My favourite artists of the year in no particular order.
Slow Club
I only knew a few of these guys' songs,
Me and You,
Because We're Dead, and
Christmas TV, and I liked what I'd heard when I was listening to them one day and I decided to see if they were touring and they were playing at Scala that night! It turned out to be my favourite gig of the year. They came out and played
Wild Blue Milk in the middle of the audience and I was standing right next them (
proof). The rest of the gig continued to be quite special as they pulled on heartstrings with their beautiful songs and amused us between songs with their lovable charm. I bought their album
Yeah So at the gig and, although it didn't live up to how they were live, it grew on me and has become one of my favourites of the year. I will certainly listen to songs such as
When I Go,
I Was Unconscious, It Was a Dream, and
Sorry About the Doom for a long time to come. Go see them live, if you get the chance!
Los Campesinos!
These guys didn't release an album this year, but it was the year that I found out about them and have been playing them constantly ever since. They have quite a unique sound with a great mix of angry and shouty male vocals and soft comforting female vocals, interesting time signatures, and superbly angsty lyrics. Both their albums
Hold On Now Youngster... and
We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed are excellent throughout with
My Year In Lists being the song that first attracted me to them and
We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed,
Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks, and
You'll Need Those Fingers for Crossing amongst others that kept me hooked. They were great when I saw them live, but all the teenagers made me feel a bit old (
proof)
Morrissey
I feel in love with Morrissey again this year. His latest album
Years of Refusal was a return to form for me after I was disappointed by
Ringleader Of The Tormentors. I listened to it a lot, as you can probably tell from my listening statistics, and my favourite songs changed as I found new thing to like about them, from more obvious straight forward rock songs such as
All You Need Is Me and
That's How People Grow Up, to others such as
Black Cloud and
Mama Lay Softly on the Riverbed. I wasn't impressed with their musicianship when I saw them live, but Morrissey's backing band have a great sound on this album and it's the heaviest he has ever been.
M. Ward
I've known about M. Ward for a while, but his latest album
Hold Time really grew on me a lot this year. There are a lot of religious lyrics on this album and, although I'm not a religious person, I always seem to like that in music.
Epistemology was a stand-out track for me, but
Jailbird,
To Save Me, and,
Blake's View were all awesome too. He was great live and has a great back catalogue to back him up too.
Sky Larkin
For a small band these guys have a really well produced debut album in
The Golden Spike. Their songs are catchy and well written such as
Pica,
Beeline and
One Of Two. However, I was disappointed when I saw them at Cargo, not only because I didn't understand why so few people turned up, but also because they suffer from, as so many bands do, a drummer that can only play loud. In a small venue it just sounded awful and it didn't do them justice. I'm really looking forward to seeing what these guys do next and hopefully I'll be able to see them at a better venue soon.
Emmy the Great
I love her! I really do. Very beautiful songs. I like the way she references other songs and artist in her songs such as
Dylan where she is having an argument with a lover/Dylan fan and says "reading a book from the 13th century is not that hard to do," which, as a
Bob Dylan fan myself, was awesome to hear. She also appropriates
Leonard Cohen's
Hallelujah on her song
First Love which works really well, and the chorus of
MIA where she says "I really like this singer I remember how you were the one to tell me that her name was either Mia or M.I.A." struck a chord with me as I remember not knowing which one it was either. It was her song
We Almost Had A Baby that really made me fall in love with her with the line "Well I am a women, well you know I'm a women" really moving me for some reason. She's the only one on my list that I haven't seen live so I hope she's touring in 2010 so I get a chance to go see her.
Special Mentions
I thought I should mention
Kids by
MGMT because I heard it a lot and really loved it on holiday in America, but didn't know who it was by until I saw them at Besitval. I also saw
Magnolia Electric Co. this year whom are one of my favourite bands, but their latest album was not one of my favourites which is why they didn't make my list this year.
Leonard Cohen
