• We tried to make these Photoshops extra awful… bad cutouts, obvious cliches, the whole bit. We’re pretty sure the Kanye shades aren’t even cut out all the way! But let’s face it. The Florida governor has better taste in wolf shirts than Panda Bear. Marco Rubio may have youth and momentum going in his direction, but Charlie Crist has the indie vote. source

• Best of the year:

• 
  obvious
• 
  spazzy
• 
  ragged
• 
  beautiful
• 
  hypnotic
  

• Best of the decade:

• 
  balanced
• 
  literate
• 
  yes!
• 
  better
• 
  pioneer*

* – We know this choice is somewhat controversial, because people hate Ben Gibbard for no good reason. But we’re going to say it now: Without this album, you would not have the popular success of indie rock that you see today. “We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes” made it cool. At least cooler than Dashboard Confessional. Which as you might notice, is not on the list. Do you want us to put it on there? Or do you even want to remember “Screaming Infidelities”? Good. Death Cab’s album, beyond being a gateway drug for any college student, also has some pretty amazing songs on it. ‘Nuff said.

• 131k sales figures for Animal Collective’s “Merriweather Post Pavilion,” which topped the list
• 205k sales figures for Phoenix’s “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix” (No. 8), which is the highest-selling on the list
• 3.4k sales figures for Real Estate’s “Real Estate” (No. 20), the lowest-selling on the list; you should buy it source

• Jan. 5 Pitchfork puts up a review of Animal Collective’s “Merriweather Post Pavilion.” We put up an article titled “‘Merriweather Post Pavilion’ album of the year? Well, that was fast.”
• Dec. 18 Pitchfork names Animal Collective’s “Merriweather Post Pavilion” album of the year, punishing every other band on the list that didn’t get a 9.6 from the site back in January.

• confident
• banal
• gorgeous
• creepy
• slick

• 8.9 for their new EP, “Fall Be Kind”; they’re on a roll source

• 1. If we had to pick one song of the decade, this would be it. In four and a half minutes, The Walkmen’s “The Rat” nailed the unnecessary gravitas and self-seriousness that defined this decade. No other song has come close to best defining it.
  2. Animal Collective essentially did the opposite of what Radiohead did to become famous. Starting out as a strange, dense, openly experimental band, they found themselves making pop music by the beginning of 2009. We still heart 2004’s “Sung Tongs,” though, and “Who Could Win a Rabbit?” is the bridge between the two sounds.
  3. The Arcade Fire suffered greatly at the hands of overhype, like many other perfectly-good bands of the era – Bloc Party or Vampire Weekend, anyone? But they deserved every bit of the hype they got, especially on “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out).”
  4. The Streets – aka Mike Skinner – nailed the best album of his career in 2002 with “Original Pirate Material,” but as far as singles go, “Fit But You Know It” is easily his best. With that roughshod beat – the kind of beat that Lily Allen rides up the charts nowadays – backing a story of a drunk ticked about the unattainable hottie in front of him, it synthesizes the best of Skinner’s sound and storytelling.
  5. The great secret of Sufjan Stevens’ “Seven Swans” – an album openly loaded with religious imagery – was that you didn’t need to be Christian to be deeply affected by it. “The Transfiguration” is beautiful on its own terms, but not without questioning its listener: “Consider what he says to you, consider what’s to come.” source

• Pitchfork just spent a week going through the list of the top 500 songs of the decade, and its winner was a song which came out in late 2000, didn’t crack the Bilboard 100 (despite the fact that the act had multiple number one hits), and topped the site’s mid-decade list, too. But, as the site argues, Outkast’s “B.O.B.” is a killer song loaded with prophecy of what was to come in the ensuing decade. Other songs in the top ten include some of the decade’s best and brightest (though we say that Animal Collective’s “Fireworks,” which still ranked high, was better than “My Girls”) and LCD Soundsystem’s “All My Friends” would’ve made a killer best-song-of-the-decade if Outkast hadn’t gotten there first. source

• At this point we’re so beyond being able to communicate with each other that way, that we just kind of developed our own language in terms of music-making. And that’s why it’s not important to us.
• Dave Portner (a.k.a. Avey Tare) • In an interview with Pitchfork talking about their unique approach to making music, which, as most of you know, critics and a capella groups really like. They’re even making inroads into the mainstream. Good for them! • source