Pimp your hidden gem of 2009!
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Artist:
First off, I'm really sorry that that project to find the best album of the decade from your input did not come to fruition. Not enough people were participating, so it wasn't going to be a good reprsentation of our tastes anyway.
Also, I participated in the MOG Top 50 of 2009 project, for which I submitted my top 10 of this past year and even included write-ups for the two albums that made the list. Maybe you read it. It's a good list that covers most genres and has a little something for everyone. I've picked up a couple of albums to check out from the list, and even found that I like Animal Collective, something I would not have expected earlier.
I wouldn't even dream of competing with that, so I won't be gathering top 10's for this year either. In case you're super-curious, here's mine:
- A Place to Bury Strangers - Exploding Head
- Gliss - Devotion Implosion
- White Lies - To Lose My Life
- Blank Dogs - Under and Under
- The Exploding Boy - Afterglow
- The Prodigy - Invaders Must Die
- The Big Pink - A Brief History of Love
- The Horrors - Primary Colours
- Vivian Girls - Everything Goes Wrong
- The Pains of Being Pure In Heart
Instead, here's your chance to shed light on an album that you feel might have been overlooked on the year-end lists. You know, that diamond-in-the-rough album that no one else seems to be talking about. We did this before, back in 2006, to great effect. (See the results here.)
This time, throw us a bone here. Embed a video, add an MP3, give us a write-up of why this album in question is so brilliant. That makes it much nicer for us to go back later and sample about. Much better than jumping in blind, IMHO.
Here's mine:
The Prodigy - Invaders Must Die
Every year, at least one dance album sneaks past my post-punk/shoegaze-obsessed mind and becomes my go-to album for those long lonely nights when I am forced to stay awake for work. Last year, it was The Presets. This year, it's The Prodigy. Invaders Must Die dials down the hip-hop influence some, but still brings plenty of attitude by way of aggressive samples and hard-hitting beats. The lyrics, while not politically active, act as another conduit to ramp up the aggression. It would be the perfect soundtrack to starting a mosh pit in a converted bunker turned dance club in Berlin, but also works well to keep the brain firing while trying to patch Windows systems at 5am. (I can testify to the last part personally.)
Your turn everyone ... go!
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Comments (10)
One album not on your Top 10 list there (which is very good and contains a lot of mine) that I would include is:
The Raveonettes
In And Out Of Control
This is a band I've written tons about already.
Here is the most recent thing I've written on them:
http://mog.com/DaveCromwell/blog/1573808
A fun band that seems to have a pretty good cult following, though hasn't hit it big yet is I Fight Dragons. If you haven't heard of them yet, they actually use hacked NES controllers as instruments (along with the traditional rock band elements) Check out this behind-the-scenes video:
My favorite track from their 2009 release "Cool is Just a Number" is the single "Money":
L.A. band Fol Chen takes the cake for being the most slept on band imho. 'Part 1: John Shade Your Fortune's Made' is their quirky yet catchy debut with lots of interesting vocals/percussion/instrumentation. I've had this on my mp3 player literally all this year.
Here's their song 'Winter, That's All' although the song is great the vid is boring(I wanted to feature a song I hadn't in my post about them earlier this year. They aren't even on Mog's radar even though I posted about them.):
And 'Wedding Cake':
The Do - A Mouthful
Cute and quirky French indie-pop? Yes please.
Blue Roses - Blue Roses
Great female duo, part Regina part Jenny. How am I not in love with this one. Oh wait, of course I am.
The Features, who I posted about here, were my super-find this year.
I also really dug on Fanfarlo, once someone smarter than I introduced me
Then there's my new found tragic love, The Antler's Hospice that I pimped earlier.
Needless to say, A Place To Bury Strangers' was my number one for the year.
Now... The Hidden Cameras - Origin:Orphan
Wild Beasts - Two Dancers
Also, Richard Hawley and Antony and the Johnsons.
Dave, the Raveonettes album was not far off my Top 10. I don't know about others, but those ten albums each had at least a couple of days where I would listen to that album on repeat. Some of them lasted for weeks.
Daniel, that's pretty inventive, but I think I fall just a bit short of being gamer enough to fully enjoy it.
August, Fol Chen is now on my list. That's a good thing as I've recently started keeping a half-sheet of paper by my laptop with a list of albums of bands to check out later.
Oh John, that Blue Roses was formulated in the lab as pure Jaxley-fodder. How can you resist?
Amber, as the father of a trumpet player that Fanfarlo clip is pure gold. :)
WAIT!!! HOLD THE PRESSES!!! Wild Beasts isn't Anna's number 1?!?!? Wow, that just goes to show the power of APTBS. Heh. ;)
Richard Hawley is lovely again, but I fear he's going to be one of those artists that is so consistently good that he gets ignored. It's a shame, just look at Yo La Tengo.
Usual suspects for me with The Big Pink, Doves, Florence and the Horrors all up near the top but the album that did it for me this year was the Engineers - Three Fact Fader.
The songs are layered in a way that shows the band know their way around the studio as well as their instruments - just as cool live...
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My problem (and I admit it's my problem, but I suspect I'm not alone), is that I no longer think of music in terms of albums. My favorite albums come from a time when I actually listened to them. When I was young, I feared my tastes would fossilize over time, to the point where I'd just listen to Astral Weeks over and over in my dotage. I like to think I've avoided that fate so far, but no albums have replaced my old faves, because I listen to tracks, not albums. So, for instance, your post inspired me to crank up Invaders Must Die, but only two songs ("Invaders Must Die" and "Thunder"). I couldn't make a list of the top 10 albums of 2009 because I don't remember 10 albums from 2009, but (I hope) that's not because I've turned my back on new music ... I've just turned my back on albums.
I should include a 2009 video, just the same ... it won't surprise anyone who knows me:
I can't takre credit for finding them since ilay/Poebegone was the one who turned me onto them at the end of '08 w/their crunchy single 'The Believers' she found & featured on one of her posts.
Here is my mog post about them. And I'll send you a link to my post of their album on the dark side.