Top 20 tracks of 2009 Pt. 1

Pretty self explanatory, these are the best tracks of the past year. This is both in my opinion and as a matter of fact :D This will be in 3 parts, here is part 1-

Part I

Monsters of folk- Baby Boomer
Muse- United states of Eurasia
Arctic Monkeys- Crying Lightning
Sad Day for puppets- Marble gods
Scary Mansion- Scum Inside II
Vampire Weekend- Cousins
Asher Roth- I love College
Editors- Papillion
Joy Formidable- Greyhound in the slips
Gabby Young- We're all in this together
Asteroids Galaxy Tour- Around the bend
Big Pink- Dominos
Green Day- Before the labotomy
Metric- Gimme Sympathy

Albums of the year- Monsters of Folk

Monsters of Folk

1. Dear God (sincerely M.O.F.)
2. Say Please
3. Whole Lotta Losin'
4. Temazcal
5. The Right Place
6. Baby Boomer
7. Man Named Truth
8. Goodway
9. Ahead of the Curve
10. Slow Down Jo
11. Losin Yo Head
12. Magic Marker
13. Map Of The World
14. The Sandman, the Brakeman and Me
15. His Master's Voice

Essential Downloads: 13, 6, 2

"Upon first listen, it didn't blow my brains out. I mean do you reeeaaaally want that from an alt.folk album anyway right? I was ready to receive this as my album of the year to be honest, I was ready to listen to it on loop, buy it on cd, all that 20th century jazz. Unfortunately it didn't grab me. That is to say it hasn't, yet. I still hold out hope. One thing though- map of the world by conor oberst is incredible, it's up there with his best (by that I mean theme from pinata, rainy days and weather reports)." ~ Outroversion August 2009

Now the end of the year is coming around I would say yes, this is in my top 5 albums of the year. If it was just conor, mike and m. ward and the other guy didn't sing then it would probably be in the top 3. M. Ward's tracks are excellent, conor's great as ever and mogis always adds something, it's a nice mix, a really pleasant album.

Frontier Ruckus- The orion songbook [2008]

With the indie rock playlist and my best of wrapped up for octoboer I started on November and this is the first band I got excited about. The track I heard (Rosemont) reminded me so much of Bright Eyes' old soul song and that was one of the tracks that pretty much tipped me over the edge from a casual fan to conorobsessive. You simply gotsta check this one out.

Frontier Ruckus
The orion songbook [2008]

1. Animals Need Animals
2. The Latter Days
3. What You Are
4. Dark Autumn Hour
5. Mount Marcy
6. The Blood
7. Bethlehem
8. Foggy Lilac Windows
9. Orion Town 2
10. The Back-Lot World
11. Rosemont
12. Orion Town 3
13. Adirondack Amish Holler
14. The Deep-Yard Dream

"Matthew Milia, David W. Jones, and crew take the americana, backwoods-homespun-heirloom sounds of a bygone era, and give them a new understanding, with an unobtrusive modern edge. Top it off with the most intelligent lyricism you've heard in years, and you have Frontier Ruckus. It's hard to recall a voice as untreated and honest as Milia's... ever. His is a voice whose timbre carries as much meaning as the words that come through it"

Reccomended Downloads: 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 13

So on my album posts now I'm going to put what tracks I reccomend to download as recently i've gone through my itunes and tended to keep sort of 5 or 6 tracks on quite a few albums and my ipod is much more healthier for it and when you put it on shuffle it's pretty much all gold rather than hit and miss.

Monsters of folk

You know the super group that's as good as it sounds.


















Monsters of Folk (2009)

Upon first listen, it didn't blow my brains out. I mean do you reeeaaaally want that from an alt.folk album anyway right? I was ready to receive this as my album of the year to be honest, I was ready to listen to it on loop, buy it on cd, all that 20th century jazz. Unfortunately it didn't grab me. That is to say it hasn't, yet. I still hold out hope. One thing though- map of the world by conor oberst is incredible, it's up there with his best (by that I mean theme from pinata, rainy days and weather reports).

Think they've got the right balance here in terms of artists, they all have always been in it for the creative outlet and just wanted to make music together. In a fantasy, unicorn, night rainbow, planet of the nymphomaniacs dreamworld this would be conor oberst, ben gibbard, john vanderslice and rob crow but the fact of the matter is you know that wouldn't go down well and ben gibbard's voice is starting to annoy me now. There I said it. *is genuinely devastated by this revelation*

In me news: I've sneezed a lot of times today and i'm also pumped for finding a new job.

No net for a couple of weeks

Every now and then you don't have the net, that's life... well that's modern life anyway. Each time I don't have it I feel like I'm behind as heck with music. This post will be short as I feel the names I'm about to drop outline just how much I'm looking forward to get back on track. All of these have been released or leaked in the past week-

Jay Z- The blue print 3
Isalnds- Vapours
Stardeath and white dwarfs- The Birth
Monsters of folk- Monsters of Folk
Sufjan Stevens- BQE
Paramore- Brand New Eyes

Also I'm torn on whether to post links as I keep getting stuff taken down and would like some feedback on whether you think this blog is still worth it without them? Thankyou for reading.

Don't call it a supergroup! (Monsters of folk)

Conor Oberst's definately good at making you do your work to be called a real connosieur of his work, between bright eyes, the mystic valley band, desperaciados, the split ep's, guest appearences and to a lesser extent- commander venus lol he's now back with super group "monsters of folk" with mike mogis of bright eyes and M. Ward of she and him i suppose and jim james of no less than My morning jacket. This has to be good right?

Right. This is amazing, it's got both the feeling of genius colliding and four friends rocking out together doing what they do best and for each of them that involves different areas, as long as conor's on lyrics so i'm pretty much happy to leave everyone to their own devices although james and ward do get in on the act. The result, surely cacophonic emo-folk bliss.

Say please