So another year has come and gone but before we turn our full attention to 2010, the Music Boxer staff takes a look at 2009 one last time. Editor J. Allen took a video camera around and asked Music Boxer staff members to reflect on the past year. The video above is a collection of awards, honors and general comments made by the Music Boxer staff.

End of decade lists are officially a “thing,” so in the spirit of the thing, here is one man’s list of the top four years of the decade. Why four? Because while it might be a “thing” I will not do the expected top ten, I AM MY OWN MAN DAMMIT! And David Letterman scares me with his expensive, angry lawyers.

It’s a fact – if you want to be a part of the Rock ‘N Roll scene, you are going to need to have at least one tattoo. Every respectable rockstar has a tattoo. Those that don’t… well, they aren’t really rockstars.

Sound Team’s name is, or was, no misnomer. The band was a team that produced one hell of a sound. Consisting of six (and sometimes more) musicians, Sound Team, produced a full bodied sound that was unmistakably “indie” in origin – blending several different influences into a single, sometimes muddled, wall of sound. But most of all, they were good.

Def Leopard – “Love Bites”
The Arcade Fire – “Intervention”
Bloc Party – “The Prayer”
Deltron 3030 – “Virus”
Eels – “Novocain for the Soul”
The Notwist – “Consequence”
Reggie and the Full Effect – “Get Well Soon”
Travis – “The Fear”
Weezer – “El Scorcho”
Cake – “I Will Survive”
Traveling Willburys – “Handle With Care”
Postal Service – “Suddenly Everything Has Changed”
Poison – “Unskinny Bop”
Presidents of the United States – “Lump”
Johnny Cash – “Ring of Fire”

I’m going to try. I’m not exactly at my best when I’m trying to explain myself but I’m going to try and answer the bigger question – the one behind all the little questions. I’m going to try to explain why I regularly drive two and a half hours to see a concert only to turn around and drive two and a half hours home after it’s over, getting in well after 1 a.m., when I have to be at work bright and early the next day. I’m going to explain why I buy an album on iTunes and then track down and buy a physical copy of the album. I’m going to explain why I fly thousands of miles to see concerts by bands I’ve seen (at least) 30 times before. I’m going to explain why I listen to the same song, on repeat, every single night while I fall asleep. I’m going to explain why I’ve written and recoded over a 100 songs that no one will ever hear. I’m going to explain why I’ve had the bass and treble clef permanently tattooed onto my skin. I’m going to explain why I spend a lot of my free time developing and writing a music website that no one reads.

So, Lisa Hannigan was recently nominated for her first Mercury music prize, and just congratulations are most definitely due. Her debut album Sea Saw is whimsical and purely melodic and is deserved of, at the very least, a genuine golf clap for the major step out of Damien Rice’s shadow it represents (for those of you who don’t know, Hannigan was his musical other half until they split creative ways in 2007).

When Death Cab for Cutie opened with “Marching Bands of Manhattan,” I knew I was in for something different. Maybe it was the environment: the Hollywood Bowl was full and breezy on July 5th, and the LA crowd, made up mostly of couples and Tegan and Sarah fans, was also full (of themselves) and breezy. Although the audience was stereotypically uptight and aloof, Death Cab came out with visible excitement, ready to rock. Ben Gibbard spastically danced as he sang, his heels moving from side to side. He was in a good mood, hollering out thank yous to the crowd and dedicating songs like “Cath… ” to the opening bands, Tegan and Sarah and the New Pornographers.

So… you want to be a Hipster, eh?

Dallas Green is from Canada.

The worst, most painful music comes from the bands you really like. When a band betrays your love and admiration, it’s a wound that doesn’t heal easily. For me, there are a number of bands that have turned on me. When I wasn’t looking Rush released a song that contained a rap, U2 released the monstrosity called “Lemon” and most recently, The Killers gave up trying to write good songs and filled “I Can’t Stay” more production than the pan can handle.

We here at Music Boxer aren’t above clichés and we certainly aren’t above taking the easy way out by compiling a “Year in Review” list instead of actually putting together a full column. But instead of doing a typical “Year in Review,” we are putting a unique Music Boxer spin on things with our own categories and awards.

The Jealous Sound just released a posthumous EP titled Got Friends and after listening to it, I couldn’t help but get a little nostalgic. That feeling of nostalgia led me right to the creation of this here column.

1. Edit, Regina Spektor
2. Ironic, Alanis Morrisette
3. Fake Palindromes, Andrew Bird
4. Cold day in July, Dixie Chicks
5. One Little Song, Gillian Welch
6. Radio Silence, Harvey Danger
7. Miss Teen Wordpower, New Pornographers
8. Moscas en la Casa, Shakira
9. Country Death Song, Violent Femmes
10. What Light, Wilco

In case you were wondering, it’s Depeche Mode. Any of the band’s albums. They all apply.

This is the first Upstarts column so a brief introduction is necessary before I really tear into this column.

1. Eagles – Hotel California
2. Rick Astley – Never Gonna Give You Up
3. Blue Oyster cult – Don’t fear the Reaper
4. NSYNC – Bye, Bye, Bye
5. Kenny Rogers – What are we doing in love
6. Disney – It’s a small world
7. Guns n Roses – November Rain
8. Kenny G – anything by Kenny G (that one holds for pretty much ALL situations…)
9. Beck – Dead Melodies
10. Mark Cohen – True Companion
11. XTC – Ball & Chain
12. Death Cab For Cutie – I Will Posses Your Heart

The most common question I field, at least with regard to music, is where I find all the music that I listen too.

Remy Zero was an awesome band. Even if you don’t know the name, you more than likely heard some of their songs. You see, I wasn’t the only one out there that thought these fellers where good, Hollywood loved the shit out of them and used their music in countless TV shows, movies, and commercials. So like I said, you’ve probably heard them at least once even though you never knew it.

1. Mates of State – “Proofs”
2. The Sugarcubes – “Fucking in Rhythm and Sorrow”
3. Bad Religion – “The Quickening”
4. Modest Mouse – “Shit Luck”
5. The Toadies – “Quitter”
6. Regina Spektor – “Your Honor”
7. The Killers – “Mr. Brightside”
8. St. Vincent – “Your Lips Are Red”
9. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “Date Night”
10. Ween – “Mister Would You Please Help My Pony?”
11. The Dead Kennedys – “Holiday in Cambodia”
12. Suicidal Tendencies – “Institutionalized”

The first album I bought all by myself was DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince’s He’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper.

I’ve just discovered something, or should I say re-discovered something. Much like Leonard Nimoy, for a while I have been in search of something. Get it? That was a reference to his show called “In Search of…” where he, you know, searched for stuff.

1. Snow Patrol – “Run”
2. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – “Weapon of Choice”
3. Reggie and the Full Effect – “Deathnotronic”
4. Travis – “The Fear”
5. The Postal Service – “Welcome Back Cooper”
6. New Amsterdams – “Drinking In The Afternoon”
7. Nada Surf – “Spooky”
8. Matt Pond PA – “The Butcher”
9. Talking Heads – “Psycho Killer”
10. Arcade Fire – “Keep The Car Running”
11. Ween – “If you Could Save Yourself (You’d Save Us All)”
12. Calexico – “Black Heart”
13. The Eels – “Last Stop This Town”
14. John Vanderslice – “Time To Go”
15. Elliott Smith – “2:45 A.M.”

Welcome to A Rock ‘N Roll life, I’m your host, J. Allen Bell. You may remember me from such other columns as Entertain This! or Sacrilecious over at The Scoop News (shameless plug). Hopefully you don’t remember me from that stint I did in Guantanamo a couple years back for jokingly referring to my penis as a weapon of mass destruction as I boarded a plane to Boston. That was a mistake and I should never have done that. What I should have done was to refer to my penis as The O-tamatic.

Howdy, friends! It’s me, M.C. Did you miss me? I sure missed all of you. In fact, I was missing you more than Lance Armstrong misses his left nut. Okay, maybe not THAT much, but I did miss you and unlike Lance’s nut and more like a raging case of “hooker herpes,” I came back. “Back from what,” you ask? Why, back from a spring break filled with wild, exotic adventures and super hot babes… assuming, of course, you substitute the terms “wild, exotic adventures” with “skiing” and “super hot babes” with “a Vaseline®-coated oven mit.” At any rate, I’m here and I’m dying to serve up another helping of Music for the Masses. This week, I check out the upcoming release from indie-fave and, because he knows Jenny Lewis, luckiest bastard alive, Bright Eyes and Double A falls in and out of love with the new one from Timbaland. Plus, R. Lee Ermey answers reader questions!! Sound like fun? Well, what do you say we find out?

Welcome back again, my friends, to a brand-spanking, new and improved edition of Music for the Masses. Now, with 10% more girth!! So… did you enjoy the trip down memory lane last week? I sure did. You see, since I didn’t have to “waste” actual time writing a new column, I was able to coach my buddy Alec Baldwin on how to better communicate with his daughter. According to him, she’s a real handful. So you know what I says to him? Why I says “Look Alec… don’t take any more of her bullshit. Teach her who’s the boss. Teach her who her daddy is. You know what they say, Alec… spare the rod, spoil the child!” Boy, I can’t wait to catch up with him later this week and find out if he took my advice and how that conversation went! I’m guessing well!! If not, though, I’ll have to tell him how he can remind her of his love and keep her in line with wire hangers… or a rabbit-punch to the kidneys.

For most people, the concert-going experience has been similar to this: You show up at the arena an hour early, park, buy an unsanctioned t-shirt from an unlicensed vendor, take your seat somewhere in row 36, section 208 and rock out with 20,000 of your closest friends to the slightly-delayed rock being pumped out of the 50-speaker PA system.