My music roundup for 2009

Alright... the music round-up is tougher, because there's so much more of it than the books. I bought or Zamzared or library'd or downloaded 2130 songs this year. This is just 109 of those songs, so I did pretty good, don't you think? It doesn't include albums/songs I had before that time but listened to a lot, like Alicia Keys' previous album. If I lurved 4+ songs from one album, then I put it under Albums instead of with the singles.

Not listed in any particular order.

TOP ARTISTS (that I remember most lurving)
K'naan
Alicia Keys
Wyclef Jean


Top Rock - or Acousticee Songs
Sun City - Artists United Against Apartheid
Shining Light - Annie Lennox
Never Gonna Cry Again - Eurthymics
I'm On Fire (live) - Bruce Springsteen
Radio Nowhere - Bruce Springsteen
Imitosis - Andrew Bird
Plenty is Never Enough - The Shins
Moon and Moon - Bat for Lashes
Folding Chair - Regina Spektor
It's a New Day - will.i.am
Peace Train (live) - Cat Stevens
My Madrigal - Patti Smith
If You Ever Did Believe - Stevie Nicks
Out of Our Heads - Sheryl Crow (except the terrible chorus)
Manos al Aire - Nelly Furtado
Your Daddy Don't Know - The New Pornographers
All I Really Want to Do - Holly Palmer
The Chain (live) - Ingrid Michaelson
Le Mot de passe - Patricia Kaas
Speak Your Heart - The Orchard
It's Still Rock & Roll to Me - Billy Joel
Pick Up the Phone - Dragonette
Falling Down - Tom Waits
Beast of Burden - Bette Midler

Top Dance (I was really into dancy hippy hoppy this year)
Numba 1 - Kardinal Offishall
Cruise Control - Mariah Carey
Get Your Number - Mariah Carey feat. Jermaine Dupri
Young Girl - Pharrell
Frontin' - Pharrell
Angel - Pharrell
Fast Car (Fugee remix) - Wyclef Jean
Mr. Autotune - Wyclef Jean feat. Nick Cannon
Suga - Flo Rider
Bulletproof - La Roux
Wrong - Depeche Mode
Row Row Fight the Powah - Iwasaki Tarou Remix
Clumsy - Fergie
Glamorous - Fergie
Knock You Down - Keri Hilson feat Kanye
Time - Timbaland
Sweet Revenge - Chris Cornell
Autotune the News #6
Tik Tok - KE$HA

Pop Ballad-ish
The Beautiful Ones - Mariah Carey feat. Dru Hill
I Want to Know What Love Is - Mariah Carey
H.A.T.E.U. - Mariah Carey
I Need a Love Song - Babyface
Not Anymore - LeToya
Never Ever - Ciara
Beautiful U R - Deborah Cox
Big Girls Don't Cry - Fergie
Papers - Usher
Camouflage - Brandy

Rap
Quiet Dog - Mos Def
Let Me See Your ID - Artists United Against Apartheid
Revolution - Arrested Development
Slumdog Millionaire - Wyclef feat. Cyndi Lauper
Suicide Love - Wyclef feat. Eve
No Flowers - The Grouch & Eligh feat. Paris Hayes
I Wish I Knew Natalie Portman - K-OS
The Warning - Eminem
He Got Game - Public Enemy

Funk-ee-soul
Walk On By - Melanie Fiona
You Stop My Heart - Melanie Fiona
The Way I See It - Anastacia
medley of songs by Prince on his guitar, live
Get It Up - The Time
The Stick - The Time
Walking on the Chinese Wall - Philip Bailey
Isn't She Lovely - Stevie Wonder
Fire Escape - Diane Birch
Just My Imagination - The Temptations
Chasing Pirates - Norah Jones

Reggae
S-Craving - Tarrus Riley
Start a New - Tarrus Riley
King Without a Crown - Matisyahu
You're Beautiful - Jacksoul
Me Believer/Summer Holiday/Love Letter - Yellowman (just never get tired of it...)

Countryesque
Use Somebody - Brooke White
Rhiannon - Brooke White
Pass in Time - Beth Orton
Amen- Kid Rock
Travelin' Thru - Dolly Parton

Other
Mausam Achanak Ye Badalu Kyu - Alka Yagnik, Shaan, Harry Baweja, Anu Malik
Confession Part III - Weird Al Yankovich ("Gonna tell you everything I left out of parts 1 and 2...")
Billie Jean - The Lost Finger
K'naan performing some songs live with stripped down band
Both Sides Now - Measha Brueggergosman

Fave Covers:
Careless Whisper - Seether
Stand by Me - Playing for Change
Crimson and Clover - Prince
I Feel 4 U - Duke Special
Purple Rain - Martin Sexton
I Would Die 4 U - Richard Swift

Fave 80s:
Rap-O Clap-O - Joe Bataan
The Screams of Passion - The Family
The Safety Dance - Men Without Hats
Blind - Talking Heads
If a Girl Answers (Don't Hang Up) - Vanity 6

Non-vocal
Alexa de Paris - Prince
Star Wars 3 love theme on the uke
Never Let Go of Your Hand - Waitswatcher
Bamboozled theme - Terrence Howard
Theme from Indecent Proposal - perf by City of Prague Orchestra

Holiday:
O Come O Come Emmanuel - Sugarland
Star of Wonder - Tori Amos
Soul Cake - Sting
Jingle Bells - Earl Scruggs
Gee Whiz It's Christmas - Diane Birch


ALBUMS
Mamer - Eagle
K'naan - Troubadour
Kings of Leon - Only by the Night
Eurythmics live
Prince - Prince (his first album)
Janelle Monae - Metropolis
N.E.R.D. - Seeing Sounds
Keith Urban - Greatest Hits
Beach Boys - Endless Summer
Billy Ocean - Greatest Hits
Leonard Cohen - variety of albums & songs, and all sorts of covers
The Police - variety of albums & songs
E.L.O. - All Over the World (best of)
The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike
Rough Trade - Birds of a Feather (best of)
Lady Gaga - The Fame
Tracy Chapman - Tracy Chapman
Sean Kingston - Tomorrow
Sheila E. - The Glamorous Life, and Romance 1600
Outkast - Big Boi & Dre Present...
Jazmine Sullivan - Fearless
Sugarland - Live on the Inside
Rolling Stones - Forty Licks
Alicia Keys - The Element of Freedom

Books - My best of 2009

What were your favourite books this year?

Here's mine... though sometimes I get mixed up about whether they were strictly from This Year. I track my reads on facebook, and it doesn't show the date when added.

Literary: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Juniot Diaz
About a Dominican- American family and how they became cursed. Loved it because...
- original style
- exposure to a culture I don't know well
- characters I cared SO much about (never wanted a guy to get laid so much in my life)

Humour: Angus Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging - Louise Rennison
I loved E. Lockhart too, but no one holds a candle to Rennison. Diary of a 15 year old British girl who isn't terribly bright but is full of moxy. Loved because...
- hiLARious first person narration (best since Bertie Wooster)
- hiLARious use of vocabulosity
- main character so full of sass, you wish you were her
- great side characters
- BEST CAT IN ALL LITERATURE!

Trash: The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous - Jilly Cooper
Usual Jilly Cooper novel--that is, a giant cast of upper crust Brits drinking, horse-riding, and bonking their way through the English countryside. Loved because...
- a couple of her most stoopid, lovable characters
- her baddies are so bad, but get their due
- characters are totally outrageous (the grown-up version of the previous book)
- funny
- she's great at building up romance

Comics: Top 10 - Moore & Ha
Though I also read Watchmen and From Hell, I loved Top 10 more than these other Alan Moores. Watchmen is heavy-deep with great characters, but Top 10--about policing a society where everyone has super powers--is...
- chock full of charming characters, whose lives you really care about
- suspenseful little mysteries going on
- super creative characters and stories, that make full use of the world Moore's created
- the illustrations are filllllled with little jokes

Bande Dessinée: Les Nombrils - Delaf & Dubuc
Okay I also read two Aya books, which were much better quality graphic novels. But um... Les Nombrils has me hooked. (Must get fourth book!) About a plain girl who's best friends with two completely self-involved and stupid sexed up hot girls.
- some really odd-funny storylines and jokes (like the boy they love, only because he rides a motorcycle... the site of John John on a squeeking bicycle was so funny)
- likable heroine, and her hate-lovable best friends
- a sweet romance

Cookbook: Get It Ripe - Jae Steele
I don't think I bought it this year, but it's become my most reliable standard. The recipes (vegan) are so simple, un-process-food-ee, and taste great. This year I bought a brunch book, and a raw desserts book, but I haven't used them a lot yet.

Romance: Nobody's Baby but Mine - Susan Elizabeth Phillips
If I've read a couple of poorly written books, I turn to Phillips to cleanse my palate.
- solid writing
- good pacing,
- probably most important... when hero and heroine in her books have Witty Repartee not only is it actually witty, but the woman holds her own (I big failing in to0 many romance novels, in my opinion, where I always feel like the woman is "losing" the argument)

Mystery: Night's Child - Maureen Jennings
I only read a couple mysteries this year, but I would read another Jennings. Liked it better than The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which didn't live up to the hype.
- 1900s Toronto, which is cool
- likable and flawed hero
- well-constructed mystery

French: Morlante - Stéphane Dompierre
Okay I only read two French books this year, but this was by far the better one (I don't care how many awards it's won, Nikolski just didn't do it for me.) Loved it because...
- pirates!
- a psychokilling anti-hero who just wants to be left alone to write his novels!
- great side characters
- some really good jokes
(But it's dirty as hell, so if you draw the line at reading about a woman pirate masturbating on the nose of a man she's just killed... then better stick to Pirates of the Caribbean.)

Business/Self-help: The Speed of Trust - Stephen Covey Jr
I didn't read much non-fiction this year (offline) but I really liked this one. Bit overlong, but a pretty good encapsulation of how I think businesses (and life) should be run. Be honest, be ethical, recognize others, take responsibility, admit mistakes, etc etc. Pretty basic stuff and yet... hard to find sometimes. Or basically, act the opposite of the characters I love to read about!

Other genres...
I think I only read 1 fantasy I think--Neverwhere--and I wasn't enamored. No sci fi. Didn't reach much in the way of kids books.