UK Blogger Albums Of 2009 Poll Results

Here we go again, then. The traditional first post of the new year on this blog, and hopefully the highest profile given what it entails and the effort put into it, collates the results of our study of good, honest UK music bloggers and their charts of the year's best albums. This is the fifth such gathering of zeitgeist information - check the tag for earlier polls - and as usual we've begged and when that largely failed scrounged blog master lists for enough proper lists to produce a workable full top 50, one more individual list counted towards it than last year. We ended up with a huge range of nominees and an intriguing, not to mention close in various key places, end result.

This year's harvested lists, by no means covering all the blogs/people counted: 17 Seconds, 2STEPSFORWARD4STEPSBACK, Addict Music, Amusia, And Everyone's A DJ, Aye Tunes, Both Bars On, Breaking More Waves, BurnTheJukebox, Condemned To Rock N Roll, Faded Glamour*, Folly Of Youth, funfunfun, Hotcakes, ireallylovemusic, In League With Paton, It's Getting Boring By The Sea, It’s not for the cock, Music Fans Mic, Music Liberation, Nyevsky Prospect, Our Iron Lung, Products Of A Gaseous Brain, Song By Toad, The Daily Growl, Themilkfactory, The Pop Cop, The Sound Of The Overground, The Von Pip Musical Express, Troubled Diva and Yer Mam! plus this year's special guests, Belgian Anglophiles The Neon Enlightenment. Thanks to those who sent their lists over, sorry to those for whom this is the first they've heard of it. Here's their combined top 50 of 2009:


50 THE UNTHANKS - Here's The Tender Coming
49 MAJOR LAZER - Guns Don't Kill People, Lazers Do
48 JAPANDROIDS - Post-Nothing
47 KING CREOSOTE – Flick The V's
46 SWEET BILLY PILGRIM - Twice Born Men
45 THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART - The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
44 TUNE-YARDS - Bird-Brains
43 PATRICK WOLF - The Bachelor
42 BROKEN RECORDS - Until The Earth Begins To Part
41 JACK PENATE - Everything Is New
40 BLACKROC - Blackroc
39 GIRLS - Album
38 ALESSI'S ARK - Notes From The Treehouse
37 ARCTIC MONKEYS - Humbug
36 GRAMMATICS - Grammatics
35 DANANANANAYKROYD - Hey Everyone!
34 WITHERED HAND - Good News
33 FUTURE OF THE LEFT - Travels With Myself And Another
32 BILL CALLAHAN - Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle
31 WHITE LIES - To Lose My Life
30 MICACHU & THE SHAPES - Jewellery
29 THE PHANTOM BAND - Checkmate Savage
28 WE WERE PROMISED JETPACKS - These Four Walls
27 NOAH AND THE WHALE - The First Days Of Spring
26 LA ROUX - La Roux
25 FEVER RAY - Fever Ray
24 PASSION PIT - Manners
23 FANFARLO - Reservoir
22 THE MACCABEES - Wall Of Arms
21 SLOW CLUB - Yeah So

20 BIBIO - Ambivalence Avenue
Video: Ambivalence Avenue

19 BAT FOR LASHES - Two Suns
Video: Daniel

18 FLORENCE & THE MACHINE - Lungs
Video: Drumming Song

17 MANIC STREET PREACHERS - Journal For Plague Lovers
Video: Jackie Collins Existential Question Time

16 JAMIE T - Kings & Queens
Video: Chaka Demus

15 THE TWILIGHT SAD - Forget The Night Ahead
Video: I Became A Prostitute

14 BLUE ROSES - Blue Roses
Video: Doubtful Comforts

13 CAMERA OBSCURA - My Maudlin Career
Video: French Navy

12 EMMY THE GREAT - First Love
Video: First Love

11 YEAH YEAH YEAHS - It's Blitz!
Video: Zero

10 THE ANTLERS - Hospice
Brooklynite Peter Silberman charts isolation, life, death and his place in the world by means of broodingly cathartic uneasy listening
Video: Two

9 PHOENIX - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
There-or-thereabouts French outfit strike paydirt by refining their hook-laden pop into ever more sophisticatedly streamlined shapes
Video: Lisztomania

8 THE HORRORS - Primary Colours
Much-mocked playgroup garage goths regroup, rethink, listen to a lot of MBV and Psychedelic Furs and come back with an electric malevolence
Video: Sea Within A Sea

7 FUCK BUTTONS - Tarot Sport
Experimental noise duo make a turn for the techno club and rave field with soaring synths, pounding glitch intensity and many layered beauty
Video: Surf Solar

6 MUMFORD AND SONS - Sigh No More
West London nu-folkies whip up a barn dance bluegrass storm with their banjo and their four-part harmonies and their euphoric crescendos
Video: Little Lion Man

5 DIRTY PROJECTORS - Bitte Orca
West African riffs, syncopated post-funk, oblique pop hints, abruptly melodic intricacies and an avant-Mariah Carey impression
Video: Stillness Is The Move

4 WILD BEASTS - Two Dancers
The little Kendal band that could delve deeper into early 80s alt-funk-pop influences and pull out no end of on the pull-based intrigue
Video: Hooting & Howling

3 GRIZZLY BEAR - Veckatimest
Gorgeously arranged suite of harmonic delicacy, founded on the subtlest multi-instrumental nuances while retaining Beach Boys-ish opulence
Video: Two Weeks

2 ANIMAL COLLECTIVE - Merriwether Post Pavilion
Having worked their way round freak folk's outer limits they came back to centre point with noise-pop, avant-dance and a winning strain of positivism
Video: My Girls

1 THE XX - XX
For the second year in a row, the number one was decided by the very last list counted. Late night listening comes home to roost as R&B-reared youngsters make restrained indiefied beats driven by star crossed lovers narrative
Video: Crystalised


* Saam Faded Glamour also polled a number of UK bloggers, some of whom are also represented here (us, for one), for the British Albums Of The Decade