End of year best-of lists usually pass me by. Partly because it's often tough to weigh the merits of new music in such a short space of time, and partly because my music buying rarely has anything to do with when it was released, so I'm just as likely to have bought all 70s music or 80s music as I am to have bought anything released this year.
As a result my favourite records of any particular year tend not to be defined by the music that was released that year, but by the things I've listened to the most. And one of my most listened to albums of 2009 is 4:13 Dream by The Cure. It's so great to hear a band this far into their career still sounding like they mean it. All credit to Robert Smith for maintaining a sense of vitality in his music.
Here's Hungry Ghost, recorded live at the NME Poll Winners gig earlier in the year. We were there when this was recorded. It's awesome.