This year really didn’t end up being that “greatest of the decade” as January-March may have suggested. With that said, our favorite tracks list became very album-heavy as it evolved throughout the year. With seven tracks from Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear in the top 20, you kinda get the point. Here is our very biased list of favorite tracks from 2009:
- HEALTH – “Die Slow”
- Grizzly Bear – “While You Wait for the Others“
- Animal Collective – “Summertime Clothes”
- Fuck Buttons – “Olympians”
- Built to Spill – “Things Fall Apart”
- Animal Collective – “My Girls”
- Fever Ray – “Concrete Walls”
- Grizzly Bear – “Ready, Able“
- White Lies – “Farewell to the Foreground”
- Moderat – “New Error”
- Atlas Sound – “Attic Lights”
- Grizzly Bear – “Two Weeks“
- Animal Collective – “Guy’s Eyes”
- Fuck Buttons – “The Lisbon Maru”
- Atlas Sound – “Walkabout”
- Animal Collective – “What Would I Want? Sky”
- Dredg – “Information”
- White Lies – “Death”
- Fever Ray – “Coconut”
- Animal Collective – “Brothersport”
- Built to Spill – “Good Ol’ Boredom”
- MC Rut – “I Don’t Really Know”
- The Mars Volta – “Since We’ve Been Wrong”
- Modest Mouse – “The Whale Song”
- Dirty Projectors – “Cannibal Resource”
- Deerhunter – “Game of Diamonds”
- Morrissey – “It’s Not Your Birthday Anymore”
- Animal Collective – “I Think I Can”
- HEALTH – “We Are Water”
- Dredg – “Mourning This Morning”
- Sufjan Stevens – “You Are the Blood”
- Fuck Buttons – “Surf Solar”
- Phoenix – “Girlfriend”
- The Flaming Lips – “Silver Trembling Hands”
- White Rabbits – “Rudie Fails”
- The Mars Volta – “With Twilight As Our Guide”
- Radiohead – “These Are My Twisted Words”
- Great Northern – “Fingers”
- Royksopp – “Tricky, Tricky”
- Dirty Projectors – “Useful Chamber”
- St. Vincent – “The Party”
- YACHT – “Ring The Bell”
- Bat For Lashes – “Sleep Alone”
- Atlas Sound – “Sheila”
- Washed Out – “Feel It All Around”
- Das Racist – “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell”
- Dirty Projectors – “Stillness Is The Move”
- Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs – “Skeletons”
- Great Northern – “Driveway”
- Morrissey – “I’m OK By Myself”
For a tour that is supposed to present the last performances for Nine Inch Nails as we know them (him), it seemed awkward for Trent Reznor and company to play a set before Jane’s Addiction (a band that hasn’t been relevant in 15 years). As it turns out, the outdoor venue ended up sucking a lot of the life from their performance, and Jane’s Addiction proved they deserved to headline. Gone were the breathtaking lighting rigs from last year’s “Lights In The Sky” shows and the sporadic small venue shows. Instead, we get $80 seats that practically require binoculars. I avoid the PNC Bank Arts Center at all costs, as there is very little to get excited about. However, an exception needed o be made when NIN is playing their last area show after twenty years. Unfortunately, it was the least memorable performance I’ve seen by the band.




