Sound Fix | Best Sellers of 2009

Best Sellers of 2009

1. Grizzly Bear: Veckatimest
It’s hardly a revelation at this stage that Grizzly Bear had a good year in 2009. When a Brooklyn psych-folk act makes the Billboard Top 10 (we’re not kidding), that’s news. But i...read more
2. Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion
When Merriweather Post Pavilion arrived, we sold out of the vinyl pressing in about a day, and had to hear “Do you have…?” for weeks. As if we needed any hint that this record wou...read more
3. Dirty Projectors: Bitte Orca
We knew this day would come. The Dirty Projectors were one of those bands that just got better and better with each new release, and on Bitte Orca, 2009’s indie breakout hit and the Projector...read more
4. Beirut: March of the Zapotec/Holland
Zach Condon reestablishes himself as a one-man indie sort of rough guide. During the past year—a time in which he made a much-talked-about retreat from the rigors of touring—Condon̵...read more
5. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: s/t
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart gave us the first great debut of 2009, an album exploding with hooks, energy, style and unabashed enthusiasm. The band’s name is no affectation: This local dr...read more
6. Wilco: Wilco (the Album)
Wilco (the Album) finds this great American band getting deeper into…Wilco! Okay, I joke, but they do open with “Wilco (the Song),” on which Jeff Tweedy & Co. simply insert th...read more
7. Phoenix: Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Only French people could do something so clearly unoriginal and yet make it seem perfectly right and natural and cool. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix sounded best during the warm months, but it’s a...read more
8. St. Vincent: Actor
St. Vincent (Annie to her family, the Clarks) returned this year to prove her debut was no fluke. On Actor, Clark leads with her cute, pointy chin, updating the ambitiously composed songs that made...read more
9. v/a: Dark Was the Night
For months this record just flew out the door. For months after that, it walked briskly. Basically, Dark Was the Night has been the hottest indie-comp of the year — no real surprise consideri...read more
10. Dinosaur Jr.: Farm
It is very rare that a band returns from a 16-year hiatus and makes as much of an impact as Dinosaur Jr. have since reforming. Granted, J Mascis never went anywhere in the interim, but truth be tol...read more
11. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy: Beware
The longer he runs with his Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy quasi-persona, the more natural and free Will Oldham sounds. Because his songs (not just as Billie) have so powerfully mixed humor, sex...read more
12. Antony and the Johnsons: The Crying Light
The Crying Light is another heartbreakingly beautiful record from Antony Hegarty, at once complementary with his most recent full-length, 2005’s stupendous I Am a Bird Now, and wholly indepen...read more
13. Sonic Youth: The Eternal
Sonic Youth’s return to the indie ranks resulted in no major changes from their previous song album, 2006’s Rather Ripped. The Eternal still features lots of moody mid-tempo grooves; the text...read more
14. Deerhunter: Microcastle
In a way, we’re really naming Bradford Cox Artist of the Year, because the mad genius behind Deerhunter in effect pulled off a hat trick – three great albums in one year. After all, 2008 began with...read more
15. Bon Iver: Blood Bank
Few records in recent memory have swept us away as thoroughly as Bon Iver’s full-length debut from one year ago, For Emma, Forever Ago. By now, we all know the story of Justin Vernon and his ...read more
16. M. Ward: Hold Time
Matt Ward is one of those characters who does things in such an understated manner that it’s easy to forget just how jaw-droppingly talented he is. M. Ward’s seventh album, Hold Time, w...read more
17. Camera Obscura: My Maudlin Career
Scot-pop outfit Camera Obscura is one of the few bands to whom we’ll give a pass on making the same record a coupla-few times. Which is good, because My Maudlin Career, the group’s four...read more
18. Neko Case: Middle Cyclone
Artists who’ve been around as long as Neko Case, and who’ve been roundly celebrated by critics and cash registers alike, tend to get taken for granted after a certain point. Yet Middle ...read more
19. Fever Ray: s/t
Artistically perhaps the biggest record of the year, Fever Ray‘s self-titled debut is the sound of one Knife cutting. Of course, this isn’t your standard debut – Fever Ray is Kari...read more
20. Fleet Foxes: s/t
There’s something inherently compelling about a chorus of voices joined in song. Seattle’s Fleet Foxes join that sensibility — virtually everyone in the band lends a sizable vocal contribution here...read more
21. Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago
Every so often a ray of light emerges, rising above the strummy-strum of the indie-folk ghettos and crystallizing everything pure about simple American roots music with an approach that works perfe...read more
22. Bill Callahan: Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle
Like his labelmate Will Oldham, Bill Callahan has spent his long career honing, altering, adding to and subtracting from an identity that has acted as a conduit for a now staggering amount of excep...read more
23. Dan Deacon: Bromst
Bromst is one hour of the most thrilling and exuberant pop we heard all year, as well as one of the most fresh, exciting and inventive in the electronic-pop field. Deacon, of Baltimore’s aptl...read more
24. Woods: Songs of Shame
Words will never quite be enough for Woods. Not to suggest this Brooklyn outfit is The. Greatest. Thing. Ever!, just that when I tell you Songs of Shame is a collection of ramshackle floaty folk-ro...read more
25. The Flaming Lips: Embryonic
At War with the Mystics was a respectable placeholder, and instrumental soundtrack Christmas on Mars holds an auspicious place in the Flaming Lips’ catalogue, but to fans who’ve been waiting years ...read more
26. Here We Go Magic: s/t
What’s in a name? Here We Go Magic is the new nom de musique employed by indie singer-songwriter Luke Temple, whose previous work was solid if a bit unremarkable. Things have changed: The reb...read more
27. Cymbals Eat Guitars: Why There Are Mountains
Fans of canonical indie-rock: If you haven’t already hupped to it with Cymbals Eat Guitars in the wake of the notice Pitchfork gave to this album, well, it’s not too late. This scattere...read more
28. Junior Boys: Begone Dull Care
This Canadian duo’s ongoing fame and acclaim are due to the fact that, deep within their Internationalist techno-pop, you can still hear their early-period bedroom-beat sensibilities. Put Jun...read more
29. The xx: s/t
This London quartet’s cool, quiet ditties exude DIY charm. Sometimes, with their quiet male/female vocal tandem, they seem to be reworking the dreamy end of the post-punk spectrum, as if Young Marb...read more
30. Regina Spektor: Far
The follow-up to Regina Spektor‘s 2006 breakthrough, Begin to Hope, is every bit as gorgeous and whimsical as you’d expect. It’s no secret that she can work magic with a piano and...read more
31. Dan Auerbach: Keep It Hid
We aim to be useful here, so first things first: Yes, if you are a Black Keys true believer, there’s no reason to read any further—Keep It Hid, the first solo effort from the Keys’...read more
32. Andrew Bird: Noble Beast
Read enough about music and certain words begin to seem meaningless—such as “timeless.” But Andrew Bird’s music is just that, in the best possible sense. Eclectic yet unforc...read more
33. Thee Oh Sees: Help
Thee Oh Sees on In the Red: In this age of suffering and unenlightenment, finally, something just plain makes sense. John Dwyer & Co.‘s latest follows in the style of their lastest, ??The...read more
34. Yo La Tengo: Popular Songs
YLT has always showed a great deal of variety, but they’ve outdone themselves on this album, which has so many styles that over its first half (the first nine of its twelve songs) it almost sounds ...read more
35. Sunn O))): Monoliths & Dimensions
Monoliths & Dimensions is a fantastic display of that hugeness you’ve likely read about in stories on this band and the new avant-doom-metal scene that orbits it. What no amount of hype c...read more
36. Papercuts: You Can Have What You Want
We don’t like it when someone tampers with a good thing, so we weren’t sure at first what to make of the Papercuts’ latest, You Can Have What You Want. Few bands can deliver the k...read more
37. God Help the Girl: s/t
Let’s just assume that you haven’t been reading about and living in anticipation of this record for months. So! The new Belle and Sebastian album is in fact this Stuart Murdoch-directed...read more
38. Bibio: Ambivalence Avenue
What a year for the UK artist known as Bibio, a.k.a. Stephen James Wilkinson. Not long ago he hovered just under the folktronica radar as a Boards of Canada acolyte. This year he jumped from Mush t...read more
39. Monsters of Folk: s/t
Here comes the supergroup of our time, an indie Traveling Wilburys. With a name like Monsters of Folk, this could’ve gone either way, really bad or really great; thankfully it’s the lat...read more
40. Broadcast & the Focus Group: Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age
Across the almost 50 minutes and 23 tracks of this experimental “mini-album,” Birmingham’s suave mod-futurists Broadcast trade snippety notions with longtime album artist and Ghost Box Music founde...read more