These are not necessarily albums created in 2009, but ones I found and heard and loved.
4. Paul and Storm
They opened up for Jonathan Coulton at PAX, and they won over the whole audience there, myself included. My favorite must be Live, their Coulton-esque reanimation love song, but their parodies are pretty spectacular. (See Domino’s, Pillsbury and Cheetos jingles, as well as Bob Dylan in a well, and James Taylor on fire on their website here) I’ve been listening their podcast “Paul and Storm Talk about Some Stuff for Five to Ten Minutes on Average” which runs 20-40 minutes. It’s cute, because they are internet almost famous but they need a little bit of editing. I joined their brigade of minions, so that is something that might be fun and or useful eventually.
3. The Hush Sound – Like Vines
These guys opened for The Spill Canvas, at the Hawthorne Theater, and grabbed my attention with “Medicine Man.” They split up the singing between a guy and a girl and they both rock. Like Vines has the most songs I now love, but Goodbye Blues and So Sudden also have great tracks, like As You Cry and Sweet Tangerine. “Don’t Wake Me Up” has a great Fall Out Boy moment with the guy singer, and “We Intertwined” makes you wish you were in a happy-go-lucky picnic-lunch kind of relationship.
2. Jeff Hanson – Madam Owl
I learned about Jeff Hanson when NPR ran an article about his death. His voice is delicate, very feminine, and it’s been my standby depression/comforting/zone out for an hour album ever since I first heard it in June. I usually listen to the entire album in order, but “Night” “”Last Thing I’ll Do” and “Nothing Would Matter at All” are all strong by themselves.
I wonder what I can do for a living
Something that makes you all proud
But won’t keep me up at night.
If I could go straight to the city
I would run every light
And nothing would matter at all.
1. Fun. – Aim and Ignite
It is so unreasonably difficult to find these guys online. Fun with a period at the end. Poor planning, guys. Anyway, I saw them open up for Hellogoodbye in August with Marble, and we had moved down from the balcony in the Hawthorne theater to the main floor to get close for Hellogoodbye, and they won me over, song after song. They are some incredible synthesis of Queen and ELO and the lead singers unique storytelling/emotion/stopping and starting melodies/catchiness. Amazing. I love nearly the whole album, which is a big deal for me.
