I managed to dredge up my memories of news, shows, and records that happened this past year. It wasn’t easy. I’ve fried a lot of brain cells with black coffee and fumes from the subway, so remembering what I had for dinner the night before is sometimes a chore.  Not to mention that a lot of albums have come across my desk, I spent a lot of time listening to music, almost to an obsessive level sometimes.

So to highlight my favorite stuff of the year, never mind remembering what exactly came out this year, is sorta fucking hard.  I mean the last CD I really loved that I got is a CD version of two Scream records, and that band broke up in 1990.  Most of the bands I really like are off the beaten path even in punk rock, and a bunch of them aren’t even active any more.

Yes, I really am that hip.

But I figured that if I instead thought of what I remembered about the year in more general terms, then that’ll work.  So here we are. And while the names that you see here might not be ones you recognized this past year, what’s here was still pretty significant to me and in the end, in some way to everyone.

Read more after the jump.

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Seminal record producer Jerry Finn has been taken off life support. Finn suffered a brain hemorrhage in July. Finn produced and mixed some of the biggest and most crucial albums of the 90s. He worked with bands like Rancid, Green Day, Morrissey, Alkaline Trio, The Vandals and Jawbreaker.