I have a reasonably well known passion for music, a passion which so far outstrips my passion for blogging that I never actually wrote a ‘Best Of 2009’ music post. There’s one for 2008, and even that took a month to write.

So, no more. Late as it is, I’ve tried to assemble a little list. If anything I’m disappointed because there’s nothing really here that you shouldn’t have heard about already. Trawling through iTunes metadata threw up a number of records which were decent and enjoyable, but hardly seem worthy of a claim to being a defining album of a year. Foal’s [Total Life Forever], Los Campesinos! [Romance is Boring], Jonsi’s [Go], Arcade Fire’s [The Suburbs], and Mumford and Son’s [Sigh No More] were all very good records, with great individual moments, and I listened to them all a lot at various points. Yet when it comes to put them on a pedestal I can’t. So won’t. You should definitely hear those records, though. (Last.FM should be able to springboard you onto Rdio, MOG, Spotify or Hype Machine depending on what’s available to you.)

What remains are the six exceptional records I bought this year then, in alphabetical order by album:

• ‘Black Noise’ by Pantha du Prince. German minimalist electro, full of rattling, industrial chimes and moments of fantastic, sparse atmospherics. His live show in San Francisco last summer was also very good indeed. Thanks are due to Lindsay Eyink for introducing me to this.
• ‘Crystal Castles II’ is the second self-titled record from Crystal Castles. I was a bit late on the uptake to them in general, but it’s a great record all the way through, and particularly the final four tracks (Pap Smear, Not In Love, Intimate and I Am Made of Chalk) make a great subset. Also worth pulling up is the recording of Not In Love with The Cure’s Robert Smith on vocals.
• The National put out their third album ‘High Violet.’ It’s a treasure, and saves its absolute highlight ‘England’ for the penultimate track. It’s monumental played live, too.
• Efterklang’s ‘Magic Chairs’ is an absolute gem. Sublime piano, percussion, harmonies, and a beautiful, delicate lead vocal. This is a record I’ll still be playing in ten years.
• ‘This is Happening’ is LCD Soundsystem’s third and final album. It may not be much progress from anything they did before, and there’s no overriding moment like ‘Sound of Silver’s ‘New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down’, but it’s still a very good record by anyone’s standard. ‘All I Want’ and ‘You Wanted A Hit’ stand out.
• What is there to say about Sleigh Bells ‘Treats’ that anyone who’s listened to it will still be able to hear? Since we’re doing a best of, this was the best paragraph in a music review I read all year (from Drowned in Sound): “Treats is the album iPod speakers are warned about as children, a ghostly camp fire tale to the eardrums, tinnitus’s backward cousin from across the pond. Mastered at a level surely pushing the boundaries of legality.” This record is relentless and loud and brilliant.

Of all of these records, including those I was a little underwhelmed by and brutally culled from a proper description, there are great tracks.

• Wold Parade’s ‘Expo 86’ didn’t carry for me, but their live show in Oakland was well worth it and new album opener ‘Cloud Shadow of the Mountain’ is really great.
• Yeasayer are a band I’d entirely ignored until this year. I don’t think they’re ever going to be my favourite band, but ‘Ambling Alp’ has a chorus of solid gold.
• The aforementioned ‘England’ by The National and Robert Smith version of Crystal Castle’s ‘Not In Love’.
• Los Campesinos! released at least three outstanding individual songs with their Romance is Boring record, even though the whole thing doesn’t grab me like the previous records did. ‘There Are Listed Buildings’, ‘Romance is Boring’ and best-thing-they-ever-did ‘The Sea Is A Good Place To Think About The Future’ were all committed to vinyl in 2010. I’m very exciting about whatever they release through their Heat Rash fanzine this year.
• Arcade Fire’s record won a Grammy whilst I was writing this. I’ll edit it into the top-six if I can remember any of the songs in the third quarter of the record… nope. From outside of the mid-album lull though, ‘Empty Room’s strings always excite me (and the flow into ‘City With No Children’ is great) and ‘We Used To Wait’ is one of their best efforts ever. Their live show in Berkley’s amphitheatre last summer is also a contender for best of the year.
• Mumford and Son’s ‘After The Storm’ is a fine album closer.
• ‘Meridan’ is the opener for Shearwater’s second album ‘The Golden Archipelago. Sublime vocal, as always.
• I’d pick ‘I Was Playing Drums’ from Efterklang’s record.
• Finally, ‘Spanish Sahara’ from Foals second ‘Total Life Forever’ album. It’s not a bad album, but feels less ambitious overall than the first. This is apart from Spanish Sahara, a seven minute epic crescendo that both presents a brave new subtlety from Foals, and then still packs in the hooks, danceability and off-kilter drumming that makes Foals so very, very good. This is my record of the year.