There are only two occasions where I could be caught singing, one would be me driving in the car, the other is in the kitchen, cooking or baking. Since I’m most positively one of the world’s worst singers, these are the only safe places for me – and ensure no collateral damage. Music CDs are the only things in our apartment, that could almost rival our cookbook count. Yes, that means I’m one of those people, that still prefer to buy the physical CD, with booklet and such, over an iTunes album. (But then I do purchase single songs at iTunes, sometimes. Especially disco tracks from the 70s and 80s.) Anyways, 2009 some fairly good music found its way into my heart.

I checked back with my iTunes library, these 2009 albums are some I especially treasure:

Pete Yorn & Scarlett Johansson – Break Up
One of the rare occasions I actually like actress-turned-singer. Relator is adorable, my good mood song.

Jonsi & Alex – Riceboy sleeps
If you enjoy Sigur Rós, this one’s for you. The highly spherical songs create a beautiful warm and dreamy ambiance.

Parov Stelar – Coco
Jazzy sounds, swing, pop, hip-hop, elecronic beats and world music, all can be found on this fab, fab compilation. Like they actually belong together.

The Gossip – Music for Men
Having problems getting out of bed? Try their song Heavy Cross. Beth Ditto’s voice is more electrifying than any alarm clock can be.

Passion Pit – Manners
Stands right next to MGMT in our CD shelf, for obvious reasons. Is there a category like super-catchy electronic-synthy-indie-80s-pop?

Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
It took me a while to fall for this one, but they won me over. Completely. No more runnin. To speak in song titles.

Tales from the Hang: I love it when my brain connects a certain kind of music inextinguishably with holidays or a weekend trip. This happened with this CD. I don’t even know the artists name, he sat there in the sun, on the stairs up to St. Stephen’s Basilica in Budapest and played instrumental music with an instrument called hang drum. People stopped and listened, and when he paused, Oliver asked him for a CD (which had only the hand-signed title written across). We started playing it the second we came back to our hotel room (also to check if anything was on it at all ;-) and kept playing it for the rest of our trip. The sound is hard to describe, very light and spiritual, Oliver’s mum likes it too, a perfect accompaniment to her yoga classes. She stopped counting her clients’ requests for the name of the CD…

I’m all ears for your personal recommendations – any CD you wouldn’t have want to missed last year?