Consider this the beginning of my official letter-writing campaign to get at least one Oscar for The Muppets, one of my favorite movies of the year.

I looked forward to Jason Segel and James Bobin’s take on my favorite Jim Henson characters for a while and when it finally reached the screen, it was everything I’d hoped for and more. It had the feel of one of the classic Muppet movies and yet, it felt updated for today’s audience.

One of my favorite parts of the movie was the terrific soundtrack that was overseen by music supervisor, Bret McKenzie, aka Rhymenocerous, aka one half of Flight of the Conchords.

McKenzie was responsible for the opening number, “Life’s a Happy Song” and the pivotal “Man or Muppet” song:

My favorite musical moment of the movie, however, comes early on in the plot, when Gary and Walter are trying to convince Kermit to get the gang back together and put on a show. Kermit sings this very sweet, heartfelt tune in the hallway of his office called “Pictures in My Head,” written by Jeannie Lurie, Aris Archontis, and Chen Neeman (produced by McKenzie).

That song represents what I think a lot of people love about the Muppets. Sure they are nostalgic and a little corny, but they are also a beloved part of pop culture and American society. Jim Henson’s creations have always been a favorite of mine and I’m so glad that their movie delighted so many people this year.

My hope is that the Academy Awards this year will acknowledge the great songwriting of McKenzie and his team and at least nominate one song for an Oscar. I’d prefer if it was “Pictures in My Head”, but honestly, the whole soundtrack is great and I’d be happy with just one song being recognized. I truly can’t think of a reason why they shouldn’t be nominated. Randy Newman’s been nominated time and time again. Why can’t The Muppets?

Clever songwriting at pivotal times during the film…what are the actual requirements for a song to be nominated for “Best Song”? Whatever they are, I am unaware of any reason why The Muppets don’t qualify or are not deserving.

I encourage you to tweet #muppetsbestsongoscar if you agree with what I’m saying. Who knows? Maybe we’ll be able to inspire some voters online.

I come from a very musical family. My mom and dad were in a folk band in college called The North Door Singers (Google them). They sing at church. My brother sang at our wedding and could always carry a tune.

I’ve never had that confidence. I sang when I was a kid in church choirs and at campfires and I even tried playing the piano for like two weeks. But performing music never really stuck on me like it did with the rest of my family. That didn’t keep me from loving music. Not even a little.

My family, God bless them, has always said, “But you have a great voice! You should sing.” NO.

OK, maybe.

For the past several weeks, Jake and I have been learning how to play guitar from my Dad. Each Wednesday, my mom cooks us dinner and we meet at their house for a few hours to learn new chords, progressions and lately, songs.

Last week we learned our first real song — an original that was written by our friends out in Wyoming (also known as the Cowboy-version of the Osmonds) for my niece. The three of us learned the song and played it for her and the rest of our family last weekend.

This week, I got to bring a song that I wanted to learn — “Poison & Wine” by The Civil Wars (which you may be familiar with if you pay attention here). And last night, I went home and I sang it to my wife. I didn’t sing it well, but I sang it.

I sent a text to my dad today that read:

I am terrified of singing. Having a guitar in front of me as a shield helps.

It’s the truth.

I still don’t think I can sing. People may pooh pooh that thought, but if you’ve ever heard anyone else in my family sing, you’d understand my trepidation. But ever since I started learning how to play guitar, I’m not as scared to actually do it as I once was. Having that shield/security blanket sure helps because if I think I sound bad, I can just play louder.

Regardless of that, Wednesday nights have been this wonderful combination of family and learning something new and it’s a lot of fun.

Special thanks to Alli who snapped the photo in this post.

I love finding new music. I do. (I promise this isn’t turning into a music blog.) I love particularly when recommendation engines work. The other day, I was browsing the Amazon MP3 music and they suggested an album to me by Sarah Jarosz. It’s reasoning? Because I previously purchased music by: The Civil Wars, The Belle Brigade and The Head and the Heart (thanks for that one, Tyson). Since these are probably my three favorite discoveries of the year, I purchased the album sight unseen.

What a great recommendation! Since I’m in this Americana/Bluegrass/Folk mode right now, this album is right up my alley. Loving this song, Come Around, particularly, but the whole album is pretty great. Jarosz is a less-sleepy version of Norah Jones. Check her out if any of this sounds good to you:

I want to take pictures as beautiful as Allister Ann, the photographer who has accompanied my new favorite band, The Civil Wars, on their tour this summer.

When they came to KC’s Crosstown Station, I tried to get some of my own, which were fine, but when I compare them to the ones that have been posted to The Civil Wars’ Tour Diary…they’re just not quite as engaging.

The top photo is Allister Ann’s from the Newport Music festival, the second one is a shot of John Paul playing his guitar that I took. Clicking that one takes you through to the whole set of shots I took.

You can decide which you like better.

What struck me when listening to this song was how similar the first few bars on the piano are to the banjo notes that we all know from our childhood.

What was funny about that realization was how it reminded me of another song comparison from when I was much younger.

I remember when Oasis was one of the biggest bands on the planet and their sophomore album, (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, was (and continues to be) one of my favorite albums of all time. I remember the comparisons that were continually made to The Beatles and I particularly remember how Noel Gallagher caught a lot of flak because the opening of his opus, “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” sounded so much like John Lennon’s iconic, “Imagine.”

And it does. The comparison is obvious.

You know what I have to say?

Who freaking cares.

There’s a big difference between inspiration and derivation.

Ecclesiastes 1:9 states:

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

I don’t agree with this statement. While our lives are informed and inspired by our experiences that precede us, we are blessed with the ability to build and to create something anew.

We all have that ability. That’s why out and out stealing other people’s content and repurposing it as your own is so unfortunate.

There’s a lesson here somewhere.

It’s OK to be inspired by others, to even use something as simple as an opening hook to a song to help you tell your own story. “Bluebird” and “Don’t Look Back in Anger” may be inspired by “The Rainbow Connection” and “Imagine”, respectively, but that doesn’t make them any less great on their own.

Find inspiration in your life and use it to create new things, things that are your own. What inspires you?

I’ve had this song in my head for a couple days now, mostly because of the brilliant lyric that closes the song:

I wanna have pride like my mother has,
And not like the kind in the Bible that turns you bad.
And I wanna have friends that I can trust,
that love me for the man I’ve become and not the man that I was.

The song is off of The Avett Brothers’ terrific album, I and Love and You, which is great if you like Mumford & Sons and the like…

Currently, the band that is best filling that for me is The Belle Brigade, also known as brother-sister duo Ethan and Barbara Gruska, who describe themselves on their Facebook page as such:

Barbara and Ethan met when Ethan was born. They knew they were brother and sister but they did not know that 19 years in the future they would form a band. The future happened and now they have a band, a facebook page, a myspace page and some other stuff they’ve acquired over the years.

I’m really digging their song, “Losers,” a lot, which they recently performed on Conan. Here’s the official video.

And while you’re in a music-listening, video-watching mood, check out this fabulous video I caught at The Civil Wars at The Bottleneck in Lawrence. I love that I caught Joy Williams telling the story of how she and John Paul White met. And then, there’s their amazing performance of “Falling”.

What are you currently listening to?

In some ways, music doesn’t get much more modest or minimalist than it is in the hands of The Civil Wars, a duo comprised of California-to-Nashville transplant Joy Williams and her Alabaman partner, John Paul White. They travel without a backup band, and on their first full-length album, Barton Hollow, the bare-bones live arrangements that fans hear on the road are fleshed out with just the barest of acoustic accoutrements. Each song is an intimate conversation, and no third wheels or dinner-party chatter are going to interrupt that gorgeous, haunting hush.

I just can’t get over how great these two are…

Go buy their album now. It’s on sale for the rest of March from AmazonMP3 for 5 bucks.

Over the last 12 months, I’ve come across some incredible artists…artists that I never knew until 2010. Some were variations on stuff I was familiar with while others were well-lauded bands online and one was a real special discovery thanks to last.fm‘s recommended radio.

These are my choices, but I don’t consider myself a music guru by any means. My taste tends to center around what Alli likes to call “sad-bastardy” music and there’s certainly some of that on my list, but there is a little bit of range.

Mumford & Sons, Sigh No More

So, first and foremost I had to choose this English folk rock band that was described to me originally (and somewhat erroneously, in my opinion, even though they do rock a mean banjo) as “Irish Bluegrass”. Their harmonies and arrangements are just sublime and the entire album is great. Mumford & Sons was somewhat of an online darling this year, but that doesn’t make them any less great. Take a listen to “The Cave” below, but also be sure to check out “Awake My Soul” and “Little Lion Man”.

Buy “Sigh No More” from Mumford & Sons
iTunes | Amazon MP3 | Amazon (CD)

Jónsi, Go

As a part of the band Sigur Rós, singer Jónsi never really garnered much of my attention. I’ve appreciated their ethereal approach, but I had other ambient music that I preferred over theirs. However, my friend Phil recommended Jónsi to me based on what he knows about my music tastes. I trust Phil…he always comes up with amazing stuff, but more on that later…

Jónsi’s first single was called “Go Do” and is just a joyous celebratory song with wonderful lyrics. Every year I put together a video for my wife’s dance team and as soon as I heard this song, I knew that I would use it for this year’s team.

“You should always know that we can do anything.“

Buy “Go” from Jónsi
iTunes | Amazon MP3 | Amazon (CD)

Broken Bells, Broken Bells

It seems to me that Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse, can do very little wrong when it comes to collaborations. You may know him from such productions as The Grey Album, an experiment in which he combined lyrics from Jay-Z’s Black Album with The Beatles’ White Album. More famously, you might know his collaboration with Cee-Lo Green as Gnarls Barkley. This year, he came forward with another genius collaboration that was once again brought to my attention from my friend and music spirit animal, Phil. Broken Bells once again took Danger Mouse’s mad production skills and combined them with the vocals of The Shins frontman James Mercer. Their self-titled debut was my jam of the early summer.

Everything about the album was sublime, from the subtle beats to Mercer’s ethereal voice, Broken Bells quickly became one of my go-to albums for the workday. The first single off the album, “The High Road,” was absolutely brilliant. You should probably also check out the video for “The Ghost Inside,” which feature’s Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks and a spaceship.

Buy “Broken Bells” from Broken Bells
iTunes | Amazon MP3 | Amazon.com (CD)

Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, The Social Network Soundtrack

One of the benefits of working where I do is free movies. It’s an awesome benefit for a cinephile like myself and allows me to see movies that I really like multiple times for no additional cost. The one movie that really fell into that category this year was The Social Network, David Fincher’s absolutely brilliant movie about the early days of Facebook. One of the reasons that the film works so well is not just the amazing performances of Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake and not just Aaron Sorkin’s tight script, but the soundtrack and score from Nine Inch Nails’ frontman Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

The combination of electronic music with subtle piano throughout the film really makes it a character in the movie, never taking away from the scenes, but really augmenting the emotions and actions of the actors. I never thought that I would love something that Trent Reznor did so much, but this entire album is wonderful on its own and provides terrific background music for just about any occasion. The opening song, “Hand Covers Bruise,” is a great example.

Buy The Social Network Soundtrack from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
iTunes | Amazon MP3 | Amazon.com (CD)

The Rescues, Let Loose the Horses

There’s something about discovering music that no one in your circle of friends really knows anything about. This year, thanks to Last.fm, I stumbled onto a track called “My Heart With You” by a quartet out of Los Angeles called The Rescues.

This indie folk group made up of Rob Giles, Kyler England, Adrianne Gonzalez and Gabriel Mann first released an EP made up of four brilliant tracks and then followed up with their first major label release, Let Loose the Horses this summer.

There is so much that I love about this group: they all sing, they all play instruments, their arrangements are gorgeous, their harmonies stir my soul. They even managed to turn one of the most trite songs of the summer, Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” into something brilliant.

Each week it seems like I fall in love with a new song from their album. Lately, it’s been this live version of “You’re Not Listening” from The Troubadour in Los Angeles. Give it a listen and try and tell me with a straight face that it isn’t amazing.

Buy “Let Loose the Horses” from The Rescues
iTunes | Amazon MP3 | Amazon.com (CD)

So there’s my list. Others that would be near the list: Kaleidoscope Heart by Sara Bareilles, Take a Bow by Greg Laswell, Imogen Heap’s Ellipse, Lungs by Florence + the Machine.

I’ve been getting other people’s opinions on Facebook and Twitter. There are plenty of opinions out there, but I think we can all agree that if you think that Justin Bieber, Ke$ha, Nicky Minaj or Rascal Flatts should be anywhere near this list, we probably shouldn’t be friends.

Even so, I’m interested in hearing your opinion. What was your favorite music of the year?