Radiohead In Rainbows The more I listen to it, the more I hear the genius of Radiohead . It doesn't hurt that I practically got this album for free and legal. This album is way ahead of it's time, not only in sound, but the way it was distributed without a record label. This could be the future for the music industry.
The National Boxer Paste's magazine record of the year as well as many other critics. This album is smooth sounding and different sounding from anything else out there.
Travis The Boy With No Name Fran Healy named the album after his unborn son who is now named "Grant" (so I guess the boy does have a name). This is such a great return to form for Travis after their last album. "Battleships" is one of my favorite songs that recognizes the struggle of relationships under the stress of modern life. 
The Brothers Martin The Brothers Martin With Jason and Ronnie Martin combining their skills, it's impossible not to come up with anything but gold. This fantastic album combines Ronnie's pop sensibilities with Jason's indie style. Every track is single worthy. It would be nice to see the two brothers work together more often.
Stars In Our Bedroom After the War A wonderful follow up to their last album Set Yourself On Fire. It kind surpasses it in many ways with a lot more catchy tracks and vocal swapping between male and female leads.
Over the Rhine The Trumpet Child Influenced by the loss of New Orleans, Over the Rhine incorporate more jazz and brass into their palette with great results.
Blonde Redhead 23 Another critical favorite, this is the closest to "shoegazer sound" that I've heard all year. 
Editors An End Has a Start I'm declaring this my favorite album of the year. Sure, Editors don't hide their Joy Division influence, but they improve on it. This album was produced by Jacknife Lee who I have concluded is a producing genius after his work with U2, Snow Patrol,and Bloc Party (He's now working with REM so I'm looking forward to see how he improves upon their sound). Anyway, Jacknife's style is to polish the sound and bring guitar's to the forefront. On An End Has A Start the guitars are polished and as sharp as shards of glass. This really brings the Editors sound to the stratosphere and elevates the listener. They were great live as well.
Bloc Party A Weekend In the City Another Jacknife Lee produced album that I developed an interest in after seeing Bloc Party live in KC. Less experimental than their debut album, but more accessible and tuned for the masses.
3 comments:
I like the Brothers' Martin cover art the best of all these. Does that count for something?
I like the Travis "The Boy With No Name" that you put on my ipod. I don't think the rest are on there so I cannot comment.
I though about doing an year end assesment of all the albums I got over the last year, but I have been to lazy.
The National is my #1 album of the year.
Post a Comment