My First List: Favorite Albums of 2009

Love 'em or hate 'em, lists are good cannon fodder. I also think a good way to kick off this blog is with a music post to help you get to know my tastes a little bit. So with that, I present to you my 15 favorite albums of 2009. I didn't really have any criteria for creating this list except to rule out EPs (sorry Lady GaGa! "The Fame Monster" was awesome, though.). In general these albums had a huge impact on me in some way and garnered repeated listens. And since I'm not a professional music critic or blogger who gets free stuff, I have not heard every single album that came out in 2009. One final caveat before we get down and dirty: you won't find Animal Collective or Silversun Pickups on this list. I just don't like them. Sorry.

My 15 Favorite Albums of 2009:
15. Sea Wolf, White Water, White Bloom
14. Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest
13. Metric, Fantasies
12. Doves, Kingdom of Rust
11. Miike Snow, Miike Snow
10. The Raveonettes, In and Out of Control
09. La Roux, La Roux
08. Neko Case, Middle Cyclone
07. The Antlers, Hospice
06. Passion Pit, Manners
05. The xx, xx
04. Antony & the Johnsons, The Crying Light
03. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, It's Blitz!
02. Bat for Lashes, Two Suns
01. Florence & the Machine, Lungs

Honorable mentions:
Girls, Album
The Big Pink, A Brief History of Love
Memory Tapes, Seek Magic
Neon Indian, Psychic Chasms
Fever Ray, Fever Ray
Gossip, Music For Men
Kelly Clarkson, All I Ever Wanted
The Temper Trap, Conditions
Franz Ferdinand, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand
A Place to Bury Strangers, Exploding Head

Happy Twenty-Ten and/or Two Thousand and Ten!

New year, new project! I recently realized that I am probably the most boring person on the planet. Whenever someone asks me what's new in my life, I can regale them with stories about two activities: working and drinking. No one wants to hear about these things, not even those who participate in one or both of these activities with me (side note: I am not an alcoholic. However, when you are young and single and living in Boston, drinking is pretty much the only social activity available). I do not have a boyfriend and/or husband (yes, some people have both. Share the wealth, people!). I do not have children. I do not have a job that people actually want to hear about. I have not been arrested. I have ten fingers and ten toes. Okay, so I once filmed a "testimonial" for an infomercial about the American Girl brand, but it was left on the cutting room floor (ouch). Basically, I have nothing going on in my life that qualifies for constant bragging via Facebook status updates. In fact, I am the person in your newsfeed who gets a kick out of raining on such braggarts' parades (today's status update: "2009 can suck it! Worst year ever!!!!!").

So, to make a long story short, I'm going to try blogging. I actually do have a lot of interests and I think I'm pretty cool once you get to know me, so I hope to share some of this with you via this blog. There will be no conceit or gimmick here, just me writing about stuff I like. However, since I like music more than anything, there will be a lot of posts about music. I also enjoy TV shows and movies, baking and cooking, celebrity trainwrecks, YouTube videos starring baby animals, breaking arbitrary social conventions such as limiting breakfast to only the first meal of the day, and composing letters to advice columns but never sending them. Welcome! Hope you'll stay a while.