The Band Who Stole 2009

I reviewed the year and after reflecting on it for a few days I realized I didn't mention...or failed to expand on the best story of the year. Thomas Mars, Deck D'Arcy, Christian Mazzalai and Laurent Brancowitz played as a backing band for the great French duo known as Air. In 2000, Phoenix came to life on their own releasing United. Also in 2000, Air composed the soundtrack to a great movie The Virgin Suicides, which stars one of my biggest celebrity crushes Kirsten Dunst, in the soundtrack is an amazing track called "Playground Love" which is where I first heard about Phoenix after some research into the soundtrack.

The years past and Phoenix saw some commercial success hitting my radar again with the release of It's Never Been Like That with a great track "Long Distance Call". But, 2009...more specifically the latter half of the year Phoenix rose to startling fame into the mainstream and have now hit the media circuit like mad! In May, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix was released and generated instant buzz, rightly so, it's an awesome album.

The album received high praise from Pitchfork, SPIN and NME, among others. As the year went on the album and the band began to steam roll along and saw the track "1901" played in car commercials which is as we all now know the arena where new music is discovered by the masses.

More recently the Grammy's gave the nod to Phoenix as a nominee for Best Alternative Music Album. They are in some tough competition against Brian Eno and David Bryne's album Everything That Happens Will Happen Today and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs It's Blitz. With the media buzz around the band at the moment, they are great front runners to win.

The web has also been a buzz with the band with some great stripped down sets on La Blogothque's Les Concert A Emporter (The Take-Away Shows) which are amazing and have destroyed my sleeping patterns as I go through all the amazing videos. Sigur Ros, The Kooks, Jason Mraz and Grizzly Bear are some of my other favorites.

http://www.blogotheque.net/Phoenix,5176

As well, SPIN just posted an acoustic set by the band.

http://www.spin.com/articles/phoenix-unplugged-spin-hq

As many media sites have stated this is Phoenix's year. The guys have hit the mainstream and people have fallen in love with their up tempo sound. The albums that were released this year were stunning and it was probably one of the best years in recent memory with artists like Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Grizzly Bear, Animal Collective all releasing brilliant albums. But, then Phoenix rose up right at the last to steal this year and finish it off as the most talked about band going into the new year. I expect good things from them in the future and from their current discography I don't think I will be disappointed.