Welcome to 2010! I was 21, in my final year at university, broke, and pretty much out all the time (hence the broke life).

And I was a massive GLEEK! In 2010, the pilot season of Glee premiered. It was quirky, colourful and dramatic. And I was hooked! Remember when they covered Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing“?

Glee wasn’t the only thing that was on the quirky side. The super talented Janelle Monae created a masterpiece with the concept album The ArchAndroid. A follow up to her debut EP, Metropolis: The Chase Suite, it continues the story of “a robot-populated utopia based on Fritz Lang’s classic 1927 film Metropolis” [Rolling Stone]. This review by Pitchfork sums it up well.

After a decade in the business, Christina Aguilera hit us with her fourth studio album Bionic. The album flopped. But I am a huge Xtina fan and this album is so underrated. She was one of the first pop artists to feature Nicki Minaj on a track, with the cheeky “Woohoo.” Half the album was co-written by Sia, who is now a worldwide sensation. Check out “I Am” – it is beautiful!

On Nicki Minaj, lets discuss the success of YMCM aka Young Money Cash Money. Signed to Lil Wayne’s label, her first album Pink Friday finally hit the shelves in 2010, putting female rappers back on the map! But YMCM didn’t stop there. One of Toronto’s biggest exports released his highly anticipated debut album the same year. I’m talking about none other than Drake! Drizzy has had an amazing career and to this day, Thank Me Later is still one of my favourite albums. The opening track “Fireworks” featuring Alicia Keys perfectly sets the scene for the rest of the record. My favourite line is “Let’s stay together til we’re ghosts. I wanna witness love, I’ve never seen it close.” I love this album so much I could write a track-by-track piece on it. For now, I recommend going back and listening to it again (or for the first time if you jumped on the Drake bandwagon in recent years). I think I will always be attached to Drake’s earlier albums.

While we’re on the topic of Hip-Hop/R&B, check out these albums:

• Distance Relatives by Nas & Damian Marley. -The opening track “As We Enter” is solid! Pure gold!
• B.O.B Presents: Adventures of Bobby Ray by B.O.B – This album gave us some of the biggest singles that year, with “Nothin’ On You” featuring Bruno Mars, and “Airplanes” featuring Hayley Williams
• Doo-Wops & Hooligans – Bruno Mars – After the success of being a featured artists on various hits, there was a rush to released a record, and so came Doo-Wops & Hooligans!

As the southern hemisphere entered summer, Rihanna got loud with Loud! I remember when I first heard “Only Girl In the World” produced by David Guetta, and I thought to myself “she’s not doing dancehall anymore!” Rihanna’s fame trajectory changed at this point, she became unstoppable. Hailing from Barbados, Rihanna became a household name, a style icon (she’s my hair and make-up inspo!) and an absolute bad-ass.

I’m just gonna give a couple of sentences for Katy Perry. Can’t say I love her but I do recall how huge the Teenage Dream album was. Hit after hit after hit!

Let’s travel to the other side of the world. An album that I listened to incessantly back then was The Defamation of Strickland Banks by UK hip-hop artist Plan B. The album tells the story of a man who is sent to jail for a crime he did not commit. Plan B dropped a lot of singles from the album, all visually depicting the story. My standout track is “Writing’s On The Wall.”

Mark Ronson released his third studio album, Record Collection (and bleached his hair!). Just FYI, I think Ronson is one of the hottest musos on the planet. I’ve seen him live five times in Melbourne and he’s always fantastic. But back to the music, the biggest single from that album was “Somebody to love me” featuring 80s icon Boy George.

In Australia, Melbourne indie band Little Red (who have since split), had one of the biggest singles of the year – “Rock It” from their sophomore album Midnight Remember. I used to be part of their fan-club and I remember being invited to be part of the video clip. I didn’t go because it was filmed at 6:30am!

I had to save one particular artist to the end….JUSTIN BIEBER! I can’t believe I’m at a point in my life where I am reflecting on the career of the Beibster, which has spanned for 10 years so far with zero signs of slowing down. What the hell have I been doing for the last decade while he’s been making billions?!?! Anyways, I’m not going to say much about Justin Bieber now, as I prefer to discuss his later albums in a future post. For now, let’s play “Baby” – I know you wanna pump it up!

Songs:

• Spotify – 2010 Hits Throwbacks
• Billboard – Hot 100 Songs/Year end charts
• UK charts – Top 100 2010

Notable mentions:

• Like a G6 – Far East Movement (featuring The Cataracs & DEV)
• Need You Now – Lady Antebellum
• Kush – Dr. Dre (featuring Snoop Dogg & Akon)

‘Music of my twenties’ will be a 10-part series, each post about one year between 2009-2018. It is 100% my reflection. It will showcase the music I listened to and my memories. I hope it triggers great memories and feelings of your own.

To kick this off, let’s travel way back to the year 2009!

When I think of all the parties I went to at the age of 20, one artist comes to mind… David Guetta! Is it all coming back to you? David Guetta was already a highly-respected DJ/Producer in Europe before he broke into the US market and achieved global success. He teamed up with massive artists like Black Eyed Peas and Akon to give us “I Gotta Feeling” and “Sexy Bitch” respectively. My favourite though, is “Memories” featuring Kid Cudi. How fitting the song title is! When I hear this song, it’s like I’m transported to a music festival, surrounded by party people. David Guetta was a massive contributor, if not the one person, to open the gateway for house music to reach commercial airwaves. This was the beginning of EDM, and even more house/R&B collaborations followed, becoming the pop sound for the next few years.

Going back to Black Eyed Peas, their sound REALLY CHANGED in 2009 when they released their third studio album with Fergie, called The E.N.D. It stands for “energy never dies.” Or perhaps the album title reflected the end of their funk sound that B.E.P used to have (they released two studio albums before Fergie joined. Behind The Front (1998) is the best!). Nevertheless, this album catapulted them into a new level of fame.

Someone else who completely changed their style in 2009 was Pitbull! Once upon a time, Pitbull was a leader in the reggaeton scene. That all changed with the release of “I Know You Want Me.” Gone were the cornrow braids and in came Mr Worldwide!

Towards the end of 2008, a young, fresh and mega-talented 22 year old stepped into the limelight, rapidly rising to stardom in 2009. I’m talking about the one and only Lady Gaga! In November 2009, Lady Gaga released The Fame Monster, a deluxe version, double-disc album including tracks from her debut album (The Fame), such as “Just Dance,” and “Poker Face” but also some of the hugest hits of the decade, accompanied by extraordinary video clips, from “Bad Romance” to “Telephone.” Lady Gaga disrupted the pop world from day one and continues to dominate.

Lady Gaga’s early work was produced by the most-wanted producer at the time, RedOne. Almost every pop song in the first half of this decade started with the artist singing out “RedOne!” Just check out this list of songs from 2009 produced by RedOne.

On the other end of the fame spectrum, I was obsessed with Melbourne singer/songwriter Daniel Merriweather! For several years, he featured on various Mark Ronson tracks (“Stop Me,” “She’s Got Me“), and collaborated with hip-hop artists from Australia and New Zealand, including best buddy Phrase. Merriweather finally released his debut album Love & War in mid 2009. An underrated modern classic! This album spawned the singles “Change” featuring Wale, “Red” and “Water & A Flame” featuring Adele, who at the time, had not reached the level of super stardom we see now.

The UK was buzzing with artists bringing their own sound. La Roux, Little Boots, Lady Sovereign, Lily Allen, Pixie Lott and Cheryl (from Girls Aloud) were dominating pop music. Brit rock/alternative was still going strong with Kaiser Chiefs’ – Off With Their Heads and Arctic Monkeys – Humbug. Calvin Harris held the fort for house music with his second album (and my fave of his) Ready For The Weekend. The grime scene was also surfacing with Dizzee Rascal, Wiley and many others. 2009 was a fantastic year for the Brits!

But who could forget Kanye West cutting Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV VMAs? I can’t believe it’s been almost a decade since that happened!

Although I don’t want to end on a sad note, we must pay our respects to the greatest, most innovative entertainers to ever exist! 2009 was the year we tragically lost the king of pop, Michael Jackson. His music will live on forever.

There’s so much more I could say about the year 2009. But for the sake of not writing a thesis, here’s a list of 2009 music that you can listen to. Keep a lookout for 2010!

Songs:

• Spotify – 2009 Hits Throwbacks
• Billboard – Hot 100 Songs/Year end charts
• UK charts – Top 100 2009

Notable mentions:

• You & I (Deadmau5 remix) – Medina
• Empire State of Mind – Jay-Z & Alicia Keys
• Parlez vous Francais (Hey Now Remix) – Art vs Science

More albums I listened to:

• This Is Us – Backstreet Boys
• All Or Nothing – Jay Sean
• Colour Me Free! – Joss Stone
• Outta Here – Esmee Denters
• Fight For Love – Elliott Yamin