1. Girls - Album

So here it is. Finally, my absolute favorite album of the year. And it's funny, I think I knew this was going to be my number one, like thirty seconds into "Lust For Life", the album opener. All of the music on this stupid blog is good music that i genuinely enjoy listening to. However, Girls;Album became something special. It has somehow seeped its way into my personal favorite albums that i have ever heard. I'm talking about the albums that kill your soul when you hear them, that remind you of great times and bad times, that are there for you when it seems no one else is. Even now as i am listening to it while typing, I am amazed at how good this album is. Girls are a San Fransisco band that came out of the Children of God cult and got into drugs (the abridged story) and started to write music. They released their debut album Album in September and the rest is history I think. The reason Album works is because it sounds like a collection of singles. I don't know if it was meant to be presented like that, but every song could be a single. It's that fucking good. There are classic pop gems like "Lust For Life", "Laura" and "Darling" and then there are downers like "Ghost Mouth" and "Lauren Marie" and there is the fucking anthem of "Hellhole Ratrace." And that's just the first half of the album. Chris Owens has this kind of Randy Newman croon that fits every song and he sings with such heartache. On top of that, he has a way of making simple lyrics mean so much more. "GhostMouth" is my favorite song for this reason, because every line is a killer. And on "Darling" he sings "Man, i felt like i could lay down and die/then I found my life in the song that I'm singing..." and it never comes off as cheesy or whiny, but rather uplifting. To close, there hasn't been an album that I've related to as much as Album in a long time. I absolutely love Girls;Album from start to finish. There are no track skippers. It's an album I listen to start to finish and then hit play again. I have since tracked down most of their other singles like "Substance" and "Solitude" and have grown to love them as well. Of all the lo-fi, chillwave, pop, rock, punk and whatever else bullshit music came out in 2009 popular or indie or whatever, Girls were the best.

Here is the like for the "Lust For Life" video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuoTjYYqe4c