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My year in music 2009: part four

The Top Ten edition

It’s been a fantastic year for music. I actually ended up with more new music this year than any other year of my life, I believe, and it was probably the best collection (as a whole) that I’ve ever acquired in the same year as well. That’s what made this list so difficult this year.

I left out several albums completely that I wanted to include, but there just wasn’t room. I liked new stuff from Andrew Bird, Conor Oberst, White Rabbits, Gomez, Elvis Costello, Echo & the Bunnymen, Thrice, The Mountain Goats, and yes, even KISS, and all were considered but didn’t make the …

My year in music 2009: part three

The second ten edition

I’ve had an exceedingly difficult time in ordering my top twenty this time around. Six of these albums were, at one time or another, in the top ten list over the last few weeks. I’ve been re-listening to albums and re-ordering them almost daily, and I know next week I’ll wish I could do it again.

This year has been a remarkable year for music and in another year, most of my top twenty albums could have been in the top ten. Yet, eventually I had to stop and let the list be what it is, and so I’ve settled on what begins below. …

My year in music 2009: part two

Honorable Mention edition

With some notables from last year out of the way (as seen in my previous post), today begins the countdown of my favorite albums released this year. Like the albums from 2008, these are albums that still warranted a mention despite the fact that they did not make my top twenty list. Several of these migrated back and forth between being on and off the list while I was trying to narrow it down. In the end, these six didn’t make the cut, but were strong contenders.

So, here’s the list of honorable mentions (in no particular order):

Black Gives Way To Blue – Alice in …

My year in music 2009: part one

8 from ‘08 edition

Today begins a series of four posts over the next week or so in which I reveal my favorite music of the year. The rules have changed only slightly from last year, as I will explain, but the basic rule is the same – these are the albums I enjoyed and/or listened to the most this past year.

Having acquired so much new music since last year (now at 135 albums), I decided that I would limit my 2009 list to albums released in this calendar year. This is the first time I’ve done that, since I usually include all of my new music since the …

BCS has one letter too many

I’ve not posted anything recently as I’ve been spending what little free time I’ve had attempting to narrow down my favorite music of the year for a series of posts I’m going to begin (hopefully) later this week.

But since I haven’t complained about the BCS yet this year, I figure I need to get that out of the way.

“Alabama will crush Texas.”

That’s what I heard on the radio this morning. Of course, this was from a guy who picked Pitt to easily beat Cincinnati this past weekend. He was wrong.

However, this seems to be the prevailing sentiment out there over the last 36 hours or so: Alabama will …

Now playing: Hello Hurricane

I liked the music of Switchfoot in the early days, back when they appeared to be just another “Christian” band. While they always intended just to be a rock band (who happened to be made up of Christians), they ended up with a record deal that primarily placed their first three albums in the Christian music market after their label was bought out by another.

It was the band’s fourth album, 2003’s The Beautiful Letdown, that allowed them to break through to the mainstream and also solidified them as a favorite of mine. It was an outstanding album that remains one of my favorites of the decade, …

Orange and black

I haven’t been to McCrory, Arkansas, in over 10 years.

I was born in Wynne, Arkansas, but when I was two-and-a-half years old, my family moved 25 miles to the west, to McCrory. It was where my family stayed until well after I, the last of four children, had grown up and moved elsewhere to begin my own career and life. While I wasn’t born there and don’t live there now, McCrory is where I was raised. It is my hometown.

In 1999, my parents eventually left as well, moving a little further west to Searcy. I haven’t been back since they left.

I’ve experienced two …

The unlikely disciple

Every now and then I start reading a book and simply don’t want to stop until I’m done. Kevin Roose’s The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University was one of those books. I’ve complained recently that I’ve had trouble finding time to read, but I managed to make time after the first few pages of this book and finished it in about a week, which is a fast read for me.

In 2006, Roose was a student at Brown University in Rhode Island. He was also working as an assistant for Esquire editor and author A.J. Jacobs. Upon a visit to Jerry Falwell’s …

Now playing: Sonic Boom

I can’t believe I’m posting about this album. I really can’t. I didn’t expect to hear it at all, much less be writing about it. I was planning to post about either the new Michael McDermott album from this past summer, or the newest from David Crowder Band. But instead, I felt compelled to write about Sonic Boom, the new album from KISS.

Some background: I was a rabid KISS fan when I was in fourth grade. Back in 1976, KISS was in their prime, and I loved them. I used to listen to my older brother’s 8-tracks of Alive! and Destroyer. That …