StavTunes Top 10 Albums of 2009
To paraphrase a Mr J. Lennon late of Liverpool, Lancs., “so, that was Christmas”. The penultimate Christmas of a pedant’s decade in fact. How was yours? Mine was great really. I’ve eaten out. Masti a contemporary Indian in Wellington, which was fantastic, and The Golden Ball in Ironbridge which wasn’t as good as it used to be. I recieved trainers, socks, a scarf, brandy and beer. I’ve had a party which was a success, and I’m told I had a good time of it at the New Year’s Eve party. Now, though I have my annual New Year’s cold, spread no doubt from drunken hugging and Auld-lang-syneing with germ ridden revellers.
Anyway, I apologise for not getting round to doing this sooner.
StavTunes Top 10 Albums of 2009
10. Röyksopp - Junior
Because everyone needs: lively Norwegian electronic paeans to robot love.
9. jj - jj n° 2
Because everyone needs: a Swedish Foxbase Alpha for this still young century.
8. The Antlers - Hospice
Because everyone needs: a concept album about a dying girlfriend in a cancer ward. Probably.
7. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
Because everyone needs: harmonies that go “ah ah ah oh” that sound much much better than they read.
6. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport
Because everyone needs: a band with a radio-unfriendly name and sound. Go on, Beacon play this, I dares ya!
5. The xx - xx
Because everyone needs: knowing Londoners younger than you making sexy dub-tinged indiepop with as much Gainsbourg as Portishead.
4. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Because everyone needs: a reference point where Gallic electronica converges with AM soft-rock in the well-thumbed atlas of choonage.
3. Fever Ray - Fever Ray
Because everyone needs: a scary Nordic woman probably from the future with a voice distorted like an image in the house of mirrors.
2. Girls - Album
Because everyone needs: a surf-rock record by a Californian who grew up in the Children of God cult.
1. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
Because everyone needs: an idiosyncratic kaleidoscopic hallucination crafted in a top secret lab from the dreams of The Beach Boys, Beck, Philip Glass and Syd Barret. FACT.
Traditional honourable mentions go to Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Doves, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Passion Pit, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Atlas Sound, Super Furry Animals, Thee Oh Sees, Real Estate and Camera Obscura.
For being late, and I’m moving into virgin territory here, I give you an extra special bonus StavTunes Top EPs of 2009:
DeLorean - Aryton Senna EP
Burial & Four Tet - Wolf Cub & Moth
Cassius - Youth, Speed, Trouble, Cigarettes
Animal Collective - Fall Be Kind
So why not treat your ears in these embryonic days of this unknownable decade. And pass on the thank yous to your uncle Stav when they express their gratitude.
