-=RNS Robot=-

Aught-Nine ended up being a high watermark year for me in terms of music. 2008 was a pretty weak one and both 2007 and 2006 had some good stuff but not really… a lot.

2009? Where do I even begin?

There are no less than four records competing in my heart and head for “album of the year.” Relient K, David Bazan, mewithoutYou and Ryan Dahle all put out exceptional discs. Each album is actually amazing. If I had to choose, I’d probably say Forget & Not Slow Down is the best of the year. No, wait, Irrational Anthems! Maybe Curse Your Branches. Or It’s All Crazy. Or…

Other notable releases (to me, since this is MY BLOG) included Neon Horse and MuteMath both dropping exceptional (if not always roundly received) sophomore discs. Joy Electric put out an unexpected, but super-fun covers disc. MxPx also did the cover route with On The Cover II. If you haven’t checked out Future of Forestry, you should; the first two parts of the “Travel” trilogy have been excellent. The new Jars of Clay was good, just not up to the heights of their Good Monsters album. A million ‘greatest hits’ album came out (probably), but the only one that matters is “Weird” Al Yankovic’s The Essential Me.

2009 was also the year of ‘comebacks’ (of sorts). Marcy Playground resurfaced with a pretty good disc. Stryper released their second post-reunion album, the solid Murder by Pride. Both Grammatrain AND Stavesacre put out killer EPs after long hiatuses (moar please).

It’s worth noting that I haven’t really been into much hard music this year. I’ve never been deep into the hard music scene, but nothing that did come my way really grabbed me except a couple indie industrial releases (pretty happy to have discovered Coriolis and Conspiracy of Thought though). Chevelle‘s new one was solid. Project 86 (usually one of my faves) and Showbread both dropped new discs that were decent at best. In fact the one oustanding hard music release this year was The Crucified box set, my first real introduction to the seminal Christian metal group. In a word? HEADASPLODE.

From the awesome, you understand.

2009 also brought us The Beatles reissues, at last remastered. I’ve enjoyed digging into their catalogue behind the famous singles. So far I’ve picked up The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper, Revolver and Past Masters. I’ve always liked The Beatles; I now love The Beatles. The Fab Four even made their way into video games this year with the release of The Beatles: Rock Band, a lovingly crafted game that lets you ‘play’ through the band’s career.

I didn’t watch a lot of films this year, but I will say this: Pixar’s UP should be nominated for and win “Best Picture” at the Oscars. It will, of course, be nominated in the “Best Animated Feature” category, which will be a travesty of justice. Even with lowered expectations, I was shocked at how bad Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was (and I’m a huge TF fan). The GI Joe flick wasn’t very good, but it was at least passable. I highly enjoyed Inglourious Basterds, which features some of the most dramatic, tense scenes ever filmed. Wes Anderson’s stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox was excellent. There were a few movies released this year I still want to see (Zombieland, for one).

All in all, I’ve enjoyed a lot more music in 2009 than the three years previous. But I’ve decided my best album of the year. It is…

*ninja arrow*

*dies*

Tags: Best Of, Chevelle, Conspiracy of Thought, David Bazan, future of forestry, grammatrain, Jars of Clay, Joy Electric, Marcy Playground, mewithoutYou, MuteMath, MxPx, Neon Horse, Project 86, Relient K, Rock Band, Ryan Dahle, Showbread, Stavesacre, Stryper, The Beatles, The Crucified, Weird Al

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