Jun

Christina Aguilera – Bionic
Amplive – Murder at the Discotech
Archipelago – Have Here
Melissa Auf der Maur – Out of Our Minds
Bomb the Music Industry! – Adults!!!…Smart!!! Shithammered!!! And Excited by Nothing!!!!!!!
The Challenged – Loaded Language
The Cute Lepers – Smart Accessories
The Depreciation Guild – Spirit Youth
Die So Fluid – Mercury
Elk City – House of Tongues
Foals – Total Life Forever
Hannah Georgas – This is Good
Glee Cast – The Journey to Regionals
God Help the Girl – Baby You’re Blind
Sarah Harmer – Oh Little Fire
Hey It’s Okay – This is an In-store not a Riot
Hussalonia – Hissalonia
Hussalonia – The Somewhat Surprising Return of Percy "Thrills" Hussalonia
Jeremy Jay – Splash
The Like – Release Me
Marina and the Diamonds – The Family Jewels
Mates of State – Crushes
Tift Merritt – See You on the Moon
Janelle Monáe – The ArchAndroid
Nada Surf – If I Had a Hi-Fi
Nina Nastasia – Outlaster
New Idea Society – Quiet Prism
Nü Sensae – TV, Death and the Devil
Operator Please – Gloves
The Paradise Motel – Australian Ghost Story
Pernice Brothers – Goodbye, Killer
Pillow Fights/Smokejumper – Uh Huh
Queen Adreena – Taxidermy
Ratatat – LP4
Gemma Ray – It’s a Shame About Gemma Ray
Sleigh Bells – Treats
Laura Stevenson and the Cans – A Record
Television Personalities – A Memory is Better than Nothing
Tender Forever – No Snare
Tokyo Police Club – Champ
The Tubers – Anachronous
Kurt Vile – Square Shells
Paul Weller – Wake Up the Nation
The Wild – Set Ourselves Free

May

65daysofstatic – We Were Exploding Anyway
The Alarm – Direct Action
The Alps – Le Voyage
Arctic Monkeys – My Propeller (single)
Avi Buffalo – Avi Buffalo
The Bats – How Pop Can You Get?
Bicycle Voice – Tis the Ghost of Martinellis
Broken Social Scene – Forgiveness Rock Record
Calories/William – (split single)
Camera Obscura – The Nights Are Cold (single)
Chin Chin – Sound of the Westway
Effi Briest – Rhizomes
The Fall – Your Future, Our Clutter
Free Electric State – Caress
Frog Eyes – Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph
The Futureheads – The Chaos
The Garlands/The Sugarplums – (split single)
Girl in a Coma – Adventures in Coverland (3 eps)
Cast of Glee – Volume 3 – Showstoppers
The Hundred in the Hands – This Desert (ep)
Japandroids – No Singles
Knight School – Revenger
LCD Soundsystem – This is Happening
Male Bonding – Nothing Hurts
MGMT – Congratulations
The Method Actors – This Is Still It
Minus the Bear – Omni
Mystery Fix – Syllogismobile (single)
Naked on the Vague – Heaps of Nothing
The National – High Violet
The New Pornographers – Together
New Young Pony Club – The Optimist
Noumenon – Party Mathematics
Sam Phillips – Magic for Everybody
Phosphorescent – Here’s to Taking It Easy
The Sadies – Darker Circles
Slothbear – Qids
Small Black – Small Black
Snowglobe – Little More Lived In
Spouse – Confidence
Standard Fare – Fifteen (single)
Stereo Total – Baby Ouh!
Twin Sister – Color Your Life (ep)
Various Artists – Sing Me to Sleep
Watch out for Rockets – Shaman Shit
The Whitsundays – Saul
Wild Nothing – Gemini
Woods – At Echo Lake

Apr

Animal Names – Let It Been
Apollo Ghosts – Mount Benson
Best Coast – Something in the Way (single)
Black Francis – Nonstoperotik
Black Tambourine – Black Tambourine
The Blanche Hudson Weekend – The Letters to Daddy (ep)
Brilliant Colors – Never Mine (single)
Roger Bryan & the Orphans – Wolves
Circus Devils – Mother Skinny
De Novo Dahl – Tigerlion
Dum Dum Girls – I Will Be
Eddy Current Suppression Ring – Rush to Relax
The Ergs – Thrash Compactor (ep)
Everyone Everywhere – Everyone Everywhere
Glass Candy – Feeling Without Touching (ep)
The Cast of “Glee” – The Power of Madonna
The Go Find – Everybody Knows It’s Gonna Happen Only Not Tonight
Good Luck – Demonstration 2010
Good Shoes – No Hope, No Future
Harlem – “Hippies”
Hole – Nobody’s Daughter
Hussalonia – Attention Deficit Recorder
The Indelicates – Songs for Swinging Lovers
I Need Sleep – Fun Tunnel
Insect Guide – Dark Days & Nights (single)
Kaki King – Junior
The Knife – Tomorrow, In a Year
Lali Puna – Our Inventions
Little Women – Throat
The Living Sisters – Love to Live
Lovesliescrushing – Crwth (Chorus redux)
Magic Man – Real Life Color
The Manhattan Love Suicides – Deluxe Edition, Louder and Longer
Masshysteri – Masshysteri
Matt Pond PA – The Dark Leaves
Medications – Completely Removed
The Menzigers – Chamberlain Waits
Kate Miller-Heidke – Curioser
The Mitchells – The Secret Sounds
Museum Mouth – Tears in my Beer, I am the Idiot of the Jungle (ep)
Modern Rivals – Modern Rivals
Joanna Newsom – Have One on Me
Palmdale – Get Wasted (ep)
Pill Wonder – Jungle/Surf
The Pipettes – Stop the Music (ep)
Portugal. The Man – American Ghetto
Quadron – Quadron
Red Sparowes – The Fear is Excruciating, But Therein Lies the Answer
Rotting Christ – Aealo
Sambassadeur – European
Serena Maneesh – S-M 2: Abyss in B Minor
Standard Fare – The Noyelle Beat
Statuesque – Reader, I Curried Him
Stripmall Architecture – Feathersongs for Factory Girls, Studio Sessions
Swanton Bombs – Mumbo Jumbo and Murder
J.G. Thirlwell – Manorexia: The Mesopelagic Waters
Title Tracks – It Was Easy
The Unwinding Hours – The Unwinding Hours
Virgin of the Birds – Banquet Years
We Were Promised Jetpacks – The Last Place You’ll Look (ep)

Mar

AFCGT – AFCGT
Aloha – Home Acres
The Art Museums – Rough Frame
David Bazan – Live at Electrical Studio
Boston Spaceships – Camera Found the Ray Gun (ep)
Broken Bells – Broken Bells
Cast of Coraline – Original Off Broadway Cast Recording
Clogs – The Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton
Cotton Candy – Top-Notch & First-Rate
Double Dagger – Masks (ep)
Drive-by Truckers – The Big To-do
Efterklang – Magic Chairs
Excepter – Presidence
Frightened Rabbit – The Winter of Mixed Drinks
Golden Triangle – Double Jointer
Gorillaz – Plastic Beach
Nana Grizol – “Ruth”
Emm Gryner – Stray Bullets (ep)
The Happy Hollows – Spells
Robyn Hitchcock & the Venus 3 – Propellor Time
HollAnd – I Blow Up
Honneycombs – Honneycombs
Hussalonia – Alonia
Zola Jesus – Stridulum (ep)
JJ – jj no3
Kid 606 – Songs About ****ing Steve Albini
Miles Kurosky – The Desert of Shallow Effects
Lali Puna – “Remember” (single)
Cate Le Bon – Me Oh My
Ted Leo & the Pharmacists – The Brutalist Bricks
Let’s Wrestling – In the Court of the Wrestling Let’s
Liars – Sisterworld
The Light Footwork – National Historic Landmarks
Lonelady – Nerve Up
Love is All – Two Thousand and Ten Injuries
Holly Miranda – The Magician’s Private Library
One for the Team – Ghosts
Graham Parker – Imaginary Television
Emma Pollock – The Law of Large Numbers
The Radio Dept. – Clinging to a Scheme
Rogue Wave – Permalight
The Secret History – World that Never Was
So Cow – Meaningless Friendly
Static of the Gods – Knowledge Machine
Summer Cats – Your Timetable (single)
Surfer Blood – Astro Coast
These New Puritans – Hidden
Titus Andronicus – The Monitor
Vulgaires Machins – Requiem pour les Sourds
Wetdog – Frauhaus!
White Hinterland – Kairos

Feb

Buzzcocks – Love Bites (reissue)
Paula Carino – Open on Sunday
Giant Drag – Swan Song (ep)
Juliana Hatfield – Peace & Love
Hussalonia – Dear Hussalonia: Letters from Animals, Mostly Ducks
Magnetic Fields – Realism
Robert Pollard – We All Got Out of the Army
Quasi – American Gong

Jan

Bettie Serveert – Pharmacy of Love
Hussalonia – Know Your Eastern European Anthems
Freedy Johnston – Rain on the City
Los Campesinos! – Romance is Boring
Adam Marsland – Hello Cleveland
OK Go – Of the Blue Colour of the Sky
Spoon -Transference
Laura Veirs – July Flame

2009 late arrivals

Cloud Nothings – Turning On
Copy Haho – Bred for Skills & Magic
Gay for Johnny Depp – Manthology
Grammatics – Grammatics
Holden – Fantomatisme
Immaculate Machine – High on Jackson Hill
Johnny Foreigner – Grace and the Bigger Picture
Pull Tiger Tail – PAWS.
Spottiswoode – Piano 45
Stripmall Architecture – We Were Flying Kites, Object 03
Talk Normal – Sugarland
These Are Powers – All Aboard Future
Tubelord – Our First American Friends
Tuff Darts- You Can’t Keep a Good Band Down

• 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.

But if they pull a “Mission of Burma”-style return to active duty (and I hope they do), I would love to see/hear them again when they have another few shows under their belt, hopefully in a better-sounding room, and when I’ve had a chance to rein in my own unrealistic expectations a bit.

Damn, I’m prescient. Original bassist Steve Michener was missed, especially on “Ron Klaus Wrecked His House,” “Hey! Mr. Liconoln,” and “Faith Healer,” tunes to which generally capable fill-in man Tommie could not quite bring the required subtlety. But on the whole September 2008 Dipper seemed more sure-footed than April 2008 Dipper. Bill Goffrier had a little trouble pacing his voice through the set, but saved plenty of vim and vigor for the encore (”You’re Not Patsy”). And, most promisingly, there was a new tune (”Joke,” according to Bill’s shirt) with the typical Dipper earmark: just when you think you’ve got it pinned down, it takes a sharp left turn without becoming an iota less catchy. As an added bonus, after all these years, I’m finally clear on who is Bill and who is Gary Waliek. Bill is on the left:

Big Dipper seemed to feel constrained by their set time, so we didn’t get to hear two of the songs on Bill’s shirt, “Meet the Witch” and “Guitar Named Desire.”

We did, however, get to hear: Mr. Woods, She’s Fetching, Loch Ness Monster, Wake Up the King, Lunar Module, “Joke,” Edith, Bony Knees of Nothing [Gary: Here's one from our bad album. Bill: He's cute, he's real cute], Hey! Mr. Lincoln, Ron Klaus Wrecked His House, All Going Out Together, Younger Bums, and a rousing earned-encore rendition of You’re Not Patsy:

Bill says “Oh, yeah!!”

I do, too.

Also, Bill said a word to me! It was “Hi.” I was struck dumb.

*

Boston Spaceships were really friggin’ good. It’s a little scary sometimes to watch Pollard: at times, he seemed like the incoherent rambling man you’d want not to sit next to on the bus. But he can still sing. And the band, critically, stayed a little less soused. There was a hellalotta beer on stage, but there was also some vitamin water.

Tommy Keene brought much rock and gave great guitar cord:

Jason Narducy brought much rock. But do not throw a beer at this man! He does not like it when you do that.

Chris Slusarenko and John Moen brought much rock too, but I didn’t manage to photograph them doing it very well. This is maybe a good time to mention that “Rat Trap” rocked so hard and so well I didn’t even recognize it.

Selected bits of Bob Pollard’s wisdom:

“I remember playing the ‘rat back in 1978″ (much laughter).

Much love was expressed for Dipper and Bill Goffrier’s moves, in particular “the circle,” but I didn’t capture it verbatim.

“That was fucking prog rock [mumble] Peter Gabriel. It moved me. I don’t give a shit what it did to you, but it moved me.”

“Drunk and tight — if you can do that, you’ve got it made.” Which is a good point to get heretical: I saw Guided by Voices only twice, and neither was a typical GbV experience; one was an outdoor festival with the classic lineup, and one was the co-headlining tour with Cheap Trick. But Boston Spaceships might be a better band than GbV. Moen’s an awesome drummer, Narducy kept up with him, and the guitar onslaught of Slusarenko and Keene was nigh onstoppable. So I felt a bit bad about this:

People were pretty much going apeshit all night, but the end of the first encore was “Game of Pricks” and everybody went really apeshit. (Incidentally, I do believe the club did not want the band to play a second encore — one of the few times I’ve seen the house lights go back down after coming all the way up.*) From there on out it was all GbV: A Salty Salute, Motor Away, [I think I forgot something here], Cut-Out Witch, and Tractor Rape Chain. And this band and this band’s material deserved better than to get the biggest response of the night for the other band’s songs. But here’s why I was going apeshit, in especial particular: because I could feel just how much Chris Slusarenko had dreamed of playing these very songs and how much he love playing them, and because I know how very much fun most of those songs are to play myself. So there’s that.

* It’s gotta be a bit of a double-edged sword to book Pollard into your club. You know your drink sales are gonna be a New Year’s Eve levels, but so are your cleanup requirements.

Hanley’s voice sounds better than ever, by turns both tougher and sweeter than in her Letters to Cleo days. Guitarist/former-LTC-member (and husband) Michael Eisenstein fills Weaponize with the kind of fat, crunchy, tone that used to be the hallmark of Eric “Roscoe” Amble’s production jobs. Weaponized is also packed with catchy tunes, with the “The Wrong Year” probably my initial favorite. Also worth a mention is the expansive “I Guess I Get It,” a slow-burning ballad/rocker that could pass for the best Aimee Mann song since Bachelor No. 2. Even the closing jokey grunge-rap number “Drop a Bomb” is kinda growing on me.

I liked Weaponize so much, I’ve since got a copy of Hanley’s 2005 ep babydoll, and it’s really good, too. I’m left to wonder if I was just in a cruddy mood when I heard Cherry Marmalade.