The 2009 According to Duke

Hey, all.

Obviously my year end is the best. I encountered a lot of music in 2009, though I don't know if any year will ever be able to compare to 2008 (in which I became acquainted with both Shearwater and the National). My year end for 2008 is a fire hose: way too intense. So be glad I'm not posting that here.

My year end rules are different from Steve and Barbara's. I limit the number of my songs by length: if it's long enough to fit onto an 800 MB CD-R, I can have thirty; I don't really care, so long as the play time is just under an hour eighteen.

You'll notice, if/when you open the mix that there are just fifteen songs. Initially there were twenty, but because I spent so much time meticulously tinkering with the mix, I found these fifteen produced a smoother, more unified listen. The extra five songs were admittedly a lot more energetic: I lost Blackdown by Patrick Wolf and The Cave by Mumford & Sons. But this set gets a lot more at how 2009 actually felt.

The ordering of this playlist is a play on Steve's (forthcoming) alphabetized form. More like a pantoume, if you will. I knew I wanted the first and last tracks to be 2008 and When I See You, which were perfect for an alphabetized ordering, but I didn't like any of the transitions. I took the alphabetized order and switched the second and second to last songs, left the third and third to last songs alone, then more, working inward. Therefore, were it nine songs:

1  --  1
2  --  8
3  --  3
4  --  6
5  --  5
6  --  4
7  --  7
8  --  2
9  --  9

Unnecessarily complicated? Check. But there is rhyme to my reason.

And I typically don't care if there's more than one artist, but there can't be more than one song on the mix from the same album. For me.

Blech. Here's the tracklist:

2008 - Hello Saferide
Werewolf - Michael Hurley
Castaways - Shearwater (it was an early single!)
Splinters - 16 Horsepower
Hi - Psapp
Southern Point - Grizzly Bear
O, Ohio - The National Lights
Oh No - Andrew Bird
Seven Dwarves - The Social Services
Mary Come Alive - Marissa Nadler
A Special Providence - Chris Kiehne
Finally - The Frames
Though I Have Wronged You - J. Tillman
Bellyfulla - Ramona Falls
When I See You - Steve Slagg

Download the mix here.

Oh, and the album artwork is a photo taken by me and my friends as a redo of the original Being Human TV Series promo shot

UPDATE: My dear friend Blade has provided some better album artwork. Enjoy?

Two Thousand Nine

Within the next few days we will be posting our respective 2009 playlists. Each of us has a unique modus operandi for determining which tracks make the final cut. I'll let Duke and Steve speak for themselves. Naturally my methodology is the best.

Barbara's Rules:

1. The mix must be comprised of fifteen tracks.

2. No artist/band is allowed more than one song.

3. The sequence is determined chronologically.

Note well that this is not a mix of my favorite songs that were released in 2009. Rather, it's a collection of songs that reflects or brings to mind significant events that occurred over the course of the year. Occasionally a song will make the final cut simply because I was addicted to it at the time. However, in the spirit of this blog's namesake, I have to admit that most of these tunes are tied to specific aesthetic experiences. And since this damn post is already sufficiently esoteric-sounding, I'll spare you the juicy details.

Barbara's 2009

p.s. You'll notice the name of my playlist is simultaneously original and memorable. Initially it was going to be Jesus in California but then I had a dream wherein I met Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler at a bar in New Orleans. Ouch.

Karin and Linford, silently judging me