Year-End Music Review: The Songs

My quest for a genre nearly ran aground in the last quarter of the year. Family and work responsibilities mounted, and, frankly, I started to question the maturity of such an endeavor. I have satisfied myself on the latter point. Enough said.

Yet a certain fatigue set in as well, owing to the sheer volume of content that comes out every week (always on Tuesday). The online media landscape allows a neophyte like myself to sit in the presence of indie music's high priests, but nothing can replace time and experience as the arbiters of quality in music. My blunt tastes are being formed every day.

I plan a couple more year-end posts, lifting up the albums I liked the best and the blogs I used to find them. I'd also like to share some thoughts about the vehicles I have used to acquire music, since what I'm using today is not what I started with, and may not be what I use six months from now.

But without belaboring the point, here is a random collection of the songs I discovered in 2009 that I listened to the most, shared the most, and sit atop my playlists entering 2010. To qualify, a song on this list has to have been sought out for its own sake repeatedly during the year.

This is no countdown; more like a cloud. A cloud of musical goodness. What it says about me and my genre I can't say. Maybe you can.

Best Songs of '09

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Album of the Year & Song of the Year, parsed

Everybody does this, right? Ranks, classifies, lists. Especially when it comes to music, everybody has their favorites and rates them in relation to everything else.

I do too, but my musical favorites have a pattern of all falling into place in the last week of December and the first weeks of January. If you're not familiar, that means that they come together as a result of reading everybody else's year-end best-of lists, acquiring those titles, and then forming opinions on them. It is the definition of reactive.

This year I decided to try an experiment. This year, instead of sitting around and waiting for the New Year's holiday to find the year's best music, I would find it myself. That is, I would spend all of 2009 discovering, purchasing (more on that in a moment), and sharing music.

**The insistence upon purchasing music came from the crash of my hard drive near the end of December, which resulted in the loss of lots and lots of music files. No bother, though: I hadn't paid a penny for any of those files. They were either "shared" with me through a File Transfer Protocol set up for like-minded musical friends or they were acquired through The Pirate Bay. What ended up bothering me about losing all that music, ironically, is that it didn't bother me. I hadn't invested anything in those songs and albums, and they could easily be replaced. But why spend the time and effort replacing them if they're not worth any actual investment to begin with? It was the realization that I was a lazy music fan that brought me to Jesus, as it were, in terms of quitting the file sharing. I don't want to waste time on music that could either come or go; if I lose it, I want to be upset about it.

That's the point of these "Album of the Year" posts. Something has happened halfway through the experiment that I didn't expect, though. I'm starting to become more discerning in terms of genres and the types of music I like, take it or leave it. I'm coming to the place where I can acknowledge that I have suburban top 40-bred musical receptors that make me susceptible to pop hooks. I used to be embarrassed about that, like if only I could learn to like Wilco I'd be a better person. But Wilco bores me, and I'm not afraid to admit that anymore.

But I am discovering affinities for things I didn't like before and waning patience for things I used to love. The solo soulful male vocal backed by acoustic guitars and sparing percussion, which used to inspire hours of shower singing, has come to seem thin (my apologies to Jamie Cullen and Dave Matthews).

Meanwhile, I'm participating in the emerging infrastructure of recorded music production, marketing, and sales, all of which, thanks to the internet, is driven largely by an ethic of sharing. As I identify records worthy of superlative consideration, I'm noting where I found them, because that's really what makes the effort worth it.

Thanks for reading. Watch for nominees soon.

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Album of the Year Nominee: M. Ward's "Hold Time"

He's toured with Conor Oberst and Bright Eyes, and last year he made a record with actress Zooey Deschanel, but M. Ward has made his name making solo records. "Hold Time" is the first I've ever owned. It's solid. Ward is a soulful writer. These songs are good, largely because they're so fun. In particular, "Fisher of Men" keeps popping up in my playlists, often two and three times in a row. It's a Song of the Year nominee for sure.

Hold Time - M. Ward

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Song of the Year Candidate: "This Tornado Loves You"

I preemptively nominated Case's new album, Middle Cyclone, for my album of the year. Having listened two it a few times before it was released and now several more times since, I stand by that.

"This Tornado Loves You" is the first track on the record. Case told NPR's Scott Simon that the song came from a dream she had in which a tornado professed to love her. There's music in there.

This Tornado Loves You - Neko ...

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Song of the Year Candidate: "I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris"

One of my new year's resolutions was to invest in good music, rather than just acquiring, at no cost, whatever I could get my hands on. It's a resolution that grew of out envy, envy of those who are able to make best-of-the-year music lists in December. I read those lists and then go get that music. This year, I want to make my own list, and I want the list to be populated with stuff I've actually invested in.

So, to be eligible, an album or song must be released in 2009, and it must be in my library by conscious choice and at some cost. I'll provide regular nominee previews throughout the year.

Here's the first nominee for Song of the Year: Morrisey's "I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris" from his recently released "Years of Refusal." Enjoy.

I'm Throwing My Arms Around Pa...

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