Wow. It’s been exactly a year since I last compiled a Groovee Playlist™. Well, I haven’t actually actively sought nice songs this past year so I haven’t had time to properly compile lists throughout the year. It’s only the past month or two that I tuned in to various sources to get my music fix. So let this be the extra-long 2009 special of the Groovee Playlist™. As much as possible, I only featured songs that were released or have become big in 2009 and I must note that this is not my Best of 2009 selection—I haven’t listened to as much music as I should have and I deliberately strove to have a diverse set of music to include in this list.

As always, I’ll link to the Wikipedia article about the song (if it exists) as “[W]”, and to the YouTube search (or official music video) for the song as “[U]” so that you can sample the song and see if you like it as well. Reactions, violent or not, on the selected songs as well as other music recommendations are very much welcome in the comments section.

• “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas. [W] [U] A friend of mine says that this is the worst song of 2009. I beg to disagree. I personally think that it is the year’s best song and I am definitely in love with the song’s optimism, catchy lyrics, and all-around goodness.

• Glee. [W] Glee has certainly turned out to be 2009’s musical hit and its musical numbers are quite a delight to watch. There’s plenty of covers in here to like and my most favorite is their cover of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’”, which is aptly the show’s signature song (as is Journey’s). Their cover of Cindy Lauper’s “True Colors” may have upstaged Phil Collins’ two renditions, which I consider the best versions of this really beautiful song.

• Fame. [W]. There’s plenty of great musical numbers in this movie. I consider Naturi Naughton’s version of “Fame” better than the original by Irene Cara. The R&B-inspired 2009 rendition is edgier and is much more musically deeper than the pretty bland 1980 version.

• “Fireflies” by Owl City. [W] [U] Wow. Just wow. The quirky lyrics coupled with the synth-backed melody is a pleasure to listen to and a sure pick-upper when you’re feeling down.

• “Good Girls Go Bad” by Cobra Starship feat. Leighton Meester. [W] [U] Infectious and a really good song to dance to.

• “Fight For Love” by Elliott Yamin. [W] [U] I just love the earnestness of this rock power ballad from the American Idol finalist. The toned down verses provides a nice contrast to the full-blown accompaniment of this song’s chorus.

• “Down” by Jay Sean feat. Lil Wayne. [W] [U] “Down” is the first American-released single by Indian British Jay Sean and it slowly hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The feat is no surprise to me since this Dance-R&B song has been a very persistent LSS for me. His latest single “Do You Remember”, which sounds similar, is also likable. Also, have you noticed that Jay Sean sounds like Chris Brown?

• “Halo” by Beyoncé. [W] [U] After the exuberance of “Single Ladies” (included in the December 2008 Playlist), “Halo” is a nice change of pace. The “accidentally” similar song “Already Gone” by Kelly Clarkson (both songs being written by Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic) is also nice, but I prefer Beyoncé’s song better. Her other singles “Sweet Dream” and “Smash Into You” are two other good songs.

• “Broken Strings” James Morrison feat. Nelly Furtado. [W] [U] A great rock duet from underrated artist James Morrison and versatile singer Nelly Furtado.

• “Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart” by Alicia Keys. [W] [U] This song doesn’t sound like the typical Alicia Keys songs that I know (though I admittedly haven’t listened to a lot of her songs so I could be wrong). But it’s a great piece of music nonetheless.

• “Home” by Paul Van Dyk feat. Johnny McDaid. [U] I think this is the first time I’ve seen an artist release two songs with the same title. PvD’s first “Home” song was included in the 1996 album Seven Ways but was never released as a single. This 2009 song, which features Johnny McDaid on vocals and songwriting credits, is a much, much better offering. This is a really, really good epic trance anthem though I have trouble deciding between this song or the next as my 2009 best trance song. Too bad I wasn’t able to hear this song when I went to Paul van Dyk’s DJ set last October. I ironically heard it, however, during Armin van Buuren’s visit last December 10.

• “Changing Ways” by Giuseppe Ottaviani feat. Francesco M. [U] I mentioned elsewhere that I consider Giuseppe Ottaviani to be the best epic trance producer. I have actually featured his song “No More Alone” in last December’s Playlist. While this is not as anthemic as PvD’s “Home”, this sounds more uplifting and danceable.

• “Today” by Peyton. This is possibly the most obscure track I’ve ever featured in a Playlist or tried to do research on. I only heard of this song as part of Bigfish Manila’s Track Record Volume 2 compilation. There’s practically zero information about this song on the Web and that makes me question whether this song’s title or artist is correct. But, whatever, I really, really, really love this dance anthem.

• “New Divide” by Linkin Park. [W] [U] I like this Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen track—it has Linkin Park written all over it. Comparisons have been made to another LP song “What I’ve Done” written for the first Transformers movie (and included in the August 2007 Playlist) and I have to say I like the earlier one better. You should check out the mash-ups of these two songs on YouTube.

• “Love Story” by Taylor Swift. [W] [U] I admitted that I love this cheesy song once and I’m not ashamed to declare it again. (This song holds a special place in my heart for reasons I won’t admit, however.)

• “Release Me” by Agnes Carlsson. [W] [U] LSS-worth bubblegum dance-pop goodness.

• “Human Nature” by Billy Crawford. [U] Michael Jackson’s death last June is definitely this year’s (and maybe this decade’s) biggest music news. And while Billy Crawford’s cover predates the death, I consider this song this year’s best MJ remake. BTW, This Is It is a must watch.

• “When Love Takes Over” by David Guetta feat. Kelly Rowland. [W] [U] This dance track hit #1 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs and deservedly so.

• “Permanent” by David Cook. [W] [U] This is a hauntingly beautiful rock ballad by last year’s American Idol.

• “Whatcha Say” by Jason Derülo. [W] [U] I must say that this song’s chorus is very peculiarly sounding, being liberally sampled from Imogen Heap’s “Hide and Seek”. But the resulting production as an R&B track is very nicely done.