I couldn’t pick anything other than Bonkers by Dizzee Rascal for the 2009 slot on my playlist. We are big fan of Mr Rascal (As Jeremy Paxman once called him) in this house. In fact our grandson is named after him – his real name of Dylan Mills and not his stage name of Dizzee Rascal obviously – so there is that connection, but this is also such a great tune, as anybody who has watched the footage of Dizzee at Glastonbury will know.

His 2009 album Tongue n’ Cheek, got to number 3 in the charts and went platinum, but it also contained 6 singles, 4 of which got to number 1 in the charts and another which reached number 2. Much as I prefer the early singles, I have to admit that Holiday and Bonkers really took off a lot better and go down well with a crowd.

Apart from Dizzee Rascal and a few notable exceptions, the singles charts were dominated by artists that took part in one reality show or another. Having never watched any reality TV (apart from some of Big Brother when a friend of ours was on it, and I’m A Celebrity.. when John Lydon was on it. Never watched any of the talent shows) popular music was largely a closed book for me.

The notable exceptions were She Wolf by Shakira, Single Ladies by Beyonce, Kids by MGMT and Sex on Fire by Kings of Leon. Oh, and Get on Your Boots by U2. I may have said before that Vertigo was the last great single by U2, but I had forgotten about this one.

I was increasingly just streaming music rather than buying it. I didn’t give up buying completely, but what I did buy was usually because it had something extra that you couldn’t get from a streamed mp3, like a 5.1 surround mix or, a second DVD disc with concert footage or a documentary on it. I know I bought Rodrigo y Gabriela’s abum 11:11 for that reason in 2009.

And there was plenty to stream in 2009, after a fairly lacklustre 2008. There were new albums from Busta Rhymes, Green Day, Eminem, Megadeth, Franz Ferdinand, Prodigy, Pet Shop Boys and Depeche Mode. I don’t think any of them were the artists’ best work but still pretty decent.

Madness released The Liberty of Norton Folgate which was a proper album rather than just a collection of songs, and the Bronx decideed to release a mariachi album under the name Mariachi el Bronx, which was a change of sound for them.

I also enjoyed the Duckworth Lewis Method album, even if it was a bordering on being a novelty record, the Maor Lazer album and Robyn Hitchcock’s live version of his I Often Dream of Trains album.

The year also saw another band with Jack White in it: the Dead Weather, where he plays drums. I think Jack White is another of those people like Damon Albarn, Neil Finn, and Les Claypool, who just fill in time between recording projects with other recording projects.

I think that Josh Homme is another one of those creatively fecund artists, and he turned up as part of Them Crooked Vultures, and of course I listened the hell out of that album. I can never resist a so-called supergroup.

Although it was nice to hear new material from Khaled, Amadou & Mariam and Joe Bonamassa, the musical highlight of the year had to be seeing Metallica at the O2 on their Death Magnetic tour. We were way up in a corporate box and the ticket was easily the most I have ever paid for a concert but it was a brilliant show and worth it. I have five or six Metallica concerts on DVD and Blu Ray but they are a poor substitute for actually being there.