The Ten Best Albums of 2009
continues. So I've run out of time, we're now firmly in 2010, and I still have 40% of this list to account for. Who cares if it's not on time? Let's see it through. In case you missed them, here
are Nos. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, and 5.
The fourth best album of 2009 is two things. It's the best debut album of the past year. And it's the sexiest album of the past year. The xx are a bunch of 20-year olds from London who made a record, xx, full of songs about relationships and sex. Good, bad, intimate, distant sex. Which makes sense. What else do 20-year olds know to make music about?
Perhaps I'm underselling xx's merits by chalking the whole operation up to sex. I don't want you to get the wrong impression. It's far beyond that. The style is that of airy, minimalistic, quiet R&B. The computer generated rhythm section produces simple -- dare I say -- phat beats. Some electric guitars twang along with a melody here and there. A keyboard tinkles off in the distance. A boy and girl alternate lyrics like, "No need for talking/I already know/If you want me/Why I go." There's an awesome mood crafted around the entire record. It's been said before by people way smarter than I, but xx plays like an album that was preceded by a half dozen more noisy efforts. It seems unnatural that a band so fresh could produce something so reserved, to rely on the music's softness to communicate sexuality, as though the xx have a full, sort of comprehensive grasp of their emotional state. Which would make them the anti-emo, right?
Fourth Best Album of 2009: The xx, xx
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