2009 was an amazing year for music. Ears and feet were kept consistently happy with every kind of genre in music. Considering how much great music we listened to this year, this is a much abbreviated list of some of the best albums to have been released this year.

Brooklyn trio Au Revoir Simone's set-up is simple; three keyboards, a vintage drum machine and hand percussion. The creation is dreamy electronic pop music that carries a blissful sensation over to the listener. Since the release of their debut album in 2005, the group toured the U.S. and eventually took their show overseas covering areas in Iceland, Europe and Japan.

This past May the trio released their third album, Still Night, Still Light, released on the band's own label, Our Secret Record Company. Effortless voices, keyboards and drum machines were woven to create a folk record without folk instruments. The album, the group explains, is their intimate tour diary chronicling one of the most intense and fun times of their lives. Au Revoir Simone's music continues to be the heartfelt result of three girls following their dreams.

LaRoux

South Londoner Elly Jackson, is the ginger-freckled 21-year-old electro-pop-spirit behind La Roux (French for "the red haired one") released her self-titled debut album this year. Jackson along with co-writer, co-producer Ben Langmaid, both 80's obsessed individuals, collaborated to produce music inspired by that decade. A revival of the 80's runs apparent from every beat of their music to every inch of Jackson's style and attitude, and although La Roux looks back to the 80's for inspiration her album is unequivocally now, not then.

White Lies

White Lies released their debut album To Lose My Life earlier this year and the record, not surprisingly, immediately shot to No. 1 on the UK albums chart upon the week of its release. Following the debut album's release the band opened for The Cure at the NME Big Gig at London's premier O2 venue embarked on tours with Snow Patrol and Glasvegas in Europe and played to a massive crowd at this year's Coachella Music Festival. Stars, the song that has haunted us through countless office hours of editing and days stuck in traffic is just one of the many moody Joy Division-esque tracks that make us obsessed with these British newcomers.

Royksopp

Formed in 1998, Norway's now infamous electronic duo and one of our all time favorite bands, Royksopp released their long awaited third full-length album earlier in March of this year. Junior is an electronic smorgasbord of what the band does best: electro-melancholy hits with a touch of dance. This winter long time band- and schoolmates Torbjorn Brundtland and Svein Berge will release the much anticipated follow up album, Senior.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Last year, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs began work on a new record with producers Dave Sitek and Nick Launay. "We usually go into these things totally blind," Karen O said. "We have no idea what's going to happen when we sit down." This empty page feeling was helped by geography: they began writing the record in the middle of a snowstorm, in a hundred-year-old barn in rural Massachusetts."You looked out the window and it was just pastures and pastures of snow-covered fields," she said. Zinner had brought along a synthesizer to work with during the writing session, not expecting it to end up on the album. "That was an old keyboard I bought on eBay," he said. "Literally, it was the first day we were setting up, plugging things in. Ten minutes later, we'd written that song 'Skeletons.'" The song - and the whole record - have a new feeling of space and atmosphere that's unusual for the band. "Obviously, synths have been in rock music forever," Zinner says. "But to us it feels new, which is all we really care about - that excitement." The phenomenal result is this year's album, It's Blitz.

Muse

British trio Muse released their fifth album, The Resistance, this fall. Since forming the band in 1994, the band, comprised of vocalist/guitarist Matthew Bellamy, bassist Chris Wolstenholme, and drummer Dominic Howard have consistently created tracks that have fused a myriad of influences, including classical, electronica and rock, into one. Their latest album is one of our favorites from this year's packed playlist and will stay on repeat on our iPods for months to come.