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)

Happy Friday to you all. Here’s the newest music video from Camera Obscura, for the track “Honey in the Sun.” I’ve been enjoying their newest album, My Maudlin Career, quite a bit.

Frontwoman Tracyanne Campbell has the distinct characteristic of being both sunny and dark all at once. Her voice is sweet, but still something haunts her. And it’s a lucky day if you can catch a smile on her face. She intrigues me something awful.

Jeez, is it May already? April flew by real quick.

Of these twenty songs that made up the audio journey of April 2009, about half were highly Coachella-influenced. The rest are present thanks to my constant exploration the musical landscape. Same old, same old.

1. Glasvegas – “It’s My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry” (Glasvegas)
2. Eels – “Things the Grandchildren Should Know” (Blinking Lights and Other Revelations)
3. Los Campesinos! – “We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed” (We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed)
4. Silversun Pickups – “Lazy Eye” (Carnavas)
5. Okay – “Natural” (Huggable Dust)
6. Blitzen Trapper – “Furr” (Furr)
7. Grand Duchy – “Come On Over to My House” (Petits Fours)
8. TV on the Radio – “Stork & Owl (Gang Gang Dance remix)” (Read Silence EP)
9. Stone Temple Pilots – “Sour Girl” (No. 4)
10. My Brightest Diamond – “Feeling Good” (Dark Was the Night)
11. The Hold Steady – “Citrus” (Boys and Girls in America)
12. The Veils – “Sit Down by the Fire” (Sun Gangs)
13. Cage the Elephant – “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” (Cage the Elephant)
14. Fucked Up – “Crooked Head” (The Chemistry of Common Life)
15. Antony and the Johnsons – “Kiss My Name” (The Crying Light)
16. Radiohead – “I Am Citizen Insane” (Go to Sleep)
17. The Hold Steady – “Stuck Between Stations” (Boys and Girls in America)
18. Camera Obscura – “French Navy” (My Maudlin Career)
19. Silversun Pickups – “Growing Old is Getting Old” (Swoon)
20. Radiohead – “Let Down” (OK Computer)

And for those interested, I made an imeem playlist so you can check the whole thing out. Enjoy.

Or just listen to it here.