Top Albums 2009
UPDATE: There were some issues with the Silverlight app before but they’ve been fixed. I was using a custom MP3 encoder to get live audio visualizations in the app but it was crashing in certain browsers. Everything should be working now (sans visualization), but don’t hesitate to let me know if you’re running into issues. The source, by the way, still includes the audio visualization and if someone can see where I’ve messed things up I’d love to know about it!
I realize that 2010 is officially 1/12 over and so any excuse about waiting until the last minute to allow for late breaking slam dunks is going to seem disingenuous. The truth is that over Christmas vacation, I compiled most of the list and even wrote 90% of a Silverlight app for showcasing it. I made the mistake, though, of including a place for a “blurb” about each album in the app and it’s taken me until tonight to write all of those. Well, without further ado, here it is: my best albums of 2009.
This is (as I mentioned) a Silverlight 3 app. You’re welcome to download the source (here) and do with it as you please. It uses the completely awesome Saluse Media Kit to create the playback visualization bars (in conjunction with the must have WriteableBitmapEx extensions for WriteableBitmap). If you have your own list of 25 albums, it would be easy to reuse this. It’s driven by an XML file. Expect more lists from in the near future (including the already compiled best albums of the decade which just need blurbs now).
Alan Le
02 feb 2010
Love the transition when selecting an album. Also excellent song selection.
Kurt Brockett
02 feb 2010
Where is the “add all to my Zune Playlist” button
Guess I’ll have to write them all down and create the Robby’s greatest hits playlist.
Great little app. Shucks! Right clicked to see if I could install as OOB.
Thanks for sharing Robby.
ahura mazda
03 feb 2010
Hi,
I’m the author of Saluse MediaKit.
Is the MediaKit crashing out on you? If you let me know, I can see if I can fix any problems.
ram
03 feb 2010
Wow. The design is absolutely awesome and your music selection is fantastic. I love your blog !
ram
03 feb 2010
BTW, do you know why the text is blurry ? it may be the TextHintingMode…
Dave
03 feb 2010
Looks great, responds quickly and transitions are smooth. Fantastic.
Robby Ingebretsen
03 feb 2010
Thanks for all the comments everyone and for the nice things you have to say about the app and the music selection!
@Alan, Kurt, Dave – Thanks guys!
@Ahura – I don’ tknow if it’s the media kit itself or the way I was using. I’d love to know what you think. If you have time, you can download the source for the app and see if you can identify the issue. It worked fine for me while debugging…wondering if maybe I had the songs cached already and the issue was with the download.
@ram – I think the text is blurry because I’ve got the perspective transform on it. It actually makes everything a little blurry
. There may be a way to sort that out… I didn’t look into it too much since I had a very tight deadline on the app 
.
John C
04 feb 2010
Great app and tunes Robby. Looking forward to your albums of the decade.
emmanuel buah
04 feb 2010
One of the very few blog in relation to silverlight that makes me feel silverlight can be the base for stunning applications not the many and everyday “how to download .xap” etc. It truly highlights the power of Silverlight.
ram
06 feb 2010
Really strange here: the track number and song title/author does not show up at all. I have SL3 (I tried SL4 Beta), WinXP, and I’m under Chrome (I tried IE8). Have you ever had this problem ? Do you think it’s a Silverlight bug ? Or is this computer a piece of crap ?