Personally, my vote for best album of 2009 goes to The Antlers’ Hospice. 

The Antlers is a relatively little known band hailing from Brooklyn, New York. Hospice is the band’s third album and their first concept album. Hospice deals with the story of a man who meets a cancer patient in a cancer ward. He falls in love with her and eventually watches her as she dies from her disease.

If you think the concept is depressing — it really is. The album is filled with an overwhelming sense of despair, grief and loss. But these are emotions that the band has mined for all of its power. Hospice is devastatingly beautiful — unabashedly bathing in its pain. This is an album that doesn’t shirk away from baring its soul. Each song is a powerful testament to love lost that is expressed not just in Peter Silberman’s lyrics but in the sheer musicality of the band.

Hospice is that rarest of albums — one that is immersed in depression but leaves you with a feeling of triumph for exposing yourself to this flash of genius.

There ’s no doubt about it. If people actually had the choice, sex would be their favorite pastime. Nothing beats the breathy, messy, hot, torrid, sensual, frenetic, languid dance that is sex. It’s a contradiction, but the sweetest one there is. Of course, in the midst of all the heavy breathing, getting a music score of sorts is the perfect companion to all of the absolutely carnal sounds you’ll make. Thus, this list. These are the albums that have been the aural stimulation to all those busy nights (and sometimes days). I’ve purposely veered away from Barry White and Marvin Gaye because they’re obvious choices, so obvious that playing it is like putting up a neon sign on your forehead that says “I want sex!”

Below are the not-so-obvious choices, indulge:

Luna – Penthouse

Luna’s third album has been a mainstay in my arsenal from the moment I first heard it in the mid-nineties. Dean Wareham’s laid-back voice is the perfect axis on which spins jangly guitars and flirty basslines that gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling. Perfect for sex aided by a copious amount of alcohol or weed.

Chet Baker – Songs for Lovers

Chet Baker is probably one of the best jazz trumpeters ever to walk the earth, but Chet Baker as a vocalist is just sublime. I think he has one of the most beautiful tenor voices in jazz and he uses it to good effect on five of the tracks in this superb compilation. The overall mood in this album is melancholy – which is just perfect for those encounters you know in your heart is on its last legs.

Massive Attack – Mezzanine

Rosetta West – X Descendent

You want dirty, primal music for the dirty, primal deed then you can’t go wrong with either of these two albums.

Massive Attack’s trip-hop masterpiece drips with venom but in a way that makes you go at it with wild abandon, trying to keep your rhythm in time to what you’re hearing.

Rosetta West is a really obscure blues rock band but I’ve been championing these lads for years now. The southern blues rock they play is just plain rockin’ and ubersexy.

Portishead – Dummy

Portishead’s Dummy is one of the watershed events in music when it came out. It was subversive, scary and beautiful all at the same time. Some of the songs also reminded me of those old porn movie soundtracks from the 70’s, and you know what references to porn can lead to.

Maxwell – Urban Hang Suite

There are many black crooners who will be shoo-ins to any music for sex list (see Marvin and Barry), but although there are other stronger choices, I’ll have to throw in my support for Maxwell. The man’s got the groove thang going. And even though I name-checking his debut Urban Hang Suite, all of his albums are  perfect music for a night of wining, dining, loving and caressing.

What about you guys? What albums are on your list? Share them with us!