The Top Ten Albums of 2009

If you're old enough to look at porn, you're old enough to remember that there was a time when you still had to buy CDs. I remember randomly purchasing a Built to Spill record from Best Buy just on some general recommendations, without having heard the band before, and being blown away. That's something purchasing an album can do that simply can't happen in the MP3 era. I'd have never blown $17 on a record I hadn't heard anything from before and while that would have avoided some disastrous mistakes (Oh, 12-year old self, why did you think buying an Eagle Eye Cherry album was a good idea?), I also will never have that feeling of justification that I did the first time I heard "Big Dipper".

Listening to albums in 2009 is different than it was ten years ago because of this. You go in with less at stake and, while that means less risk, it can also mean less reward. The fact that these ten albums actually inspired that same sense of justification and reward made them Racecar Brown's top ten albums of 2009.