1. Mumford & Sons – “Winter Winds” (Sigh No More)
2. Wye Oak – “That I Do (Mickey Free remix)” (My Neighbor / My Creator EP)
3. The Polyphonic Spree – “Section 2 (It’s the Sun)” (The Beginning Stages of…)
4. N.A.S.A. – Spacious Thoughts (feat. Tom Waits & Kool Keith)” (The Spirit of Apollo)
5. Iron & Wine – “Peace Beneath the City” (The Shepherd’s Dog)
6. This Will Destroy You – “Brutalism & the Worship of the Machine” (Field Studies)
7. The Hold Steady – “Rock Problems” (Heaven Is Whenever)
8. Sarah Jaffe – “Clementine” (Suburban Nature)
9. mewithoutYou – “Timothy Hay” (it’s all crazy! it’s all false! it’s all a dream! it’s alright)
10. Zomby – “Spliff Dub (Rustie remix)” (Mu5h / Spliff Dub single)
11. Burial – “Shutta” (Ghost Hardware EP)
12. Sleigh Bells – “Tell ‘Em” (Treats)
13. Wye Oak – “For Prayer” (The Knot)

And, of course, here’s your free, streaming playlist of all the songs above.

My varying tastes in music from day to day would make it pointless to put these albums in any best-to-worst order. So I went with the time-tested alphabetical order method, which is completely arbitrary if you think about it, but that’s a thought for another day.

Read on for my favorite albums that came out in 2009 (or thereabouts; I fudged a little). If you’ve been checking out my monthly playlists (you’re forgiven if you haven’t), most of this will not be a surprise.

And if you’re patient and make it all the way to the bottom, there’s a prize for you, in the form of a few select songs from these albums that I particularly enjoyed.

WARNING: This gets a bit lengthy, so get comfy.

Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion

A lot of people think this album — and the band as a whole — get too much hype. But before the hype I got to hear an advance stream of “My Girls” and saw what we were in for. Granted, I was already a big fan of Feels, but that was an entirely different monster. This is post-modern, anti-club dance pop, which Feels was not. At all. In a way it was proof they could lay off the drugs and write more accessible music, but I would venture to guess a lot of drugs were still involved. They just traded acid for ecstacy. I probably listened to this one more than anything else this year.

Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career

The video for the “French Navy” sold me on this Scottish twee pop group’s fourth album. It wasn’t so much the video treatment as the way it sounded and how the band looked while playing it. They sing happy songs in a serious way. And serious songs in a happy way. The music feels old and new all at once. It’s poppy and fun, in a sunny-afternoon-in-the-park sort of way, and reminds me of what I wish Belle and Sebastian could sound like sometimes.

David Bazan – Curse Your Branches

David Bazan has always wrestled with faith and life in his lyrics (see his previous work in Pedro the Lion and Headphones). He’s still doing that, but has shifted away from Christianity toward agnosticism. That, plus a few years of struggle with alcohol make for a folk rock album that is not only insanely catchy but also addresses some pretty heavy issues. The lyrical content is the kicker. Some call Curse Your Branches Bazan’s “breakup album with God,” but it only seems a half-truth, because it’s more freeing than depressing.

Dead Man’s Bones – Dead Man’s Bones

Ryan Gosling has a band. We all laughed. Then he started posting songs and we shut up right quick. It’s like Arcade Fire singing Halloween songs with a children’s choir, in all the right ways. Gosling’s got quite the crooner’s voice, too. You don’t even see it coming. It’s not that I never took him seriously as an actor, because he’s good. I guess I figured he was a one-trick pony. I guessed wrong.

The Dead Weather – Horehound

Jack White on drums with the girl from The Kills singing dirty, bluesy, balls-out rock and roll? Plus two other guys, one each from The Raconteurs (one of the non-Jack White members) and Queens of the Stone Age? Count me in. And special props to my girlfriend, who made sure I gave this album all the attention it deserved during my weekly jaunt through all the new releases.

Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca

I hated the Dirty Projectors before Bitte Orca. Not with a passion, but I couldn’t digest what they were doing. It was jerky, disharmonic and heady. Then they, just like Animal Collective, decided to prove to the world that they could, indeed, write a pop song. And not just one, but several. Enough to make a quirky, finger-snapping, head-bobbing album that is not like any other pop you will ever hear.

Floating Action – Floating Action

It sounds like a bunch of post-college, east coast indie geeks who smoke weed and listen to a lot of old dub reggae records, then decided to make their own. Kind of like 311, but without all that 90s mainstream alternative business going on. It’s laid back and fun, a little bit goofy, but not so much that it can’t be taken seriously.

Glasvegas – Glasvegas

This one technically came out in late 2008, but didn’t come across my radar til early 2009. Imagine Social Distortion doing their old school rock and roll punk thing, but instead of punk they decided to make shoegaze albums a la My Bloody Valentine. They have a sheen of static guitar sound that never ceases, with ballads and sad love songs sung over it in a thick Scottish brogue. Well produced, well written, perfectly executed.

Jónsi & Alex – Riceboy Sleeps

Anything someone from Sigur Rós touches is probably going to be fine by me. This is their singer Jónsi and his boyfriend Alex (from Parachutes, who I saw open for Sigur Rós a couple years ago) making droning, blissful ambient instrumental music. I’m a sucker for background music, and the fine people of Iceland always seem to strike those long, drawn-out, structure-free chords perfectly.

Joshua James – Build Me This

I loved James’s 2008 album The Sun Is Always Brighter a whole lot. Sad, quirky folk songs about heartbreak and politics. Kind of like a mix of Bright Eyes and Ray LaMontagne, but with a cooler voice. Then I saw him play here in SLO last summer, right before Build Me This released, and had to pick it up at the merch table. It took a while, but it’s nearly caught up with his last release.

mewithoutYou – it’s all crazy! it’s all false! it’s all a dream! it’s alright

You’d have to be living in a cave to not realize that I’m a big fan of mewithoutYou. This album was a major stylistic turn for the band, away from the old Fugazi punk/emo sound and shout-spoken poetry, toward the Neutral Milk Hotel folk pop. Aaron Weiss is still stringing together some stellar lyrics, telling more stories and fables than deep, dark insights, but it’s all worth a listen or ten.

Neko Case – Middle Cyclone

Folky alt. country with Patsy Cline vocals drenched in reverb. Yum. I was already a Neko Case fan going into this record. There weren’t many surprises, but that’s quite alright with me.

P.O.S. – Never Better

P.O.S. is one of my favorite underground hip hop emcees. He has a history on the midwest hardcore/metal scene, so he takes a pretty intense, fast-paced approach on his newfound love of hip hop. Thoughtful, abrasive lyrics that don’t beat around the bush, over wicked fast beats, and somehow it all seems to twist and turn toward a positive outlook on life. Kinda sounds like my brain.

Silversun Pickups – Swoon

I’d heard their name thrown around for a while but hadn’t given them a listen until Swoon came out. A lot of people call them a Smashing Pumpkins ripoff, but that seems like a superficial judgment to me after spending some time with this and their last album, Carnavas. There’s something different about it, but I can’t put my finger on it. It’s just good.

The Veils – Sun Gangs

I mostly like this for the opening track, “Sit Down By the Fire,” but in all honesty, it’s a solid album front to back. It’s baroque-ish in an Arcade Fire sort of way, but with darker, more disparate vocals that remind me of 16 Horsepower/Woven Hand at times. It’s… countrified goth? I dunno.

Various Artists – Dark Was the Night

A two-disc charity compilation that has pretty much all the current artists worth listening to: Bon Iver, Dirty Projectors, My Brightest Diamond, Iron & Wine, Spoon… you get what I’m saying. But it’s all original material, and there are a few tracks that will blow your mind. The first that comes to me is “You Are the Blood” by Sufjan Stevens. He gets back to the electronic roots that most of his hipster-folk friends didn’t know he had (check out Enjoy Your Rabbit) and creates an intense, 10-minute blippy opus with all the crescendo of a classical masterpiece.

Honorable Mention (aka albums you should probably check out; some you’ll love, but no guarantees)

• Akron/Family – Set Em Wild, Set Em Free
• The Antlers – Hospice
• Antony and the Johnsons – The Crying Light
• The Big Pink – A Brief History of Love
• Black Moth Super Rainbow – Eating Us
• Fever Ray – Fever Ray
• Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport
• Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
• HEALTH – Get Color
• Iron & Wine – Around the Well
• Jay Reatard – Watch Me Fall
• Jay-Z – The Blueprint 3
• Passion Pit – Manners
• Ryan Bingham & the Dead Horses – Roadhouse Sun
• Wheat – White Ink, Black Ink

And now, as promised, here’s your playlist. Enjoy!

The Soviet

by mewithoutYou

God is love and love is real
But the dead are dancing with the dead
And whatever’s charming disappears
All things lovely only hurt my head

As I gather stones from fields
Like pearls of water on my fingers’ ends
And wrap them up in boxes
Safe from windows
From things that break

As the nighttime shined like day
It saw my sorry face
Hair a mess but it liked me best that way
Besides, how else could I confess?
When I looked down like if to pray
Well, I was looking down her dress

Good God! Please!
Catch for us the foxes
In the vineyard, the little foxes

So turn your ears, you musicians, to silence
Because they only come out when it’s quiet
Their tails brushing over your eyelids
Wake up, sleeper, and rise from the dead!
Or the fur that they shed
Is gonna lay on your bed
In a delicate, orange-ish cinnamon red

Ah, but I don’t need this!
Fall down! Stay down!
I don’t need this

One of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands, and it just so happens to be one of the most sadly poetic things I’ve ever read.

You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you dies each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason.

Ernest Hemingway

I don’t think I have SAD, or if I do, it’s a very mild variety. All I know is that when the fall comes around, my mind goes into overdrive, pushing me into a place where I analyze my place in the world.

Maybe it’s because school always started in the fall, or that autumn ushers away long, sunny days, but fall always brings about an analytical side of me and a sense of urgency for spring to arrive.

The combination of being in Nashville (where fall is much more obvious than here), seeing and saying goodbye to my girlfriend and brother far too quickly, a few dark nights and a few weights I carry on my shoulders, this time of year has arrived.

It feels like sitting in a dark room just after twilight; that period of time when you’re wrapped up in a book in an empty house, the sun is going down and it’s just getting to the point where you need to turn on a light or start a fire to continue reading. It’s comfortable, but slightly off-center. There’s a sense of loneliness, but while still knowing there is company a room away.

For me, fall has a soundtrack. mewithoutYou’s second and third albums, Ryan Adams’s Love is Hell, Neko Case, Joshua James. They’re all sad, full of thought and despair, looking back on better times.

I know this seems dark, but I welcome this every year. It’s a part of who I am, and it’s the one emotional season I am guaranteed to experience year by year, regardless of the circumstances.

Is there anyone else who feels the sadness of fall?

1. Dr. Dog – “The Old Days” (Fate)
2. Paolo Nutini – “Keep Rolling” (Sunny Side Up)
3. Aesop Rock – “Nickel Plated Pockets” (Daylight EP)
4. M83 – “Gone” (Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts)
5. Radiohead – “Lucky” (OK Computer)
6. The Knife – “We Share Our Mothers’ Health (Trentemoller remix)” (We Share Our Mothers’ Health single)
7. Dirty Projectors – “Useful Chamber” (Bitte Orca)
8. The Hold Steady – “Citrus” (A Positive Rage)
9. edIT – “Artsy Remix (feat. The Grouch)” (Certified Air Raid Material)
10. The Gaslight Anthem – “The ’59 Sound” (The ’59 Sound)
11. Mathew Good – “Champions of Nothing” (Hospital Music)
12. Manchester Orchestra – “Colly Strings” (I’m Like a Virgin Losing a Child)
13. Passion Pit – “Moth’s Wings” (Manners)
14. The Veils – “Sit Down by the Fire” (Sun Gangs)
15. mewithoutYou – “Allah, Allah, Allah” (it’s all crazy! it’s all false! it’s all a dream! it’s alright)
16. The Dear Hunter – “Mustard Gas” (Act III: Life and Death)
17. Bruce Springsteen – “Born to Run” (Born to Run)
18. Wilco – “I’m the Man Who Loves You” (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot)

Regular posts return this week as I slowly collect my brains post-travel and try to spit them out for you to read. Meanwhile, enjoy the music!

1. mewithoutYou – “Every Thought a Thought of You” (it’s all crazy! it’s all false! it’s all a dream! it’s alright)
2. Akron/Family – “Sun Will Shine (Warmth of the Sunship version)” (Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free)
3. Glasvegas – “Flowers and Football Tops” (Glasvegas)
4. Silversun Pickups – “Growing Old is Getting Old” (Swoon)
5. Gallows – “London is the Reason” (Grey Britain)
6. Blitzen Trapper – “Furr” (Furr)
7. Starfucker – “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” (Jupiter EP)
8. The Smiths – “How Soon Is Now?” (Meat is Murder)
9. Smashing Pumpkins – “Cherub Rock” (Siamese Dream)
10. Roman Candle – “Why Modern Radio is A-OK” (Oh Tall Tree in the Ear)
11. Smashing Pumpkins – “Porcelina of the Vast Oceans” (Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness)
12. Passion Pit – “Moth’s Wings” (Manners)
13. mewithoutYou – “The Fox, the Crow and the Cookie” (it’s all crazy! it’s all false! it’s all a dream! it’s alright)
14. Iron & Wine – “Love Vigilantes” (Around the Well)
15. Iron & Wine – “Kingdom of the Animals” (Around the Well)
16. The Knife – “Marble House” (Silent Shout)
17. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “Skeletons” (It’s Blitz!)
18. Mat Kearney – “New York to California” (City of Black & White)
19. Bruce Springsteen – “Jersey Girl” (Live 1975-1985 box set)
20. Cage – “Grand Ol’ Party Crash” (Hell’s Winter)
21. Wilco – “Misunderstood” (Kicking Television: Live in Chicago)
22. Bruce Springsteen – “Atlantic City” (Live in New York City)

I’d make you an imeem playlist, but it doesn’t appear to like me right now. Sorry.

Think of 25 albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and took you over for days, weeks, months, years. These are the albums that you can use to identify time, places, people, emotions. These are the albums that no matter what they were thought of musically shaped your world.

I couldn’t even begin to put these in order of preference. They’ve all been number one in my heart at some point or another. So, in true Rob Gordon fashion, I put them in autobiographical order, all the way from high school up to now.

I won’t even begin to try and explain each album or even the general progression of my music habits. If you are curious, that’s kind of what comments are for.

1. Jimi Hendrix – Woodstock
2. Project 86 – Drawing Black Lines
3. Incubus – Make Yourself
4. Radiohead – OK Computer
5. Tool – Aenema
6. A Perfect Circle – Thirteenth Step
7. Sigur Rós – Ágætis byrjun
8. Extol – Undeceived
9. Sufjan Stevens – Michigan
10. The Dillinger Escape Plan – Miss Machine
11. The Mars Volta – De-loused in the Comatorium
12. Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
13. Radiohead – Amnesiac
14. He Is Legend – I Am Hollywood
15. Killswitch Engage – The End of Heartache
16. The Dillinger Escape Plan – Irony is a Dead Scene
17. Explosions in the Sky – The Earth is Not a Cold, Dead Place
18. mewithoutYou – Catch for Us the Foxes
19. The Appleseed Cast – Low Level Owl: Volume 1
20. mewithoutYou – Brother, Sister
21. This Will Destroy You – Young Mountain
22. Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
23. Sigur Rós – Takk
24. Ryan Adams – Heartbreaker
25. This Will Destroy You – This Will Destroy You

And, just for the record, “Swagga Like Us” may be the best hip hop song ever recorded. M.I.A., Kanye West, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne and T.I. all on one track. My mind is blown.

1. Earth – “Omens and Portents 1: The Driver” (The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull)
2. TV on the Radio – “Halfway Home” (Dear Science)
3. T.I. – “Swagga Like Us” (Paper Trail)
4. Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip – “Thou Shalt Always Kill” (Angles)
5. Ray LaMontagne – “Meg White” (Gossip in the Grain)
6. Ryan Adams & the Cardinals – “My Love for You is Real” (Follow the Lights)
7. Ray LaMontagne – “You Are the Best Thing” (Gossip in the Grain)
8. Ingrid Michaelson – “Can’t Help Falling In Love” (Be OK)
9. Todd Snider – “Is This Thing Working?” (Peace Queer)
10. Brett Dennen – “Make You Crazy” (Hope for the Hopeless)
11. Ryan Adams & the Cardinals – “Magick” (Cardinology)
12. TV on the Radio – “DLZ” (Dear Science)
13. Bloc Party – “Ares” (Intimacy)
14. mewithoutYou – “Son of a Window” (Catch for Us the Foxes)
15. Death Cab for Cutie – “Transatlanticism” (Transatlanticism)
16. Marnie Stern – “Clone Cycle” (This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That)

Change is afoot.

1. Jakob – “Pneumonic” (Solace)
2. The Velvet Underground – “Who Loves the Sun” (Loaded)
3. Radiohead – “There There” (Hail to the Thief)
4. M83 – “Lower Your Eyelids to Die With the Sun” (Before the Dawn Heals Us)
5. The New Pornographers – “These Are the Fables” (Twin Cinema)
6. Joshua James – “Today” (The Sun Is Always Brighter)
7. dan le sac vs. Scroobius Pip – “Letter from God to Man” (Angles)
8. Neko Case – “Look For Me (I’ll Be Around)” (Blacklisted)
9. Joshua James – “Winter Storm” (The Sun Is Always Brighter)
10. Neko Case – “I Wish I Was the Moon” (Blacklisted)
11. mewithoutYou – “Carousels” (Catch For Us the Foxes)
12. TV On the Radio – “Crying” (Dear Science)
13. Jay-Z – “Renegade” (The Blueprint)
14. Hammock – “We Will Say Goodbye to Everyone” (Maybe They Will Sing For Us Tomorrow)
15. Ingrid Michaelson – “The Way I Am” (Girls and Boys)
16. Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile – “The Farmer and the Duck” (Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile)

P.S. If you get a chance to, go see Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile live. I saw them last weekend in Irvine and was thoroughly impressed. It’s a beautiful thing to see modern legends collaborate so well with each other. And if you don’t get a chance, at least pick up a copy of the album.

April was a month of playing artists on repeat: Bon Iver; Jimmy Eat World; Foals; Does It Offend You, Yeah?; Portishead; Grizzly Bear. There was also some Coachella reminiscing and a healthy scoop of bitterness towards Western evangelical culture (check out the Chris Thile song), but those are rants for another time.

1. Grizzly Bear – “Alligator (Choir Version)” (Friend EP)
2. Does It Offend You, Yeah? – “Let’s Make Out” (You Have No Idea What You’re Getting Yourself Into)
3. Jimmy Eat World – “Firefight” (Chase This Light)
4. Grizzly Bear – “Little Brother (Electric)” (Friend EP)
5. Foals – “Two Steps, Twice” (Antidotes)
6. Does It Offend You, Yeah? – “We Are Rockstars” (You Have No Idea What You’re Getting Yourself Into)
7. Jimmy Eat World – “Kill” (Futures)
8. Bon Iver – “Skinny Love” (For Emma, Forever Ago)
9. Bon Iver – “re: Stacks” (For Emma, Forever Ago)
10. Chris Thile – “The Believer” (Deceiver)
11. mewithoutYou – “The Sun and the Moon” (Brother, Sister)
12. Bon Iver – “The Wolves (Act I and II)” (For Emma, Forever Ago)
13. Vampire Weekend – “Mansard Roof” (Vampire Weekend)
14. Portishead – “Machine Gun” (Third)
15. International Superheroes of Hardcore – “Dirty Mouth” (Tip Of The Iceberg/Takin’ It Ova!)
16. Man Man – “The Ballad of Butter Beans” (Rabbit Habits)
17. Les Savy Fav – “The Sweat Descends” (Inches)

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back to working 24/7 and getting the life sucked out of me by tactless people that I still try hard to love.