Albums:
1. T.I. - Trap Muzik
2. Freeway - Philadelphia Freeway
3. Kenna - New Sacred Cow
4. Three 6 Mafia - Da Unbreakables
5. Cex - Being Ridden
6. The Diplomats - Diplomatic Immunity
7. Carla Bozulich - Red Headed Stranger
8. R. Kelly - The Chocolate Factory
9. Lil Mo - Meet The Girl Next Door
10. 50 Cent - Get Rich Or Die Tryin'
11. Blink 182 - Blink 182
12. Grand Buffet - Pittsburgh Hearts EP
13. The Oranges Band - All Around
14. Jay-Z - The Black Album
15. Apollo Sunshine - Katonah
16. Nice Nice – Chrome
17. Led Zeppelin - How The West Was Won
18. Rod Lee – Vol. 3: Operation Shut ‘Em Down
19. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Hearts of Oak
20. Steely Dan - Everything Must Go
21. Joan Of Arc - So Much Staying Alive and Lovelessness
22. Superchunk – Cup Of Sand
23. Ogun – The Movement
24. The Strokes - Room On Fire
25. Joe Budden - Joe Budden

This is about the point where it starts to get harder for me to complete the album lists, because this is going back to before I became a published critic so I wasn't actively seeking out stuff to write about. I listened to the radio a ton and went to shows pretty often, but buying albums wasn't a really big priority, partly because I was in college and couldn't really afford them. Still, some pretty good stuff that year, particularly mainstream, whereas most of the under the radar/indie artists I really liked at the time that dropped album that years for the most part weren't releasing their best material.

Singles:
1. R. Kelly - “Step In The Name of Love (Remix)"
2. Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz featuring The Ying Yang Twins - “Get Low”
3. Twista featuring Kanye West and Jamie Foxx - “Slow Jamz”
4. Talib Kweli - “Get By”
5. Linkin Park - “Faint”
6. Baby aka the #1 Stunna featuring The Clipse - “What Happened To That Boy?”
7. Alicia Keys - “You Don’t Know My Name”
8. Justin Timberlake - “Rock Your Body”
9. Freeway featuring Peedi Crakk - “Flipsides”
10. Cee-Lo featuring Timbaland - “I’ll Be Around”
11. Christina Aguilera - “Fighter”
12. Coldplay - “Clocks"
13. Missy Elliott featuring Ludacris - “Gossip Folks”
14. Joe Budden - “Pump It Up”
15. The Youngbloodz featuring Lil Jon - “Damn!”
16. Diplomats – “Dipset Anthem”
17. Pharrell featuring Jay-Z - “Frontin’”
18. David Banner featuring Lil Flip - “Like A Pimp”
19. Kelly Clarkson - “Miss Independent”
20. The Darkness - “I Believe In A Thing Called Love”
21. Sean Paul - “Get Busy”
22. Dido - "White Flag"
23. Bow Wow featuring Jagged Edge - “My Baby”
24. Lil Mo featuring Fabolous - “4Ever”
25. Tamia – “Officially Missing You”
26. Pink – “Trouble”
27. Monica - “So Gone”
28. R. Kelly - “Ignition”
29. R. Kelly - "Ignition (Remix)"
30. Fabolous f/ Lil Mo and Mike Shorey – “Can’t Let You Go”
31. Good Charlotte - “The Anthem”
32. Beyonce featuring Jay-Z - “Crazy In Love”
33. Juelz Santana featuring Cam’ron - “Dip Set (Santana’s Town)”
34. Da Band - “Bad Boy This, Bad Boy That”
35. Trina featuring Ludacris - “B R Right”
36. Nivea featuring R. Kelly - “Laundromat”
37. Aaliyah f/ Tank – “Come Over”
38. Jagged Edge - “Walked Outta Heaven”
39. Justin Timberlake – “Senorita”
40. Bone Crusher featuring Killer Mike and T.I. - “Never Scared”
41. Wayne Wonder - “No Letting Go”
42. Bubba Sparxxx – “Deliverance”
43. Kanye West - “Through The Wire”
44. The Foo Fighters - “Times Like These”
45. Busta Rhymes featuring Pharrell - “Light Your Ass On Fire”
46. Sean Paul - “Like Glue”
47. Justin Timberlake - “I’m Lovin’ It”
48. Christina Aguilera - "Beautiful"
49. Jay-Z - “La La La (Excuse Me Again)”
50. Fabolous f/ Tamia – “Into You”

This was such a ridiculously great year for popular music, Kanye and Just Blaze at their peaks as producers, Jay-Z and the Neptunes in their last stretch of really consistent hits, the trio of songs that signaled the beginning of southern rap's era of dominance ("Get Low," "Like A Pimp" and "Never Scared"), bands like Linkin Park and Coldplay dropping the best songs they'll ever make, R. Kelly being absolutely on fire. Probably the best singles year of the decade, really.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 15, 2009 at 12:20 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.