The Ackleys (2005); Forget Forget, Derive Derive (EP, 2006)
Indie-power-pop. Splashy drums, some keyboards give it a slightly new-wave sheen.

as King Everything:

The Drought (2008)
Mostly acoustic guitar/vocal

with P.S. Eliot:

The Bike Wreck Demo (2008, read about Bike Wreck demo here), Introverted Romance in Our Troubled Minds (2009), Living in Squalor (EP, 2010, pay-what-you-want download), Sadie (2011)

Except for the demo, which is crazy blissed out fuzzerific, this is straight up pop-punk. If you have to play the sounds-like game, maybe try Sarge, but since you can at least sample some guilt-free, don’t bother playing sounds-like; just listen & decide for yerself.

with Bad Banana:

Crushfield (2010; artist-approved download (mediafire))

Treble and sugar overdose low-fi buzz saw pop-punk. Yum.

as Waxahatchee:

Split release with Operation Cliff Clavin (2010)

Severely-traumatized-microphone-style acoustic guitar/vocal record. If not for the Internets, I’d still be wondering if “Clumsy” was a tune on one of the KRS Elliott Smith albums that I’d somehow overlooked due to its proximity to all the other awesome songs on those records. A thing about Crutchfield’s singing and production: it hasn’t, ’specially lately, fetishized clarity or anything, so a thing that happens a lot is I’ll be digging a tune basically just because it’s catchy and a really good lyric line will just jump out and floor me. So it’s helpful that the lyrics for the Waxahatchee split are available.

(Also on the read-the-words tip: Introverted Romance in Our Troubled Minds)

Except for Sadie, which is not out yet and now near the top of my “most anticipated releases” list, I think I listened to everything on this list as least twice this week. So, yeah, I endorse this.

h/t I Could Die Tomorrow, without whom my week woulda been a little duller

• Not to imply that Auto-Tune is “the bomb.” Overuse of Auto-Tune is a scourge we have to learn to live with somehow. Maybe if we all pretend we’re all Peter Sellers it will help.
• All of this music was new to me in 2009. Most, but not all, of it was also new to the world in 2009. Not claiming it’s the “best” of anything; more about representing what I actually listened to.*
• 2009 was the year of Hussalonia. On average, I listened to more than one Hussalonia song every day — and I didn’t even start until September
• Considering I’m on record as saying the perfect length for a pop song is 90 seconds, there’s a lot of long, slowly unfolding songs on here. Dunno what’s up with that. Dunno what’s up with all the smutty disco, either.
• In 2 songs the word “Away” on two high notes hangs and fades, kinda like in Cheap Trick’s “Surrender.” Coincidence? Or a gimmick to which I’m unusually susceptible?
• At my dayjob we worry a lot about “single points of failure” — if one particular computer crashing will make really bad things happen, we work to fix it. 2009’s single point of failure award goes to Beat The Indie Drum. Without this website I might not have heard Hussalonia, The Invisible Cities, MC Lars, or The Broken Family Band. (Continued props to Bradley’s Almanac, WMBR, loud-fans, and many other sources for turning me on to lots of good music, too.)
• I know it’s too darn long. You should see the list of stuff I couldn’t find room for (Sian Alice Group, Venice is Sinking, Pony Up!, Chris Richards and the Subtractions… and so many more).
• This is a suggested listening sequence, not a ranking.
• There’s f-words and s-words and other content that may not be appropriate for young listeners.
• If you control the rights to anything here and want it removed, please ask.

the mix

Part 1

1. “Ready to Lose,” Husslonia, Matt Barber Hussalonia (2007)
2. “Energy Shortage,” New Grenada, Energy Shortage (2008)
3. “Freshman Thesis,” Thee More Shallows, More Deep Cuts (2005)
4. “Satellite Mind,” Metric, Fantasies
5. “This is Fullerton,” His Hideous Heart, Only the Earth Can Make a Tree (2008)
6. “This Isn’t It,” Giant Drag, Hearts and Unicorns (2005)
7. “Cities Need a Subway,” Hello Dragon, Cities Need a Subway
8. “D.I.A.L.O,” John Vanderslice, Romanian Names
9. “Corpus Callosum,” The Invisible Cities, Houses Shine Like Teeth
10. “Meet Me on the Tarmac,” Love is Chemicals, Song of the Summer Youth Brigade (2008)
11. “All the Things You’ve Been Missing,” The Beatings, Late Season Kids
12. “Blank Passports,” Hallelujah the Hills, Colonial Drones
13. “Youth Map,” Smokers Die Younger, Smokers Die Younger
14. “The Only Ones,” The Sounds, Crossing the Rubicon
15. “Mystery Train,” The Cinch, Shake It If You Got It (2005)
16. “Spontaneous Combustion,” Nanobots, Live In Stereo (2008)
17. “Comme Ci Comme Ca,” Terry Poison, Terry Poison
18. “Hear It in the Cans,” We Have Band, Hear It in the Cans
19. “No Logo,” MC Lars, This Gigantic Robot Kills
20. “Little Tigers,” Tune-Yards, Bird Brains
21. “Single Ladies,” Pomplamoose, Single Ladies

Part 2

1. “The End,” Liechtenstein, Survival Strategies in a Modern World
2. “We Know Martha Webber,” Now, Now Every Children, Cars
3. “St. Albans,” The Broken Family Band, Please and Thank You
4. “Evergreen,” I Was Totally Destroying It, Horror Vacui
5. “Collision Theory,” Eux Autres, Cold City (2007)
6. “5 Metres Apart,” Stricken City, Songs About People I Know
7. “Proof on Tape,” Apollo Ghosts, Hastings Sunrise
8. “Got to Stop,” Pants Yell!, Received Pronunciation
9. “Purity Test,” Franklin Bruno, Local Currency
10. “Sudden Oak Death,” The Mountain Goats & John Vanderslice, Moon Colony Bloodbath
11. “Witches Vs. Wolves,” S-S-S-Spectres, S-S-S-Spectres (2007)
12. “See the Enemy,” Andrew Bird, Fitz and the Dizzyspells
13. “Sick Couple,” My Toys Like Me, Where We Are
14. “Transparence,” Asobi Seksu, Simple Mental Math
15. “Forest,” Kit, Broken Voyage (2007)
16. “Void,” T.I.T.S., Second Base
17. “Coeur Synthetique,” Nancy Fortune, Crystallized
18. “Speed,” Quad Throw Salchow, Speed
19. “Jump,” The Cast of Glee, Glee: The Music, Volume 2
20. “For Those About to Rock I Ignore You,” Hussalonia, Emile Berliner Hussalonia (2007)
21. “Mom and Dad Play Rock’n'Roll,” Ben Krieger, Class Dismissed (2008)

*There’s a teeny tiny bit of weight against records you don’t need me to tell you about (Phoenix, Wilco, Neco Case, The XX, etc.) and towards records I heard late in the year but expect to listen to a lot in early 2010.