Current Articles |
|
Written by RHUM crew |
|
|
Right! RHUM crew voted their must-have-most loved 5 albums from 2009. This list is what and why you simply must hear and have from last year.
Rupert De Paula Said: 1) Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix French beatniks show the rest of the world how to make music that's cool, ironic, accessible, resonant and even a little bit Fellini - plus a whole hat full of other adjectives music journalists love to use to make themselves sound cultured! Perfect indie/pop symmetry. 2) The xx - xx A stunning debut from a group of 20 year-old misfits that just goes to show that those weirdos all the popular kids ostracise at school may secretly be forming a band and writing songs of such oblique bleakness, gloriously rich minimalism and fuck yeah! Awesomeness that you might even wee a little when you find out. 3) Noah and the Whale - The First Days of Spring Former one-hit-wonders make the saddest, but most beautiful, album of the year (maybe even the decade). Just don’t put it on at a party: epic fail vibe killer. 4) The Big Pink - A Brief History of Love East London nihilists stick to their specialist subject and produce an album about east London nihilism that blurs the boundaries of brilliance. 5) Lady Gaga - The Fame Fuck you, haters. Steve Smart Said: 1.Whitley - Go Forth, Find Mammoth Could have made the list on title alone. Thoughtful without being shoegazey, catchy without being irritating, fuckin' lovely. 2. Tom Waits - Glitter and Doom Live Features over half an hour of Tom playing piano and telling strange jokes. Questions? 3. The Scare - Oozevoodoo Saw them live a few months back, total rockstars. The album took a couple of listens, now I'm hooked. 4. Nick Cave and Warren Ellis - White Lunar Epic and grand. Music to die to. 5. The Big Pink - A Brief History of Love For once the Next Big Thing is actually worth the trouble. The next album is gonna be even better. Raquel Woodfield said: 1. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavillion Some fools are only for fair weather, they know not of the Merri. Oh the fresh enjoyment 2009 evolved with this as the soundtrack! Oh Wow. Indeed. Phoar! It's getting hot in here, open the window. Oh it's, open.... 2. The Flaming Lips – Embryonic Willy Wonka's chocolate factory if Charlie had been overrun and devoured by Sexy-50-foot-human-scorpions with giant solid gold clad legs and tiny busy heads cackle-shouting, "let them have cake!" 3. Phoenix -Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix Crazy, sexy, cool - one foot in, one foot out - and shake it all about. 4. Nick Cave and Warren Ellis - White Lunar One steamy evening late last year with White Lunar as the rain thundered down on a Thai island beach, they danced. They danced like only they existed. So exquisite. Such pronounced emotion. Then my face was drenched in tears. Why am I crying? Did that really happen? And again, every time, more of that I never knew existed. 5.Whitley - Go Forth, Find Mammoth. Its inspiration is almost as impressive as its core. This boy is going to shred once he gets his live act up to scratch - I'm loving that I am loving an Aussie artist. Go Whitley - carn son! Runner up in 6th place. The Big Pink: A Brief History of Love. This is brilliant music. Just brilliant. Rhys Tate said: First! Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavillion There's a reason why everyone likes chocolate. Because it's fucking awesome, that's why. See also: this album. 2. Dan Deacon – Bromst If the end of 'Surprise Stefani' doesn't make you lurch around shouting, “The bells! The bells!”, then you'll never be a deformed freak who lives in a church. 3. The Flaming Lips – Embryonic Wayne Beard and the other two stave off middle-aged unimportance by travelling back in time via sci-fi epic, to a place where you could see the fishing line holding up the spaceships. 4. The Horrors – Primary Colours Mopey Brit twinks get second album syndrome arse-about by following slapdash, laughable debut with this moody, classic postpunk, lightly dusted by the magical fingers of that bloke from Portishead. 5. Various Artists – Dark Was The Night You kids may have killed the compilation album with your geegaws and your iTunes, but this is both a glorious epitagh to the genre and helps a good cause. Everyone's a winner, baby, that's the truth. Close, but no cigar: Califone – All My Friends Are Funeral Singers, Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport, Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest, St. Vincent – Actor. Dylan Stolzenhein said: 1. Brand New - Daisy The gents packed their bags and go on a journey to a place they'd never been before. What an awesome postcard! 2. Tom Waits - Glitter and Doom Live When I listen to this album in my car it feels like my pint-sized '02 Suzuki Ignis into a howling, ball-tearing Ford Mustang. Anyone that doesn't have this album should stage a heist in their local record store and demand a copy. I'll be your getaway driver. 3. Every Time I Die - New Junk Aesthetic Rock-branded technical metalcore. More line-up changes? No worries. Saddle up and get a habit. 4. Girls - Album There is a time during the year when you know summer is on its way and you pray that someone will release an album that fits. Listen to this on the drive to the beach with a longneck of beer in-hand. 5. Modest Mouse - No Ones First and You're Next I'm a sucker for Modest Mouse. I think it has something to do with the controversy that always seems to come encumbered with these guys. This time it is the link with pre-dead Heath Ledger. Morbid, I am. I don't give a damn. Killer EP. Luke O'Donnell said: 1. Brand New - DaisyFuck it. This is so biased, Jesse Lacey is a lyrical genius. Period. This is music. 2. Dashboard Confessional - Alter The Ending Nostalgic and emotional. Everything I love and yearn for in music. 3. Fun - Aim and Ignite The band title correlates perfectly with the style of music. It is fun and kooky. uplifting the souls of us obscure folk. 4. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix Sad, desperado content disguised by upbeat, French synth pop. It's like an ecstasy fueled night out bickering with your ex-girlfriend. 5. Florence and The Machine - Lungs Her voice is angelic. So cute and pretentious, but it's rad. Every song is like having multiple orgasms; builds up, builds up, builds up, climax and repeat. Anneliese Gillard said: 1. Major Lazer - Guns don't kill people... lazers doAccording to rumour, Major Lazer fought as a Jamaican commando and lost his arm in a secret zombie war in 1984. He may be fictional, but he makes ripping tracks, and the clips are pretty freaking hilarious 2. Bloody Beetroots - Romborama Angry, electronic, energy-filled awesomeness. Prodigy Mk II. 3. La roux - self titled It's a fantastic feeling when you discover several tracks you've loved from radio airplay but didn't know the name of all come from the one band, much less the same album. 4. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport Fantastic trance/rave tracks with the ability to transport you to a bush doof somewhere in the privacy of your own home. 5. Flight of the Conchords - I told you I was freaky I may be a fangirl but these guys are hilarious. The world needs more comedic music! Paul Bullock said: 1. Bob Dylan - Together Through Life When no-one else releases anything that blows me away and Bob releases... well, anything - he wins by default. Not his best ever but I'll take a doodle by Picasso over a shark in a tank of formaldehyde any day. Plus this beats his confusing and scary Christmas album, also released this year. 2. Muse - The Resistance Muse continue their disturbing flirtation with the mainstream with some Timbaland-esque production on a couple of tracks, but fortunately all memory of that is blown away by glorious, ridiculous space prog. Refusing to crank out another similar sounding album, the band move in where Interpol moved out two albums ago, and it works. 4. Ramblin' Jack Elliott - A Stranger Here A nice sense of symmetry that both Dylan and he started out in the same place 50 years ago and both are still churning out excellent music. 5. Wild Beasts - Two Dancers The one and only time in life when realising that a person you thought was a chick is actually a dude is a-ok.
|
Love RHUM?
Get RHUM articles direct via RSS
Subscribe for Free here.