cold decembers and overflowing ears

When December rolls around, it usually means I’m well into my holiday playlists, but because I cheat every year and let the peanuts tell me christmas time is here in November, I get mad cravings for new music by mid-December. I used to rely on certain radio stations in L.A. for filling me on the new artists of the year, but that era’s over. So instead I stay mostly in the dark with all the new music and just anxiously await the 'end of the year retrospectives' so I can continue being one year behind all the new music. Now even though I find myself doing a horrible job of following the new music each year, this past one seems the worst – I managed to be completely oblivious to almost all the new bands. And sure, I’ve found some amazing songs from ‘09, but if I look at my last.fm charts, the songs, the singers, and the sounds that I found the most frapping come from the past. So in the midst of these ‘09 retrospectives featuring purely the bands and albums of this past year, here’s my ‘09 restrospective, featuring the music that burned my ears in 2009.

*Note: I composed this list using purely my last.fm playcounts. If I sat around trying to put together a most frapping list, it would have to include bands that came long before ‘09 and it would probs take more than 15 minutes to discuss.

1. Mirah

2. Rilo Kiley

3. Neko Case

4. Tegan and Sarah

5. Jessica Lea Mayfield

6. The Duke Spirit (this probably doesn’t belong on this list because I found them when they first came out, but the way they’ve gone about re-frapping my heart over the last few weeks earned them this spot)

7. Beyoncé (she’s here purely for Halo/it took me until now to hit repeat on Irreplaceable)

8. Thao

9. Jenny Lewis

10. Bon Iver

11. Real Estate

So this is my preliminary list (I’m pretending it’s a Top 10 – #11 was necessary since The Duke Spirit and Beyoncé inclusion was kinda cheating). I let the playcounts speak. But really this post doesn’t do justice as my ‘09 retrospective. It’s a starting point. If anything, seeing my ‘09 artists listed like this, by playcount, just takes me back through the year, to times when I may have listened to alt.end 65 times and then did the same thing with halo, 9 months later.

-DJ