Playboy's 2009 Music poll
December, 2009
~~i hen you think about the music of 1977, maybe you recall Fleet-wood Mac's Rumours or the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks. And for 1991, it's Nevermind by Nirvana and Metallica. So what about 2009? The biggest music star this year was Michael Jackson, an emblem of the 1980s who hadn't released a new record in eight years and who in death reclaimed the chart supremacy he coveted. The biggest rock band was the Beatles, emblems of the 1960s who hadn't released a new record in 39 years.
That makes it sound as though 2009 sucked, right? A year of exploitation and necrophilia, of unoriginality and nostalgia, of hearing "Billie jean" on CNN and "A Hard Days Night" on an Xbox or a PS3? But that's not the case. In our recession-era paradigm, years can no longer be measured and memorialized by blockbuster albums. The
record industry is dying, buried under the rubble of collapsing CO sales, but the music business has never been better. All day long we're surrounded by it in unprecedented measure.
In this bountiful ye3r great music came to us from many directions: A friend transmits a hot Mos Def song via IM. We discover an overlooked 2007 album by No Age, a rampaging punk duo, on Rhapsody. With a Sirius XM subscription we hear Bob Dylan and Mojo Nixon interpret the scriptures of lost American music. Free weekly downloads at the iTunes Music Store introduce us to Cage the Elephant and Owl City. At the Wolfgangs Vault site we stream incredible concerts-Miles Davis in 1971. the Rolling Stones in 1973. the Hold Steady in 2009-from a selection numbering in the thousands. Our love of Chromeo. funky young scamps from Canada, leads us to Live From Daryl's House, a site on
which Daryl Hall of Hall and Oates airs high-quality webcasts of his rec-room sessions with different pals.
On Clee. the dweebs of McKinley High deepen our love of "Rehab" and "Cold Digger." Even more amazingly, we download terabytes of files from RAR blogs, where obsessive collectors post and notate more rare music-even out-of-print vinyl and regional 45s-than you could ever listen to. It's like a food pantry-but with music.
Sure. 2009 also launched joyful new sing-alongs by the Black Eyed Peas and 3OH!3. outre rock by Mastodon and Ida Maria, more sick rhymes from |ay-2 and Chostface-but the biggest star in music right now is technology. That's not a computer on your desk: it's a big jukebox with a library limited only by the capacity ot your hard drive and the speed of your downloads. As the Black Eyed Peas like to say. mazel tov!
bes ALBUM
Q DEAD WEATHER, HOREHOUNO
Q GREEN DAY, 21ST CENTURY BREAKDOWN
? MASTODON, CRACK THE SKYE
? DAVE MATTHEWS BAND, BIG WHISKEY
? PARAMORE, BRAND NEW EYES G PEARL JAM, BACKSPACER
D U2, NO LINE ON THE HORIZON
? TECAN 6 SARA, SAINTHOOD
? WILCO, W//XO (THE ALBUM)
? WRITE-IN VOTE:
BE5TALBUM
? 0| QUIK 6 KURUPT, THE BLAQKOUT Q EMINEM, RELAPSE 2
? CHOSTFACE KILLAH, CHO5TDEINI D JAY-Z, THE BLUEPRINT 3
? LIL BOOSIE, SUPERBAD GLIL WAYNE, REBIRTH
? MOS DEF, THE ECSTATIC
? RAEKWON, CUBAN LINXII
? TWISTA, CATEGORY FS Q WRITE-IN VOTE:
COUNTRY
bestALBUM
? john anderson, bigger hands
? rosanne cash, the list
? eric church, carolina o guy clark, somedays
Q MIRANDA LAMBERT, REVOLUTION D PATTY LOVELESS, MOUNTAIN SOUL II
? BUDDY & JULIE MILLER, WRITTEN IN CHALK
? RICKY SKACCS, SOLO Q GEORGE STRAIT, TWANG
? WRITE-IN VOTE:
ALBUM
d grizzly bear, veckatimest
? ida maria, fortress round my heart
? lady caca, the fame
q living things, habeas corpus
? lonely island, incredibad q metric, fantasies
q silversun pickups, swoon
? reginaspektor.mr
? yeah yeah yeahs, its blitz! q write-in vote:
bestALBUM
? AMADOU 6 MARIAM, WELCOME TO MALI D RUBEN BLADES, CANTARES
Q BURAKA SOM SISTEMA, BLACK DIAMOND D BEBEL CILBERTO, ALL IN ONE
? A HAWK & A HACKSAW, DEUVRANCE
? |AH CURE, THE UNIVER5AL CURE Q TARRUS RILEY, CONTAGIOUS Q OUMOU SANCARE, SEYA
? VIEUX FARKA TOURE, FONDO Q WRITE-IN VOTE:
BE5T
? AC/DC
? kennychesney q leonard cohen q coldplay
d metallica
? nine inch nails
? phish
q bruce springsteen 6 the e street band
? write-in vote:
JAZZ
best!
GIOSH BERMAN, OLD IDEA
? FLY, SKY o-COUNTRY
D ROBERT CLASPER, DOUBLE BOOKED
? ROY HARGROVE, EMERGENCE
? KEITH JARRETT, TESTAMENT
? DONNY MCCASLIN, DECLARATION
? CHRIS POTTER, ULTRAHANC
? TYSHAWN SOREY, KOAN
? ALLEN TOUSSAINT, THE BRIGHT MISSISSIPPI
? WRITE-IN VOTE:
BEST
? BEYONCE, "SINGLE LADIES"
G BLACK EYED PEAS, "BOOM BOOM POW"
? COBRA STARSHIP, "GOOD GIRLS GO BAD"
? CREEN DAY, "KNOW YOUR ENEMY"
? IDA MARIA, "I LIKE YOU SO MUCH BETTER"
? |AY-Z, "RUN THIS TOWN"
? KINGS OF LEON, "SEX ON FIRE" G MCMT, "TIME TO PRETEND" G ASHER ROTH, "I LOVE COLLEGE" G WRITE-IN VOTE:
bestALBUM
? AMERIE, IN LOVE a- WAR
? BEYONCE, / AM...SASHA FIERCE
? CHRISEHE MICHELE, EPIPHANY
? THE-DREAM, LOVE VS. MONEY
? ANTHONY HAMILTON, THE POINT OF IT ALL
? KERI HILSON, IN A PERFECT WORLD Q MAXWELL, BLACKSUMMERS'NIGHT
? T-PAIN, THR33 RINCZ Q TREY SONCZ, READY
? WRITE-IN VOTE:
AIT-ROCK
best ALBUM
? LILY ALLEN, ITS NOT ME, ITS YOU
? ANIMAL COLLECTIVE, MERRIWEATHER D DECEMBERISTS, THE HAZARDS OF LOVE Q FEVER RAY, FEVER RAY
Q HOLD STEADY, A POSITIVE RACE
? MODEST MOUSE, NO ONE'S FIRST
? MONSTERS OF FOLK, SHANCRI-LA
? PHOENIX, WOLFGANG A. PHOENIX Q RAVEONETTES, IN o- OUT OF CONTROL
? WRITE-IN VOTE:
bes ALBUM
? BEASTIE BOYS, PAUL'S BOUTIQUE
? BEATLES, ABBEY ROAD
? FIRE IN MY BONES, AMERICAN COSPEL
? AL GREEN, LIVIN' FOR YOU
? BUDDY HOLLY, MEMORIAL COLLECTION G PEARL JAM, TEN: COLLECTOR'S EDITION
? ART PEPPER, THE ART HISTORY PROJECT
? RADIOHEAO, OK COMPUTER
? RICHARD THOMPSON, WALKING ON A WIRE
? WRITE-IN VOTE:
HALL
of FAME
? dr.dre
? GENESIS
D HALL & OATES
? IEFFERSON AIRPLANE
? N.W.A
? POLICE
? PRINCE
? STOOGES
? U2
? WRITE-IN VOTE:
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