Playboy's 2009 Music Poll

When you think about the music of 1977, maybe you recall Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours or the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks. And for 1991, it’s Nevermind by Nirvana and Metallica. So what about 2009? The biggest music star this year was Michael Jackson, an emblem of the 1980s who hadn’t released a new record in eight years and who in death reclaimed the chart supremacy he coveted. The biggest rock band was the Beatles, emblems of the 1960s who hadn’t released a new record in 39 years.

That makes it sound as though 2009 sucked, right? A year of exploitation and necrophilia, of unoriginality and nostalgia, of hearing “Billie Jean” on CNN and “A Hard Day’s Night” on an Xbox or a PS3? But that’s not the case. In our recession-era paradigm, years can no longer be measured and memorialized by blockbuster albums. The record industry is dying, buried under the rubble of collapsing CD sales, but the music business has never been better. All day long we’re surrounded by it in unprecedented measure.

In this bountiful year great music came to us from many directions: A friend transmits a hot Mos Def song via IM. We discover an overlooked 2007 album by No Age, a rampaging punk duo, on Rhapsody. With a Sirius XM subscription we hear Bob Dylan and Mojo Nixon interpret the scriptures of lost American music. Free weekly downloads at the iTunes Music Store introduce us to Cage the Elephant and Owl City. At the Wolfgang’s Vault site we stream incredible concerts—Miles Davis in 1971, the Rolling Stones in 1973, the Hold Steady in 2009—from a selection numbering in the thousands. Our love of Chromeo, funky young scamps from Canada, leads us to Live From Daryl’s House, a site on which Daryl Hall of Hall and Oates airs high-quality webcasts of his rec-room sessions with different pals.

On Glee, the dweebs of McKinley High deepen our love of “Rehab” and “Gold Digger.” Even more amazingly, we download terabytes of files from RAR blogs, where obsessive collectors post and notate more rare music—even out-of-print vinyl and regional 45s—than you could ever listen to. It’s like a food pantry—but with music.

Sure, 2009 also launched joyful new sing-alongs by the Black Eyed Peas and 3OH!3, outré rock by Mastodon and Ida Maria, more sick rhymes from Jay-Z and Ghostface—but the biggest star in music right now is technology. That’s not a computer on your desk; it’s a big jukebox with a library limited only by the capacity of your hard drive and the speed of your downloads. As the Black Eyed Peas like to say, mazel tov!

Directions: Vote for your favorite artist in each category, or write in your favorite in the “Other” field. Not sure who deserves your vote? Listen to the audio clips on the right to help you decide. Look for the winners in Playboy’s March 2010 issue.