In all seriousness, their music has played a HUGE part in my life through very difficult times.

But back to the rocking.  The first NJ jam I heard was “Memphis Will Be Laid to Waste,” from the debut album Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child.  Most (but not me) say it’s their best song (so far), but regardless it’s the one that got me hooked on the band from the get-go.  Singer Cory Brandon put it well at their last show when he said,

We’ve never not played this song! Rrrrrrrr………

I know, right?  Amazing.

I got to fly down to Atlanta in October to hang out with my favorite band for a whole day.  YEAH.  I hardly slept the night before, and it was quite difficult to be the slynam from their new label and not the slynam who absolutely loves their music.  But of course, I did the latter most of the time anyway.

In December, NJ came to NY to play at the Blender Theatre.  The gf was able to take some really great flip cam footage, check it all out below.

Easily the best show of my life thus far.  But I’ve got many more Norma Jean shows to attend…

TOP ALBUMS OF 2009.  Now I know what you might be think­ing: “How the hell can you talk about lis­ten­ing to that much metal/screamo, but then have Owl City in your Top 5?” and you would be right.  I have to tell you–I ran a whole bunch of errands one day and played his album on loop the whole time.  It was PERFECT walking-around-NYC music.  I was hooked.  #10 was a big album for me in the last year, as was #4.  I feel like #9 crept up there late in the game.  #1 taught me that some­times all you need are break­downs, short tran­si­tion riffs, more bread­owns, and crab­core.  Here’s the list, links are to Lala:

10. For­ever the Sick­est Kids — Under­dog Alma Mater

9. A Day to Remem­ber — Home­sick

8. Chio­dos — Bone Pal­lace Ballet

7. I Set My Friends on Fire — You Can’t Spell Slaugh­ter With­out Laughter

6. The Devil Wears Prada — With Roots Above and Branches Below

5. Owl City — Ocean Eyes

4. Bring Me The Hori­zon — Sui­cide Season

3. Fam­ily Force 5 — Busi­ness Up Front / Party In The Back

2. August Burns Red — Con­stel­la­tions

1. Attack Attack! — Some­day Came Suddenly

TOP TRACKS OF 2009.  Okay, start­ing to get a bit more towards my well-publicized tastes in music.  Now, my Top 10 (and 20) tracks of 2009 have sev­eral from the same artist, so to keep it inter­est­ing I omit­ted tracks if I had another track by the same artists with more scrob­bles plays (still with me?).  #10 was on BLAST after I saw them in Feb­ru­ary.  I guess you could call #8 my indie jam of the year. I’m pretty sure #2 got all it’s plays in one day, after I heard them at Warped Tour and saw Adam sing upside down way up in the air.  #1 is an awe­some open­ing track to one of the best albums of the year.  Here’s the list, and check the playlist at the bottom…

10. I Set My Friends on Fire — Brief Inter­views with Hideous Men

9. A Day to Remem­ber — The Down­fall of Us All

8. Pas­sion Pit — Lit­tle Secrets

7. Every Time I Die — We’rewolf

6. Bring Me the Hori­zon — The Comedown

5. Attack Attack! — Stick Stickly

4. Set Your Goals — Mutiny

3. August Burns Red — Ocean of Apathy

2. Tak­ing Back Sun­day — Sink Into Me

1. The Devil Wears Prada — Sassafras

Check em out here:

Top 10 Songs of 2009

TOP ARTISTS OF 2009.  There they are.  These bands make the kind of music that, year in and year out, makes me want to straight up LIVE.  I had the plea­sure of see­ing all of these bands per­form more than once this year, and not sur­pris­ingly, they were some of the best shows I’ve ever been to (#3’s show on Dec 11 in NYC being the best!).  #9 knows how to get down–but I really want some new tunes!  I think #8, #7, and of course #4 all have their own gen­res.  They did it first and the best.  Okay enough, here they are, links are to myspace pages:

10. The Char­iot

9. Fam­ily Force 5

8. Under­oath

7. Chio­dos

6. Attack Attack!

5. Bring Me the Horizon

4. Every Time I Die

3. Norma Jean

2. The Devil Wears Prada

1. August Burns Red

So that’s my first Top 10 / Best Of list.  Now since I took these lists straight from last.fm scrob­bles, they’re solely based on the num­ber of times I lis­tened to a track by a par­tic­u­lar artist.  So I have look at it this way: August Burns Red is my #1 artist for 2009 because I lis­tened to more of their tracks than any other artist.  Not nec­es­sar­ily based on me think­ing they put out the best songs of 2009.  How­ever, I guess if I lis­tened to them the most, they must be doing some­thing right!

Bring on 2010!