What Was The First Song You Heard In 2009?

The last song I heard in 2008 was by Nickelback. (I hate the radio.) The first song that came on after midnight was “Fergalicious.” (I hate the radio.)

But the song I remember from driving around last night was:

I can deal with that.

I’m pretty sure it was Ne-Yo’s “Closer”, as it was the first post-midnight performance on ABC. And the last of 2008 was Katy Perry doing “I Kissed a Girl” on NBC.

I’m certainly not on the Ne-Yo bandwagon with you guys, but compared to Katy Perry, it was a pretty OK start to 2009.

The first track out of my iTunes Library this morning was U2′s “New Year’s Day,” of course. Couldn’t help it.

The first track I listened to was Diplo’s Monkey Bee remix, from Monkey: Journey To The West. See, when you live on your own (and stay in) you have complete control.

Had to post a follow-up: after the U2 track, my playlist was on random. Eventually I got to a live track from a show DMB played on 12/31/96, but I didn’t realize it was from that particular show until the song ends and out of nowhere, Dave Matthews wishes everyone a Happy New Year.

Creepy.

(But not as creepy as when I reached the end of Talking Heads’ second album while eating breakfast one morning.)

Now that I think about it, the party I went to didn’t have any music playing, so the first song I heard this year must have been the first one I played myself: Nick Lowe’s “American Squirm.” Damn thing’s been stuck in my head for weeks.

@perfectomix: I did listen to that, too. Also, “Chinese New Year,” Clipse, but that’s more for “Let’s play Cops and Robbers/And watch Heckler and Koch turn cops to martyrs,” which is one of the sickest-sounding lines of the decade, and not because I’m Chinese, a fan of celebrating holidays incorrectly, or a cop-killer sympathizer.

tribe’s “can i kick it?”

plenty okay with that.

The first song I heard this year was “A Milli,” the second was Pulp’s “Happy Endings.” Thanks, friend’s laptop’s shuffle.

I actually think both of them were fairly appropriate.

Metallica’s “Broken, Beat & Scarred” was the first song I heard after midnight.

My Morning Jacket doing an awesome take on Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration.” (I was at the garden, suckaaas!)

First track I can REMEMBER hearing was Ry Cooder’s take on “Dark End of the Street.”

A shame, as I’m not currently in the midst of an illicit affair.

I was doing a countdown of my Top 100 favorite songs of 2008 and made sure that the Top 10 started at midnight. As I already commented on one post, my tenth favorite song of 2008 was “Shadows” by Midnight Juggernauts.

an instrumental outtake of Jimi Hendrix’s “Bold As Love”. The story says this was the first take, and they really pulled out all the stops. But there was some small problem and a re-take was needed. And then next one became the record. But the first one is a whole story!

Last.fm says it was The The’s “This is the Day,” so who am I to argue?

I think we were listening to Charlotte Gainsbourg at midnight but the first thing I put on in 2009 was the last Dixie Chicks record, as I was drunk and wanted to annoy everyone around me.

I sadly blacked out before midnight. Depending on whether Prince Language had gone on yet or not, it was either indie-dance or disco.

Just for me, the Itunes playlist at my friend’s NYE house party switched to Rufus f. Chaka Khan and “Tell Me Something Good” to kickstart a (hopefully) much-improved ’09.

Perhaps this goes without saying, but while “Won’t Get Fooled Again” is a stirring way to be introduced to the new year musically, the lyrics implicitly predict that the new political atmosphere will prove to be no real improvement over the one that it is replacing and that all of yesteryear’s problems will have nothing done to them but be given a new coat of paint. Its combination of fist-pumping energy and pessimistic lyrics tends to lead to “Born in the U.S.A.”-like misinterpretation.

@KristaJulieva: Oh, no, I got that message. But honestly, anything’s better than the fucking Doors (with the possible exception of Pink Floyd).

I think it was Michael Jackson “Rock With you” technically speaking.

As of this morning though, after sleeping, it was a Who song! “Armenia City in the Sky”

@KristaJulieva: Coincidentally (ha), it’s the other top choice for #1 song amongst self-described conservatives, alongside “Born In The U.S.A.”!

Thus Spake Zarathustra –> Waters Of Nazareth at the Justice NYE party.

It was pretty goddam awesome.

I don’t remember the exact song that was first after midnight, but there was a lot of Avalanches played. I think maybe “Close to You” was first after midnight, though. New album in ’09?

I spent early 2009 bar hopping with strangers, and don’t honestly recall what song was playing at any given time.

I do know that, while walking two miles at 6:30 to get home, the only thing that kept going through my head was Ida Maria’s “Oh My God”

There’s a message on my girlfriend’s phone of someone singing along loudly to Tears for Fears’s “Head Over Heels” so I’ll go with that, but the real answer is probably very different. This is one of the many questions about last night I am unable to satisfactorily answer.

The DJ played Aretha Franklin’s “Until You Come Back to Me (That’s What I’m Gonna Do)”, which, considering both who my date was and what the date was, could not have been a more perfect choice.

I don’t remember, because I was sloshed. That’s the way it ought to be.

I’m with those who heard Ne-Yo first. Song’s decent, I’ll take it.

Last song I recall putting on in ’08 was Kanye’s Street Lights. Don’t sleep, it’s solid. I nominate Q-Tip/Norah Jones’ Life is Better as an early optimistic song to start off ’09. Try it, you might like it.

I was DJing a NYE party. After playing “Auld Lang Syne” at midnight: “Bmore Belivin’”–it’s DJ Serafin’s remix of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’. That was followed by the breakbeat remix of “Your Love” by the Outfield. Good times.

The first song I heard (a bit of) was Aretha Franklin’s “Day Dreaming”. The first song I deliberately played (and heard all the way through) was Sparks’ “The Number One Song In Heaven”

For some reason, there was no music playing at the party I was at (!) or maybe I was, like Chris N. not able to properly hear it or remember it “for some reason”

I don’t remember what was on at midnight, although we were all very lazy at that point so i think it was just the Killers CD, but looking through the party wreckage the morning after I found Dot Allison’s We Are Science album and put that on for the first time in a while. It’s really good!

“civilization’s dying” by zero boys.
i listened to it about 4 times in a row.
i love that song.
after that, it was “i felt your size” by the microphones and then “brain burner” by no age.
then i went to sleep.
lovely.

@LeBron: I saw the Ne-Yo thing after Auld Lang Syne. He blatantly lip-synced most of it because he was more concerned with dancing. I would have rather just watched him dance the whole time. It’s much better than his nasally live voice.

I opened and closed the new year with the Swans. I figure a bleak outlook is a good idea.

@bcapirigi: Oh, girl. Let me suggest you check out Dot’s old band, One Dove and the CD “Morning Dove White.”

I was watching Yo La Tengo rock out (and completely disregard the passing of midnight) in Montclair, NJ, with the Vivian Girls and The Feelies. I believe they were in the middle of a righteous “Big Day Coming (fast)” as the clock struck twelve. So it was both the last song I heard of 2008 and the first I heard of 2009 (unless you want to count the following “Tom Courtenay”). For those keeping score at home, the encore double-header of “What Goes On” and “Roadrunner” with Glenn and Bill from The Feelies was unfuckingbelievable.

Some awful song by a band at a house in Portland.

I was faux-DJing a party in my living room and I’m pretty sure we paused Rhymefest’s “Fever” for the countdown and turned it back on soon after. But the first full song? Terror Squad – Lean Back.

@AL: I think the first song for me was the same performance of “Closer,” which was appropriate since it was my #1 single of ’08, and also thank god because I think the next performance I watched on TV last night was the Ting Tings or something. The first thing I voluntarily listened to in the morning was a shuffled playlist of Baltimore club music.

@brasstax: According to my Last.fm, the first thing I heard was “Radio” by Beyoncé. Ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. Ha.

(I do love that song, though.)

First song this morning was Local H’s cover of “Wolf Like Me”.

I was at a small bar with a live musician who decided for some reason that “Walking in Memphis” was an appropriate tribute to 2008. The first song of 2009 was “Superstition”, which (in principle) I am 100% okay with. (In practice, Stevie Wonder played by a douchebaggy guitarist isn’t so great.)

I rang in the new year at LA’s Malediction Societies New Years Ball. It’s not often that you see a huge balloon drop at a goth club.

Imediately after midnight they played a wierd goth electro version of Auld Lang Syne, this was then Followed up by an interesting mash up of the Presets “My People” and Peter Schilling’s Major Tom (Coming Home).

i was djing on the radio, and the first song after midnight was “happy new year to you” by the qualities, one of sun ra’s old bands.

@t’challa: “don’t stop believing” into the fucking *outfield* sounds like hell on earth.

Because ‘conspicuous consumption’ is almost a poison phrase when it comes to today’s economy (there’s another story on this blog about pop music and the economy), I stuck to my guns and with what I had in my collection, rather than kick off a new year with a brand new, shiny piece of round plastic with music emblazoned upon it.

With that said (and it’s no secret I personally know these guys), we were working on the video teaser (yes, it’s cool and no, I’m not trying to pump blog love into it — I’m sincere to a fault), for LA/New York band, Owl.

Partially written by song-maestro Marty Fredrickson, Owl’s “Pusher” had catharsis and insight for past years and the newbie year for me. Chris Wyse (also from The Cult & Ozzy) – Owl’s vocalist and bassist – delivered baby-new-year in the form of the song-reflecting-the-year-to-come for me personally. After we finished up the video teaser, I couldn’t decide what was more powerful, the track or the track and visuals. Which is kind of reflective for a lot of us — where the hell is music going? I know Owl has a debut this year, but what what will other new bands bring us? Hopefully a lot to bite into — sorry 2008ers — I didn’t find much last year other than the classics — Supertramp, Cheap Trick, Zepp.

Either way, conspicuous consumption paved the way for renewal of a track that I’ve heard about a million times.

Here’s the hard work of the very beginning of 2009 – like it, love it or leave it — you gotta respect it, right?