I must have heard upwards of 150 new release albums during the course of 2009. Listed below are the 50 albums I kept returning to and consider to be the best of the year. In recognition of the late John Peel, I'm christening this post the Festive 50.

Mainstream commercial music may be controlled by Simon Cowell (or as I think of him, the Beast) but as the collection of sublime albums below testifies, the alternative scene is as strong as it ever has been. These 50 albums could quite happily keep me going for years on a desert island but if I had to select a few for special praise I think I'd go for those releases by The Decemberists, Bill Callahan, Malcolm Middleton and Grizzly Bear as being those I've gone back to the most.

The list is, as last year's, not in any order of preference but follows a more conventional alphabetical listing.

1 to 50 (alphabetically)

1. And So I Watch You From Afar - And So I Watch You From Afar
2. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion
3. Antony & The Johnsons - The Crying Light
4. Bat For Lashes - Two Suns
5. Bill Callahan - Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle
6. Dan Deacon - Bromst
7. Dangermouse & Sparklehorse - Dark Night Of The Soul
8. De Rosa - Prevention
9. The Dead Weather - Horehound
10. The Decemberists - The Hazards Of Love
11. Doves - Kingdom Of Rust
12. The Drones - Havilah
13. Elvis Perkins - Elvis Perkins In Dearland
14. Fever Ray - Fever Ray
15. The Flaming Lips - Embryonic
16. Florence & The Machine - Lungs
17. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport
18. Future Of The Left - Travels With Myself And Another
19. Great Lake Swimmers - Lost Channels
20. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
21. Heartless Bastards - The Mountain
22. Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions - Through The Devil Softly
23. Howling Bells - Radio Wars
24. Jesca Hoop - Hunting My Dress
25. Joe Gideon & The Shark - Harum Scarum
26. The Leisure Society - The Sleeper
27. Leonard Cohen - Live In London
28. Lonely Dear - Dear John
29. Madness - The Liberty Of Norton Folgate
30. Malcolm Middleton - Waxing Gibbous
31. Manic Street Preachers - Journal For Plague Lovers
32. Megadeth - Endgame
33. Moby - Wait For Me
34. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - The Road
35. Noah & The Whale - The First Days Of Spring
36. The Phantom Band - Checkmate Savage
37. PJ Harvey & John Parish - A Woman A Man Walked By
38. Placebo - Battle For The Sun
39. Richard Hawley - Truelove's Gutter
40. Rodrigo y Gabriela - 11:11
41. The Secret Machines - The Secret Machines
42. The Sian Alice Group - Troubled, Shaken Etc.
43. Soap & Skin - Lovetune For Vacuum
44. Soulsavers - Broken
45. Telefon Tel Aviv - Immolate Yourself
46. Them Crooked Vultures - Them Crooked Vultures
47. Tom Waits - Glitter & Doom Live
48. The Twilight Sad - Forget The Night Ahead
49. The Veils - Sun Gangs
50. Volcano Choir - Unmap

Bubbling under .......

 

Regina Spektor - Far
M. Ward - Hold Time
Japandroids - Post-Nothing
Eels - Hombre Loco
The Clientele - Bonfires On The Heath