Best of 2009

This post is dedicated to my father, who passed away on 12/5/2009. He was a wonderful father and husband. He made friends with everyone he met. He taught me so much, and always had faith in me. I miss him terribly. I love you dad. You’re in a much better place now.

I’m going to take a little break from posting about some magic music of the past, in order to recap some of my favorite music of this past year.

I often turned to music as an escape in 2009, which was a very rough year for me and my family.  In the darkness of this past year, there was definitely some musical light which kept me going.

As the year progressed, several albums leapfrogged my previous favorite for the year, with a surprising winner arriving in December, snatching victory from what I expected to be the ultimate winner.  Sorry, Metric, but 30 Seconds to Mars won me over in the end.

In March, I thought U2 would win out with their latest, “No Line On The Horizon,” which I still believe is their best work since “Achtung Baby” almost two decades ago.  That they’re still at the top of their game after over 30 years is beyond belief.  That they’ve remained intact the way they started is even more incredible.

When Green Day continued on their second wind in May, with “21st Century Breakdown,” their second great album in a row, they took away U2’s reign for a few moments.

Although Metric released “Fantasies” in April, I didn’t actually discover it until the fall.  But I was quickly smitten, and it grabbed the crown from Green Day — for a couple of months, anyway.

30 Second to Mars’s latest album, “This Is War,” was the first music I listened to after my father passed away.  It was the only thing I was able to listen to for about a week, and it is epic.  Their sophomore effort, “A Beautiful Lie,” was a tremendous album, but they bypassed that on every level with “This Is War”.

My second favorite band (behind U2), Tegan & Sara, released “Sainthood” in October.  It has some great moments, but is a bit inconsistent.  Still, it rounds up the top five of 2009 for me.

This was also a good year for individual songs, although that’s a lot harder pool to choose from.  But as it stands today, my number one song of 2009 is “Gimme Sympathy” by Metric, followed by “Panic Switch” by Silversun Pickups, who continue to channel the 80’s shoe gazer bands, and “Manos al Aire” by the extremely talented Nelly Furtado, who can come up with irresistible hooks in her sleep.

Bubbling under is “Already Gone” by Kelly Clarkson, “No One Sleeps When I’m Awake” by The Sounds, “Moment Of Surrender” by U2, “The Ocean” by Tegan & Sara, “Empire State Of Mind (Part II)” by Alicia Keys, “Hello, Goodbye” by Erin McCarley, way too many from 30 Seconds to Mars, and several more.