Seeing as summer is in full swing here, I figured I would post five summer jams that have come out this year. 2009 has been a great year for music thus far, and there is no lack of great tracks out there to soundtrack your summer. Something about the summer lets us put our pretentious ways aside and relax a little. A great summer jam will get people out of their seats and out on the (proverbial) floor. You will notice all of these songs are upbeat and easy to sing along with. So roll down your windows, turn up the volume, and try not to sing along to these five summer jams. I dare you.

YACHT - "Psychic City (Voodoo City)"
Electronic duo, YACHT, puts out a pretty straight-forward pop song with speak-sing verses and a refrain that you will not be able to get out of your head.


Discovery - "Osaka Loop Line"
Vampire Weekend's Rostam Batmanglij and Ra Ra Riot's Wes Miles make up the electronic/R&B duo, Discovery. Sounds crazy, but it works. The group's whole debut album, LP, is made for the summer, but this track in particular has a sort of Postal Service meets the effervescent production of Vampire Weekend thing going on.


Animal Collective - "Brother Sport"
The obvious summer jam picks off of AC's 2009 release, Merriweather Post Pavilion, are probably the stellar "My Girls" and (the more appropriately titled) "Summertime Clothes". However, I think the main summer number here is album closer, "Brother Sport". In true AC fashion, this one is all over the place with looping beats and synths that build a thick wall of sound. At about the three-minute mark though, when you think your Ipod is stuck, the noise clears out and AC shut it down with some of their classic Brian Wilson-esque harmonies (on repeat, of course).

Brother Sport - Animal Collect...

Japandroids - "Young Hearts Spark Fire"
I know this is the second time this track has shown up. That should be enough explanation of why you need to check it out. Straight-forward two piece rock and roll outfit turns up the distortion and the lays down the hooks.


The Very Best (ft. Ezra Koenig) - "Warm Heart of Africa"
Yet another Vampire Weekend alum showing up here. This time it is lead-singer, Ezra Koenig, guesting on The Very Best's "Warm Heart of Africa". It is the East Coast charm of VW meeting the West African pop of The Very Best half-way in the middle.

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Not really sure there is much I can add that will do this clip justice. Just check it out. Spectacular track from a spectacular album (Veckatimest). Have listened to this particular song about 40 times (the album, in full, about 25 times) in the past month and those harmonies floor me everytime. Gonna be a battle for album of the year this year. Lots of great bands putting out great albums.

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I realize that we're nearly to the third quarter of 2009 already, but I hope that you will forgive me the ridiculousness of posting my favorite albums from 2008 and just go with the entire process.

Jameson is on to something with these quick, youtube heavy posts, so in that vein I present you with my 'best of' 2008, as well as a solemn promise that I will do more posting in the very near future.

And in descending order we go:

10 - This is Ivy League - S/T

Over the last several years I have learned a great deal about my changing musical tastes... among the most important of these lessons that I am a sucker for straightforward rock. Perhaps it's a soft spot for no-nonsense music, but to be honest, I think that it's quite possible that the most difficult album to record in these days of diversified and beatles/radiohead-inspired creativity is a simple pop-rock album that is actually good.

This is Ivy League is phenomenal simply because they play instruments and channel the 1960s in a way that makes you smile and want to sip a beer from the end of a row house porch in Liverpool on a hot summer day.




9 - Friendly Fires - S/T

I have to admit that Friendly Fires was a complete unknown to me until June of 2009, so I suppose it's a lucky stroke that I didn't write my best of '08 until now.

Though I am usually somewhat aversed to dance based music, Friendly Fires have just the right amount of rock, dance, and too-cool-for-schoolness to make me get up and shake my surgically repaired knee.

If you don't like the video below I pity you:



8 - Fleet Foxes - S/T

Although I still don't think that they are quite as good as My Morning Jacket were in MMJ's vintage days of corn silo(gh?) recorded alt-country, it's impossible to deny the harmonies and overall loveliness of such a talented band.

On the MMJ front, by the way, Jim James is releasing a solo EP under the name of Yim Yames (that's right) that consists only of covers of George Harrison to include The Ballad of Sir Franky Crisp and Behind that Locked Door among other classics. Can't wait for it, though I wish that The Art of Dying were included somewhere.



7 - Vampire Weekend - S/T

It's Paul Simon's Graceland sung by preppy boys with polo shirts from America's best universities.

Seriously... it is... listen to Graceland.

Hell of an album, though.



6 - The Week that Was - S/T

What is it with self titled albums this year?

You all know I love me some Field Music and the brothers that are the core of the band, Peter and David Brewis, have gone solo and they've both managed to create albums that are not only unique, but ridiculously so.

This is Peter's album, which is phenomenal, but not as good as David's, but which includes a better video, as you will see below (got it!?). Look out for the David Brewis cameo in the video, complete with rapid-type action!

Check them out... I'm tired of asking




5 - Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul

Alright... it's a bit of a homer pick, but go read my previous review (drunken though it was) and you will see that it's worth checking out.

Seriously... Oasis is still really damned good.



4 - School of Language - S/T

Here's the other half of Field Music. David's album is better, but his video is not.

Centered around multiple versions of the same song, the School of Language album is, quite honestly, ridiculously fantastic. He takes the Field Music aesthetic of disjointed beats and sounds and marries them once again to devilishly catchy melodies.



3 - The Helio Sequence - Keep Your Eyes Ahead

Just the right combination of shoegaze and pop-rock to tickle my fancy.

Think Ride mixed with Spoon and what you get is an amazing album with among the most catchy melodies of the year.



2 - Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid

This is not a pick based on my, or my wife's, own personal love for the band or on previous albums.

The Seldom Seen Kid is, to be perfectly honest, a masterpiece. Every note is specifically chosen and placed in its appropriate place with incredible care.

It's an album that doesn't sink in right away, but which takes time.

Have a listen to the opening song, "Starlings", which, I know, seems awkward at first but which is among the most controlled uses of sound and vocal ability I have ever been exposed to.

It's essentially a song that maps out the highs and lows of the feeling of falling in love in both sound and lyrics. Guy Garvey's voice is the best on Earth and, let's be honest, you have to have recorded a pretty fucking good album to win the Mercury Music Prize and have the BBC Concert Orchestra devote an entire night to playing your album.

Additionally, the below video features the greatest lyric ever written:

"You are the only thing in any room you're ever in"



1 - Maupa - Run Run Sleep

How do you beat an album that I would consider nearly perfect?

Know me!

Well, it helps, but Maupa are my album of the year not because I happen to correspond with them, but because they have crafted a gem.

It's an album that will continually catch you by surprise and which runs the gamut. It's one fucking hell of an album.

There's a reason that NME gave them a review including the phrase "one step away from genius", though I'd argue that NME is missing something and that the album is, truly, genius.

As they would say in Accrington (or so I'd like to believe)

"'Ave a listen, mate"

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Well, we are almost at the half-way point of 2009, and somehow avant-garde (indie) rock band, the Dirty Projectors, are responsible for two of the best pop singles of the year. Prior to 2009, the band, while gaining some critical accolades, was certainly an acquired taste with their obtuse, art-rock arrangements and David Longstreth's bleating croon singing style. However, somewhere in the time since the band's 2007 release, Rise Above (an experimental re-telling of Black Flag's, Damaged) it appears that Longstreth and company have picked up a pop streak. We are all better off for it.

Exhibit A: "Knotty Pine" - Springy guitars hop along to a stomping beat. Fluttering piano fills out the chorus. Oh yeah, David Byrne is on the track.




Exhibit B: "Stillness Is The Move" - More intricate guitar burst over a heavy beat. Chorus could be played (over and over) on mainstream radio. Track is both singable and danceable.




First, Animal Collective. Then, Grizzly Bear. Now, the Dirty Projectors. Mark 2009 as the year that all the experimental indie rock bands went pop. No complaints here.

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In a message posted on their website this past Friday (6.5.09), the Everybodyfields announced they were calling it quits. The two core members of the band, Sam Quinn and Jill Andrews, both plan to take a shot at solo careers. A spectacular alt-country band, the Everybodyfields, have reportedly finished recording a fourth album, that appears to be shelved for the time being. While it was a very depressing album, Nothing is Okay (the band's third), was one of the best albums to come out of 2oo7 (looking back...what a fantastic year that was for new music: Boxer, Marry Me, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, In Rainbows, Person Pitch, The Stage Names, Friend and Foe, Let's Stay Friends, Sound of Silver, The Shepherd's Dog, Plague Park, The Reminder, Nothing is Okay, Spirt If, Cassadaga, The Besnard Lakes are the Dark Horse, Cease to Begin, Neon Bible, Strawberry Jam). Anyhow, the Everybodyfields will be missed. Check out this live version of Nothing is Okay track, "Lonely Anywhere".

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You can keep tomorrow. After tonight, we're not gonna need it....



Oh yeah! Oh yeah!

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Instead of trying to do this all at the end of the year, I figure it would be easier to just make smaller posts with clips as the music is actually coming out.

That being said, the new Phoenix album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, is out this week (physically), but I have been enjoying the digital release for the last couple of weeks (it has been out on itunes since May 12). Phoenix is a french band that hails from the same part of France (Versailles) that produced the likes of Air and Daft Punk. While there are shades of electronic-dance in what Phoenix does, I would say the similarities to Air and Daft Punk do not go much further than geographic coincidence (although I will say that the French always do a great job of looking cool).

At the core of it all, Phoenix is really just clean-cut pop-rock group (think Vampire Weekend if they did not care as much). On Wolfgang, the band's fourth full-length, Phoenix continues to churn out danceable, effervescent (occasionally synth - in a good way) rock numbers. Vocalist, Thomas Mars, has an effortless swagger in his delivery that leads me to believe he owns several leather jackets and only wears them over tight v-neck t-shirts. With some of the catchiest/most fun songs to come out so far this year, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix may be 2009's first big summer album (and its only May). Check out the infectious, "1901" below.

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