What began in the early '90s as a way to remember the music I listened to during each year has eventually grown into an annual two-disc set given to friends, family and co-workers. The two-disc giveaways -- meant to be my catch-all Christmas gift to anyone who enjoys music -- started in the aftermath of 9/11, in December 2001. About 25 people got the discs that first year, and the list has steadily grown. This is my first attempt at presenting the music online to complement the discs I'm still sending out. As always, these are my favorite songs of the year, and is a reflection of what I've played throughout the year. This was the hardest year, by far, to finalize the two discs -- there were about 8,000 albums released in 2008. I easily could have included two more CDs without diluting the quality, so maybe the "Best of" tag doesn't really apply. What puts a song on one of Steve's Best of CDs? Well, one thing all of these songs have are the ability to grab me from the first listen, and make me want to listen again and again. A good hook will do that, as will a song that is beautifully written and has stuck with me in some way. I like a wide variety of music, and I want these discs to represent my musical tastes.
As you may have noticed, to the left are the songs from the 2008 discs. I'm able to display them online because of a new service called SonicSwap, which allows folks like me to post their entire iTunes group of playlists on the SonicSwap site, then post whatever ones I want on a personal web site, like I'm doing here. SonicSwap takes the music and videos mostly from YouTube, displaying whatever videos have been posted there for that particular song. In some cases, a 30-second clip from the Amazon or iTunes web site is displayed as well. Now, SonicSwap, because it does rely on what's on YouTube, isn't a perfect way to show playlists, but it's the best way I could find, and for the most part works great. If you go through my list of songs posted, some strange things may come up. For example, for the Dennis Wilson link to the song "You and I," a video of Dennis (who died in 1983), doing the Joe Cocker tune "You Are So Beautiful" is what is shown. Other videos not matching up with the songs earlier seems to have been fixed. One option when that happens is to click the Amazon or iTune links next to the song, and it will take you to the music store's clip of the song, and you can at least hear what it sounds like. But overall, SonicSwap is pretty cool, and if you click on the SonicSwap logo below each playlist, my page comes up, and you will be able to see all of my playlists I've allowed on the site. There's a lot. I do have over 17,500 songs on my iPod. I've also included here a playlist of every song I've put on my Best of discs from 2000 on. Go all the way to the bottom to find it.
Another thing to check out is the upcoming January issue of Sacramento's Midtown Monthly, which will carry a story by yours truly about my Best of collections over the years and also listing my top albums of the year. You can check it out at their web site at www.midtownmonthly.net. Hope that everyone enjoys the music found here as much as I've enjoyed finding it for you, and Have a Great 2009!
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