Megan's Top 25 of 2009

Miracle of miracles, my dear friends, the snow has finally melted (ish), and in addition to enabling countless Washingtonians to finally go about their normal routines (ish), this melt has also enabled yours truly to get to a computer and finally post some Best of 2009 listy goodness. Better late than never, as we say around these parts.

Now, time for a confession: I have a really hard time putting things like albums into any sort of numerical order when it comes to year-end lists. I don’t have a formula for why a certain record is ranked 16th and another 22nd. My list is highly non-scientific, and I’ve changed things around no less than a dozen times. What I can tell you is that if the record made my list, it’s pretty darned good. But having to put a rank next to the name of the album can be a huge challenge, and as usual this endeavor has taxed me greatly. I tried to listen to these babies at length and rank them according to how much they got under my skin. Truth be told, apart from numbers 1 & 2, which rocked my world so much and so hard, the other entrants on my list are just the smallest of margins apart from each other. I might have put numbers beside them, but I love them all dearly.

My little list might look a wee bit different than some other lists you might have read about the music of 2009. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s a good thing. After all, who wants to have the same list as everybody else? Keep in mind, too, that while we listen to a lot of music, there’s doubtlessly stuff we missed. I know of a few “major” releases of the year that just didn’t pique my interest all that much, so you might notice a few big omissions here. And even if you disagree with these here picks, I hope that at the very least you’ll be intrigued enough to give these bands a listen. They’re definitely worthy of some special time and attention. We begin in just a moment with my first five records.