Best Albums of 2009, And Some That Came Close
It’s that time of the year again. Time to recap my favorite things of the year. First up Music.
Things That Disappointed Me
Skillet, “Awake“ These guys and gals are hugely talented, I love some of their old stuff. But I can’t help but feel they miss putting out a complete full album every time. This one has 2 maybe 3 really good songs, the others I just don’t care for. The appeal to me is the hard rock sound with a great mix of synths and loops. I think it’s not hard enough for me, I really wanted an album that moved me, that could pump me up and just didn’t get it.
Notables That Didn’t Make My Top 5
John Mayer, “Battle Studies” Still listening to this one. Love the blues influence.
Dashboard Confessional, “Alter The Ending” Love that you get the full album plus the full album a la acoustic version. nice touch.
Switchfoot, “Hello Hurricane” Some really great lyrics dominant this album. For me the downside was I just wasn’t a big enough fan of every song.
Fallout Boy, “Folie à Deux” Now technically it came out in late December of 2008, I didn’t pick it up until January this year.
Chevelle, “Sci-fi Crimes” Had to resist putting this on the top 5. Chevelle is one of the very few bands that I would pay to see live.
The Decemberist, “Hazards of Love” A very unique sound, sort of folky. I love to listen to them when I’m working or designing, it’s a perfect background sound track.
TOP 5
#5 The Fray
This one had a good run on my list. I’m a big fan of piano rock. I think my downfall was over playing it to death!
#4 Kings Of Leon, Only By The NIght
Really different sound. Never heard of these guys before this year, but I enjoyed it a lot.
#3 Flyleaf, Memento Mori
Really liked their last album, so I had high expectations for this one. Pleasantly surprised this ones a big step up from their last one.
#2 Paramore, Brand New Eyes
Honestly I had heard of Paramore but never listened to them. For some reason I gave this one a listen, turned out to be one of my favorites for the year. The lyrics are great especially in “Careful” and “Brick by boring brick”. favorite song: “All I wanted”
#1 Emery, In Shallow Seas We Sail
I complained last year that Hawthorne Heights album was good, but not good enough and that I needed to just wait for emery to put a new album out. This one was better than I expected. Hands down my favorite of the year. I love the synth sounds they have added, the precise screaming, the drum loops, and vocal harmonies.
The best way to listen to this album is to get a good pair of headphones and turn it up. The full album is really good so if i had to pick a favorite song, I’d picked “Churches & Serial Killers”.
