Mo' Retro: The 2009 Top 25

Dear Blogheads: I got so hung up on my Decade lists, I realized that I forgot to carry on the old Poddish tradition of the year end lists. 3 months late, I now give you my most played songs of 2009.)

2009 ended up as a pretty great year for music, if you were bored with the same-old, same-old. (Of course, a lot of people don't bore as easily as me, so maybe it was a painful year for everyone else!) Apart from a few stalwarts like Camera Obscura, Neko Case, the Jaxx, and Superchunk (straight outta the "where have you been?" file!), there was a lot of newbies bringing the noise... although there wasn't much of anyone bringing the funk last year.

Without further ado, here's the list (along with my iTunes play counts... stat geeks, you know who you are). Anything with a link takes you to streaming audio at Blip.fm or you can just go to my playlist there to listen to the bigger batch of goodies.

1. French Navy - Camera Obscura (30 total plays)
2. What A Drag - Bear Hands (24)
3. Golden Phone - Micachu (22)
4. Plastic Bag - Navvy (22)
5. Sunlight - Tune-Yards (22)
6. To The Dregs - Wavves (21)
7. News - Tune-Yards (20)
8. Jealous Of Roses - Bibio (18)
9. Sticker - Navvy (18)
10. Count In My Head - Kids Love Lies (17)
11. Dead Lazers - Kap Bambino (16)
12. Blackjack Eddie - Violet Violet (16)
13. New In Town - Little Boots (15)
14. Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth - Neko Case (15)
15. Fuzzy Felt - The Kabeedies (14)
16. Red Sign - Kap Bambino (14)
17. Sleepyhead - Passion Pit (14)
18. Fossil, I - Sky Larkin (14)
19. Antibodies - Sky Larkin (14)
20. Blood Gets Thin - Pete & The Pirates (13)
21. For You - Tune-Yards (13)
22. Raindrops - Basement Jaxx (12)
23. Satisfied - Esser (12)
24. Ode to Millers - Kasms (12)
25. Blinders (Fast Version) - Superchunk (12)

French Navy, if you haven't heard it, is an indie-pop girl-group gem. Here's a long-winded appreciation, from an earlier blog post. There's more about Navvy, Kap Bambino, Tune-Yards, and Bibio too!

I'll dig into some of these other musical biscuits soon.

Shout-Out Time!

The Fruit Bats (featuring my pal Ron Lewis on keys) were invited to participate in The Onion's AV Club's cover project. The AV Club created a list of 25 songs and once it's covered, it's no longer eligible to play.

The Bats lucked out by showing up early and getting their pick of all but one of the list. (Ted Leo was first.)

Here they are playing Hall and Oates' One On One.

Pity the poor schmucks who are going to get stuck with We Built This City, although, fingers crossed, it could end up being awesome!

Surveying The Soundscape

Maybe the Best Of The Decade lists took more out of me than I thought - or perhaps I'm now listening to everything with a much more critical standard, but I'm not feeling it with 2010 yet. There's been some decent stuff that's come out this year, but I haven't connected with much of it.

Best of the batch so far is the Lightspeed Champion album, Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You. and the new Quasi record which is much improved over the last couple of so-so efforts. I want to get excited about the Lonelady debut, since she has created some awesome singles in the past, but the best songs were recut and aren't as immediately brilliant.

I still need more time with the new Laura Veirs and These New Puritans discs too, but there's some good stuff within.

Here's some Lightspeed and Quasi for you to chew on while I mull over what to rant about next.