Some best of the year lists are starting to come out, like Blender's top 33 (meh) and Paste (Paste website appears to be down, but the link should work again at some point).
I can't listen to Christmas music until I've eaten Thanksgiving dinner, but the minute I belch I'm playing Dunham Van Durham's Christmas from the Heartland. I'm a bit biased since this album's artwork is one of my photos, but it's a really enjoyable and unique Christmas album. It may be the perfect Christmas album for use during work because there's no singing. It has a folksy, Americana flair. I'm telling you, I think you'll like it.
I'm checking out a bunch of new music lately, mostly due to a friend passing me some Paste magazines from a couple of months ago. One band that has me very pumped is Right Away, Great Captain! Check them out on MySpace. Check out their new album, The Eventually Home
My computer speakers have been an embarrasing part of my music enjoyment. The built in speakers in my Gateway Notebook are terrible so I always use external speakers, which are probably 6 years old. For a year they have been continually cutting out because of multiple frayed wire issues. So I went to pick up another cheapo pair of externals and discovered a whole new world of computer sound systems that I didn't know existed. Shame on me. Thanks to some birthday money (given by people who love me!) I purchased the Logitech Z-2300 THX-Certified 200-Watt 2.1 Speaker System (click for proper response). I didn't go surround 5.1 or anything, but I can now rattle the windows upstairs with an 8-inch long-throw subwoofer (click). One of the best purchases I've made to increase my enjoyment of great music.
Here are two of the first songs I played to see how great this system sounds. First, Elbow: "Grounds for Divorce" (warning: come chick is dancing around in a bar)...
Radiohead: "The National Anthem"...