Beats Per Minute's Top 50 Albums of 2009

Beats Per Minute's Top 50 Albums of 2009

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48.

October 13, 2009
Critic Score
75
8 reviews

47.

September 22, 2009
Critic Score
80
25 reviews
Some will tout it as an amazing debut, others will dismiss it offhand, the rest of us can enjoy it for what it is, an endearingly flawed statement by a promising new band. It’s up to you to decide whether these songs are sung earnestly and without irony, or with a knowing wink – or whether or not it even matters.

46.

March 3, 2009
Critic Score
71
30 reviews

What No Line on the Horizon lacks in radical experimentation it makes up for in sheer strength of melody. The album is loose but never tossed off, joyous but never gratuitously so. U2 sound on No Line like they believe in themselves again, and as a result it is that much easier to believe in them.

43.

May 5, 2009
Critic Score
79
28 reviews

Primary Colours is definitely a positive change for the Horrors, and while it has some amazingly endearing moments, it lingers in areas.

41.

August 17, 2009
Critic Score
84
28 reviews

The band isn’t playing catch-up against a nonexistent reputation; they expect the record to speak for itself. And it certainly does. Every song is catchy and immediately enjoyable while not noisy.

40.

September 8, 2009
Critic Score
81
10 reviews

39.

July 14, 2009
Critic Score
71
32 reviews

The ferocious lyrics and sinister vibes of heavy bass repetition and steady, yet tuneful drumming by Jack White, make Horehound a charged compilation of music. The album is stylized, sexually charged, and trashy, but the greatest guilty pleasure of the summer. Ride into the night with the devil and then hang me out to dry.

38.

September 8, 2009
Critic Score
81
29 reviews

37.

February 17, 2009
Critic Score
77
30 reviews

36.

January 27, 2009
Critic Score
69
35 reviews
A strong return for the band after their hiatus.

35.

January 20, 2009
Critic Score
81
33 reviews
This is a haunting, beautiful record, and one that defies easy summation.

33.

November 18, 2009
Critic Score
73
16 reviews

Yes, Lady Gaga’s music as presented on The Fame Monster is still “unoriginal,” but it’s no longer uninspiring. It is a facsimile of various trends and sounds in popular music, from the ’80s to 2009, sometimes even stretching all the way back to the ’60s. But pop music isn’t about originality.

32.

April 7, 2009
Critic Score
79
34 reviews

30.

September 15, 2009
Critic Score
68
24 reviews

27.

June 23, 2009
Critic Score
78
22 reviews

26.

June 23, 2009
Critic Score
75
31 reviews

24.

March 24, 2009
Critic Score
72
33 reviews

Hazards succeeds through Meloy’s melodic smarts and his band’s constantly maturing compositional sensibilities.

23.

June 9, 2009
Critic Score
86
38 reviews

Longstreth is not a brilliant visionary, but he has created a masterpiece to the extent that he is capable. Bitte Orca is either deliberately frustrating or frustratingly deliberate, but in any case, it’s worth a listen. Or two. Or three.

21.

November 3, 2009
Critic Score
70
27 reviews

It’d be nice to get a new Strokes record in 2010, but Phrazes for the Young is that rarest of vanity projects: a successful one.

20.

October 20, 2009
Critic Score
78
26 reviews
Logos is not a particularly radical development of Bradford Cox’s aesthetic (if it ain’t broke, don’t fit it, etc), but a toybox of striking, fun and inventive songs, indeed adding up to a “scrapbook” (as Cox describes it) of evocations and sentiments.

18.

September 8, 2009
Critic Score
80
28 reviews

Popular Songs is just as much a joy to listen to as any of the band’s material—it’s merely a good record rather than a great one. And when a discography is as packed with as many of the latter as Yo La Tengo’s, it’s pretty easy to give them a pass on delivering the former.

17.

January 12, 2009
Critic Score
82
26 reviews

13.

March 3, 2009
Critic Score
78
27 reviews

Overall this record has a tender, beating heart; which is to say that Neko Case is increasingly establishing a recognizable and compelling persona as an artist. That’s something very few even approach, and it’s the mark of greatness.

12.

September 22, 2009
Critic Score
75
13 reviews

9.

March 31, 2009
Critic Score
80
35 reviews

Yeah Yeah Yeahs establish their control from the start, when the electronic rumble of opener and lead single “Zero” comes pulsating through your speakers ... The song has an absolutely monster chorus which almost climbs that ladder to that sun, before coming back to earth with the disco freakout “Heads Will Roll.”

8.

September 8, 2009
Critic Score
86
21 reviews

Only 4 Cuban Linx… Pt. II proves more than just a hastily named album with a rehashed cover. It is a true sequel that encompasses the sound of rap in 1995, while leaving the legacy of the original unscathed.

7.

November 17, 2009
Critic Score
75
28 reviews

Sharp, confident, and flawlessly executed, Them Crooked Vultures is the best hard rock album you’ll hear this year, and the rare supergroup that isn’t a self-serving waste of time for anyone involved.

6.

October 13, 2009
Critic Score
76
33 reviews

Had Wayne Coyne just accepted that he’s an oddball songsmith instead of the wizard of weird, Embryonic would have been much better.

5.

January 6, 2009
Critic Score
92
37 reviews

This is a band at the heights of its powers, fully in command of its sound and its creative process, unafraid to try basically anything.

4.

August 25, 2009
Critic Score
77
40 reviews

With this third album Arctic Monkeys have shown a new found confidence in their ability that has led to them expressing themselves in a deeper and darker way that is more rewarding for the listener.

3.

May 26, 2009
Critic Score
81
30 reviews

The combo of “Girlfriend” and “Armistice” is an unlikely ending, but by the time the toy pianos fade out on the latter, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix has already proven it’s point: that Phoenix is one of the leading bands in the Europop world, and are likely to score a crossover hit along with their contemporaries.

2.

May 26, 2009
Critic Score
86
38 reviews

Everything on Veckatimest, from the loftiest harmony to the subtlest string pluck, serves a purpose, even if there’s room for a little more.

1.

March 3, 2009
Critic Score
82
27 reviews

The Antlers are as commanding as musicians as they are poets. Hospice brings Silberman’s descent into the inferno an unerring dramatic instinct and an ability to transfix the listener by a profound, imaginative manipulation of the tragic and the blackly funny aspects of the experience.

Original Source: https://beatsperminute.com/features/the-top-50-albums-of-2009/
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