2009 Year End Charts

Top Songs of 2009
Rank	Song	Artist	Plays
1	Halo	Beyonce	119
2	True to Life	Royksopp	111
3	Tropical Disease	Air	107
4	Kids	MGMT	104
5	Ursuline	Malajube	103
6	Strawberry Swing	Coldplay	94
7	Franks	Infected Mushroom	94
8	Fireflies	Owl City	90
9	Goliath	The Mars Volta	88
10	Gypsy Biker	Bruce Springsteen	87
11	Believe	The Bravery	84
12	I Gotta Feeling	Black Eyed Peas	81
13	From My Hands	VNV Nation	79
14	Feel Good Drag	Anberlin	78
15	Death and All His Friends	Coldplay	78
16	Mykonos	Fleet Foxes	76
17	You're Too Young	VAST	73
18	Just Breathe	Pearl Jam	73
19	Saeed	Infected Mushroom	72
20	Panic Switch	Silversun Pickups	70
21	Hawaii	Mew	70
22	Something in Your Mouth	Nickelback	69
23	With Twilight As My Guide	The Mars Volta	67
24	Do the Joy	Air	67
25	Use Somebody	Kings of Leon	65
26	Lights Out	Santigold	62
27	The Reeling	Passion Pit	60
28	Plant Music	Ozric Tentacles	60
29	Two Drops in the Ocean	311	59
30	To Die For	The Birthday Massacre	59
31	Sometime Around Midnight	The Airborne Toxic Event	59
32	Crying Lightning	Arctic Monkeys	58
33	Raein	Olafur Arnalds	57
34	Halfway Home	TV on the Radio	57
35	California Dreamer	Wolf Parade	56
36	Omen	The Prodigy	54
37	Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)	Lady Gaga	54
38	Controlling Crowds	Archive	51
39	I See You	MIKA	50
40	Baby Blue	Dave Matthews Band	49
41	I'm Good, I'm Gone	Lykke Li	49
42	Heaven's Light	Air	49
43	Agadez	The Mars Volta	48
44	Kick Drum Heart	The Avett Brothers	47
45	Gonna See My Friend	Pearl Jam	47
46	Sweet Dreams	Beyonce	47
47	Missing the Light of the Day	Air	46
48	Life in Marvelous Times	Mos Def	45
49	Bullets	Archive	44
50	Half Asleep	School of Seven Bells	44
2009
Top Albums
Rank	Album	Artist	Units (M)
1	Love 2	Air	5.7
2	Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King	Dave Matthews Band	5.1
3	The Fame Monster	Lady Gaga	4.9
4	Oracular Spectacular	MGMT	4.2
5	The Ecstatic	Mos Def	4.0
6	Controlling Crowds	Archive	3.7
7	Legend of the Black Shawarma	Infected Mushroom	3.6
8	The E.N.D.	Black Eyed Peas	3.6
9	Testimony Vol. 2: Love & Politics	India.Arie	3.1
10	Backspacer	Pearl Jam	3.1
Top Books
Rank	Book	Author	Units (M)
1	The Shack	William Paul Young	3.6
2	The Lost Symbol	Dan Brown	3.4
3	The Hunger Games	Suzanne Collins	2.7
4	Born to Run	Christopher McDougall	2.5
5	The Forty Rules of Love	Elif Shafak	2.4
6	The Geography of Bliss	Eric Weiner	2.0
7	The Maze Runner	James Dashner	1.9
8	The Name of the Wind	Patrick Rothfuss	1.9
9	Olive Kitteridge	Elizabeth Strout	1.4
10	The Lost City of Z	David Grann	1.2
Top Movies
Rank	Movie		Units (M)
1	District 9		11.9
2	500 Days of Summer		10.3
3	The Curious Case of Benjamin Button		10.1
4	Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs		9.8
5	The Reader		9.0
6	Inglourious Basterds		8.8
7	Seven Pounds		8.3
8	The Hurt Locker		8.3
9	Gran Torino		8.0
10	Frost/Nixon		7.6

Avatar Review

I have mixed feelings about Avatar, the most expensive movie ever made.  I'll start with the positives.  

Avatar is one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen.  The planet it's set on is so lovely, especially at night when the plants light up like they were phosphorescent.  It reminds me of the setting of this story I wrote about two lovers in a jungle fighting against an invasion.  Also, it was funny how all the trees were interconnected like a neural network, because that's exactly what my idea in the story was.  Another thing I liked was the anti-imperialist message.  Clearly it had parallels to colonialism and genocide, what with the destruction of natives for the sake of mining valuable resources.  There were even a few Bush administration media tactics thrown in there.  It's interesting that very few movies about colonialism have been produced in Hollywood.  I can’t think of any.  

I didn't like that it was longer than it had to be, it was predictable, and had a lot of "yeah right" parts.  But blockbusters are like that (coughs, 2012).  I also had a minor grudge against the title of the film because it stole the one for my most anticipated film coming out next year: The Last Airbender.  They could have easily named this movie Pandora or something more appropriate.  I'd recommend this to kids and sci-fi/fantasy fans that aren't extremely conservative or greedy. It's a solid 8.