickname for me is Electress. I Neeed to find one of those costumes. ;D

[jules]

I enjoyed these during the year

Final Fantasy (RIP) - Heartland
Hank - The Luck Of The Singers
Dag för Dag - Shooting from the Shadows
Handsome Furs - Face Patrol
Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Dimensions
Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
Magic Arm – Make Lists Do Something
Micachu and the Shapes - Jewellery
Fránçois and the Atlas Mountains - Plaine Inondable + Her River Raves recollections
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!
St. Vincent - Actor

[lise]

I think you might be interested in this list:

flavorwire.com/57909/stereotyping-people-by-their-favorite-indie-bands

and thank you for sharing you 2009 favourite albums, that will give me idea of what to listen next.