Hey, look, it’s here, and I am still way behind, but I believe I’ve bought all my presents and finally gotten the Christmas card situation under control and, best of all, I don’t have to go anywhere this Christmas, so no huddling in a plastic chair in Detroit or Chicago waiting for a golf-cart-sized prop plane to make its way through a snowstorm so that I can board.
But okay, what do you care about that? What’s going on in the fascinating world of music criticism. So glad you asked. Blurt has posted its year-end wrap-ups. You can peruse the aggregate top 50 here (yay, Sharon van Etten!), and (much more interesting, I think) the individual rankings here.
Oh and in another instance of the vast power of the internet, Steve Murphy from Gods Gift has just become one of my last.fm friends…weird world, isn’t it? Still waiting on Johnny Depp and Ralph Fiennes.
Ho ho ho!
Merry xmas! We'll be driving all over southern Ontario, but it should be a good one. Fingers crossed about the weather though...
ReplyDeleteI've actually just recovered from celebrating Zappadan.
ReplyDeleteYes Jenny, the individual picks are much more interesting. Speaking of which...
My favorite albums of 2009
Never Going Back - Shemekia Copeland
Insult to Injury - The Nightingales
Lovetune for Vacuum - Soap&Skin
The Fresh & Onlys - the Fresh & Onlys
Tale to Tell - The Mummers
My Only Companion - The Diamond Center
The Truth According to Ruthie Foster - Ruthie Foster
Tell 'em What Your Name Is - Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
Help - Thee Oh Sees
Last Exit to Happyland - Gurf Morlix
Grey-Eyed Girls - The Fresh & Onlys
Harum Scarum - Joe Gideon and the Shark
The Callas - The Callas
Travels With Myself and Another - Future of the Left
Good Planets Are Hard to Find - Øresund Space Collective
Goodnight Oslo - Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3
Deer in the Night - Po' Girl
I Was a King - I Was a King
Labyrinthes - Malajube
Thirty Six Minutes - The Craftmen Club
Das Bierbeben - Das Bierbeben
Two Suns - Bat for Lashes
Love and Curses - Reigning Sound
A Ways Away - Tara Jane O'Neil
Threadbare - Port O'Brien
Zero to 99 - Boston Spaceships
205 - The Bavarian Druglords
Signal Morning - Circulatory System
Freak Show - The Tiger Lillies
Country Club - John Doe & The Sadies
Seasoned Eyes Were Beaming - Sara Lov
Cheers to all!!!
Have a great one, Ian...saw you picked Gods Gift in the reissues, too, very cool. (That makes two of us anyway.) It does sound like the weather's going to be awful this year, hope you get there before it hits.
ReplyDeleteAnd Clif, great list, you have solved the Fresh & Onlys problem, haven't you? I picked one for Blurt and one for Pazz and Jop, but no idea which one I like better.
I had my eye on that John Doe and the Sadies record but never followed up...it's good, eh?
Zappadan, very funny.
The Fresh & Onlys are my favorite band of the year.
ReplyDeleteGreat album by John Doe & The Sadies. I still have not heard Excene Cervenka's newest but I would love to try a mash up :)
Cheers!
p.s. Are you going to make it to SXSW this year?
F&Os were my favorite new band this year. I guess the Clean was my favorite overall, if you put it like that...I'm wincing, it doesn't seem quite right. But Fresh & Onlys were a really cool new discovery, no question, looking forward to seeing what they do next.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about SXSW. I'm not writing for PopMatters anymore. I'd have to go on my own, which seems kind of self-indulgent, I don't know.
Anyway, I should probably book a hotel just in case. (My credit cards are still smoking from Christmas, unfortunately.)