2009 was quite a year. A lot of people died. In this year’s introduction, I’d like to focus on three people who shaped my taste and helped develop my obsession with music.
Mary Travers was the cute blonde in Peter, Paul and Mary. As a toddler, I listened to the Peter, Paul and Mommy album on headphones connected to a reel to reel player. We have Super8 home movies of me in a diaper doing it. In college, I took my mom to see one of their reunion tours. I blubbered with nostalgia and joy through the entire set.
Like every other person alive in 1983, I fell hard for Michael Jackson. I, however, continued to respect and defend him for the next 20 years. My first real concert was the Jacksons Victory tour at the Pontiac Silverdome. I may have stopped buying his records after Bad, but I continued to love his singles and videos. And I dreamed of a Rick Rubin style, stripped down, soul comeback. Imagine if he’d hooked up with the Dap-Kings!
Wilco was my favorite band through most of my twenties, and during that entire time their guitar player was Jay Bennett. He was a perfect sideman and creative foil. And it’s a goddamned shame that he went out the way he did. Would the Democratic healthcare reform have saved him had it been enacted years ago? Who the fuck knows? But it’s a tragedy that a dude who gave the world so much joy went out like that.
Another year, another decade, another bunch of people. Gone. But hey, at least there was a bunch of great music to listen to as we regained our cynicism after a brief, audacious moment of hope…
Continue reading Top Shelf 2009 →
These are twenty-one songs available as MP3s that we linked to in 2009. They’re all still available (as of today), so download them now and make yourself a mix as a way to remember what you were listening to last year. Once again, people are whining about how 2009 sucked, but the list below proves there was plenty of good stuff out there, and it wasn’t even that hard to find.
