Albums of 2009

For the past few years (initially started by Ryan, I believe) at the end of the year I have assembled a list of my favorite albums that I purchased during the year. These are not individual songs, instead they are whole albums that ended up getting lots of play during the year.

This year proved to be particularly challenging. First, in something that should be a sign to the ignorant record companies, I did not buy a single, silver, shiny disc this year. Not one. I didn't do this to purposely not buy CD's any longer. Instead, I have just found that price, convenience, and ease of use by me all lead to me buying nearly all of my music as Amazon MP3 downloads. Second, I also greatly loaded up on the amount of free music I was finding, and a healthy dose of Pandora. All of this lead to a rather small list of possible albums. However, out of that list, I was able to find 4 albums that had significantly more listening mileage than others.

These are in no particular order. They are simply 4 albums that I purchased this year and found to be the most interesting of 2009:

1. Kid Cudi - Man On The Moon: The End Of Day [Explicit]
I was first pulled in by "Day and Night", and the "Make Her Say" remix was far better than the original. Good stuff overall.

2. LMFAO - Party Rock (Amazon MP3 Exclusive Version) [Explicit]
Raw fun. That's really all you need to know. This stuff never gets old, it just perks up your day when you hear it. "I am not a whore" remains my favorite.

3. Shinedown - The Sound Of Madness
Yes, this album got a significant amount of standard radio airplay. Despite that, this is the real deal. These guys are how I want my rock to sound. The title track still kicks me in the rear when I need it.

4. Steinski - What Does It All Mean? - 1983-2006 Retrospective
If you dig people such as Girl Talk, DJ Shadow, etc., you need to give Steinski a listen. In my mind, he's the Grand Wizard Theodore of the mashup/sampling movement. He's the originator who almost nobody knows - he doesn't have the mainstream name. However, this stuff is top-notch. More info on Steinski is here.