Top 5 Albums of 2009

The Man On The Moon: The End of The Day by Kid Cudi: Perhaps on the list for merely being the album I listened to the most this year only because we played the dickens out of it at my store. Cleveland rapper Kid Cudi had a hit in the UK last year with "Day N Nite" so this album was highly anticipated, filled with somber yet living ambient beats and occasional dips and dives into pop rock and 80's synth.

Wild And Inside by Eat Skull: Overuse of the term "lo-fi" still doesn't lose its definition in repetition when it comes to this band I was just introduced to recently. "Stick To The Formula" rocks like a band playing in the shower, and "Cooking A Way To Be Happy" sounds like the kind of goofy fun my friends and I would have had years ago trying to write a song on the fly in somebody's kitchen.

Troubadour by K'Naan: I picked this album up as a promo at Waterloo Records in Austin back in February and the beats still stick to my ribs even after they vanish from my iPod. The Somalian survivor's stories are harrowing and the rhythms swirl with heightened drama in all the right places. Sort of a Slumdog Millionaire hip-hopera that takes you into the mind of a man' who has been there.

In The Ruff by Diamond District: Another new introduction, yet once heard you know you've heard it once before. Or maybe twice. Because it's hip-hop that takes you back to the early to mid 1990's, before things got a tad too corporate and polished and Pepsi Free. Producer Oddisee lays the foundation for three equally present emcees rapping about street life in the DC/Virginia/Maryland triangle with all the dirty grime of three poets striding side-by-side feeling the gilded colonial decay seep into their souls.

The Eternal by Sonic Youth: So what indeed can this NYC noise band from the early 80's bring to the table that hasn't already been brought before? Despite them being one of my all time favorite bands I admit I haven't bought anything that they have done in the last several years, feeling as if I have enough of their style in my collection. But on a whim, The Eternal reminded me again why I love these guys (and gal) so much. The eternal is a term that sums them up best.