Albums of 2009

10 - Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears - Tell ’Em What Your Name Is!

Favorite Tracks: Gunpowder, Boogie, Get Yo Shit

Taking your mama’s soul music back out to the garage to get it on.

9 - Nurses - Apple’s Acres

Favorite Tracks: Caterpillar Playground, Manatarms, Technicolor

Fragmented whistles, bells, knocks, and gurgles make for fantastic shambling indie rock.

8 - Jay Reatard - Watch Me Fall

Favorite Tracks: It Ain’t Gonna Save Me, I’m Watching You, Rotten Mind, My Reality

Paranoid, dark, and gleeful. This may be more melodic, but it’s far from mellow.

7 - Amazing Baby - Rewild

Favorite Tracks: Bayonets, Kankra, The Narwhal

Psychedelic glammy rock n’ roll awesomeness.

6 - Throw Me The Statue - Creaturesque

Favorite Tracks: Dizzy From the Fall, Waiting At The Shore, Hi-fi Goon, Ancestors

Chock full of summer indie pop jams. Rock that tinny keyboard!

5 - The Builders And The Butchers - Salvation Is A Deep Dark Well

Favorite Tracks: Barcelona, Devil Town, Golden And Green

Urgent and macabre celebrations of our oncoming destruction.

4 - Harlem Shakes - Technicolor Health

Favorite Tracks: Strickly Game, TFO, Sunlight, Natural Man

Anxious NYC indie rock after downing a handful of Zoloft.

3 - Metric - Fantasies

Favorite Tracks: Waves, Gimme Sympathy, Sick Muse, Satillite Mind

Put this on and watch me dance the pop spaztastic.

2 - Portugal. The Man - The Satanic Satanist

Favorite Tracks: People Say, Work All Day, Do You

"People Say" should be a future rock anthem.

1 - Lucero - 1372 Overton Park

Favorite Tracks: Smoke, The Devil And Maggie Chascarillo, Halfway Wrong, What Are You Willing To Lose

It’s the perfect mix of Memphis horns, country grit, and rock n’ roll.

Singles of 2009

5 - The Drums - "Let’s Go Surfing"

Whistles, wistfulness, and Little Anthony & the Imperials.

4 - Phoenix - "Lisztomania"

Known to incite dancing and reminiscing about the Breakfast Club.

3 - Crocodiles - "I Want To Kill Tonight"

JAMC-like distortion make it sound like a good time.

2 - The Mint Chicks - "Hot On Your Heels"

Don’t fight the caffeinated hooks and handclaps. You can’t win.

1 - Free Energy - "Free Energy"

Classic riffs and cowbell. Obviously a party anthem.

Best concert of 2009

Black Joe Lewis & Lucero

Two of my favorite artists this year on the same bill and they delivered.

Biggest musical dissapointment 2009

The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love

Not a fan of this prog-metal concept album.

Most anticipated album of 2010

Free Energy, Surfer Blood, Vampire Weekend