We drank the Kool-Aid too.
Okay, so they might not be “the best” of the year in a critical sense, but they were my favorite.
And at least I didn’t use the term “Listomania” anywhere in the post. I mean, until now. Which was only to point out how it’s been overused in these types of things this year. I swear. Stop staring at me.
Okay, here goes…
1) Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion
One-liner: The most fully-realized, engulfing piece of work all year. So awesome, it gets two sentences.
2) Neko Cake, Middle Cyclone
One-liner: Could listen to that voice for eternity— that the rest of the music was so great surrounding it made it that much easier.
3) Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest
One-liner: Solid, pretty album for whatever mood you were in…Versatile-mest?
4) Girls, Album
One-liner: Shit came out just as we moved to SF, and below the hype, there’s a pretty fun album underneath.
5) Raekwon, Only Built 4 Cuban Linkx PT II
One-liner: Over-inflated list placement owning more to the fact that this is the first decent thing any Wu-Tang member (Ghostface, aside) has released since 1998.
6) Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
One-liner: Huge-sounding, crossover album with some truly undeniable singles.
7) The Lonely Island, Incredibad
One-liner: This thing owned me for about two weeks and still gets me laughing thinking about lines like, “As a kid I used to lay awake and think, when was Santana going to make a drink?”
8 ) Animal Collective, Fall Be Kind EP
One-liner: I know, I know, but I’m being honest here.
9) Monsters of Folk, Monsters of Folk
One-liner: Overstuffed and over-hyped, but still has a four to five great songs on it.
10) Deer Tick, Born On Flag Day
One-liner: Nowhere near as good as Elephant War, but John McCauley’s gritty, down on his luck wail is too good to ignore— plus, Flag Day has a great hidden song.
Song of the Year:
(Four-way Tie)
* “Walkabout,” Atlas Sound featuring Noah Lennox
* “My Girls,” Animal Collective
* “Cannibal Resource,” Dirty Projectors
* “What Would I Want? Sky,” Animal Collective
