29 Songs I Spent Good Times With in 2009

Yes, yes, it's New Year's Eve and you don't care what music I listened to this year, especially once it gets late and I mention my unyielding love for Lady GaGa, but I'm going to sit in the corner with a fever that makes me seem drunk and tell you anyway. You've sat through 52 songs that take me back to other years, you can sit through 29 more songs that will always take me back to the year that I took control of my brain and had a good time even while half dead.

From what I remember, my favorite albums from the time they were released until now include Ellipse by Imogen Heap, Middle Cyclone by Neko Case, U2's No Line On The Horizon, Time Flies When You're Having Fun by Smokey Robinson, The List by Rosanne Cash, Brendan Benson's solo album My Old, Familiar Friend, Between My Head And The Sky by Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band, the Moby album Wait For Me, Up From Below by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and the new Nitzer Ebb album ICP.

But the albums will take too long to play for you tonight! Onto the songs! Clicking the titles will take you to the videos if you want to spend the rest of this year watching music videos...not that there's anything wrong with that. *ahem* Some of them are really worth a view or ten.

This, kids, was 2009 in my ears:

We Are Here To Tell You - Duncan Sheik

Fits and Dizzy Spells - Andrew Bird

People Got A Lot Of Nerve - Neko Case

Wrong - Depeche Mode

Magnificent - U2

Fuck You (Very, Very Much) - Lily Allen

Happy Up Here - Röyksopp

Furr - Blitzen Trapper

Daniel - Bat For Lashes

Strange Overtones - David Byrne and Brian Eno

Sounds Like The Devil - Shemekia Copeland

So Human - Lady Sovereign

Sober - P!nk

San Francisco - Jill Sobule

Funny The Way It Is - Dave Matthews Band

Summertime Clothes - Animal Collective

Pale Horses - Moby

Fire Burning - Sean Kingston

First Train Home - Imogen Heap

Animal - Miike Snow

Fireflies - Owl City

Never Forget You - Noisettes

Uprising - Muse

Sea Of Heartbreak - Rosanne Cash with Bruce Springsteen and Jeff Tweedy

God Help The Girl - God Help The Girl

Just Breathe - Pearl Jam

Foot Of The Mountain - a-ha

Whataya Want From Me - Adam Lambert

Garbage Day - Brendan Benson

Buster Voodoo - Rodrigo y Gabriela

There you go. Is that all? Hell no, I had to mercilessly prune this list to get to 29 and even then cheated with the tangent about the albums. Will I remember these songs in 25 years? I'll bet that I will. If I'm alive in 25 years. ...I'm not starting that again. I enjoyed listening to these this year, and when I hear them again, I'll enjoy them again. And again.

Happy future everyone, it'll be here in a few hours calling itself 2010. Don't waste it, and in the words of the great Guy David (who I also listened to a lot this year), may you never have to listen to music you don't like.

29 Songs I Spent Good Times With in 2009