The Swarm

July 28, 2009

Indie Yuppies Unite!: NPR's Best Albums, Songs of 2009 So Far...

TDS Editors


The Best Songs of 2009 (so far)
1. “My Girls” Animal Collective
2. “Two Weeks” Grizzly Bear
3. “Blood Bank” Bon Iver
4. “The Rake’s Song” The Decemberists
5. “Lisztomania” Phoenix
6. “Zero” Yeah Yeah Yeahs
7. “This Tornado Loves You” Neko Case
8. “Sleepyhead” Passion Pit
9. “Laughing With” Regina Spektor
10. “The Wanting Comes In Waves/Repaid” The Decemberists
11. “Train Song” Feist and Ben Gibbard
12. “Knotty Pine” David Byrne & Dirty Projectors
13. “Daniel” Bat For Lashes
14. “Summertime Clothes” Animal Collective
15. “One Wing” Wilco
16. “The Fear” Lily Allen
17. “Heads Will Roll” Yeah Yeah Yeahs
18. “Wilco (The Song)” Wilco
19. “Stillness Is The Move” Dirty Projectors
20. “Help, I’m Alive” Metric
21. “Anonanimal” Andrew Bird
22. “On No” Andrew Bird
23. “No You Girls” Franz Ferdinand
24. “I And Love And You” The Avett Brothers
25. “French Navy” Camera Obscura
26. “Magpie To The Morning” Neko Case
27. “Woods” Bon Iver
28. “Black Hearted Love” PJ Harvey and John Parish
29. “While You Wait For The Others” Grizzly Bear
30. “Panic Switch” Silversun Pickups


Best Albums of 2009 (so far)
1. Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective
2. The Hazards of Love by The Decemberists
3. Veckatimest by Grizzly Bear
4. Middle Cyclone by Neko Case
5. Wilco (The Album) by Wilco
6. Noble Beast by Andrew Bird
7. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix by Phoenix
8. It’s Blitz! by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
9. Dark Was The Night by Various Artists
10. Bitte Orca by Dirty Projectors
11. Far by Regina Spektor
12. Actor by St. Vincent
13. Manners by Passion Pit
14. Hold Time by M. Ward
15. Reservoir by Fanfarlo
16. Fever Ray by Fever Ray
17. Fantasies by Metric
18. Two Suns by Bat for Lashes
19. My Maudlin Career by Camera Obscura
20. Dark Night of the Soul by Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse
21. The Crying Light by Antony & The Johnsons
22. The Eternal by Sonic Youth
23. The Ecstatic by Mos Def
24. Outer South by Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band
25. Swoon by Silversun Pickups
26. Together Through Life by Bob Dylan
27. No Line on the Horizon by U2
28. March of the Zapotec by Beirut
29. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
30. The Mountain by Heartless Bastards

How does this list compare with your own?



Post a comment

Previous comments include

#1 500 Days of Schmaltz says:

Do people really think there's only one genre of music in the world?

#2 Yupsters says:

Yuppie + hipster = Yupsters

Very lame play list just like all the yuppies that listen to this monotonous garbage.

Where is the underground element?

Suck.

#3 Stabitha C. says:

Needs more Mastodon.

#4 CN says:

If you are going to include metal, I would vote for the Kylesa album over Mastodon.

#5 real music fan says:

How about you include metal, dance music, jazz, music from around the world, new music, pop music, hip-hoe... Or how about this - something that wasn't on Dark Was The Night. The close-mindedness is suffocating.

#6 more brothas please says:

100 titles, 2 black people.

#7 andy says:

Animal Collective make music to drown to.

CN: I say Gallows.

more brothas please: Most Def makes this list because sophisticated whites "got" The Chapelle Show and "are into" Michel Gondry films. Danger Mouse makes it because of Gnarls. If you want to include a black artist on merit, it's Doom by a mile.

#8 raspberry jones says:

I just don't understand how Animal Collective fits the bored-ass acoustic guitar strums of everybody else here. Oh and, sorry, Sonic Youth and Mos Def.

#9 RealReady says:

what the hell? no MASTODON?? that is both pathetic and sad they are not on there... elitist pricks.

#10 Dean Wermer says:

Honestly, I was expecting to see a list of Easy Listening artists and songs that would not disturb the suburban soccer moms who are the predominant NPR listeners; BUT, instead, we get this diverse list of balls-to-the-wall rockin' artists and songs ! Outstanding NPR. I salute you.

#11 Andrew says:

It's good to know that every artist on here I have either had no interest in listening to (minus Andrew Bird and Bon Iver) or their best albums are behind them.

The new Wilco album SUCKS.
This list is an epic fail.

#12 Alan says:

Danger Mouse is actually black, just the whitest looking black person I've ever seen.

Just saying.

#13 Bill says:

"All Songs Considered" - really?

This is a list inspired not by music, but fashion.

As an organization that by its mandate needs to be inclusive of a broad range of view points to put the NPR brand on this list shows how really far away from the mission they've gotten. Tons of albums on this list are quite worthy, but they ignore anything outside of a very narrow range of styles as everyone who has posted pointed out.

The counterargument would be that NPR does offer a broad range of programming across their channels and NPRMusic.org - you can find it there.

That's not the issue, however - the main NPR brand has been used for this list. Trying to compete for the Pitchfork crowd? Why pander? Why produce a list that is a total commodity?

Not only that these now "fringe" genres are hardly self-selecting categories (jazz & world for instance) and are positioned across NPR in a way that essentially ghetto-izes them. A Blog Supreme? How about creating In the Airplane Over the Blog, and leave indie rock in that "bucket"?

Given the diversity of musical knowledge within the NPR staff itself - that makes this list in a few words: total fucking bullshit.

I feel sorry for the many talented artists on it. Many of your colleagues were left out due to a myopic view of music by a small group of programmers.

And I feel bad that my tax dollars were spent on it.

#14 Eric Dunn says:

The new JFJO is pretty spectacular. Their new song "Drethoven" is the heat. Their new EP 'One Day in Brooklyn' isn't out until Sept. 1st, though lots of free music to be had on their website jfjo.com

#15 timsored says:

You know if this entire bunch of artists all slipped down the black hole in the next five seconds...wow, a breathe of fresh air!

#16 Dave says:

Get off Animal Collective's back. Amazing album that doesn't sound like anything else and has a new sonic quality that will carve it onto the music history timeline. There's some other great stuff on there, can't help but think most of it is your standard drums, vocals, synth stuff filed broadly under either rock or dance that will be forgotten in a few years. Replaced by newer drums, vocals, synth stuff filed under rock or dance.

#17 J says:

It's funny that no one on here actually bothered to check the NPR "All Songs Considered" website before posting your view that a handful of narrow-minded, elitist NPR staffers, even referring to this list as one created by NPR programmers with a "myopic view of music." I bring all of this up because what thedailyswarm FAILED to mention is that this list was created by YOU THE LISTENERS, not some narrow-minded group of NPR staff (unless you are narrow-minded, I comment on that). From the NPR website, "NPR listeners cast thousands of votes for the year's best music (so far) and kept the race tight." Please do your research before blindly maliciously commenting on a poorly crafted article. So don't worry, your tax dollars only went towards creating an online poll. This is after all what NPR's "All Songs Considered" listeners preferred, so stop attacking NPR and start attacking their elitist, myopic listeners!

http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/200...

#18 alex says:

god i adore neko. and fanfarlo is fantastic. some great picks.

my only greivances: where's Florence and the Machine??
and Sunset Rubdown's Dragonslayer???

#19 Allison says:

Haven't heard of hardly any of these songs/albums, so... no.

#20 rob says:

No one's going to retort J? C'mon hipsters!

#21 Matt Z says:

There's an awful lot of "new" music (and let's not forget box sets, compilations, soundtracks, reissues, etc.) issued in so many formats, genres and languages each year (see RIAA and IFPI for a glimpse) to really put together a worthwhile list. Any list will be fairly narrow in scope and for better or worse quite subjective. There's only so much reading and listening any one person can do. Good luck keeping up. Ah, at times like this I'm reminded of the great Onion article titled Pitchfork gives music 6.8. "Music used to be great, but let's be honest, it's a 6.8 now at best." Hey, it's true opinions are like assholes. We all have one.


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