Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Bubbling Under

This has been a very good year for music. Perhaps there are less big classic albums being made these days, but there's certainly a plethora of diverse, challenging and entertaining music across the genre spectrum, to which access has been greatly improved thanks to a greater variety of media. This year, Spotify has greatly improved my listening, and I haven't had to buy all the albums in my end of year list. I'm still working on the final list - but to whet your appetites, here are some albums from 2009 that I've liked to varying degrees, but which haven't made the list:

Antony and the Johnsons - The Crying Light
Doves - Kingdom of Rust
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz
Tord Gustavsen Ensemble - Restored, Returned
Elvis Costello - Secret, Profane and Sugarcane
AC Newman - Get Guilty
The Low Anthem - Oh My God Charlie Darwin
Erin McKeown - Hundreds Of Lions
J Tillman - A Year In The Kingdom
Trembling Bells - Carbeth
Bob Dylan - Together Through Life (but please, let's be honest, this is a pedestrian album by Dylan's standards).
The Handsome Family - Honey Moon
Bat For Lashes - Two Suns
Broken Family Band - Please and Thank You
The Dodos - Time To Die
Immaculate Machine - High on Jackson Hill
Decemberists - Hazards of Love
Marianne Faithful - Easy Come Easy Go
Jan Garbarek - Dresden
Depeche Mode - Sounds of the Universe
Lou Barlow - Goodnight Unknown