2009 sometimes felt like a clash of the indie rock titans, with albums from Grizzly Bear, Animal Collective, The Flaming Lips, Dirty Projectors and a slew of others already emerging as consensus picks on critics’ best-of lists. And while we were fans of most of these records, too, we were sad to see how many other great releases have failed to get their due. With that in mind, we present, in no particular order, Flavorpill’s refreshingly subjective list of the 10 most underrated albums of 2009. Use the comments to tell us which artists you think deserved more respect than they got this year.
It’s a time-honored (if not entirely proud) musical tradition: Rock stars find fame with one outfit, then reach out to their colleagues to form another. The resulting supergroup becomes a crucible for sonic perspectives and raging egos; sometimes there’s an amazing meeting of the minds, and sometimes there’s Zwan. But even the most disastrous examples can’t keep the next generation from giving it a shot. Or three. We’ve rounded up some of these recently-minted marriages and checked out their bloodlines, examining which bands beat the sum of their parts. Read More »
