Dave Maass

No illusions here: This top 5 list of 2009 albums is far from comprehensive and not representative of anything but my state of mind. With the exception of a few one-off reviews for the Inlander, music wasn’t really among my beats this year and, as a result, my music selections were at best a crap shoot, at worse, completely accidental. Records that came out early this year are, admittedly, over-represented in this list simply because it can take me months to fully appreciate the intricacies of an album. Furthermore, my music tends to reflect my lifestyle, and you can draw what you will about how this year treated me from what follows. It was a year of walking and scootering, of a major relocation and the breaking (and reassumption) of bad habits. These are the albums that found their way, month after month, in heavy rotation on my 2-gb mp3 player, songs that I found myself singing even without my earbuds in. Now, in no particular order:

Mos Def/The Ecstatic

Without question, this is my pick for album of the year and I say as much in the forthcoming CityBeat staff list. It’s often theorized that music improves when times are painful and I was worried that, with the election of Obama, we’d pass through another period of poor music growth as we experienced in the late 90s under Clinton. Well, I think the economic crash solved that dilemma, but I don’t think Mos Def’s latest is much of an example. Instead, The Ecstatic, to me, marks the end of the Bush, post-9/11/post-Katrina era of anger and lays the groundwork for where hip-hop will go from here: international and unconventional flavors and samples, the type of collages we haven’t seen since the record industry smacked down the Public Enemy model.

Songs I sang: “Quiet Dog Bite Hard,” “Revelations”

Franz Ferdinand/Tonight: Franz Ferdinand

When I first reviewed this album, I wrote it off as indistinguishable from the Glaswegian band’s previous two records. I said Franz Ferdinand “has naught to show for growth.” Nearly a year on, I could smack myself. Sure, it’s not the breakthrough its first album was, but I now consider it their best and most honed. I mean, how many indie bands can seamlessly integrate African rhythms and still maintain the consistency of their sound and style? The addition of the “single organ synthesizer, seemingly locked onto a single glowering Atari setting,” is actually one of the best parts. Garrr. I hate eating my words. Really, though, there was nothing better to have in m’ears as I stomped out of the house every morning.

Songs I sang: “What She Came For,” “No You Girls,” “Live Alone”

Beat Strings/Fang in the Rain

I kept confusing this band with some spin-off of The Raconteurs that I read about and, I confess, it wasn’t until I plugged them into Google for this review that I realized they weren’t. This is straight-up solid rock and roll, with a singer whose rubber lips barely squeeze the lyrics out in any comprehensible way. And it works. The eighties are back, f’sure, and they dive right in, bringing a little blues with em. Keyword dive, as in bar, as in this is an album to create hangovers without every drinking a drop.

Song I sang: “In the Night”

The Bird and the Bee/Ray Guns are not Just the Future

This was another album I reviewed for the Inlander, and at the time, I respected the endeavor, but I said the “the two-member lounge pop act blasting Blue Note Records into the digital age has produced a song for every occasion in the life of the glowing modern girl.” Yes, I wrote it off as an album for girls, with the exception of their ode to David Roth, “Diamond Dave,” which I imagine would be theme when I walked in and out of the girl-listeners’ life. I still kinda feel that way, but ultimately this was an extremely well executed record and I’d be lying if it didn’t bring out my feminine side.

Song I sang: “Police Dance Song.”

Ebony Bones/Bone of My Bones

I was genuinely surprised,that this aggressive samba-influenced British woman wedged her way into my playlist. I put her on the same spectrum as M.I.A. and Santogold, but on the far furious pole. It’s a heart-thumper, an adrenal-squeezer of dance album and I wish more DJs drew from it in their sets.

Song I sang: “Guess we’ll always have NY”

You might well wonder why I only went to five when nearly everybody goes to 10. Well, there are few possible answers. I tend to think that 2009 was a weak year for music. Really, though, the shortness of this list may indicate that I just wasn’t in tune with the rest of music scene. There were several albums that I found myself digging, presented in this list of runners up, but I just don’t think they were place-worthy. Or, I just didn’t have enough to say in a real write up.

Bye Bye Bicycle/Compass - More brilliance from the Gothenburg music scene.

The Marked Men/Ghosts - Got me back into punk rock for the first time since college.

Sparklehorse and Dangermouse/Dark Night of the Soul - No link because this is the best unreleased album of 2009.

DOOM/Born Like This - Disqualified from my top 5 list because of a single, totally inappropriate homophobic track, but otherwise a milestone in hip hop.

Kasabian/West Ryder Lunatic Asylum - Second only to Franz Ferdinand in walking/scootering music, but Kasabian isn’t the British supergroup critics suggest, certainly no second-Oasis–it’s just not original or creative enough to be anything other than an guilty pleasure.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart/ST -  A horrible name (I wish they’d call themselves The Painfully Pure instead), but they totally nail the 80s Manchester sound.

James Pants/Psychik Almanack Volume One - Just a mix, but a fantastic one of 60s and 70s psychedelic, which I find myself more and more digging each year.

Duke Garwood/The Sand That Falls - I like to include an artist that I know and I performed with Garwood at the Spitz in London in 2006. He liked my shit, I loved his shit and his latest experimental album pushes the limits of the lone-man blues further than I thought was possible.

Writer’s Note: I’ve removed Blockhead’s Music Scene from this list because there’s debate over whether it came out in 2009 or 2010.  My paper didn’t review it until late January, so, there you go….

Tags: albums, beat strings, best albums of 2009, block head, ebony bones, franz ferdinand, kasabian, mos def, music, the bird and the bee, the pains of being pure at heart

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