While everyone was busy finishing up their Best of 2009 and Best of the Decade music lists, someone leaked Beach House’s 2010 release “Teen Dream” and got people talking about what is sure to be on next year’s Best of lists.It’s usually a bummer to a band to have their albums leaked early, except for when they are met with much fanfare as with what happened with Animal Collective’s “Merriweather Post Pavilion,” Grizzly Bear’s “Veckatimest” and now Beach House’s “Teen Dream.” When “culturally relevant” Carles from Hipsterrunoff makes a whole post dedicated to the leak of your album, you know you’ve hit the jackpot.

As long as we’re on the subject of Best Ofs, in creating my own list I got to revist a lot of great music I’ve listened to over the past decade. While it’s a toss up for the most influential, I think I’ve been the most productive when listening to Koop‘s “Waltz for Koop.” Whenever I have writer’s block, I’ll throw it on and listen to the first couple of tracks. Before I know it, I’m back in my groove as well as grooving to the music. Everyone I’ve turned onto Koop and suggested when to listen seem to say the same thing.

What makes it even more impressive to me is that while it sounds like jazz, it’s actually two DJs collecting a number of jazz samples, creating a mashup of sorts. It’s interesting to see how much better this album would have been received if it was released more toward the end of the decade rather than the beginning, especially now that mashup culture is so huge and people are seeing what kinds of genres they can throw together to create something new.

Koop