Brad’s Top 10 of 09 (Brad is the host of The Morning Bender, Tuesdays from 10-Noon and is the volunteer Music Director for KHOL)

1) Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Got to be my favorite of the year for a number of reasons.  More great singles than any of other album, more radio play on KHOL than any other album (without ever feeling old), a perfect blending of the best kind of Pop and Electronic.  No matter where I was in 09, if I needed to get fired up this was the album I threw on.  I don’t care who you are, if the first time you heard Lisztomania or 1901 you didn’t at least tap your foot then there’s something wrong w yer ears.

2 The Rural Alberta Advantage – Hometowns
Also affectionately know as “In the Aeroplane over Alberta”, at first it was hard to get over the comparisons to the seminal Neutral Milk Hotel album.  But the simple subtleties of this album grew and grew on me.  Short precise songs that range from Indie-Folk to thrashing messy rock, all with a running theme of Hometown.  No matter how many times I play this album, I feel joy every time it comes on, and every time I play a track on the radio I wish I could just play the album in its entirety, the way it sounds best.

3) Magnolia Electric Co – Josephine
The word “grower” defines this record for me.  It took me about 3 full listens to like this album, and another 3 after that to realize how amazing it really is.  There’s something to be said for an album you like on first listen, but these rarely have any staying power, and it seems to be the grower that is the most rewarding.

4) Passion Pit – Manners
This album makes me feel like I’m 16 again.  Maybe that’s cuz I started to feel really old looking at the crowd that was at Monolith to see these guys.  Maybe its because these guys the slay the kind of youthful, energetic, instantly likable indie pop that makes one want to dance on the couches like Mom and Dad are out of town for the weekend.

5) Deer Tick – Born on Flag Day
John McCauley delivers on the promise of 2007’s War Elephant, adding a full band to the songwriting process.  Classic Americana sound that I’m a total sucker for.

6) Discovery – Discovery
Every time I listen to this album I have this internal debate about whether or not this is good music.  I still don’t know.  All I know is that I like it for some reason.  I can’t figure it out.  Sounds like two of the whitest hipsters you’ve ever seen playing w 808s and synthesizers trying to replicate a Michael Jackson record.

7) Japandriods – Post-nothing
The first time I listened to this record I didn’t like it and I wrote it off pretty quickly.  Maybe it was because there were so many bands in 09 making this lo-fi, thrashy garage sound that I wanted to scream if I heard 1 more.  Maybe it was because their name is Japandroids (They’re from Canada and they’re not robots).  But one day I was driving in the car listening to KHOL and I heard this track and I had this obsession, I think we’ve all had this listening to the radio before, where I absolutely HAD to know what song I was hearing.  It was this perfect combination of thrashing guitars and drums, lo-fi reverb, and the punk aesthetic of being completely messy, off-time and out of key, but somehow making it sound perfect.  Did I mention youthful lyrics about getting drunk and scoring chicks?  AWESOME.

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros – Up From Bellow
It’s Monolith festival 2009 at Red Rocks and its raining sideways and freezing cold.  Everyone is shivering in their ponchos, completely underdressed as we came down from Jackson to the land of “300 days of sunshine!” thinking we were going on a tropical vacation.  As the misery sets in Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros comes on and, suddenly, things start to feel warm.  Suddenly there is this feeling of a campfire, and we find ourselves dancing carelessly in the freezing wet wind, feeling like this whole weekend and the weather is gonna be ok, so long as this band never stops playing.  That is the power of this album and of this band, and why they are on my top 10 of 09.

9) Cotton Jones – Paranoid Cocoon
Without getting to into it, this is a beautiful album.  Break yourself off a little piece of a Sunday morning, grab a cup of coffee and a comfortable chair (preferably on a porch if its not freezing cold) and enjoy.

10) The Antlers – Hospice
If phoenix was one of my most social albums of 2009, the antlers were the most isolating.  This is a headphone album with sounds ranging from atmospheric to thrashing noisy climaxes.  Strikingly beautiful and stop-in-your-tracks heartbreaking, this record is personal and asks allot emotionally of the listener.  A listening experience that won’t soon wash off.