Lady Gaga, The Fame Monster (2009). Who is Lady Gaga? She catapulted to international superstardom this year with her danceable pop music, bizarre fashion sense, and theatrical performances. But she remains a subject of fascination to us all—whether that springs from love or hate is of course subjective. On The Fame Monster, the highly anticipated follow-up to her debut album The Fame, the singer examines lust, death, and the dark side of her new-found success. It's a weirdly wonderful pop album ridden with industrial beats, synthesizers, and cannibalistic lyrics. On the eerie track "Monster," she repeatedly rasps, "That boy is a monster...he ate my heart and he ate my brain." That Gaga is a strange creature herself. And she certainly works it to her advantage.
Mike SeelyManaging editor and author of 2009's Seattle's Best Dive Bars: Drinking & Diving in the Emerald City
Pat Moriarity
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James McMurtry, Live in Europe (2009), It Had to Happen (1997), Where'd You Hide the Body (1995). The great Texan James McMurtry released a new album of old material in 2009—in other words, a live album. No matter: Mere mention of its drop date gave me an excuse to delve deeper into McMurtry's supremely underrated oeuvre, with classics like It Had to Happen and Where'd You Hide the Body? plucked from my home shelves, dusted off, and pressed into regular duty on my '82 Corolla's CD player (or as regular as can be pressed in an old car that's driven rather irregularly). This re-exposure made me surer than ever that McMurtry is the Springsteen of the South.
The Moondoggies, Don't Be a Stranger (2008); The Maldives, Listen to the Thunder (2009). Locally, two closely connected acts that often collaborate, the Moondoggies and the Maldives, provided the soundtrack to a summer's worth of road trips. Granted, it took me awhile to fetch the Moondoggies' much-buzzed-about 2008 LP, Don't Be a Stranger, but I'll never think of Twisp and the North Cascades Highway without hearing "Make It Easy" in my head. Music that's paired perfectly with one's surroundings is always more memorable. Kathleen Edwards and a drive from Denver to Durango is another such memory, as is the Maldives' latest album, Listen to the Thunder, and an August jaunt to Hoquiam. Grays Harbor County is as close as Washington comes to a severely depressed Rust Belt region, providing a perfect match for Thunder's moodiness. The 10-minute ballad "Walk Away" was the best track—anywhere— I heard all year.
Amy Millan, Masters of the Burial (2009). Fall brought Amy Millan's sumptuous Masters of the Burial, an album that reconciled the seemingly polarizing viewpoints of Millan's best-known band, Stars, with her solo work. Stars has always been very electro-friendly and stylistically polymorphous, whereas Millan, left to her own devices, has trended far rootsier. Masters of the Burial somehow melded these tendencies into one tasteful, soothing collection of tracks, with "Old Perfume" the standout.
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