Popcraft

The problem with “Best of” lists is that they only tell part of a story. Yes, it’s important to know which albums everyone loved each year, sort of, but that gets boring almost immediately. Sometimes albums suck, and sometimes albums are good-but-not-great, and those albums are worth talking about just as much as Animal Collective or whatever shitty band everyone is busy agreeing on. So here are some albums that I thought were notable for other reasons:

Best Album I Barely Listened To:

St. Vincent – Actor
I really liked it though, honest! I listened to it like I watch DVDs – a couple of times very closely and then never again for like a year or two. This is probably not such a bad thing, as Annie Clark intended Actor to be cinematic, each song directly inspired by a film. I’ll go ahead and chalk my low playcount up to successful execution of a concept.

Worst Album I Listened To Constantly:

Pete Yorn and Scarlett Johansson – Break Up
Personally? This is one of the best albums I’ve ever ignroed. Everyone is so hard on poor Scarlett Johansson. It’s a tough world out there for superhot, mega successful actresses who want to make laid-back pop albums, I suppose. Scarlett’s singing voice sounds as tired as she looks, and for all the flak she gets for, I don’t know, not being great I guess?, she at least knows her limits better than a lot of other singers. Pete Yorn seems aware of this, and makes a pretty easy set of songs that aren’t great, but certainly defeat the “ugh, Scarlett Johansson?” rolleyes attitude the album immediately generated.

Best Album They Played At Starbucks:

Andrew Bird – Noble Beast
Yes, yes, put every Andrew Bird album in every Starbucks, please. He is exactly the type of artist I want taking over the latte drinking world, every counter display a little battlestation for his string arrangement mastery and almost-indulgent whistling. Every copy of Noble Beast sold is possibly a Norah Jones or Dave Matthews Band CD not sold, and for that I am hopeful for the music buying public.

(Not That I Hang Out At Starbucks Or Anything):

Bibio – Vignetting the Compost
Oh whew, cred secured. Aside from being a safe way to impress people you don’t want to be friends with, Vignetting the Compost is a playful set of bright, lo-fi folktronica (that is a word). It’s like a music box for college graduates.

By The Way, It Is Rude To Release Two Albums In One Year:

Bibio – Ambivalence Avenue
It is hilarious when an artist releases two albums in one year, because music writers have literally no idea how to deal with this. The fact that Ambivalence Avenue sounds like Vignetting the Compost paved over and turned into a parking lot for junkers threw everyone’s bearings out of whack. Think of the bloggers! We can’t process sounds, which I’ve demonstrated with my weird analogy just now, only band names and album titles, which make year-end lists easy. We like to think that every artist has exactly one rankable achievement per year. Because of this, both Bibio albums are winding up right next to each other on several year-end lists, like this one. I hope you’ve learned your lesson, Bibio.

I Forgot This Album Even Came Out This Year:

Bishop Allen – Grrr…
Bishop Allen has long been the great uniter for me and my friends, the one band we could all agree was great and all loved for the same reasons. The Bishop Allen Bond (we do not actually call it that) was at its strongest in 2007, when The Broken String was released and it looked like the band was within striking range of recording the brilliant, universally acclaimed album we all knew they were capable of. The Bishop Allen Bond took a hit this year, though, when Grrr… was released and we found ourselves disagreeing between ourselves about music. A friend shrugged it off as a mostly forgettable set of songs that, despite a few standouts, mostly spent its time hinting as better songs on past albums. I was vehemently opposed to this, saying that Grrr… was great, and took Bishop Allen’s sound in a more stripped-down direction to highlight the sweet simplicity of their tight melodies. I guess he was right, because I haven’t listened to the album after that and didn’t even think to until I was drafting out my end-of-2009 posts. Oops.