What bigger heroine has 2009 offered us than Susan Boyle? She started the year a dowdy spinster. An appearance on Britain’s Got Talent and over 100 million Youtube views later and she ends the year as one of the biggest selling album artists of 2009 worldwide. Let us not forget the performance that started it all.

Other people became known for very different reasons this year. Tom O’ C (aka T O’ Pain) became an accidental rap sensation overnight, Christian Bale was caught on tape freaking out at a film crew member and Kanye had a bad year all round. Firstly, with the South Park Gay Fish parody and secondly with his interruption of Taylor Swift’s MTV award speech, an event which became an internet meme albeit an ephemeral one.

The year’s longest lasting internet meme was Play him off Keyboard Cat which spawned hundreds of video remixes and mashups like this Hall and Oates version while close behind was anything involving autotune including autotuned news reports and ads.

For once-off viral videos, nothing beats David, a young boy whose dazed state after a visit to the dentist was captured by his dad and uploaded to the web. For those looking to get their dance craze on, you should watch the wedding video entrance to end them all and those who can’t get enough of cute kids should check out the floppy-haired five year old playing Folsom Prison Blues or the less innocent but equally impressive redhead kid dancing to dirty rap songs.

Microsoft took one step forward but two steps back in their video campaigns this year. While the waterslide viral video had people guessing if it was real or fake, the subsequent Windows 7 launch party cringefest and the Songsmith ad did nothing to convince us that Microsoft have a clue.

My own personal favourite web bits of the year though are Zander Bleck and the Tuts My Barreh karaoke fail. The former, an over-earnest model turned douchebag singer and the latter, a Mariah Carey fan with poor yet hilarious English translation skills. My vote for cover of the year goes to the Ukrainian band covering Katy Perry’s Hot and Cold in a Balkan style.

2. Fighting with Wire VS ASIWYFA
A novel way to promote a gig. Derry’s Fighting with Wire respond in the style of a wrestling interview to the challenge of Belfast’s And So I Watch You From Afar to drum up interest in their May 2nd Belfast show.

3. I didn’t know I was Pregnant
Ham Sandwich singer Niamh Farrell participated in an American show recently to recount her unexpected pregnancy. The reconstruction unfortunately contains some of the worst Irish accents you’ll ever hear..


4. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The final Harry Potter film gets a jaw-dropping trailer that suggests we may be in for a big ending.