Listomania: 2009 in Review

Another year’s over, this one perhaps overlooked as decade-end lists took precedence over year-end lists.  Speaking of, can we agree to call this new year “twenty ten” instead of “two thousand ten”? Syllables are a precious resource worth conserving.  At the very least, please avoid saying “oh ten.”

Oh yes, back to the year-end lists. For 2009.

Top Books of 2009

Fiction: Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
Non-Fiction: Inventory: 16 Films Featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls, 10 Great Songs Nearly Ruined by Saxophone, and 100 More Obsessively Specific Pop-Culture Lists by the A.V. Club

Conveniently enough, these were also the only two 2009 books I read this year.  Also conveniently, they were both excellent.

Top Albums of 2009

Franz Ferdinand – Tonight: Franz Ferdinand
The Decemberists – The Hazards of Love

2009 was a tricky year for me for albums, as I didn’t actually spend a lot of time listening to them.  Most of my listening happened earlier in the year, which is probably why those two stood out the most.  I do think Tonight was unjustly overlooked.  It’s actually quite a strong record – song for song, it’s comparable to Franz Ferdinand.

Art Brut vs. Satan seemed to be a letdown at the time, but I might have been too harsh.  I still haven’t formed opinions on Further Complications, Horehound, It’s Frightening, Humbug, Josephine etc.  I only just got Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix and Wilco (The Album) for Christmas, so I’m not ready to weigh in on those yet.  I never did buy It’s Not Me, It’s You.  I totally forgot I bought Everything Touches Everything by These United States until I just now saw it listed on my iTunes. I’ve never even listened to it. That’s the trouble with going on used album binges at Academy Records.

Top 10 Movies of 2009

01) A Serious Man
02) Inglourious Basterds
03) Where the Wild Things Are
04) Awaydays
05) Little Dorrit
06) Drag Me to Hell
07) Away We Go
08) Up
09) Funny People
10) Extract

I gave the game away a bit by putting A Serious Man at #4 for my decade list, but it’s just that good.  Speaking of the decade list, you may notice that I swapped the order of Inglourious Basterds and Where the Wild Things Are.  I didn’t change my mind. I’m just being willfully inconsistent.

#4 and #5 are cheating in a way. I saw Awaydays at South by Southwest, and it blew me away. I doubt that it’ll get a U.S. distribution, though, as it’s focused on a very specific element of British culture unfamiliar to most Americans.  Little Dorrit is actually a TV miniseries, not a movie.  Still, it’s probably the best Masterpiece Theatre-type adaptation since the 1995 Pride and Prejudice (which was A&E, not PBS).  It also beats the 1987 Little Dorrit by miles.  (It helps that Arthur’s not a creepy old dude and that Amy has a personality.)

I think Drag Me to Hell is the first movie I’ve seen in theaters twice since the first Pirates of the Caribbean.

Warren Zevon’s “Keep Me in Your Heart” just starting playing on my iTunes. It approves of me ranking Funny People at #9.

Top 25 Tracks of 2009

The first 10 songs are my top 10 of the year in order (that is, “Percussion Gun” is my favorite song of the year).  The following 15 tracks are not ranked.

01) White Rabbits – “Percussion Gun”
02) Franz Ferdinand – “Ulysses”
03) Lily Allen – “The Fear”
04) Handsome Furs – “I’m Confused”
05) Jay-Z ft Alicia Keys – “Empire State of Mind”
06) Flight of the Conchords – “Hurt Feelings”
07) Lady Gaga – “Poker Face”
08) Phoenix – “1901”
09) The Avett Brothers – “I and Love and You”
10) Kelly Clarkson – “My Life Would Suck Without You”
11) Jarvis Cocker – “‘Further Complications.'”
12) Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “Heads Will Roll”
13) Death Cab for Cutie – “Meet Me on the Equinox”
14) Art Brut – “Alcoholics Unanimous”
15) Brakes – “Crush on You”
16) The Features – “Lions”
17) The Dead Weather – “I Cut Like a Buffalo”
18) Arctic Monkeys – “Cornerstone”
19) Magnolia Electric Co. – “O! Grace”
20) Wilco – “Wilco (The Song)”
21) Miike Snow – “Animal”
22) The Juan MacLean – “One Day”
23) The Bottle Rockets – “The Way It Used to Be”
24) Au Revoir Simone – “All or Nothing”
25) The Decemberists – “The Wanting Comes in Waves / Repaid”

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But didn’t I list “Poker Face” as a 2008 track on Monday? Yes I did. But that’s OK – the Grammys tried to change the rules for Lady Gaga, too.  At any rate, though it may have technically been released in 2008, it didn’t get near the pop charts till this year.

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Best of the 2000s: Day 3 (TV; Album Cuts)

Year-end (and decade-end) lists that get published at the end of November/beginning of December irk me.  I understand that most publications take off work during the last couple of weeks, but it just seems wrong.  I used to post my lists (on ye olde Livejournal) in January of the following year to make sure that I wouldn’t miss out on some of the big records that I hadn’t lived with yet or on movies that were late to open in wide release.  Problem is, no one cares once you post that late.  So I’m compromising. This week, December 28-31, I’ll focus on the 2000s.  Each day, I’ll post one-quarter of my Top 100 songs (in convenient download format, if I can pull it together) as well as one general decade-end list (probably albums, movies, TV and books).  On January 1, I’ll follow up the decade lists with a post dedicated to 2009.  As always, this is my opinion.  I’m wouldn’t even want to compose some sort of objective list, even if such a thing were possible.  This is simply the pop cultural detritus that I most enjoyed during the past decade/year.

Top 15 TV Shows of the 2000s: Narrative

01) The Office (UK)

02) The Wire

03) Peep Show

04) Veronica Mars

05) Arrested Development

06) Life on Mars (UK)

07) House

08) The Mighty Boosh

09) Flight of the Conchords

10) Carnivàle

11) Dexter

12) Extras

13) Law and Order: Criminal Intent

14) The Office (US)

15) Futurama

Omissions: I just started watching Lost, so I’m only in the first season.  It’s still a bit early to add it to my list. I never got super-into The Sopranos and Deadwood, but I’m willing to go back and try again.  And, despite it being seemingly tailored to my interests, I hate Mad Men.

And you know what? Criminal Intent is great.  I won’t apologize.

Top 5 TV Shows of the 2000s: Non-Narrative

The Daily Show / The Colbert Report

Top Chef / Project Runway

The Soup

How can I rank them? They’re all so awesome.

Top 5 TV Movies, Mini-Series and Specials

01) Viva Blackpool (BBC America, 2005)
02) Little Dorrit (PBS, 2009)

03) No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (PBS, 2005)

04) ShakespeaRe-Told: Taming of the Shrew (BBC America, 2006)

05) Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak (HBO, 2009)

Remember when BBC America used to actually be good?

Top 100 Songs of the 2000s: Part 3 (Album Cuts)

(not in any particular order)

01) Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – “There She Goes, My Beautiful World” (2004)
02) The New Pornographers – “Jackie, Dressed in Cobras” (2005)
03) The Clientele – “Since K Got Over Me” (2005)
04) Sons and Daughters – “Johnny Cash” (2004)
05) Frog Eyes – “The Oscillator’s Hum” (2004)
06) Wilco – “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” (2002)
07) Patty Griffin – “Making Pies” (2002)
08) Cat Power – “Speak for Me” (2003)
09) The Magnetic Fields – “I Thought You Were My Boyfriend” (2004)
10) Pulp – “Weeds” (2001)
11) The Shins – “Saint Simon” (2003)
12) Joanna Newsom – “Peach, Plum, Pear” (2004)
13) The Decemberists – “Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect” (2002)
14) Elliott Smith – “Happiness” (2000)
15) Spoon – “Don’t You Evah” (2008)
16) Jarvis Cocker – “I Will Kill Again” (2006)
17) Graham Coxon – “You & I” (2006)
18) Belle & Sebastian – “The Wrong Girl” (2000)
19) Arab Strap – “The Shy Retirer” (2003)
20) Brakes – “Heard About Your Band” (2005)
21) Arcade Fire – “Rebellion (Lies)” (2004)
22) The Go! Team – “Huddle Formation” (2004)
23) Vivian Girls – “Where Do You Run To” (2008)
24) Sonic Youth – “The Empty Page” (2002)
25) Songs:Ohia – “Farewell Transmission” (2003)

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You know when was a really good time for indie music? The middle of the decade, apparently.

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