Happy Holidays, friends! I hope everyone had a wonderful time. It seems a bit strange, but we’re already on the heels of 2010. I had a great time in 2009, and there’s no doubt that it was full of a lot of changes.

Most of the music I listened to had some kind of emotional value to me, and I only partly bought in to some of this year’s “buzz” bands. I felt a bit distant this year. I came to find things on my own terms. As you know, if there’s one thing I’m never lacking, it’s definitely opinions, so here are my 40 favorite songs of the year (and not really in any particular order… truly I just wrote them down as I thought of them, which may actually say something about the order, but don’t read too much in to it):

Phoenix – 1901
Grizzly Bear – Two Weeks
Bat For Lashes – Daniel
Other Lives – Paper Cities
The Big Pink – Dominoes
Phoenix – Lizstomania
YACHT – Psychic City
The Pains of Being Pure At Heart – Young Adult Friction
Doves – Kingdom of Rust
Say Hi – Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh
Karen O and the Kids – Worried Shoes
Sea Wolf – Wicked Blood
The Books & Jose Gonzalez – Cello Song
Feist & Ben Gibbard – Train Song
Handsome Furs – I’m Confused
Loney, Dear – Airport Surroundings
School of Seven Bells – Half Asleep
Faunts – Feel.Love.Thinking.Of
Au Revoir Simone – Shadows
Islands – No You Don’t
Chairlift – Bruises
Viva Voce – Octavio
Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros – Home
Mew – Introducing Palace Players
The Antlers – Two
Yeasayer – Ambling Alp
The National – So Far Around the Bend
The xx – Islands
Andrew Bird – Oh No
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads Will Roll
Memory Tapes – Bicycle
The Decemberists – The Rake’s Song
Dan Deacon – Snookered
Atlas Sound – Walkabout
The Twilight Sad – I Became a Prostitute
Lykki Li – Possibility
Papercuts – Future Primitive
Sunset Rubdown – Idiot Heart
St. Vincent – The Strangers
Fever Ray – If I Had a Heart

My five favorite albums of the year:

Dark Was the Night: A Red Hot Compilation
The Decemberists – The Hazards of Love
Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
The Antlers – Hospice
Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest

My favorite TV show of the year was, hands down, Glee. I fell head over heels for this show.

My favorite movie was Inglourious Basterds. I suppose that illustrates what kind of a girl I am. Hah!

Here’s looking to 2010! I hope everyone has a wonderful year!