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Mac's Top 40 - Part 1

Posted at 3:25 PM on December 15, 2009 by Mac Wilson (1 Comments)

The Current's Top 89 this year will be tallying & counting down your favorite songs of 2009. If you haven't voted yet, be sure to cast your ballot. While you're there, you can check out the Current hosts' favorite songs of the year, as well. I really do feel like this will be our best Top 89 yet, and I'm looking forward to finding out, along with the rest of you, what will be on the list.

However, I still feel a particular affinity towards the album. It's still my preferred format for listening to music. Therefore, I would feel a void inside if I didn't tally my own favorite albums of the year. I decided to go rogue and make a list of my favorite albums of the year. I originally wrote it as a 4,500 word behemoth, but I was convinced by the powers that be to spread it out over three days. 40 through 26 today, 25 through 11 tomorrow, and 10 through 1 on Thursday, with an honorable mentions page on Friday if I feel like it. Maybe some of my fellow Current DJs will even follow me and post their own lists. We'll have to wait & see. In any case, I hope you enjoy.

40. Lookbook, Wild at Heart
I'm a sucker for the synths. Too many high-energy hits for me to leave off my best-of. My wife used to work with Maggie Morrison, so it's nice to see her new band get some love.

39. Charlotte Gainsbourg, IRM
Why not? Gotta love a concept album about getting an MRI (hence the title). What's more, I'll like anything that sounds like Mutations-era Beck (who produced & co-wrote the album). If I'm being very general it's because I've only listened to the album once, but I'm confident that it'll grow on me even more. Thanks to the magic of overseas release dates (it comes out in the U.S. in January), I can just continue to evaluate it in the months to come and put it on my best-of-2010 if I want. It's not like the music gods will smite me for doing so.

38. Mason Jennings, Blood of Man
Just when I was beginning to think he was a one-dimensional musician, he releases this three-dimensional epic that touches on war, peace, murder, and everything in between. For me, the spotlight track is "Pittsburgh". It feels like decades' worth of narrative crammed into less than 4 minutes. I still can't figure out the plot line, and it has me playing it over and over. That's more than I can say about Jennings' career before this. He should have plugged in sooner. Nice work.

37. The Boy Least Likely To, The Law of the Playground
Every damn time I listen, the first four songs convince me it's one of the best of the year. Unfortunately tails off with too much middling adorableness, but I still relate to many of the songs' lyrical themes of growing up. This album helped me prepare for fatherhood.

36. Dinosaur Jr., Farm
I'm not a devotee by any means, but I can see that this is a band at the top of its game. As I've said other places, this is a great fusion of melodicism and brawn.

35. Handsome Furs, Face Control
If the E Street Band had covered Glass Houses (only with more synths) you'd have a close approximation of what Handsome Furs do. There's also a New Order tribute and an overriding theme of Eastern-bloc countries in the 21st century.

34. Yo La Tengo, Popular Songs
The first nine songs are 36 minutes, the last three songs are 37 minutes. Superfans will dig the whole thing, casual fans (such as myself) will enjoy the mix of bossa nova and garage rock. Your mileage may vary, which is the point. I admire them for not compromising.

33. Au Revoir Simone, Still Night, Still Light
Stars or Tegan & Sara run through a MIDI synthesizer. Still Night, Still Light is an intensely repetitive, almost droning record that still tripped the right emotional triggers in my heart. It sounds hackeneyed but at the same time, that's basically their motus operandi. Nothing in their lyrics approaches poetry, but it does bring comfort. A mellow, under-the-radar success.

32. Wilco, Wilco (The Album)
Musically, it's their weakest album. For all the vaunted musicians in the group, it's incredibly bland-sounding, with a few glaringly obvious sonic throwbacks that fool the listener into thinking it's more varied than it is. HOWEVER, Jeff Tweedy bails them out with a compelling libretto, their best since Summerteeth. I was ready to write the record off earlier this summer, then Jon & Kate Gosselin got divorced. Suddenly, it made sense. From the perspective of a failing couple, it makes sense. You dream of persisting, you dream of how things could have been different, you dream of devotion, you dream of carrying the dream in "Via Chicago" to its logical conclusion. In the end, of course, the only partner who won't lie or cheat is Wilco, who will love you, baby, even after Jon moves to New York with Hailey Glassman. Ta-dah.

31. The Clientele, Bonfires on the Heath
I'll quote myself from Musicheads: this has the potential to be for autumn what XTC's Skylarking is for spring. This is the soundtrack for picking out pumpkins, drinking cider, and waiting for the snow to begin falling. As effective as the Clientele are for creating a vibe, they're also capable of writing standouts of stunning beauty, such as "Never Anyone but You," a companion piece to Yo La Tengo's "Autumn Sweater" in more ways than one.

30. M. Ward, Hold Time
Mr. Christgau provided me with the lyrical primer, which is Ward's religion devotion. Hold Time's songs are equally affecting when sung to the Lord or to a romantic partner. I'm impressed by his conciseness and simplicity in his love songs/hymns, as long as you pretend the Lucinda duet never happened.

29. Antony & The Johnsons, The Crying Light
If you want a challenge, try explaining Antony & The Johnsons to someone. Where would you begin? I'll just say this has some heartstopping songs, top-notch string arrangements from Nico Muhly, and a voice I could listen to all day.

28. Cass McCombs, Catacombs
Some very bold songs about some very broad topics, including marriage, voting, and the rat race. McCombs stacks metaphors, making me feel like I'm only grazing the surface. It's one of the year's most complex and rewarding artistic statements, and yet a little overly ambitious, not quite adding up to as much as he thinks it does. McCombs is best at his most clear-eyed: in the honest sentiments of "Dreams-Come-True Girl" and "You Saved My Life". If you decide to follow up on one thing in my entire list, be sure to watch the video for "You Saved My Life" -- ideally, watch it once for the visuals & once for the words (the order is up to you). Few songs packed such a punch for me in 2009.

27. White Rabbits, It's Frightening
Spoon's Britt Daniel produced the album, and you can hear him in every note. The comparision I made was when David Bowie worked with Iggy Pop in the '70s. While I was reminded that The Idiot and Lust for Life are Iggy's two best solo albums, I can't help but feel that White Rabbits are being used as a vehicle for Daniel's own musical explorations. Of course, this is a spooky, rewarding album, but it also sounds like Spoon. It doesn't sound like White Rabbits. I shouldn't complain, but there you have it.

26. Wild Beasts, Two Dancers
The word is 'impeccable'. I really dig the musicianship and songwriting across the board. The biggest turnoffs people have with Wild Beasts are the vocals and the subject matter, both of which make the band a little tough to love, but not to the point of being completely alienating (not for me). After a pretty-good record and a very-good record within a year of each other, I think Wild Beasts have potential staying power -- IF their uniqueness doesn't lead to their downfall.

Tune in tomorrow for Part 2.

Comments (1)

26. I ADORE Wild Beasts. That is all.

Posted by Heidi | December 17, 2009 2:01 PM

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