For the last handful of years, I've been creating a special playlist to celebrate my birthday. Some of the tracks are things from my existing collection that I love, and others are a set of items that were just purchased.

What was I influenced by in the last year? Well, my friend Jen is always a great influence, sharing her amazing love of new bands and interesting new albums from messages online and videos and bands she is seeing. Examples like The Lumineers, Of Monsters and Men, and her longer reaching exposure from previous years like Automatic Loveletter and Taylor Swift. I've spent more time browsing Pandora this last year, and that found me a bunch of related music. So by playing artists like Sara Bareillis led me to Ingrid Michaelson and Lana Del Rey. Of course, TV shows are influential to me, although I don't think I watched quite as many shows with amazing music this year as I was bookmarking last year. Andrew Belle and The Script, Ross Copperman and Civil Twilight - all were introduced to me because of TV shows. Country artists who lean more towards the pop-side also gave me cause to keep looking for more people like what was shown on Nashville: I bought the whole Missy Higgins album on sale, as well as the older The Band Perry. I also found Ashley Monroe and Pistol Annies, with more Carrie Underwood.

What is your favorite track for this year?