Sometimes you just need one of the most beautiful songs ever written to give you a little pick-me-up. It’s time like that I turn to this. Ludicrously underrated and yet crafters of some of the finest pop songs ever written, let this be the moment when the Trashcans melt your heart.
For some reason, the audio on the video of the studio version of this song is screwed unless you go direct to the following link. So, splendid as this live version is, you might want to click here.
A little late, I know, but it would probably be more accurate if I waited until around March time, by which point I might have fully absorbed the 2009 albums I have. Can’t imagine there’d be much interest by then though, so here it is. As with last year, this is a Top 20 list of albums I’ve thoroughly enjoyed across 2009. I make no apologies for excluding certain albums that have appeared near the top of many media lists and am confident that you’ll simply look at the list as a curiosity that might make you explore one or two titles that you’ve either not heard or not spent long with. As with the 40 From The Noughties list, I fully expect many of you to heartily disagree with this list but all I’m saying is that these are my top 20 of the last year as things stand now. It may well change in time and, if you look at the 2009 albums in the aforementioned 40, you’ll see that some of them have already changed positions since I put that list together. Anyhoo, let’s get on with it, shall we?
20. Super Furry Animals – Dark Days / Light Years
Not sure how it ended up falling so low in the end. Still a wonderful album, it just didn’t have quite the staying power I thought it might have had.
19. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – s/t
Great fun, from start to finish. Reminds me of when the NME was published on tatty grey bog roll.
18. Atlas Sound – Logos
I was bit late to the party on this one, but was glad I finally made it. Quirky washes of sound. A bit like Animal Collective with more tunes.
17. Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career
They don’t make bad records. Every one of them is a gem. This was another quietly brilliant record.
16. Annie – Don’t Stop
The power pop album of the year. Xenomania in full flow and, in the absence of new Girls Aloud, it does the job just fine.
15. M. Ward – Hold Time
Coffee shops and Apple may love him, but that doesn’t mean you can’t. A wonderful sleeper of an album. His entire back catalogue is great and don’t forget to check out ‘Monsters Of Folk’ which just missed out on this list.
14. Magnolia Electric Co – Josephine
One of the first albums I reviewed for Clash and it’s a good ‘un. Jason Molina with his finest album in some time. He also released ‘Molina and Johnson’ this year which is almost as good and would have been No.22 had this list gone beyond a top 20. Well worth listening to both.
13. Pet Shop Boys – Yes
Their best in some time. ‘Pandemonium’ is ridiculously over the top, but in that oh-so-forgivable PSB way. A delight from start to finish and there’s a decent track-by-track commentary on Spotify for free too.
12. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
A great overall sound to this one. Hadn’t really bothered with them up until this, but quickly retraced my footsteps and put that right. ‘Two Weeks’ and ‘While You Wait For The Others’ were classic singles. Not on Spotify, but click the picture for the latter of those two singles on VerTube.
11. Sleeping States – In The Gardens Of The North
The first of the Noughty 40 to feature in this list also. A great record, still worthy of plenty of your time. It needs a few listens, but if it clicks, it’ll stay with you.
10. Manic Street Preachers – Journal For Plague Lovers
The most fun you can have with a Manics album in some time. Great packaging, great songs, great performances. Check out the Saint Etienne re-tooling of ‘Jackie Collins’ too. In the aforementioned 40 also.
09. Graham Coxon – The Spinning Top
Another Noughty 40 album and one that splits opinion. I think his voice sounds charming on this record and I would argue that it’s his best by some distance. Beautiful at times.
08. Richard Hawley – Truelove’s Gutter
An album which I loved at the start, lost interest in for a bit but have since returned to at some great length and have realised just how spiffing it really is. Should have been in the big list and is probably his second best album to date.
07. Bat For Lashes – Two Suns
One of those albums that you pootle along listening to every so often without realising how much you’re enjoying it. When it came to thinking about this list, I returned to it and it all clicked into place. This one has staying power, methinks.
06. Maps – Turning The Mind
I think I may have said enough about this one already. It’s in the big 40, and my review described it as ‘bordering on genius’. Job done.
05. Doves – Kingdom Of Rust
Ok, so it’s no ‘Lost Souls’ but then what is? To be fair, they sound like two different bands. This is the New Order phase and it’s bloody good. CD sounds like shite though. Treat yourself to the deluxe vinyl edition. Made #20 in the 40.
04. Trashcan Sinatras – In The Music
Still not Spotify-able but bloody lovely nonetheless. Gentle, well-crafted and beautifully sung. Just like every other Trashcans record. A welcome return and a great album. Highly placed in the 40 too.
03. The Low Anthem – Oh My God, Charlie Darwin
There are those who’ll bang on about how this is a 2008 album because they self-released it at the end of that year, but the world only really heard it in 2009 and it was only released over here in 09, so I’m having it. A quirky cross between gentle harmonies and Tom Waits honking. Splendid stuff and a Noughties classic also.
02. The xx – xx
Even a couple of months ago, I had no idea how high up the list this one would finish. It crow barred its way in to the Noughty 40 at the last minute and continued to impress all through December, resulting in this placement. It’s hard to define, but I had a go here.
01. Lily Allen – It’s Not Me, It’s You
Justifiably highly placed in the big list and the top of this one, ‘It’s Not Me, It’s You’ is the best pop album I’ve heard in years. The lyrics are brilliant and musically it gets every single call just right. I have never tired of it since the day I first played it. There’s a bargainous CD/DVD edition available right now for not all that much cash and I can’t recommend it enough.
I have Gideon Coe to thank for this. In amongst all of this ‘blah blah of the decade’ list making, he probably deserves a nod for the best radio presence of the last decade. His work on 6music, firstly in the mornings and latterly at night, has been consistently excellent and he is one of those presenters whose enthusiasm for the music is truly contagious. He is hugely personable, engagingly intelligently and archly humorous. On top of all of this, he plays some bloody marvellous tunes. In the early days of his night time show, he played ‘How Can I Apply…?’ by Trashcan Sinatras a few songs from the end of his programme and it had me transfixed. What was this fantastic song? And, once I found out it had come out in 1996, I was sat wondering how such a perfect pop tune had passed me by for so long.
It didn’t take me long to rectify the situation and, before long, their entire discography was sat on my shelves, being enjoyed in almost equal measure. Having mentioned Teenage Fanclub in the Finn Brothers piece, I’m going to have to do it again here. The Scottish accents make the comparison even easier, but it is once again the case that the two acts have plenty in common, both being remarkably adept at the mid-paced guitar tune with gentle but emotive vocals. If you like one, you surely must like the other. ‘Weightlifting’ and ‘In The Music’ were the only two studio albums from Trashcan Sinatras in this decade and the former is another record which was in the running for a place in this list. It was, however, nudged out of the way by this increasingly spectacular meditation of life, love and loss.
The Trashcan Sinatras formula is essentially, sugary-sweet vocals, plenty of jangle and hooky choruses. It’s been that was for the best part of twenty years and it still works as well now as it ever has done. The album opens with ‘People’, which is reasonably representative of the album as a whole, but it scales remarkable heights with ‘Should I Pray’ and ‘I Wish You’d Met Her’ which can make a grown man well up, so delicately beautiful are their choruses. Not being available on Spotify, I’m forced to find alternative ways to foist this marvellous music upon you, so here’s some YouTube-age.
I’m assuming that this is the moment where you think, “Mmmmmm, I’ll have me some of that.” In which case, well done, you’re a thoroughly splendid person. Treat yourself to the spangly and lovely limited edition – with bonus tracks here or the run of the mill ten track digipack here.
Last week, I attended my thirteenth Manics concert. Even I had started to wonder if I might actually get bored of them at some point and yet they proved once again why I adore them quite so much. The three of them truly love being in that band. They love being on stage with each other, they love playing those songs for these people and James seems to have really grown into the role of all-conquering showman. On this recent tour, they played the whole of the new album, ‘Journal For Plague Lovers’, took a ten minute break and then belted out an hour of classics. It’s hard to pick fault with a second of it.
‘JFPL’ is a monstrously great rock album. It’s been called The Holy Bible’s second coming and, to be fair, there are some similarities but I’m still not sure that that’s the best way to approach this album. If anything, it’s the perfect blend of the Manics just prior to Richey’s disappearance and the Manics not long thereafter. The quite beautiful arrangements on ‘This Joke Sport Severed’ and ‘William’s Last Words’ are pure ‘late period Manics’, while the splendidly shouty chorus of ‘All Is Vanity’ and the terrifying propulsion of ‘She Bathed Herself In A Bath Of Bleach’ come straight from the military era of 1994. It’s a truly fabulous album and a likely contender for my album of the year. That said, if you’ve never liked the Manics, this isn’t going to change your mind.
The rapturous response to pretty much every song in the classics set further reinforced my belief that I will never tire of this band. ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’ is one of the best songs of all time to witness live and the ferocity of this latest rendition was probably the best performance of it I’ve ever witnessed. Even early b-side, ‘Sorrow 16’ (great chorus, forgettable verse), prompted plenty of cheers and by the time we were all haplessly singing along to ‘A Design For Life’ the world had been put to rights and James, Nicky and Sean had triumphed once again. God, I love this band.
I spent much of last night gazing out of the window at perpetual drizzle whilst listening to a selection of Manics b-sides from across the years, although I seemed to alight on the ‘Everything Must Go’ era. (Yes, I am sad enough to have all of the b-sides categorised by album on the iPod.) Now, I know that my love of these tracks come from my fanboy-ish desire to hoover up every last note whenever possible and thus, with familiarity, so often a liking grows, but I genuinely believe that there is some outrageously good songwriting tucked away on numerous Manics b-sides. If I were to pick three, just from that era, for you to track down, I’d send you off to hear ‘No One Knows What It Feels Like To Be Me’, ‘Mr Carbohydrate‘ and ‘First Republic’. Go on, treat yourself. And if you can’t, there’s an email address in the previous post, get in touch and I’ll see if I can help you, er, find the songs.
***
As for albums of the year, if I had to pick my top 5 right now, it’d be these…
5. Super Furry Animals – Dark Days / Light Years
4. Trashcan Sinatras – In The Music
3. Graham Coxon – The Spinning Top
2. Manic Street Preachers – Journal For Plague Lovers
1. Doves – Kingdom Of Rust
It’ll all change, of course, but there have been some truly wonderful albums already this year. Bubbling under for that list are Grizzly Bear, Lily Allen, Jarvis, Madness, Duckworth Lewis Method, Moz and the new Magnolia Electric Co album, ‘Josephine‘, which is the best thing Jason Molina’s ever done. I’ve not had it that long, so it’s not in the top 5 just yet, but I suspect it may get there.
Just Played 