StormyRen.com

Ok, raise your hand if you are tired of seeing hundreds of comments – all spam, chock a block with the blue text of hyperlinks – on this site.

(Raising hand, looking around in the silence.) Oh yeah, right. When I delete all the comments it makes it painfully clear how few people actually look at, and even less comment on, this site.

Oh well.

I have decided to keep a tight rein on how quickly comments are published because I’m tired of seeing school, sex, insurance, and Rx spam on my site. It’s yucky and I am not willing to waste either time or ingenuity in coming up with ways to block it.

If you run into a problem where you’re not seeing your comment in a timely manner or when you ask me (recommend methods: facebook or email, because if you’re reading this you probably actually know me) I say “what? I never saw that” repeatedly, make sure I know about it. Otherwise you’re getting batch tossed with the spammers.

Period, like the remainder.

I’ve just had a flashback to my days of my internship at PAXR and sane, awake me would like it duly noted that I should never listen to my personal Sleepy Carl.

As my coworker just pointed out, Birbig’s Sleepy Carl asks him to do fun dreamy things – a ferris wheel made of pizza! – with small negative side effects – miss class; while my own S.C. asks me to do very dangerous things. Case in point: during the long early a.m. Monday drives down to PAXR he would loudly ask, “Why stay awake through this long light and line of cars when you can take naps at red lights!”

Sleepy Carl!

He is just so persistant! I really need to evict him. He convinces me to stay in bed later than I should and forget the reasons I set my alarm earlier than usual; and then on days where sane me gets myself out of bed despite S.C.’s grumbling, S.C. is grouchier than usual and sticks around for a full-on 20 min through my shower and while I’m shampooing he asks, “Why are you here, in the shower, when you could be sleeping, in your bed?” And all I can do is mumble, “Shut up, Sleepy Carl.” What a pain.

And since you really can’t wait any more, here are the most popular songs, and the number of times they were listed:
Animal Collective – My Girls (17)
Bat for Lashes – Daniel (12)
*Grizzly Bear – Two Weeks (11)
*Phoenix – Lisztomania (11)
Phoenix – 1901 (11)
Bon Iver – Blood Bank (8)

*TRULY EXCELLENT SONGS!

after which point, there are multiple songs for 7 occurrences on. Oh, what’s that? You want to see what those are, too? Ok, I’ll post the 7x, 6x, and 5x mentioned.

7
Atlas Sound feat. Noah Lennox – Walkabout
Camera Obscura – French Navy
Dirty Projectors – Stillness is the Move
Here We Go Magic – Fangela
Neko Case – People Got A Lotta Nerve

6
The Big Pink – Dominos
Girls – Hellhole Ratrace
Girls – Lust for Life
Japandroids – Young Hearts Spark Fire
Jay-Z feat. Alicia Keys – Empire State of Mind
Miike Snow – Animal
Volcano Choir – Island, IS

5
The Avett Brothers – I And Love And You
Dirty Projectors and David Byrne – Knotty Pine
Heartless Bastards – The Mountain
Metric – Help, I’m Alive
Neko Case – This Tornado Loves You
Neon Indian – Deadbeat Summer
Passion Pit – Moth’s Wings
Real Estate – Beach Comber

I’ll get back to you on my personal favs in a week or two. I’ve got to listen to it all first, of course.

I don’t know if you know this, but I am a musicphile. fa realz. I’ll listen to just about anything once and I sincerely believe that if it’s good, one can appreciate it even if they can’t love it. I think everyone has a genre that they live in, that feels like home. I know I have a couple, depending on the time of year and the current state of affairs in my life, the pace I’m moving at, etc.

Needless to say, I spend probably 75-90% of my day listening to music. In fact it can be borderline agonizing to be denied access to my ‘jamz’. (Read: Occasionaly at work.)

Unless I’m outside doing some outdoorsy-type thing. That might have to be the one exception. When I’m outside in a National Park, doing my photography, hiking and enjoying the landscape, music is just outside of that world. I might have an unfortunate ohrwurm at the moment, but I’ll try to ignore it.

Anyways, I am occasionally afraid for the state of my hearing (long-term) ’cause when it hits me, I have to turn it up and dance. Probably similar to most young punks my age. Luckily when I did a hearing test last year as part of a pre-employment physical the technician said I had really good hearing. I guess music has only served to tune my ears? I don’t know.

Back to the present. I explain the draw that music has for me so that you can better understand the ridiculous project I have recently undertaken. What I am working on is not scientific (horror of horrors!) but it is incredibly nonsensical out of context.

In my very limited amount of free time I have sifted through a very random, shotgun sample of music blogs, both mainstream and indie, well-known and barely functioning, industry-based and fan-based, genre-based and self-elected-sommelier-de-musique types, to find their own lists of the top/best songs of 2009. All of which, of course, use completely different criteria in generating their lists. Although the scientific part of me is shaking its head at the this completely non-statistical approach, the other, very optimistic side of me exclaims, “Ah, yes – but cream rises to the top!” And in a way, it has. To satisfy the scientific, musicphile, and attention-to-detail-hard-worker parts of myself I have listed below the sampling of sites I retrieved lists from (in order to repeat or improve the analysis) with the songs and artists that have truly risen to the top (because I like to share, too).

2009 RS songs
wtmd Top 89 Songs of 2009
heartachewithhardwork Top 40 songs of 2009
gorilla vs. bear’s songs of 2009
DAVID’S TOP 40 of 2009 (same site as gvb)
SPIN The 20 Best Songs of 2009
Said the Gramophone Best Songs of 2009
musicforants.com 50 Songs of 2009
startlingmoniker Top 12 Best Happy Neat-O List of 2009
THe musIc FILe Editors’ Picks Top Ten Covers Of 2009
THe musIc FILe Editors’ Picks Best Songs Of 2009
b3science top 40 tracks of 2009
Filles Sourires Best of the Year List
betterPropaganda Favorite Tracks of 2009
kickinthepeanuts (including the whole gang)
faronheit.blogspot.com top 50 (this one has separate posts to draw out the anticipation)
Mon Khmer’s Top 10 Songs of 2009
North Highlands’ Best Releases of 2009
Pterodactyl’s Top 10 2009 (in no particular order)
Goes Cube Best of ’09
A Sunny Day In Glasgow Top 10 Songs of 2009
Copycat’s Top 20 2009
Phil Retrospector’s TOP 20 2009
Simon Iddol’s TOP 20 2009 (same site)
Pitchfork’s Top 15 Songs Of 2009 … So Far
Pitchfork Top 100 Tracks of 2009 – yeah, I know. I TOLD you it was unscientific!
Stereogum’s 50 Most Downloaded mp3s of 2009
Esquire’s 50 Songs Every Man Should Be Listening To
Spinner best songs of 2009
culture bully top songs of 2009 [multiple lists]
NPR All Songs Considered Poll Results: The Best Music of 2009 (So Far)
Best Songs of 2009 rollogrady.com
DiS Editor’s Top 40 Songs of 2009 (Drowned in Sound)

Wow. Ok. That list is wicked weird. I don’t usually go to very many of those sites, this was a big experiment in randomness! For cereal, I’m a little worried I won’t get ‘cream’y songs. Fingers are crossed.

when I say I know how crazy I look in the first picture.

The MES Contendahs

3rd-2nd-1st Places

So yeah, I won third place on Friday. Sweet deal, huh?