Jesse and Erica Have Been Bombarding You With Their Musical Obsessions All Year; Now It’s Your Turn to Reciprocate
You’ve had the pleasure of listening to our picks all year; now it’s time we share some of yours. We take you to the holiday with the music our colleagues and friends are listening to—and remind you to keep our inboxes full over the break at
[email protected]Daniel Glass, President/CEO of Glassnote Records
Two Door Cinema Club Remix of “Lasso” by
PhoenixGrizzly Bear
The
Danny Krivit Sessions on
NervousKid Sister
Passion Pit
Tune-Yard
Dirty Projectors
Holy Ghost
Jon Pikus, A&R, Kirkwood Ranch/Lava/Decca
My two favorite artists right now are
All Wrong and the Plans Change (
www.myspace.com/allwrongandtheplanschange) and
Matthew Mayfield (
www.myspace.com/matthewmayfieldmusic). Both have unique voices coupled with exceptional songwriting...expect great things from them in the year to come.
Rev. Moose, Vice President of Content, CMJ Network/Editor-in-Chief, CMJ New Music Report
1.
Amadou & Mariam,
Welcome to Mali (
Nonesuch)
2.
Future of the Left,
Travelers With Myself And Another (
4AD)
3.
Bang Bang Eche Sonic Death Cuntttt EP (self-released)
4.
Math the Band,
Don’t Worry (
Slanty Shanty) 5.
The Temper Trap,
Conditions (
Glassnote)
6.
Sleeping at Last,
Storyboards (self-released)
7.
Lonely Island,
Incredibad (
Universal Republic)
8.
Fever Ray,
Fever Ray (
Mute)
9.
Dead Heart,
Bloom in Chains (
Kei)
10.
Terrible Tim, “Brotherman Bill” (single, self-released)
Howie Abrams, Street Justice
Honorable Mentions:
Green Day,
21st Century BreakdownMuse,
The ResistanceLa Coka Nostra,
A Brand You Can TrustKillswitch Engage,
Killswitch Engage Regina Spektor,
FarMavado,
Mr. Brooks...A Better TomorrowDishonorable Discharges:
Eminem,
Relapse: File under "Now Irrelevant"
50 Cent,
Before I Self Destruct: You have already!
Kiss,
Sonic Boom: Stop with the new albums already!
BrokeNCYDE,
I'm Not a Fan, but the Kids Like It: This whole crunkcore/screamo/crunk crap MUST BE STOPPED!!!
Rest in Power,
Michael Jackson!
Andrew Harper, Artist/Producer Manager, Worlds End
Top 10:
Them Crooked Vultures,
Them Crooked VulturesBand of Skulls,
Baby Darling Doll Face HoneyAnd You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead,
Century of SelfJet,
Shaka RockThe Mars Volta,
OctahedronLucero,
1372 Overton ParkBat for Lashes,
Two SunsThe XX,
xxHealth,
In ColorJay-Z,
The Blueprint 3Jason Reynolds, Marketing & International, MySpace Records
10 things that rocked my boat in ’09…
Avi Buffalo, “What’s It In For” (most essential 7" purchase)
Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears,
Tell ’Em What Your Name Is! Bon Iver, dawn show @ Hollywood Forever Cemetary (coolest concert in like…ever)
Soulsavers,
Broken (especially the cover of
Palace Brothers’ ‘You Will Miss Me When I Burn’)
Jonneine Zapata (
www.myspace.com/jonneinezapata; most exciting local
L.A. unsigned act—especially live)
An Horse,
Rearrange Beds (one of the most refreshingly honest acts in ages)
Kidrockers, series of kid-centric shows @ the Echo (
www.kidrockers.com; highlight was my son
Evan rockin’ on stage with
Silversun Pickups)
Big Star,
Keep an Eye on the Sky (best box set. Best old dude reissue overall, actually)
Blur, reunion show in Hyde Park,
London in July (wall-to-wall bona-fide classics!)
Mighty-O donuts from
Seattle (food, not a band)
Jessica Andrews, WEG Entertainment
Can't get enough of
Paramore—I never get tired of their albums, I just put them on repeat.
Lights is really catching my attention, too; it’s exciting to see someone doing something a little different and creating something that's uniquely them.
Manbir Sodhia, Ping Pong Music
I've been listening to the following a lot this year:
Meese,
BroadcastPhoenix,
Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix Lights,
The Listening Jeff Leven, Davis Shapiro Lewit & Hayes, LLP
Coming up with a "best of" list is always a tricky thing. In reality some of my favorite albums this year were from clients:
Five Finger Death Punch absolutely outdid themselves with
War Is the Answer, and the
Crash Kings'
Custard/Motown debut remains totally magical to me, to name just two. But rather than plug-plug-plug my own stuff in grand
Hits tradition, I thought it might be more fun/fair to flag five sleepers from 2009 that may have gone under the radar a little:
1. Sleeper Supergroup: If the musicianship of
Monsters of Folk charmed indie rockers everywhere, and the
Cream-on-steroids-or-is-it-trucker-speed jams of
Them Crooked Vultures brought the rock, one of 2009's most dazzling supergroups,
Shrinebuilder, was painfully under-discussed. Living in that murky swamp where "stoner" metal, punk rock, sludge and psychedelia meet, Shrinebuilder features members of the
Melvins, the
Obsessed,
Sleep and
Neurosis, which for fans of the subgenre is tantamount to a supergroup featuring pieces of the
Doors, the
Stones and the
Who. Their self-titled album on
Neurot Recordings is far and away one of the year's best metal jams, and their double set stand at the Viper Room last month only cemented their splendor.
2. Sleeper Reissue: 2009 has actually been a year of dazzling reissues. Aside from the totally ubiquitous
Beatles frenzy, this past year has seen a long-overdue celebration/canonization of
Fela Kuti (funny how the only thing cooler than indie rockers in Brooklyn doing afropop is one of West Africa's prime movers in afropop doing afropop!),
Pearl Jam's incisive re-envisioning of
Ten, a dazzling re-release of the
Kraftwerk catalog, an excellent
Big Star box and a bonanza of indie rock gems from the
Jesus Lizard, the
Feelies,
Sunny Day Real Estate,
Jawbox and
Lifter Puller. Lost perhaps in the shuffle is a truly excellent reissue of
Serge Gainsbourg's filthy opus
L'Histoire de Melodie Nelson with encyclopediac liner notes and crystalline sound. While the re-ignition of
Roman Polanski's case stands in eerie juxtaposition to the album's creepy storyline, the rumbling guitars and bass of "Cargo Culte" rise above the murk in timeless splendor. For a deeper look, you can check out my
Paste review
here.
3. Sleeper in Plain Sight: While this year's alternative rock field featured a lot of impressive platform releases ranging from
Green Day to
Weezer,
Anberlin's excellent
New Surrender is one of the most complete and satisfying guy-singing-his-heart-out-over-crazy-hooks albums since
Jimmy Eat World's
Bleed American. Propelled by "Feel Good Drag," one of the year's best and most persistent singles, time will prove this to be a turning-point masterpiece by a band we're going to hear a lot more about.
4. Sleeper Producer Gig: Even if the
Arctic Monkeys’ stateside star has perhaps faded since the ear-splitting buzz of their debut, the band's choices keep getting smarter and more intriguing, as best evidenced by their tapping
Queens of the Stone Age's
Josh Homme to produce this year's
Humbug album. Integrating Homme's brooding atmospherics and well-of-souls vocal technique with their own kinetic drive, the album's an organic and rewarding collaboration and a surprise marriage of unlikely dark night of the soulmates.
5. Sleeper-Shift-in-the-Model: While it got a little bit of press,
Tom Petty's
Superhighway tour was, to my mind, perhaps the most exciting development in classic rock in memory. Selling entry codes through
Ticketmaster in advance of a formal box set for a $20ish value price, the "tour" consisted of 48 archival live recordings available for download from pages all lushly annotated on a site set up to act as a clearinghouse for fan photos and memories, alongside band content and a merch store. While maybe not all of rock's classic bands were as studious as Petty was in recording and archiving their live careers, clearly this is a model for rock institutions everywhere and a way to continue to engage new generations whether or not you can stay on the road in the flesh. This is only the tip of a musically thrilling iceberg.
Amanda McIntyre-Chavis, CEO, Musaic Management Group
I'm a strong believer in quality over quantity, and I love to discover truly driven artists with untapped talent. Some of the artists I've been listening to are alternative rock band
Fall Back Plan, pop artist
Lee Charm, R&B singer
TL Cross and jazz vocalist
Renee Manning. I also like soul singers
Abby Dobson and
Adrian Hood. Very talented artists!
Recalling the best of the year in music these days is sort of like
The Godfather III. You get all excited that it's coming, the anticipation is killing you and, when you finally get to experience it, it's like that giant foot in the
Monty Python TV show opening that comes down to crush you and makes a big fart noise. Oy. Another pretty underwhelming year for music, but of course, there were a few standouts worth showing some love for...
Them Crooked Vultures,
Them Crooked Vultures: Are
Josh Homme and
Dave Grohl, the only two people capable of moving real-deal rock music towards the future in the proper spirit? Maybe not, but they sure make (another) great case for themselves with their self-titled debut. Believe the hype!
Raekwon,
Only Built for Cuban Linx...Pt.II: I've been waiting for this one for years, and it was definitely worth it. This is street shit at its finest, minus all the modern hip-hop trappings and nonsense. Beats and lyrics—'nuff said!
Zac Brown Band,
The Foundation: They may have been around since '04, and the album was technically released late in '08, but the Zac Brown Band is 2009's "where the hell did that come from?" Down-home country music for the not necessarily country set and then some.
Slayer,
World Painted Blood: After a few consecutive "so what" efforts, the mighty Slayer returns with their most straight-for-the-throat, brutality-drenched album in a LONG time. The world needs Slayer, and if you don't agree, you will be doomed to Face the Slayer!
Steel Panther,
Feel the Steel: Yeah, you heard me! Makes me happier with every listen.