Best of 2009
Monday, January 4, 2010 at 12:53PM So, now that 2009 has come to a close, I thought I'd share some of what I thought were the best records to check out from last year. So without futher hesitation, I present my choices for the best of 2009!
Music
Albums of The Year
Frost* - Experiments in Mass Appeal
I already called it back in January when this came out that it was my album of 2009. That's held true for the remainder of the year. The writing and playing are all outstanding. The songs never stay around for too long. (An difficult task for a band associated with a genre known for 10+ minute songs that sometimes are brilliant and sometimes just need to be cut down by 7 minutes). It works exceptionally as a whole, but also each song is brilliant by itself. I think the biggest testament is that it has remained in my car for a full year now. Nothing has lasted that long in the torture chamber of travel.
Just check it out if you're into prog. Heck, even if you're not into prog, you probably will find something to like on there.
Club of The Sons - Young Quanta
This is an interesting one for me because I've followed these guys for years. You see, almost 10 years ago there was this band called Earthsuit that I absolutely adored. They only released one full record and a half done record, but both were filled with absolutely fantastic music. After they broke up they went on to separate projects. Some went on to form the rather popular Mute Math, the rest went to form the short lived band Macrosick. After Macrosick, there was a new band that emerged called Club of The Sons. No music was available for years. Until one day, I saw on Myspace that they had a track up. I listened to it a lot and decided that it was great. Then earlier this year they finally released their first album. It's easily one of the best pop (if you can even fully call it pop) albums I've heard. Very quirky, but filled with great writing and playing. Definitely worth checking out.
Chick Corea & Hiromi Uehara - Duet
There's not a whole lot that needs to be said about this album if you know who either of these people are. Two of the most brilliant pianists on this Earth dialoguing for two hours. Fantastic, fantastic album.
Between the Buried and Me - The Great Misdirect
This one is kind of surprising to me. I was first exposed to BtBAM at the Progressive Nation tour 2008. They opened up for Dream Theater and, at the time, I thought they were good, but very strange. I eventually went on to hear their album "Colors" and fell in love. The blend of prog and death metal was done so well that I couldn't wait to hear more. I was very excited when I heard the new album was coming in October. Bought it a month ago and I can't put it down. There are some small things I don't like about it (the solos, for instance, are not up to prog metal standards in my opinion), but those things are easily overlooked in favor of the overall picture of a fantastic prog-metal album. It's a wild ride from minute one to the end. The final section of Fossil Genera may be one of the best things I've ever heard on a prog album. Just epic.
Like many people, I was exposed to Imogen Heap on her album "Speak for Yourself". I thought that album was quite good, but there were only a couple of tunes that really stood out to me on it. However, Ellipse is the polar opposite in that respect. There's not a single song on that album that is skippable. The songs are all catchy in their own way, but there's still a great flow to the album that you rarely hear anymore.
This is very unusual choice because against all this other stuff, it's certainly not the best. But it's definitely one of my favorites simply because it's fantastic to hear all those songs realized with a full band. Check it out!
Steve Morse Band - Out Standing in Their Field
I mentioned elsewhere that this is another very unusual choice for me, because I normally find Morse's material to be pretty bland. However, this album has some great melodies, cool changes and lots of great soloing. Here's hoping they keep it up!
Honorable Mentions
Dream Theater - Black Clouds & Silver Linings (Mostly for "The Count of Tuscany" and "The Shattered Fortress" Both are excellent tracks, while the rest just sort of seems to meander with "Wither" being the main exception to that rule)
Chickenfoot - Chickenfoot
Biggest Disappointments
Trans-Siberian Orchestra - Nightcastle
This album serves as my choice for 2009's biggest disappointment for a variety of reasons. The production is extremely bland leaving you with nothing to look forward to sound-wise. The writing and performance is fairly atrocious on the vocal tunes, which more often than not overstay their welcome by several minutes. A song with the same lyrics and same chord progression with little to no dynamic contrast makes for a dull listen. This album is full of them, too. It's very sad, because I have looked forward to this album for the past 4-5 years, and I know some people have looked forward to it for even longer than that. Bad on you, TSO!
Regina Spektor - Far
As a Regina Spektor fan, I found this album very disappointing when compared to her early recordings. Gone are the super quirky songs with lots of vocal embellishments and experimentation. Gone is the real down to earth feel of the album. Gone is the drumstick beating on the piano bench (well, maybe that's in there somewhere). Her albums Songs,S oviet Kitsch, and Begin to Hope, are all fantastic records. She seems to have lost that spark that was evident in all of those on Far. Or even worse, perhaps her producers decided that they needed to recreate the success of Begin to Hope and told her to write more songs like Fidelity. So she did. Regardless of what happened, this is a very disappointing album.
Games
I don't wanna say too much about this because I'm still playing it, but I'm positive that this is THE game of 2009 proper (more on that in a minute).
If you've played it, you know what this is all about. Basically, to quote someone else, they made Super Metroid in 2009, and it's AWESOME!
This is sort of weird, because they basically take stuff from all the best SMB games (SMB, 3 and World) and stick it together with new levels. As it turns out, that totally is the way to make a new Super Mario Bros. game.
While this is TECHNICALLY a 2008 release, it came out so late, that I barely consider it a 2008 title. So yeah. The reason I mention Batman as the best of 2009 proper is because Persona 4 is THE BEST GAME OF 2009! What makes this weird is that I say this without having played a single minute of it yet. How can I say that you ask? This is how. The Persona 4 Endurance Run inspired me to watch 100+ hours of a video game. A dang good video game, too. As soon as I finish Persona 3, I'll be putting in P4 and going to town. Watch or play at your own risk. It's fantastic!
And, I guess that concludes just about everything I wanted to cover. I would include movies, but I didn't like anything I saw this year that was released this year. So there.
Happy new year! More content and news is coming soon! Stay tuned.
Mike