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best 2009 indie rock

best indie rock 2009

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  • Anonymous kelly in seattle // 3:39 PM
  • Blogger Conlan // 12:12 PM

  • The Shortlist Organization will release their official "shortlist" of nominees for the sixth annual Shortlist Music Prize in a couple of weeks, narrowing the "longlist" of 61 albums of 2006 down to the Top Ten.

    The Shortlist Music Prize is considered one of the highest honors in the independent and alternative rock music profession. Last year's winner,
    Sufjan Stevens, has taken the music world by storm, releasing one compilation of amazing music after another.


    Stevens' 2005 album Illinoise is full of soft melodies, inspirational spurts of engery, lyrical intrigue and is easily one of the classic albums of the past decade.

    Earlier this month, TSO released the long list of 61 nominees featuring a compendium of the best indie and alternative music of the past year, including artists such as like Snow Patrol,
    Arcade Fire, Mates of State, Band of Horses, The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV on the Radio, and many more. (See below for the complete list)

    The 61 nominees were selected by a panel of nine indie rock artists and journalists, including Sufjan Stevens, Franz Ferdinand, Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol, Wayne Coyne of Flaming Lips, Ronnie Vannucci of The Killers, members of Panic at the Disco, Reverend Moose, editor-in-chief of CMJ New Music Report, and a Rolling Stone magazine rock critic.

    To qualify for nomination artists' albums must be released in the U.S. in the past year and not have sold more than 500,000 copies worldwide. Panelists are also looking for artists who embrace and push the envelope of the indie rock spirit of "creative and adventurous" music.

    "This year's listmakers have created a streetwise playlist of state-of-the art rock, dance and hip hop," Shortlist creative director Greg Spotts said.

    Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody told Top40-Charts.com that this year's Long List "looks like my own iPod." He says the melancholy "Begin to Hope" by Regina Spektor is "a gorgeous record which is simple and devastating in equal measure."

    Lightbody also elegantly describes two of his favorite artists - both IRC Featured Artists - praising North Carolina's Band of Horses' Everything All the Time as "sublime, blissed out elegance" and Beirut's Gulag Orskestar as "sweeping swooning carnival" of songs, and the couple duo Mates of States Bring It Back as "twisted, warped pop."

    Subscribe to this feed and watch for the Top Ten, and ultimately a full profile of the winner. The winner will be announced sometime in May.

    The 61 nominees include artists from 45 different record labels and ten countries as selected by Sufjan Stevens (and based on his taste in music, you might want to check out some of these albums if you haven't already):

    Against Me - Americans Abroad Live in London
    And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead - So Divided

    Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock & Roll
    Band of Horses – Everything All the Time
    Beck - The Information
    Beirut – Gulag Orskestar
    Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit

    Bonnie Prince Billy - The Letting Go
    Cat Power – The Greatest
    Country Teasers - The Empire Strikes Back
    CSS - Cansei de Ser Sexy
    Cursive - Happy Hollow
    Dabrye - Two/Three
    Danielson - Ships
    Dead Heart Bloom - Dead Heart Bloom
    Editors - The Back Room
    Field Music – Field Music
    Forgive Durden - Wonderland
    Girl Talk - Night Ripper
    Hot Chip - The Warning
    Howling Bells - Howling Bells
    Jeremy Enigk - World Waits
    Joanna Newsom - Ys
    Kidd Jordan, Hamid Drake + William Parker – Palm of Soul
    Kimya Dawson - Remember that I Love You
    Liars - Drum's Not Dead
    Love is All - Nine Times That Same Song
    Lupe Fiasco - Food & Liquor
    Mates of State - Bring It Back
    Matmos - The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast
    Mew - And the Glass Hand Kites
    Midlake - The Trials of Van Occupanther
    Mohair - Small Talk
    Mute Math - Mutemath
    Neil Young – Living With War
    OOIOO - Taiga
    Peeping Tom - Peeping Tom
    Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers
    Regina Spektor - Begin to Hope
    Roots - Game Theory
    Secret Machines - Ten Silver Drops
    Serena Maneesh - Serena Maneesh
    Skream - Skream
    Spank Rock - YoYoYoYoYo
    Teddybears - Soft Machine
    The Blow - Paper Television
    The Bronx - The Bronx
    The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
    The Gossip – Standing In the Way of Control
    The Hush Sound – Like Vines
    The Knife -
    Silent Shout
    The Stills - Without Feathers
    The Strokes – First Impression of Earth
    The Velvet Teen – Cum Laude
    The Weepies - Say I am You
    Tom Waits - Orphans
    TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
    Vaux - Beyond Virtue Beyond Vice
    We Are Scientists – With Love and Squalor
    Wolfmother - Wolfmother
    Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Show Your Bones

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      8:32 PM April 4, 2007    2 Comments    MP3 Policy  View Labels/Tags

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    bands to watch 2009
    2009 Bands To Watch


    Current and upcoming releases (US dates)

    12/7/09 Ólafur Arnalds - Dyad 1909
    1/12/10 Vampire Weekend - Contra
    1/19/10 Cold War Kids - Behave Yourself EP
    1/19/10 Spoon - Transference
    1/26/10 Beach House - Teen Dream
    1/26/10 Basia Bulat - Heart Of My Own
    2/1/10 Los Campesinos! - Romance Is Boring
    2/2/10 Midlake - The Courage of Others
    2/9/10 Yeasayer - Odd Blood
    2/23/10 Shout Out Louds - Work
    2/23/20 Shearwater - The Golden Archipelago
    3/2/10 Rogue Wave - Permalight
    3/2/10 The Whigs - In The Dark
    3/9/10 Frightened Rabbit - The Winter of Mixed Drinks
    3/9/10 Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - The Brutalist Bricks
    3/16/10 Drive-By Truckers - The Big To-Do
    3/16/10 The Whigs - In The Dark
    3/22/10 Jónsi - Go
    3/23/10 She & Him - Volume 2
    5/4/10 The New Pornographers - Together

    Best 2009 Indie Releases

    2009 best indie albums
    Favorite 2009 indie albums in no particular order; strongly recommend these for your music collection.

    Roman Candle - Oh Tall Tree In The Ear
    Built to Spill - There Is No Enemy
    Fanfarlo - Reservior
    Family of the Year - Songbook
    The Middle East - The Recordings of the Middle East
    Freelance Whales - Weathervanes
    Echo & The Bunnymen - The Fountain
    The Sun - Don't Let Your Baby Have All The Fun
    Kings of Convenience - Declaration of Dependence
    Foreign Born - Person To Person
    Real Estate - Real Estate
    Elephantom - Swim. Towards The Sun
    Wiretree - Luck
    Them Crooked Vultures - s/t debut
    Volcano Choir - Unmap
    Au Revoir Simone - Still Night,Still Light
    Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
    The Raveonettes - In and Out of Control
    Ramona Falls - Intuit
    Holiday Shores - Columbus'd The Whim
    Why? - Eskimo Snow
    Neon Indian - Psychic Chasms
    Cage The Elephant - Cage The Elephant
    The Dead Weather - Horehound
    Portugal The Man - The Satantic Satanist
    Port O'Brien - Threadbare
    Broken Records - Until The Earth Begins To Part
    Headlights - Wildlife
    Bango or Freakout - Upside Down EP
    The Clean - Mister Pop
    Sin Fang Bous - Clangour
    Passion Pit - Manners
    The Flaming Lips - Embryonic
    Brazos - Phosphorescent Blues
    Spring Tigers - Spring Tigers EP
    Sea Wolf - White Water, White Bloom
    The Big Pink - A Brief History of Love
    Bodies Of Work - Flyers
    The XX - XX
    The Black Hollies - Softly Towards The Light
    Sonic Youth - The Eternal Youth
    Dinosaur Jr. - Farm
    Modest Mouse - No One's First and You're Next
    Generationals - Con Law
    BLK JKS - After Robots
    White Denim - Fits/Exposion
    Rodrigo y Gabriella - 11:11
    Monsters of Folk - Monsters of Folk
    Atlas Sound - Logos
    The Avett Brothers - I And Love And You
    Califone - All of My Friends Are Funeral Singers
    Taken By Trees - East of Eden
    Chet - Chelsea Silver, Please Come
    Julian Casablancas - Phrazes for the Young
    Washed Out - Life of Leisure
    Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career
    Deer Tick - Born On Flag Day
    The Clientele - Bonfires of Heath
    Iron & Wine - Around The Well
    Pete Doherty - Grace/Wastelands
    It Hugs Back - Inside Your Guitar
    Peter Bjorn and John - Living Thing
    Conor Oberst & The Mustic Valley Band - Outer South
    Paper Route - Absence
    Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
    Throw Me The Statue - Creaturesque
    The Dodos - Time To Die
    Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
    M. Ward - Hold Time
    Deastro - Moondagger
    The Decemberists - Hazards of Love
    Matt & Kim - Grand
    The Antlers - Hospice
    Arctic Monkeys - Humbug
    The Brakes - Touchdown
    Andrew Bird - Noble Beast
    Wilco - Wilco (The Album)
    Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs
    Franz Ferdinand - Tonight
    Frightened Rabbit - Quietly Now
    We Were Promised Jetpacks - These Four Walls
    The Times New Viking - Born Again Revisited
    A Sunny Day in Glasgow - Ashes Grammar
    Pet Lions - Soft Right
    Paramore - Brand New Eyes
    Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Beware
    Bishop Allen - Grrr
    Cage The Elephant - Cage The Elephant
    Birds of Avalon - Uncanny Valley
    Sunset Rubdown - Dragonslayer
    Ben Kweller - Changing Horses
    The Acorn - Heron Act
    The Twilight Sad - Forget The Night Ahead
    AC Newman - Get Guilty
    Dan Auerbach - Keep It Hid
    Cursive - Mama, I'm Swollen
    Beirut - March of the Zapotec & Realpeople: Holland
    The Most Serene Republic - And The Ever Expanding Universe
    Patrick Watson - Wooden Arms
    Woodpigeon - Treasury Library Canada
    Wye Oak - The Knot
    Vica Voce - Rose City
    Pomegranates - Everyone, Come Outside!
    Dananananaykroyd - Hey Everyone
    Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
    Akron/Family - Set Em Wild, Set Em Free
    Lemon Sun - Run With the Faithless
    Eels - Hombre Lobo
    Fruit Bats - The Ruminant Band
    Mellow Down Easy - Cosmisutra
    The Mary Onettes - Dare EP
    Odawas - The Blue Depths
    The Veils - Sun Gangs
    Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz
    White Rabbits - It's Frightening
    Loney Dear - Dear John
    The Lonely Forest - We Sing The Body Electric
    The Uglysuit - self-titled debut
    Handsome Furs - Face Control
    Vampire Hands - Me & You Cherry Red/Cuz It's a Beach Funeral


    This list is updated regularly.


    Indie Record Labels

    this list is regularly updated