Hits are for squares?

There’s the debate. Here’s my oar. No prizes for guessing what I’m about to do.

This list is, believe it or not, comprised of my opinions and my opinions alone. It is also merely a collection of albums I have listened to and, considering I’m a fairly poor excuse of a music blogger (often shunning new releases on little more than gut feeling and unfounded prejudice), there are bound to be stark omissions. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ latest album, for example, was a record which, while I thoroughly enjoyed Fever To Tell, I just didn’t really listen to and have no reasonable explanation as to why.

This said, I may well have ‘forgotten’ the odd record; so feel free to leave a comment informing me of my error in however polite a tone you see fit.

I have provided a youtube stream for each artist and each header is a link directing you to somewhere where you can purchase said album.

Almosts:
Bat For Lashes — Two Suns: Daniel is a great song; but the rest of the album doesn’t really live up to it.

Major Lazer — Guns Don’t Kill People, Lazers Do: Same as Two Suns, Pod de Floor is huge, though.

Animal Collective — Merriweather Post Pavilion: Good album but perhaps got hyped too much before I had chance to listen.

Spokes — People Like People Like You: Very promising, though not quite concise enough to break the 20.

20) St Vincent — Actor (4AD)

‘Marrow’

Actor is an adroit album; but what did you expect from a 27-year-old who’s already been in Sufjan Stevens‘ touring band and the Polyphonic Spree (although the latter claim doesn’t exactly put her in a selective group, does it?) I’m not sure it’s quite as good as her debut, 2007’s ironically-titled Marry Me, but this, her second album, is a breath of fresh air — aerating the many fusty, stale offerings from other female perpetrators this year.

19) The Decemberists — The Hazards of Love (Capitol )

‘The Wanting Comes in Waves’

The Hazards of Love is a rock-opera concept-album. It details a medieval love affair between a woman and a shape-shifting forest dweller. Indeed. Frontman Colin Meloy has never been one to cover old ground and, while the opening line of this blurb my put many people off (I really wouldn’t try too hard to disuade them as, if medieval concept rock operas aren’t your thing, it’s probably best to steer clear of this one), his fifth album’s staggering ambitiousness is only matched by its intertwined brilliance.

18) Martyn — Great Lengths (3024)

‘Little Things’

While most of the dubstep community continue to scratch around on the camp-fire-illuminated cave wall with their incessantly-wobbling LFOs and La Roux samples (I’m not saying I don’t enjoy this in a very guilty pleasure sort of way),  artists like Martyn and Dutch impresario 2562 are constantly charting new territory. I wanted to include the latter’s new release, Unbalence, but it has only just come out and I haven’t listened to it enough yet. Martyn’s Great Lengths boldly plots new points on the dubstep map with it’s dubstep-come-spooky-techno lonely rhythms.

17) Copy Haho — Bred for Skills and Magic EP (Big Scary Monsters)

‘Pulling Push Ups’

Okay, so it’s not an album; but as this list reveals itself to you, you will realise (if, by some miracle, you read until its denouement) this ‘rule’ is by no means sacrosanct. Copy Haho are ace, fun, Scottish and possibly many other adjectives, but you get the idea. If you haven’t already, go listen to this as well as many of the other bands Big Scary Monsters records have on their ever-growing roster!

16) Colour — Anthology (Big Scary Monsters)

‘Over the Moon’

The late, great Colour are one of the major artists I regrettably never got to see before they broke up — along with Spy Verses Spy and J.S.Bach. The are survived, however, by this: an anthology of every song they ever recorded in their fleeting existence. As well as personal favorites, songs such as Over the Moon and Chutes, we get to see this accomplished mathy-indie band’s progression through their recording career. A sad loss.

15) Shoes and Socks Off — Hand Reared Suburban Piglet (Big Scary Monsters)

(listen here)

Talking of defunct bands on Big Scary Monsters records, from the ashes of Meet Me in St Louis arose singer, Tobias Hayes’, solo project, Shoes and Socks Off. While his first record, From the Muddy Banks of  Melitzer, was a virtuoso, bedroom-esque one-man-and-his-guitar effort, the follow-up, Hand Reared Suburban Piglet, took the same great songs and embellished them. The revised versions ranged from MPC-fuled hip-hop cross-over to neo-classical serialist violin staggered genius.

14) Junior Boys — Begone Dull Care (Domino)

‘Hazel’

One of the more cultured and considered ‘indie-electro’ outfits of recent times, Junior Boys didn’t disappoint with their third album: a hazy, retro production of slick proportions. While not satisfying some fans’ of their earlier releases (mainly due to allegations of swapping good song writing for good production), there is plenty on offer here. Hazel is a disco gem; a piece of music which, it has been proven by scientists, provokes an irresistible desire to pout like you’re in one of those inescapable-at-this-time-of-year perfume adverts.

13) Samantha Crain and the Midnight Shivers — Songs for the Night (Ramseur)

‘Get the Fever Out’

Samantha Crain is one of the newer arrivals on the US indie-country scene. However, with Songs for the Night, she could easily be receiving the kind of acclaim heaped on Oberst, Adams, and Welch et al. There is many a whistle-friendly tune on this record and it’s the fact her band keep it simple which allows the songs, and perhaps more importantly Crains gorgeous voice, to ring through.

12) Au Revoir Simone — Still Night, Still Night (Moshi Moshi)

‘Shadows’

Another female offering at number 12 really makes me frustrated that most of the ‘girls doing it for themselves’ rhetoric we’ve heard this year has been the product of such uninspiring music (cf Florence and the Machine, Little Boots etc). Luckily, for those privy to this trio’s nuggets of casio greatness, there is salvation at hand. Still Night, Still Night is simultaneously charming and terrifyingly-cool.

11) The xx — xx (Rough Trade)

‘Stars’

The xx are named so because xx, as anyone who studied latin at an Our Lady of the League Tables school knows, is 20 in roman numerals — the average age of the band. Now, I’m not going to launch into some patronising polemic about ‘oohh aren’t they doing well’ and so forth; but xx does show staggering maturity. Just compare it to anything by Symposium for Christ’s sake. The lonely guitar-simmering drums combination works in a kind of naive way (much of the album was recorded while still learning their instruments), but it is the male-female vocal combination which sets this debut from the pack.

10) The Antlers — Hospice (French Kiss)

‘Kettering’

Hospice is a morbid tale of the relationship between a cancer sufferer and an abusive carer. Main man Peter Silberman wrote the record solo in a few lonely years living in Brooklyn, only recruiting Michael Lerner and Darby Cicci much later on. The sombre seclusion felt in Hospice is a testament to this. But doesn’t stop it being a fantastic, fantastic record. Just make sure you lock away the paracetamol and sharp objects before you get stuck in —lest you do a successful ‘Owen Wilson’.

9) Freelance Whales — Weathervanes (French Kiss)

‘Ghosting’

If this was a ’shittest band names’ list, Freelance Whales would be up there with Arctic Monkeys, Papa Roach and The Beatles. Luckily for the Williamsburg quintet, their chirpy, banjo-driven pop is just too irresistible. The vocals maybe too sweet for some — especially in an age where it’s fashionable to sound like you’ve been down a Yorkshire mineshaft all day (cf The Kooks, The Maccabees). However, what the voice may lack in weathered integrity, the music more than makes up for.

8) Dirty Projectors — Bitte Orca (Domino)

‘Cannibal Resource’

Dirty Projectors have been around for a while. Still, I’m sure I wasn’t alone on hearing Cannibal Resource, the first track on Bitte Orca, and thinking it was quite unlike anything I’d encountered before. While Dave Longstreth clearly pulls the strings, it is the disjointed rhythmical vibe and abstract, parallel vocal harmonies of the whole band which pricks the ears. In a year where Brooklyn, at times, seemed to dominate almost everything interesting going on in Indie music, it speaks volumes of the band that they are so lauded as innovators in the field. Fuck Florence: this is how to make pop music unique without becoming a self-parodying, ostentatious twat.

7) The Very Best  — Warm Heart Of Africa (Moshi Moshi)

‘Warm Heart of Africa’

The self-effacingly-named The Very Best exploded onto the Blogosphere in 2008 with their ‘mixtape’ of remixes. This included M.I.A’s Paper Planes and, bizarrely, The Beatles‘ Birthday. Shortly after this, the song Warm Heart of Africa started doing the rounds on radio. While the guest appearence from Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig (this is the closest he’s getting to this list) had a slightly ‘Paul Simon‘, African-music-made-for-the-West quality about it, this was a big tune — evoking a gleeful, carnival-like quality. The rest of the record is perhaps more authentic to the band’s cultural roots and makes a refreshing change from much of the past tourist-rock based around the continent’s culture.

6) Slow Club — Yeah, So (Moshi Moshi)

‘It doesn’t have to be beautiful’ (starts after 30 seconds)

When I first heard about this album, I thought I’d find it about as enjoyable as having the story of the nativity read to me by a fascist. Happy-happy duo erring on a bash-core vibe? No thanks. However, I listened to it and, after a fair amount of pride swallowing, I fucking loved it. It’s a great record and I think even a more austere misanthrope than this embittered blogger would find it hard to resist it — of which there are many. The harmonies are great, the melodies, even better. There is a definite charm on offer here — as well as oodles of twee. If you’re not humming on of the hooks by the end, I’d break out the chest paddles.

5) Cougar — Patriot (Counter)

‘Stay Famous’

Fans of bands who ‘do vocals’ look away now. Fans of amazing, electronica-influenced, beatsey indie rock, come in, sit down by the fire, meet Cougar. They simultaneously chop up guitars, turning them into epileptic, glitchy entities; and exhume a lost, almost psychedelic richness. Right from the first track, Stay Famous, which slyly decieves you, priming you for a rock assault, only to drop into a trip-hop groove, the album is packed full of instrumental goodness which just about manages to keep on the good side of self-indulgent.

4) Fanfarlo — Resevoir (Canvasback Music)

In a year which saw a curious rise in style-over-substance bow-tied singers and glockenspiel-playing guitarists, Fanfarlo convinced by wearing their twee-indie-garb over a toned physique of great songs. Some saw them as an Anglo-version of the ubiquitous Arcade Fire, but I think a more apt description would be a more upbeat Anathallo. Frontman Simon Balthazar leads from the front, acoustic guitar in hand. And while the mandolines, glockenspiel and trumpets add unique elements (although perhaps not all that unique to anyone who’s heard Beirut), they are never the meat, merely the gravy.

3) Burial and Four Tet — Wolf Club/Moth (Text)

Okay, so not technically an album; but it’s my list. This super-group pairing were always going to be good but, on Moth in particular, the talents of both producers copulate and give birth to something magical. It’s not clear what roles each party took in either song — the sleeve is plain black with no liner notes — but Burial’s tradmark beat is evident on Wolf Club, as is Four Tet’s sonic jewelry. Kieron Hebden, the man behind the latter, is renowned for his spiritually-charged performances and one would be surprised if he wasn’t the major perpetrator in Moth’s opening — a low didgeridoo-like drone. What follows is the best nine minutes of electronic music all year.

2) Grizzly Bear — Veckatimest (Warp)

A close second. I honestly don’t think there’s been an album released like this in the last 30 years. Everything from the shared lead vocal duties to the disjointed rhythms mean that it’s never anything approaching forced or contrived. It would be so easy to fuck this album right up; but Grizzly Bear pull it off with stunning élan and vivacity. Never is a note rushed; never one single element over-done. The harmonies are Beach-Boy-crisp and, when the band allow themselves, there is actually a propensity to be up-beat and radio-friendly. A joy.

1) Phoenix — Wolfgang Amadeaus Phoenix (V2)

Everyone likes this record. It works on pretty much every level and that’s why it wins. Emerging from the same scene that produced fellow Galls, Air and Daft Punk, Phoenix were the first ever French chart-topper to chantez en Anglais — and you can see why. The two singles, Lisztomania and 1901, are punchier than a Leona Lewis book signing; although I wouldn’t have liked to have chosen the singles from this release such is the standard of pop-pedigree on offer. As a whole, the nine-song delight is the quintessential indie-album-with-dancing-shoes experience. If you don’t own this record, don’t fret, just right your heinous, heinous wrong. It’s going to be okay.