Fredo Viola : The Turn

I've heard his album and it's just awesome, but he doesn't seem to be on any 2009 lists !?!!

Have you heard of him or is it just in France ?

The album was out in Europe in 2009 but according to RYM the release date is december 08.

Anyway, you HAVE to listen to it :

That does sound excellent. According to RYM and wikipedia it's a 2008 album, though.

OK, here are five mainstream songs (in my standards) that aren't too obvious choices. I'm not sure if they all make to my year top 20 but I still recommend to listen to them.

Patrick Wolf: Thickets
Bachelor didn't get as good critical acclaim as the former albums (or maybe it did). Anyhow Thickets is beautiful and addictive.


Moby - Shot In The Back of The Head
As you may know I'm a quite big fan of David Lynch (maybe not of his animation films). So I checked this the day it was released. But it's not only the video. The song is actually one of the best Moby has ever released.


Tegan And Sara - Arrow
Good opening track from indie twins.


The Temper Trap - Sweet Disposition
I found this band while I was checking bands I already didn't know which were performing a festival I was going. This is one of the best mainstream-indie -pop songs of the year. The gig wasn't in the top 30 gigs of the year (they were still quite good) but the song might be.
Edit: Maybe they played this song too much at (500) Days of Summers.


And don't forget
Animal Collective - Graze
Fall Be Kind was EP of the year. It may be actually better than MPP. Graze wasn't the best track from that ep but that's not the reason not to vote for it (and five other AC songs ).

FRANZ NICOLAY-Jack Penalty.
Song from solo album by Franz Nicolay, The Hold Steady's keyboardist.
'Major general' is more interesting than the last Hold Steady album IMO, and one of the better albums of 2009.

I know that I've harped on about Annie a lot here, but I really feel that she deserves recognition!

My favorite song of 2009, and a top 10 song of the 2000s for me, came as a great surprise in the form of "Anthonio". I know that Honorio likes it, and sonofsamiam too, but it needs to be heard by the masses!

Here's a tidbit taken from my review of Don't Stop:

"Anthonio" plays like a letter to a vanished ex, as Annie recounts the events that led to her heartbreak: a whirlwind romance with the titular lothario with "a silver tongue" full of promises left unfulfilled as her subsequent letters are "returned to sender". She sings with a cold detachment that is matched by several layers of truly icy synths that rise and fall in sines and cosines before bubbling over into a rather glorious chorus. The first four words are completely loaded with emotion ("Oh Anthonio" echoing her disappointment and heartache; "my Anthonio" revealing that she still cares) and given a truly lilting melody to convey a real sense of mourning. She then goes on to question whether she ever really mattered to him and if he ever wonders about her anymore. A key change augments the tension, while Annie dejectedly admits, "you got everything you ever wanted from me," while accepting that she was "just another girl" and it was "just another night" before dropping the ultimate bombshell: "My baby has your eyes". The rapturous pulse of the song coupled with Annie's bleeding heart make it perhaps the greatest example of Annie's blissful melancholy in her entire career. It follows that "Anthonio" is not only the best song to emerge out of the Don't Stop era, but one of the best pop songs of the entire decade.



Another great, great Annie single this year is "Songs Remind Me of You". Likewise from my review of the album:

As great as these two songs are, they are still overshadowed by the song that closes the first half of the album, "Songs Remind Me of You". Having just referenced Giorgio Moroder on the previous song, Annie and co-captain Richard X successfully emulate the vitalic pulse of his music with a paean to a producer-singer relationship gone sour. It roars out of the gate on all cylinders before launching into one of the best bridges I've heard in a song in many years- the kind of bridge that promises a truly cataclysmic chorus, and one that Annie promptly delivers with a heavenly "How does it feel to hear your songs on the radio? And does it hurt to hear your songs on the radio?" Truly epic stuff.

Petri, "Sweet Disposition" is also a fave of mine.

Here's Antony Joseph and The Spasm Band. His album will be in my 2009 top 3

Basement Jaxx have perfected their formula. I haven't listened to the album though. It must really suck as it has not been included in any critics' list yet.






I thought that this song had a really cool beat. Then it got stuck in my head for several days and I now have a kind of love/hate relationship to the song...






I'm captivated by PJ's voice...

This is probably the most obscure song of my favorites, which is why I'm posting it. Perhaps not entirely unknown, but still something I think some people might have missed while it deserves to be among the top songs of the year.



There are some excellent live versions available on youtube as well. If you like it, I can definitely recommend the album as well.

Music is a princess
I'm just a boy in rags
I would gladly spend my life
carrying her flags

Thanks, Paddy, it could be my own manifest.
Song of the year for me.

In 2009, Fever Ray was far above the others imo
but, among my favorite songs, she had 1 competitor :


And I love these ones too:

I really like Valravn's second album Koder På Snor. It's a Danish band with a singer from the Faroe Islands. Check out Kelling:

Good calls, all of the above.

Ok, it's a bit late and that song might not interest many people but here I go.

That year has been pretty poor in hip-hop, including French one, but a surprisingly good album came out here. Orelsan is a young man from Normandie who was none on the internet for very crude and sexist songs, so nobody expected anything from his album (me included). It turned out to be a really interesting view on French youth, for the first time a hip-hop album REALLY talk about a majority of people.
Usually, in France, hip-hop comes from the poorest cities and either deals with drugs and violence or with how the singer is much better than the others.
Here, Orelsan talks about middle class, people who are neither rich not poor, and whose normality turns into mediocrity. So it deals mostly with boredom, crappy parties, unwanted pregnancies and not knowing what to do with your life ; all with a sometimes witty and sometimes quite vulgar humor.

To sum it up, it is (lyrically) a French counter-part of the Streets. On the musical side it is much less innovative but still one of the best produced French albums of the decade, and one of the first to follow its own way, neither copying IAM nore NTM (the only other alternative this decade was electronic hip-hop, like TTC... seems like to be an acclaimed French hip-hop band, you have to have a name with 3 letters).

Orelsan - Soirée Râtée



Orelsan Différent



I won't vote for him (those 2 songs would deserve it, but since he has no chance to make it to next round, I'll save those 2 slots for songs with better odds).
Go see the video of "No Life" too, it shows a difference face of the singer, darker, much less fun, but with an (unfortunately) accurate perception of my generation.

You should also consider adding some energy to your selection :

Future of the Left - Arming Eritrea



Dananananaykroyd - Watch This



You can also add a choir of children, it always works.

Dead Man's Bone - My Body's A Zombie For You

...for now, something completely different: 2000F & J. KAMATA-You don't know what love is.
Last year's coolest Dubstep track.




SUBSTEP INFRABASS-The unstoppable.
Dubstep so dark and wicked, they call it Deathstep.

Since we now have one more week to vote, I am posting two delicious pieces from Sweden.

First out Taken by Trees, aka Victoria Bergsman, who used to be in The Concretes but is most famous for her contribution in Peter Bjorn & John's "Young Folks".




Next is El Perro Del Mar, aka Sarah Assbring. Incredible video too.




And that Heavy song is indeed heavy!

My friend and I traded music the other day and I just listened to this album, which is incredibly solid. Think In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, but not as good.

Well, I'll try to write here some of the best metal albums of the year. Just some because I'll restrict me to that albums that I believe that non headbangers would also like(in other words, I won't recommend some styles, the ones that only real metalheads would like).

I think 2009 wasn't a bad year for metal(at least better that 08), not a great year, though. If you haven't heard no metal 09's albums, i think you should try some of this ones:

not in order of quality, they're all quite impressive.

Devin Townsend Project - Addicted - if you think metal can't be dancing, here is a perfect example, the best Devin Townsend album in a while.

Diablo Swing Orchestra - Sing-Along Songs for the Damned and Delirious - The most extreme Avant-Garde metal band in activity, an incredible mixture of influences, world music from everywhere, moreover a really funny experience.

Guilt Machine - On This Perfect Day - Arjen Lucassen's(Ayreon's mastermind) best side project album. Surprisingly depressive, the best lyrics of the year, Jasper's(the singer) voice sounds between Freddie Mercury and Jeff Buckley, full of power and emotin.

now some heavier stuff.

Thy Catafalque - Róka Hasa Rádió - impressive, really really well produced, it's not that heavy, but it have a little of guttural vocals.

Baroness - Blue Record - if you wanna know one new metal band(their second full-lenght) that is surely will be one of the biggest metal bands in the future, here it is, a breath of fresh air for progressive metal.

Church Of Misery - Houses of the Unholy - This is not for everyone, this Japanese band made a raw drone album, it is arid, heavy, a punch in your ears, this is how Death Magnetic wanted to sound but didn't.

Kalisia - Cybion - I wouldn't mention this album, but I have to. This is a Sci-fi history, it's a masterpiece, the album of the year. Though, you probably won't like it if you're not into guttural vocals. Surprisingly a independent record.

now not heavy stuff

Porcupine Tree - The Incident - Their lighter album since Lightbulb Sun(2000). The album is one only long song, all the pieces united, it's amazing. Not a really easy album to get into, each time you hear it you'll discover one new detail.

and already to start with 2010's recomendations(i know there's a topic to make this but...i'll take this space), there's a masterpiece out there, the new Orphaned Land album. it's called: The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR, surely one of the best 2010's albums. Orphaned Land is a band from Israel, their sound is full of middle east music influence, here goes an sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kPYLoGUPOI

You can see above my #1 ("Music Is a Princess") and my #2 ("Anthonio"). The rest of my Top 5:

I don't know if anyone's still working on the nomination ballot, but anyway I think this is a quite remarkable piece. (Yes piece, the whole song is almost 14 minutes!)