Animal Collective, Phoenix, Neko Case and Andrew Bird all finish in the Top 5

Popular breakthrough albums from indie favorites topped NPR Music's fifth annual All Songs Considered "Best Albums of 2009," announced last night.

Thousands of All Songs Considered listeners voted in the highly-anticipated year-end list, naming their favorite record Veckatimest by New York-based indie band Grizzly Bear.

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Experimental pop band Animal Collective lands in second place, with Phoenix, Neko Case and Andrew Bird rounding out the top five albums of the year.

The entire "Best Albums of 2009" list is available at NPR Music, where users can listen to selections from all 25 records of the year, below:

1. Grizzly Bear: Veckatimest
2. Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion
3. Phoenix: Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
4. Neko Case: Middle Cyclone
5. Andrew Bird: Noble Beast
6. The Decemberists: Hazzards of Love
7. Wilco: Wilco (The Album)
8. Bon Iver: Blood Bank
9. The Avett Brothers: I And Love And You
10. St. Vincent: Actor
11. Yeah Yeah Yeahs: It's Blitz!
12. Regina Spektor: Far
13. M. Ward: Hold Time
14. The Swell Season: Strict Joy
15. Monsters of Folk: Monsters of Folk
16. The Dirty Projectors: Bitte Orca
17. Passion Pit: Manners
18. Various: Dark Was The Night
19. Camera Obscura: My Maudlin Career
20. Metric: Fantasies
21. Beirut: March of the Zapotec
22. The xx: XX
23. Bat For Lashes: Two Suns
24. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros: Up From Below
25. Modest Mouse: No One's First, And You're Next

Thoughts on this year's poll from All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen and producer Robin Hilton, and a special downloadable edition of All Songs Considered announcing the results are available here: All Songs Considered poll

Also, extended results listing audiences top 50 choices can be seen at the show's blog.

The ballot is part of NPR Music's round up of the year's outstanding music in all genres.

Every weekday until December 31, top 10 lists from critics, public radio tastemakers and NPR Member stations will be featured at the site, including World Cafe host David Dye's albums of the year; the best kids' music this year, from WXPN in Philadelphia; Member station WGUC Cincinnati's "Classical 2009: Next Generation and Beyond;" Take Five's "Top 10 Jazz Records of 2009;" and KUT Austin's "10 Albums You Were Too Cool To Hear."

In addition to end of the year coverage, NPR Music's The Decade in Music: '00s" takes an extensive look back at the sounds and moments that defined the past ten years.

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NPR MUSIC AND STATIONS TO EXCLUSIVELY WEBCAST AND BROADCAST PERFORMANCES FROM GEORGE WEIN’S FOLK FESTIVAL 50 AND CAREFUSION JAZZ FESTIVAL 55 IN NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND AUGUST 1 and 2 AND 8 and 9, 2009

TWO 12-SONG “NPR MUSIC AT NEWPORT” SAMPLERS CURRENTLY AVAILABLE FOR FREE DOWNLOAD

NPR Music, together with five partner radio stations, is exclusively live webcasting and broadcasting dozens of performances from George Wein’s Folk Festival 50 and CareFusion Jazz Festival 55 next month in Newport, RI, offering four days of music by some of the country’s most acclaimed artists.

NPR Music and WFUV New York, FolkAlley.com (WKSU) Kent, Ohio, and mvyradio on Martha’s Vineyard and in Newport are covering all acts from the Folk Festival on August 1 and 2 – which celebrates its 50th anniversary with performances by trailblazers Pete Seeger and Joan Baez, and current favorites The Decemberists and Neko Case.

At the Jazz Festival on August 8 and 9, NPR Music with WBGO Newark and WGBH Boston are broadcasting and webcasting four complete line-ups from three stages, headlined by Tony Bennett, Mos Def, Miguel Zenon Quartet and The Bad Plus with Wendy Lewis.

For the second straight year, festival concerts will be accessible through free, live audio webcasts at NPR Music, and live station broadcasts.

NPR Music’s folk and jazz festival coverage will be available at npr.org/folkfestival50 and npr.org/jazzfestival55, where there will be artist interviews and festival news from the All Songs Considered blog and A Blog Supreme. In addition, NPR Music will archive all content and provide podcasts of the performances.

Music from this year’s festivals can be previewed by downloading two free 12-song “NPR Music at Newport” Samplers (one folk, one jazz), featuring many of the acts NPR Music will webcast and broadcast from both festivals.

Songs on the folk sampler include the Avett Brother’s single off their forthcoming record I and Love and You, Pete Seeger’s “Shenandoah” and “Mykonos” from the Fleet Foxes. The jazz sampler offers “Summer Song” by David Brubeck, “Precious” from Esperanza Spalding and Miguel Zenon’s “Penta.” Both samplers are currently redeemable at iTunes.

NPR Music, together with WFUV, Folk Alley and mvyradio, will webcast and broadcast two days of performances from the Folk Festival on August 1 and 2 from noon to 6:00PM (ET). The following week, performances from the festival will be available to stream at NPR Music and the station Web sites, and download through NPR Music’s “Live in Concert” podcast.

The festival will celebrate 50 years of music history in Newport, with Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie and Judy Collins performing alongside The Decemberists, Neko Case, Iron & Wine, The Avett Brothers, Gillian Welch, Fleet Foxes, Mavis Staples, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot and many others.

The next weekend, August 8 and 9 from noon to 6:00PM (ET), NPR Music teams with WBGO and WBGH to live webcast and broadcast four stages from the Jazz Festival.

Saturday’s bill includes performances by Mos Def, Esperanza Spalding, the Joshua Redman Double Trio and Miguel Zenon Quartet.

On Sunday, hear from the likes of Tony Bennett, The Bad Plus with Wendy Lewis, Brian Blade and the Fellowship Band and the Dave Brubeck Quartet.

Hosting NPR Music’s coverage of the Folk Festival are Bob Boilen, host and creator of the popular show All Songs Considered and its “Live in Concert” series, and WFUV host and music director Rita Houston. Josh Jackson, WBGO special projects producer and host of The Checkout, will anchor all Jazz Festival coverage. Updated artist lists and performance schedules are at NPR Music, where there is also an archive of last year’s performances from Newport.

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Folk at Newport

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MySpace Music is excited to announce an upcoming Secret Show featuring critically acclaimed songstress Neko Case presented by TurboTax® Federal Free Edition.

The show will be held at Casbah in San Diego, CA on Tuesday, March 3, 2009.

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This intimate show will be a unique opportunity to see her before she embarks on her upcoming tour in support of her next album 'Middle Cyclone', which hits stores on March 3.

The Secret Show performance will be held exclusively for MySpace users, who were notified via MySpace Music's Secret Show profile. As an added bonus, users who friend TurboTax's Freeloader Nation MySpace page (www.myspace.com/turbotax) and make it one of their top friends, have a chance to be one of 15 people moved to the front of the line.

As one of the most recognizable voices in independent music today, Neko Case is on her sixth studio album titled 'Middle Cyclone'. The seasoned artist has performed and recorded with an innumerable amount of musicians throughout her expansive career.

Her last album, 2006's 'Fox Confessor Brings The Flood' was the best-reviewed and best-selling album of her career to date. The album was Case's first to debut in the Billboard Top 100 and has sold 200,000 copies in the U.S. alone.

MySpace Music has organized nearly 200 Secret Shows since the franchise launched in February 2006 with artists like The Cure, Lily Allen, Fall Out Boy, Gnarls Barkley, The Offspring, Neil Diamond, Slayer, Franz Ferdinand, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs performing in cities around the world. Users must friend the Secret Shows profile page in order to receive advanced notice of the special, free concerts. From there, they will find more information about the artists and upcoming schedule. Visit the MySpace Secret Shows profile at http://myspace.com/secretshows for all show details.

TurboTax's (www.myspace.com/turbotax) sponsorship of MySpace Secret Shows takes place throughout the early part of 2009. TurboTax is the nation's No. 1-rated, best-selling tax preparation software from Intuit Inc. TurboTax is also sponsoring free music downloads on MySpace Music and enabling MySpace users to share the songs with their friends. Users have up to 7 days to accept a shared music stream and once downloaded, the songs will not expire in playlists. Co-branded TurboTax ads will be promoted throughout the MySpace MyMusic page, the MySpace Personal Music Player, and MySpace Video.

MySpace Secret Shows

Neko Case MySpace
Neko Case Official Website