Yes, I’m well aware that it’s February. This list of albums has been sitting in my drafts since January 8th and I’m just now doing something with it. It seems I took a break from ye olde blogge for much of January in favor of trying out Tumblr. (I can’t decide if I like it or not. It seems to steal my longer-form writing thunder).

My varying tastes in music from day to day would make it pointless to put these albums in any best-to-worst order. So I went with the time-tested alphabetical order method, which is completely arbitrary if you think about it, but that’s a thought for another day.

Read on for my favorite albums that came out in 2009 (or thereabouts; I fudged a little). If you’ve been checking out my monthly playlists (you’re forgiven if you haven’t), most of this will not be a surprise.

And if you’re patient and make it all the way to the bottom, there’s a prize for you, in the form of a few select songs from these albums that I particularly enjoyed.

WARNING: This gets a bit lengthy, so get comfy.

Read on for my album picks for 2009!

December brought winter songs, wrapup best-ofs for the year and the decade, and a few other random lovely things.

I wish I had a way to share all these songs with you in a more listening-friendly way. Seriously. Someone find a way. Imeem and Blip.fm’s music collections are unreliable, mp3-collecting is questionable and time-consuming, a monthly podcast is too much work (but sounds like a lot of fun if I found someone to do it with), and hardly anyone I know uses Rhapsody, where I keep track of these lists.

1. Brand New – “Sowing Season (Yeah)” (The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me)
2. MxPx – “Let It Happen” (Let It Happen)
3. Bob Dylan – “Like a Rolling Stone” (Highway 61 Revisited)
4. Fleet Foxes – “Ragged Wood” (Fleet Foxes)
5. Camera Obscura – “The Blizzard” (The Blizzard)
6. Black Moth Super Rainbow – “Just for the Night (BMSR remix)” (Drippers EP)
7. Ghostface Killah – “Kilo” (Fishscale)
8. Fuck Buttons – “The Lisbon Maru” (Tarot Sport)
9. Micachu and the Shapes – “Vulture” (Jewellery)
10. Ghostface Killah – “Buck 50″ (Supreme Clientele)
11. Fucked Up – “No Epiphany” (The Chemistry of Common Life)
12. Taken by Trees – “My Boys” (East of Eden)

January was an interesting music month. Animal Collective’s new album slapped me in the face, and a lot of freak folk and experimental stuff I hadn’t cared much for before finally hit me (Bowerbirds, Gang Gang Dance, Fredrik).

I also met a few cool girls — Gayle Skidmore, Valeri Lopez and Soyu Sae — who played some very inspiring music at a coffee shop a few weeks ago. Two of their songs got stuck in my head like whoa and thus appear here. Hopefully I’ll be seeing a lot more of them in the future.

1. Eluvium – “New Animals From the Air” (Talk Amongst the Trees)
2. T.I. – “Whatever You Like” (Paper Trail)
3. Bowerbirds – “In Our Talons” (Hymns For a Dark Horse)
4. Hammock – “City in the Dust on My Window” (Maybe They Will Sing For Us Tomorrow)
5. Gang Gang Dance – “House Jam” (Saint Dymphna)
6. Fredrik – “Black Fur” (Na Na Ni)
7. 3oh!3 – “Punkbitch” (Want)
8. Jay-Z – “Threat” (The Black Album)
9. Jay-Z – “Moment of Clarity” (The Black Album)
10. Animal Collective – “My Girls” (Merriweather Post Pavilion)
11. Gayle Skidmore – “Crazy” (Cowley Road)
12. Valeri Lopez – “Just PB&J Thank You” (Eugene Lovely)
13. Bon Iver – “Woods” (Blood Bank)
14. Modeselektor – “The White Flash feat. Thom Yorke (Trentemøller remix)” (Happy Birthday! Remixed Pt. 1)
15. Animal Collective – “College” (Sung Tongs)
16. The Dead Texan – “A Chronicle of Early Failures, part 2″ (The Dead Texan)
17. Black Moth Super Rainbow – “Forever Heavy” (Dandelion Gum)
18. Lil’ Wayne – “Lollipop” (Tha Carter III)
19. Lil’ Wayne – “La La” (Tha Carter III)
20. Sigur Rós – “Gódan daginn” (með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust)

Much to the dismay of many an anti-hipster, I am thoroughly enjoying Animal Collective’s new album Merriweather Post Pavilion. The song “My Girls” especially is ridiculously catchy and ingenious.

This morning I watched the music video for “My Girls” and a sense of inspiration hit. All of a sudden there was an itch to be creating music. Something about the song touched the creative nerve in my brain (however dormant the action of creation may be). It reminded me of something Bob Boilen of NPR’s All Songs Considered said about a Radiohead show (that I was at!):

These guys write great songs, and sometimes you can even sing along to them, but what they do better than any band is create a sonic adventure — a soundscape which, at its best, stretches time and allows the mind to wander and rejuvenate. I think of it as resetting the synapses. Creativity breeds creativity. When the music was over, I felt unboxed and changed and pretty darn happy. Drugs are overrated; music is underrated.

Resetting the synapses. I like that. Everyone should make a list of songs (or any kind of art, for that matter) that resets their synapses, where its creativity inspires your creativity. Here are eight songs that inspire me to create:

1. Radiohead – “15 Step” (In Rainbows)
2. Black Moth Super Rainbow – “Forever Heavy” (Dandelion Gum)
3. Animal Collective – “My Girls” (Merriweather Post Pavilion)
4. Eightball – “Drama In My Life (feat. Psycho Drama)” (Lost – Chopped and Screwed)
5. Burial – “Archangel” (Untrue)
6. Radiohead – “House of Cards” (In Rainbows)
7. Ryan Adams – “The Shadowlands” (Love Is Hell)
8. M83 – “Lower Your Eyelids to Die With the Sun” (Before the Dawn Heals Us)

And an iLike playlist if you want to listen to the songs:

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