If you had asked me to list my favorite albums of the year in, say, October, I would have told you that this was one of the best years for music in ages and I could hardly choose between all my favorites. If you had asked me to list my favorite albums of the year this week, (which you did, as you'll recall--I think we were at Arby's), I would tell you that nothing really stood out. Albums that I thought were masterpieces upon first listen (The Decemberists' The Hazards of Love, Kid Cudi's Man on the Moon: The End of the Day) quickly reached their saturation points. Artists I love released albums that barely warranted a second spin (Tegan and Sara's Sainthood, The Hidden Cameras' Origin: Orphan).

My appreciation for this year's releases has been slightly dulled by the sheer number of new records I picked up this year. According to iTunes, I currently own 69 records that were released in 2009. That is over 2 days worth of music. I could listen to my 2009 releases from start to finish for 48 hours straight and not hear every song on every album. It is just too easy in this age of digital downloads to go overboard and pick up everything that's garnering a slight amount of buzz. Also, I have a serious problem. It's this or Home Shopping Network, and I don't really have anyplace to keep hundreds of souvenir plates.

All that being said, I still maintain that in terms of quality releases, this year saw a greater percentage than many. We'll have to wait and see whether I'll still be listening to any of these records next year, but for the time being, here it is. As you read this list, please keep in mind that I would never give this list to anyone and say, "buy these records." I can't tell you how many of my friends I tried to turn on to Los Campesinos!, my favorite record of the last five years, who think it is garbage. I don't think I have the most eclectic taste in the world, but I do like to give everything a fair shake, and this sometimes leads to me liking music that my hip friends find too mainstream and my mainstream friends find too hip. (Note: I do not have any mainstream friends.) In other words, stuff that no one likes. Enjoy!

15. Harlem Shakes - Technicolor Health
The best thing about Technicolor Health is that it does not try too hard. This might sound like low praise, but it is remarkably refreshing to hear an album that does not try too hard in an age filled with artists who drown their music in massive amounts of production to cover up the fact that they are fundamentally not very good at writing songs. Harlem Shakes have songwriting talent to spare, and this album is filled with sing-along rockers that only become more appealing over multiple listens. If you like the French Kicks or the Joggers, this record is for you. Because it sounds exactly like an album that either of those bands would release. Features the song "Sunlight," which is probably my favorite single of the year.

14. The Low Anthem - Oh My God, Charlie Darwin
The Low Anthem is just another of the approximately 17,000 Americana/roots-influenced bands that released records this year to great critical acclaim, with one slight difference: they do not make you want to murder yourself out of boredom. Now, I've spent some quality time with your Fleet Foxes, your Bon Ivers, your Iron & Wines, and I'll admit it, they've moved me on occasion. But Oh My God, Charlie Darwin strikes me on a more gut level than any of those artists. Unlike some of the other roots bands, the Low Anthem covers the whole range of roots music, from brooding folk to country and blues to rave-up gospel. They're as adept at boot-stomping bluegrass as they are at pastoral hymns. Not a bad track in the bunch.

13. Sin Fang Bous - Clangour
I know absolutely nothing about this dude, but his music is gorgeous.

12. Cheap Trick - The Latest
This is the part where you decide that I no longer have any credibility and you stop reading my list. But wait! Hold up a minute! Believe it or not, in 2009, Cheap Trick released their best album since Dream Police. If you are the type of person who believes that Dream Police is a good album, then I think you might be surprised by The Latest. Segretto thinks it's garbage, but to me, it's a great example of the good old classic Cheap Trick sound. The rockers rock and the ballads don't sound like "The Flame." The production is a little too glossy, as often seems to be the case with older bands making comeback records, but songwise, this is the biggest collection of bangers Cheap Trick has assembled since the late 70s. Also, they released this record on 8-track, which I think we can all agree is a particularly awesome and hilarious way to make your record label waste money. Kudos, boys! Welcome back!

11. Girls - Album
2009 was the year that bands started delving into the early Beach Boys catalog, and no one replicated the masters with greater precision than San Francisco's Girls. It took me awhile to warm up to this record ... it felt a little contrived upon the first few listens ... but inevitably, I am a sucker for sunny pop tunes, and Girls have enough catchy tracks to choke a bear. Besides, any group of straight guys that has the balls to start an album with the lyrics "I wish I had a boyfriend/I wish I had a loving man in my life" deserves my respect. Bonus points for making it big despite having a name that makes them impossible to find on Google.

We arrived at the Greek Theater at about 8:00. The Greek Theater is an outdoor amphitheater located in Griffith Park, about a mile up the hill from my apartment. When I say "up the hill," I mean straight up. It's not a walk for pansies. But the alternative is spending $15 to park a mile away from my apartment, and I, for one, simply do not cotton to that kind of behavior. I was with my wife, Sarah, and her dad, Bob who is visiting for a week from Louisville. I'd posted an earlier Regina video on Awkward Press that Bob fell in love with, so when we heard that Regina was here, we talked to people and made things happen. The people we talked to were Ticketmaster.

Jupiter One went on at 7:30. We decided to skip them because their name is terrible and the song I heard online sounded like Toad the Wet Sprocket crossed with a nap. The minute we arrived, we got right in the food and drink line. We stayed in this line until 8:30. The people at the Greek Theater are unconscionably slow. We watched disdainfully as everyone in front of us left the line with massive amounts of chicken fingers, hamburgers, pizza, and beers. It's 8:30, dicks! Eat before the concert! And then we got to the front of the line and it took them 4 minutes to pour us 3 hot chocolates, which we had ordered because it's freezing in L.A. right now. (Interesting fact: in L.A., water freezes at 65 degrees.)

We got to the front of the line just as Regina took the stage. Let me tell you, there is nothing more frustrating than hearing 5,000 people scream for the act you have come to see while you are trapped behind the stage area, watching 3 workers trying to figure out how to operate a machine that only has one button.

Regina from my perspective

We finally got our chocos and rushed to our seats in the upper-upper balcony. Which actually were not as bad as I thought they would be. I mean, her face still looked like a splash of whiteness from where we sat. When one cannot make out Regina Spektor's giant lips, one is clearly watching her from a great distance. This is why I usually don't like going to big shows: because I feel like I'm not actually watching a live performance. The giant screens at the sides of the stage give the illusion of intimacy, but if I spend too much time looking at them, I feel like I'm just watching TV. So then I try to watch the stage but all I can see is a quivering blob. They have done a great job of figuring out how to amplify sound, but no one even bothers to try amplifying vision. Cameras aren't a good solution. If I ever built an amphitheater, I would put an enormous rectangular magnifying glass between the upper tiers and the stage. Although I guess then you'd be limited to nighttime shows, because during the day the performers would burst into flames.

According to the giant screens, Regina was wearing a hideous giant white dress with what looked like a construction paper bow on the front. I have never seen Regina Spektor up close, but is she fat? She dresses like she weighs 200 pounds. Hmm, I just found this full body shot online:

So she's definitely not fat, but she does seem a little conscious about her weight. That pose is definitely intended to cover something up. Look at how her arms are cutting in front of her body so you can't really tell what's going on below the waist. Here, this is what I look like when I assume the same pose:

Conclusion: Regina Spektor is one hippy hippie. Which, I'm not complaining. I don't even know why I embarked on this battle, or why I spent the last fifteen minutes taking pictures of myself. Maybe it bothers me that her outfits and photographs and videos appear to be hiding something, but I guess I probably wouldn't like people speculating about my weight on their blogs, so I'm going to drop it.

Back to the concert. Her backing band consisted of 2 cellists, a violinist, some other string instrument (viola?) and a drummer. She played the first half of the show with them behind her, and I was prepared to think it was a pretty average show. Her voice sounded great, but I didn't get much from the performance that I haven't already heard on her records. Also, after every song, someone in the audience screamed "I love you." Which is not Regina's fault, of course, but I just always find it monumentally creepy when people do that. You would never scream "I love you" at someone you actually loved. And then there's always the embarrassing moment when the artist says, "I love you, too," and everyone laughs as if they've never heard this exchange before, even though it's ALWAYS THE FUCKING SAME. Just once I'd like to hear a performer say something other than, "I love you, too." If I was a performer and someone said, "I love you," I would say, "I think we should see other people." Regina Spektor does not care that some random dude in the audience loves her, particularly when three other people just shouted the same thing at her during the previous song break. It's no different to me than shouting "nice ass" at some woman on the street. It just makes everyone feel uncomfortable. When people scream, "I love you," I hear, "I would like to murder you and dance around in your skin." Because that's what love means to me.

Halfway through the show, Regina stood up from her piano and walked across the stage. The spotlight did not follow her. "I'm in the dark," she said, and the crowd exploded in peals of laughter. The spotlight came on. "Now I'm in the light," she remarked, and the audience cheered, because it seemed like we'd all been through a real trial together. I cheered because I thought I might get to see some jumping after all.

There was no jumping, but my enjoyment of the concert went up decidedly after this moment. Regina played keyboard on a few songs, then did a really beautiful a cappella number about eye colors, and then she played guitar for a few songs, and then she returned to the piano to play piano with one hand and a chair with the other. She played a chair! I mean, she hit a chair with a drumstick. But it sounded all right.

I decided that Regina Spektor is a very talented musician. Some of her lyrics could use a little more thought. (Example: "Blue lips/blue veins/Blue the color of our planet from far, far away/Blue, the most human color." Blue is not the most human color, because lips are not usually blue and the planet is not a human.) But then she has lyrics that seem really insightful and clever. So it's a work in progress, I guess, but I think she has a lot of material left in her. I wasn't crazy about her cutesy/quirky/awkward act, but I guess that's what the people want to see. She's wise enough to throw in a curse word every now and again to let us know she's got some street in her. One of her songs was about her listening to someone in the next room "fucking to one of my songs," and it was honestly somewhat shocking to hear her say the word "fucking." It was a neat idea for a song. I'd be pretty pumped if I heard someone having sex to "Gay Roommate."

We stayed for the encore, and she ended up playing the two songs I like the best - "Fidelity" and "Us." Which, I know are the hits, but gimme a break. There's no honor in loving a Regina Spektor deep cut. I'm not gonna be that guy who's like, "I only listen to the B-sides." Then we walked home and watched World's Strictest Parents on MTV. That show rules.

Stats
Show length: 3 hours
Drinks consumed: 1 hot chocolate
Rock points: Jupiter One – disqualified; Regina Spektor – 7.5

That being said, I saw (500) Days of Summer the other day, and now I am obsessed with this Regina Spektor song. Whatever. I'm not the poser, you're the poser. So there. Ya burnt!*

*For the record, I was saying "ya burnt" way before Tina Fey was saying "ya burnt" on 30 Rock.**

**I was into 30 Rock way before you were.