An Ear For An Era: 2009

This was seven years ago. 2009 was the year we bought our house. Not sure what the significance is there, it just seems like the only real major life event that happened in 2009. There was probably more.

I just got a new computer and this is my first blog entry using it, so it feels weird. The editor looks more like a word document now. It also screwed up my whole process of playlist creation/use, since on this computer all of my music suddenly has 0 plays. And I can no longer use my "date added" field, a perk that lasted from 2006 to 2009. It's fine, it just took a long time to get that playlist count cleared up on the old computer. Oh well.

So I don't have record and don't remember what album started 2009 here. But it shouldn't matter. 2009 had some very good music. I also can't find any posts I made here summarizing the best of the year of 2009 (or 2010 for that matter), which is weird. I must have only made my declarations on Facebook or something.

It seemed like a sort of high watermark for the "indie rock" music I listened to in those days. Kind of the peak of an era. So I'll start with said indie rock.

The who's who of indie rock generally contributed to the phenomenal compilation called Dark Was The Night. That compilation is what had me realize that there were a lot of good-to-great bands active in the indie scene. In reverse alphabetical order...Yo La Tengo*, Sufjan Stevens, Stuart Murdoch**, Spoon***, Sharon Jones, The New Pornographers****, The National, Iron & Wine*****, Grizzly Bear (with Feist!)******, Feist (with Ben Gibbard!), Dirty Projectors (with David Byrne!)*******, The Decemberists********, Dave Sitek*********, Conor Oberst (with Gillian Welch!), Cat Power, Bon Iver**********, Blonde Redhead, Arcade Fire, Antony (with Bryce Dessner!)***********, and many more came together and put out some of their best material. It's the most solid front-to-back two disc long compilation I may have ever heard.

*Yo La Tengo also put out Popular Songs, which does what all of my favorite YLT albums do. Starts with some amazing pop songs and ends with some super long guitar jams that you wish were even super longer.

**Stuart Murdoch's project God Help the Girl put out their self-titled album and it was quite lovely. Some alternate versions of Belle & Sebastian hits and other originals that are just amazing because Murdoch is a pop songwriting genius, I can't believe I missed the actual film when it was in theaters! I assumed it would be on demand somewhere by now...

***Spoon also put out an EP called Got Nuffin. They are always great.

****Some New Pornographers members put out solo albums. A.C. Newman's Get Guilty is classic power pop, and Neko Case is discussed lower down.

*****Iron & Wine put out a collection of B-sides and rarities, which was quite nice and minimalist compared to his recent output.

******Grizzly Bear put out Veckatimest, which is a lovely album but got way too hyped up in my opinion.

*******Dirty Projectors had their breakthrough album Bitte Orca come out, which is very much a contender for album of the year. Just ridiculous harmonizing and beautiful melodies. The songs do seem very carefully constructed but still passionate and pretty, similar to Brian Wilson's work. This song is a bit on the long side, but its different parts demonstrate all of my favorite aspects of the album as a whole.

Dirty Projectors "Useful Chamber"

********The Decemberists put out Hazards of Love, which I got on vinyl and didn't have a download card, so I didn't listen to it very much. I later got the digital stuff because it was $5 or something. But I still haven't listened to it enough to fairly judge it.

*********Dave Sitek didn't put anything out that I know of, but his TV On The Radio compatriot Kyp Malone put out a couple albums with his side projects. Dissolver by Iran was one of those projects, and it just has a great full sound with a poppier topside (if that makes any sense), a more "typical indie rock" album backed by some patented TVOTR guitars. He also had a project called Rain Machine, and some of the songs could be TVOTR all over, since he sang on it as well. "Smiling Black Faces" and "Give Blood" really call to mind his work in his "major" project.

**********Bon Iver put out an EP called Blood Bank which was very autotuned and processed and weird. But still quite soulful. He also put out an album with his side project Volcano Choir, mentioned in the "Etc" section.

***********Antony and his The Johnsons put out The Crying Light, one of my favorite Antony albums probably.

Another compilation that seemed like kind of a big deal was called War Child Presents Heroes, featuring modern artists covering old songs, where the cover artists were chosen by the original writers/performers. So it's kind of hit-or-miss (Lily Allen does no justice to The Clash, I'm sorry to say! But Rufus Wainwright tackling Brian Wilson is quite nice...) but it was quite poignant to have TV On The Radio covering "Heroes" by David Bowie. I was already a big TVOTR fan obviously, and already had a five star rating on this cover, and I know Bowie had worked with them before so it was no surprise that he chose them, but it's just such a powerful moment. 

Speaking of covers, the amazing Neko Case put out one of her better albums Middle Cyclone and in addition to great cover art, she covered a somewhat obscure Harry Nilsson song "Don't Forget Me." I remember when she was on Elvis Costello's TV show discussing Nilsson's songwriting and how he could make you laugh and cry within the same line. 

Neko Case "Don't Forget Me"

Don't get me wrong; the whole album is great and Case's songwriting is top notch. I'm just a sucker for one great artist showing appreciation for another great artist.

The Antlers also came out in 2009. Hospice is about as devastatingly sad as the title may suggest. So beautiful, so sad, so personable...I don't know what else to say about it right now. But listen to it if you are in the mood.

Charlotte Gainsbourg had an amazing album called IRM which was produced by Beck. The French abbreviation for MRI, the album is amazingly personal while also being supremely catchy. I know this was high on my list for the year. Her voice is so versatile, sometimes calling to mind her mother Jane Birkin's whisper singing and sometimes with much more power behind it. I think Beck's production was a huge asset as well to make the songs so catchy.

Charlotte Gainsbourg "Heaven Can Wait"

Sonic Youth. I don't know if The Eternal was expected to be their final album, but here we are. Farewell to the eternal sonic youth. It does feel like a good throwback SY album after developing some semblance of "maturity" on Rather Ripped, The Eternal ended up sounding quite youthful even for Sonic Youth. Sort of poppy, completely fearless, and completely ripping. This is a band that has played together for decades and can make a masterpiece out of something that feels like they're just messing around. Did that come across right?

My "official" declared favorite album of 2009 was xx by the xx.  Even at the time I remember it being more of a protest vote than anything though. With (what I viewed at the time as) the overdone nature of the big popular indie rock albums of the year by bands like Animal Collective, Dirty Projectors, and Grizzly Bear, I wanted to go with something minimalist, and this album suited that desire just fine. I just loved all the stripped down empty spaces, how you can say so much with the notes you don't play and all that. The world feels big when you listen to this album, and the vocals feel so small but so significant. Does that make sense? 

the xx, "Heart Skipped a Beat" (Live)

On another hand, Japandroids played something I may call maximalist indie rock with only two people in the band. Post-Nothing just has such a huge sound to it that it makes it all that much more impressive. One of my favorites of the year for sure. Those cymbals!

Let's talk about some of the more out-there indie music that wouldn't fit as well on those compilations though.

Tyondai Braxton released his first post-Battles album Central Market and I dug it. I remember at the time I compared it to a Danny Elfman Tim Burton score, but there is much more to it than that. There's a lot of Battles-esque rhythm here, it's almost as if Atlas-era Battles worked extensively with an orchestra to create a score for a Beetlejuice-era Burton film taking place in a circus or haunted house or something. I'm posting a lot of videos in this entry. Credit the new computer that allows me to do so without pulling my hair out!

Tyondai Braxton, "Central Market"

Beloved Jim O'Rourke had his album The Visitor, which was just one long somewhat minimalist track. I prefer albums to be broken up into songs for the sake of having stopping points when necessary, but listening to this is really worth finding the time to sit down and take 38 minutes to let it wash over me.

After the breakup of Black Eyes, the more shrill/noisy/off-putting (in the BEST way!) singer started a new band Mi Ami. I think I wanted to call them post post hardcore or something. I just remember tracking down their first album Watersports at Wax Trax and being impressed that an older guy (maybe 60s?) told me how much he liked the album. And I remember hoping I'm like that when I'm that age, open minded enough to listen to something as out there as Mi Ami, something most of my friends would never ever want to listen to even when we were all so forward thinking in our 20s.

I'm sure I wrote it somewhere, but if it's not here I don't know: YACHT did their best to fill the LCD Soundsystem hole the year had in new music. See Mystery Lights was a lot of fun. And James Murphy must have been impressed enough himself, since it was on his DFA Records. Not that it's particularly similar, it just hit some of the same beats in my mind. I wasn't really dancing any more in 2009, but if I was, I would hope to hear this song at all the clubs and I would go nuts over it. (Disclosure: I have no idea if they played this at the indie club nights)

Yacht, "Psychic City (Voodoo City)"

Another band that probably stormed the indie dance floor was Phoenix. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix was quite the sensation, I recall, with the inescapable "Lisztomania" and "1901" (my personal favorite). Oddly, I don't really care for the other albums of theirs I've heard but once they went full on pop, they became infectious and I could not resist their jams.

Peter Bjorn & John took a move for the more dancey and beat oriented with Living Thing. Amusingly profane, immensely charming, and somehow a big hit with rappers? Wale rapped over a PB&J song on his Back to the Feature mixtape, and then a full mixtape entitled Re-Living Thing came out with the likes of Talib Kweli, Bun B, Rhymefest, Big Sean, GZA, and many many more rapping over PB&J songs.

It really was a big year for combining indie rock and hip hop. There was a mashup album of Sufjan Stevens songs with artists like Aesop Rock, Outkast, and Blackalicious. The Black Keys worked with a bunch of hip hop artists on Blakroc. And N.A.S.A. came out with their only album The Spirit of Apollo. I remember the Pitchfork review of that album was overly snarky and negative, while the album itself is just positivity and unity and everything that is good in this world. They brought together artists from different worlds on tracks that are surprisingly coherent. David Byrne singing the chorus for Chali 2na, Karen O going toe-to-toe with Ol' Dirty Bastard & Fatlip, Tom Waits and Kool Keith trying to out-eccentric each other...the album is just a big funky party where you don't care about genre. It's just fun.

Raekwon released a long awaited sequel album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...Pt. II. I feel like I am supposed to like Wu-Tang projects more than I often turn out to, so I end up getting most of the solo material from Raekwon and Ghostface in particular and then don't always fully enjoy what I'm listening to. But the reason I keep coming back to these guys is albums like this. Gritty stories of the streets, songs that recall the classic full-group Wu-Tang albums like "House of Flying Daggers" (featuring pretty much the whole crew), heartfelt soul hip hop ballads, and just a fully immersive album make some of it (maybe 30% of the material these still very prolific gentlemen release) must-hear music.

Born Like This by Doom is a highlight of his catalog and his first since dropping the MF from his name. I don't know what else to put here, I just know it's good enough to bring up here. I just like it? And I remember listening to it at the old apartment while walking my dog. And the one kind of homophobic song but his explanation was that he was a character that's a villain so what do you expect? That song still makes me a bit uncomfortable.

And that made me appreciate Us by Brother Ali that much more, which includes a verse about the struggles of a gay character, something that even as recently as 2009 was somewhat unheard of in hip hop.

I was quite blown away by Aceyalone & The Lonely Ones, an album that is pretty much classic soul/jazz but also hip hop. It's weird how well it works.

I should have just made my #1 album The Ecstatic by Mos Def. I think I put it at #2 when I made said list, but in retrospect it is probably my favorite. It just doesn't let up. Very few features, it's mostly just one of the greatest rappers over some amazing beats. But very progressive. Very felt and awake and just entertaining. 

Mos Def "Quiet Dog Bite Hard"

And now he doesn't even go by Mos Def anymore. And may be retiring from music after his next album. If it's anything near The Ecstatic, he will certainly be ending on a high note.

Etc. (note: this will be in a weird order because of the aforementioned inability to use last play times for half of the 2009 stuff. so that's why it will be in reverse alphabetical order for a while)

• Wilco went pretty poppy with Wilco (the album). It's pretty good to revisit, but I'd still prefer to listen to the classic albums. That song with Feist is pretty enjoyable though.
• Eskimo Snow by Why? kind of continued down the path of their previous album but it was less novel at the time so I didn't give it as much attention. But if you have time check out the song "The Blackest Purse" because it's quite good.
• White Rabbits! I remember them! I liked It's Frightening. They always kind of sounded like Spoon Jr (they did have Britt Daniel produce the album), but the two drummers had an interesting impact on the beat.
• I need to spend some more time with that Volcano Choir album because it is quite lovely.
• tUnE-yArDs came out in 2009 even though back then it was pretty much Merrill Garbus and her looping machine. BiRd-BrAiNs had some very awesome moments, but it was mostly just a hint at things to com.
• Sun O))) was my introduction to whatever you call that droney type of metal. Monoliths & Dimensions was such a huge album...
• I didn't get into St. Vincent until a couple years later even though I'd heard Actor was a great album. I'm happy to have finally discovered her for myself though!
• I didn't actually discover Shabazz Palaces until they released a "major" album, but they put out a couple EPs in 2009 that are pretty tight. 
• That silly band Rock Plaza Central from a couple years back returned with ...At the Moment of Our Most Needing, which continued their path of goofiness in a very heartfelt way. Apparently they have been on hiatus since then.
• Marissa Nadler. Little Hells. Maybe the first album of hers that I heard? She is awesome.
• Magnolia Electric Co. Josephine is a lovely lovely album.
• Incredibad by The Lonely Island turned out to be a pretty good album to run to while training for my marathon. Kept my mind off running, that's for sure.
• I do enjoy Jarvis Cocker's album Further Complications. Some moments that recall some of my favorite Pulp songs, particularly lyrically.
• Speaking of side gigs, Black Francis/Frank Black had a band with his wife Violet Clark called Grand Duchy, and it is one of my favorite of his recent exploits.
• One great irony of that Mos Def album is that one of the best songs is him rapping over a Georgia Anne Muldrow song called "Roses." Because of it, I checked out her album Umsindo, and I ended up liking the original version of that song more.
• I really thought I'd like Elvis Costello's album Secret, Profane and Sugarcane more than I did. I love a couple of the songs but thought it would be the next King of America because it had the same puzzle pieces as that legendary album. I probably just need to give it more listens without such ridiculous expectations.
• Dinosaur Jr. keeps putting out amazing albums and it's just not fair for them to be that consistent.
• The Dead Weather are great.
• David Bowie's VH1 Storytellers album is from 2009, so that was quite nice to listen to.
• Breeders EP!
• Remember The Big Pink? A Brief History of Love was a sensation.
• Flight of the Conchords! I'm seeing them on Tuesday!
• It was weird that The Mountain Goats put out an album based on bible verses, but it ended up working quite well.
• Jesca Hoop = great
• Sour Boy Bitter Girl = great, I feel like Songs About the Landscape or Songs About the Wolf Army was the start of a higher level of songwriting than the previous splits. 
• Annie = great. Don't Stop just upped the sass factor by a bunch and really owned everything she's best at.
• The Lawrence Arms put out their last music in a while in their Buttsweat and Tears EP. But damn, they have some great songs on that EP that are live show staples.
• People Under The Stairs are great!
• So is Kermit Ruffins!
• I like There Is No Enemy by Built to Spill but I haven't listened to it enough to say much more. It's just yet another great album by that great band.

It Was 2009 Playlist:

1. Obits "Back and Forth"

2. The Dead Weather "Hang You From the Heavens"

3. Japandroids "Crazy/Forever"

4. Rain Machine "New Last Name"

5. YACHT "Psychic City (Voodoo City)"

6. Wale featuring K'Naan "TV In The Radio"

7. Mos Def "Quiet Dog Bite Hard"

8. Dirty Projectors + David Byrne "Knotty Pine"

9. Antony and the Johnsons "Aeon"

10. James Husband "Greyscale"

11. The Antlers "Bear"

12. N.A.S.A. featuring Karen O, Ol' Dirty Bastard & Fatlip "Strange Enough"

13. Tyondai Braxton "Uffe's Woodshop"

14. Mi Ami "New Guitar"

15. The Flaming Lips "Silver Trembling Hands"

16. Sonic Youth "Sacred Trickster"

17. Grand Duchy "The Long Song"

18. The xx "Heart Skipped a Beat"

19. Iran "Airport '79"

Next Time:

2010 was another huge year in music in my opinion. I just remember a big handful of albums that could easily have been #1 in any other year. Stuff like Sufjan Stevens, Big Boi, Titus Andronicus, LCD Soundsystem, Robyn, Kanye West, and lots of other great stuff.

An Ear For An Era: 2008

Oh hello there.

These are coming out so spread out that I kind of forget how to do them. Not that there's a way to do them. Just write about it, show you guys some clips for stuff that is cool, and do whatever I want. I answer to nobody but me here.

2008 was an...eventful year. Let's say that. Very early in the year I lost my job, and it was the head end of the big recession. Luckily I kind of managed to avoid the worst of it and got myself a job in July (which I've had ever since). So all of that means that most of the music I had, at least early in the year, was stuff that was offered for free. Mixtapes and whatnot. So keep that in mind.

And of course it was the year of that one election. That was referenced a lot. Remember all the hope and excitement about that election? Remember when Sarah Palin was a scary prospect? Simpler times.

Sorry, I don't mean to scare people off with political talk. But it was a big thing in 2008.

And that was the year I moved to the suburbs for a brief period. That sucked.

Oh! Starting with this entry, this very blog has my thoughts on 2008 FROM 2008! Whoa. Various lists, some thoughts I've repeated here, some things that I still agree with...

http://quietbrandon.blogspot.com/2008/12/its-all-in-one-post-here-because-it.html

NOTE: I got tired of trying to find youtube videos for the hip hop songs I wanted to share. Most were not there. That's the only reason there's such a big break without videos...check spotify or whatever you use to check out these artists.

Okay, let's start here. Hip hop. It was a year where there were some great mixtapes and somehow less great official releases. Nas had The N**** Tape, a highly political album from what I consider a kind of resurgence period of his. Or maybe it was just because that's when I took notice. But he had the pro-Obama song "Black President," which was so inspiring...oh, to be 2008 again. (note: I am being kind of sarcastic but it WAS a huge deal and still is, in ways we haven't even seen yet). Anyway, then he put out his official album that was supposed to be called N**** but he ended up just making it self titled (with still very provocative album artwork), which seemed slightly copout-ish. Make us uncomfortable!

Big Boi released a couple songs purportedly from his forthcoming album (which wouldn't be out until 2010), but they didn't end up on there even though they are amazing. Kind of an Outkast reunion, "Royal Flush" stands as one of my favorites from his first solo album, even if it wasn't actually on it. I was going to post the song here but apparently it's not on youtube. Oh well. Look it up.

Old favorite Del the Funky Homosapien had a smallish comeback with Eleventh Hour, his first album in quite some time. It was just so refreshing to hear a new Del album that there was no way I wouldn't love this album. But shortly after this he got really prolific and I stopped caring so much about his new material. However, revisiting Eleventh Hour, it still holds up very well. I'll gladly throw it on any time.

Another great mixtape came from Rhymefest and Mark Ronson, who put out a Michael Jackson tribute mixtape called Man in the Mirror. Some brilliant mashups of Michael Jackson songs and Rhymefest rappin' along. Some dumb chopped up interview skits were on there as well, but when it hits, it hits just right.

And the other another great mixtape...Wale. Mixtape About Nothing. He's been chasing this high for the past 8 years, I feel. Just brilliant wordsmithing and flow and relating everything to Seinfeld for whatever reason. He was a rapper that could just keep going and going and going (check out the "Roc Boys" freestyle!) and if you were to actually catch everything that comes out of his mouth you would find some really complex internal rhymes and poetry and probably some meaning too.

The most annoying mixtape I got was Ludacris' The Preview. I think it's pretty common on those free mixtapes, but every time the snippet "gangsta grizzills" comes up I want to pull my ears out of my head. Fortunately, his actual official album that it was a preview of was quite good. I liked it more then than I do now, but it has some highlights such as a song bringing Jay-Z and Nas together.

The Roots put out a highly confrontational and brilliant album in Rising Down. I obsessed over this one in 2008, and when it came back on I loved it just as much. Just a great reflection of where we were at in 2008 as a society. If youtube had it, I would have posted the song "Singing Man" so track that one down.

I really appreciated the anti-pop Kool Keith brought to Dr. Dooom 2, in which he needs to repeatedly kill Dr. Octagon AGAIN because some fools thought he should be resurrected. There's a lot of goofiness here but also a lot of genuine justified anger. And creepiness. Of course creepiness.

But don't you just want the FUN? People Under The Stairs put out an album that was just pure fun called Fun D.M.C. Just old school hip hop with a lot of skills and a lot of fun. Track down the song "Enjoy" and enjoy.

Next time you have to go on a run and it's around 66 minutes, do yourself a favor and put on White Van Music by Jake One. Those beats will keep you going for 66 minutes and 26 seconds. With a great assortment of guest vocalists (lots of the best rappers around), it doesn't get old or boring, and those beats man. Those beats.

What about that indie or whatever stuff? Should we talk about that? How about The Magnetic Fields? I kind of consider Distortion the kickoff of their "latter era" (that I hope just lasts forever!)  that has been going on ever since. It was supposed to be a highly distorted sound reminiscent of The Jesus And Mary Chain, but I felt like it had a very similar sound to their own classic 90s albums. Which is a very good thing. The songs can be hit or miss, but mostly hit still. Particularly "Too Drunk to Dream."

The Magnetic Fields "Too Drunk to Dream"

What else was there? Why, The Mountain Goats of course!Heretic Pride was when I was officially a fan going into a new album, and I loved it. It still might be my favorite, although I do need to spend more time with their older material. Quiet songs, brilliant lyrics, passionate louder songs, perfection.

She & Him took me a bit by surprise with their first album Volume One. When I heard about it, I didn't really have any interest in hearing the songs. Then I heard one on a Merge compilation and I enjoyed the girl-group stylings. So eventually I got the album. And it turned out to be completely charming. And they've put out a few albums since then and I always enjoy them, but coming back to Volume One, it does have an amateurish sounding charm about it that will probably make it my favorite of theirs no matter what they do going forward.

Cat Power put out her second covers album Jukebox, which was decent. My favorite two songs were the one original ("Song to Bobby") and the Roberta Flack song found on the bonus disc ("Angelitos Negros" showed me that Cat Power can really wail when necessary!).

The Breeders had a comebackish album Mountain Battles. They have a song in German. And one in Spanish. But I'll need to listen to the German song just to help me learn the language ahead of my trip...hey man, I can write whatever I want on this thing. But I like the Breeders' warm sound and it was all over this album.

Ladytron kind of killed it with Velocifero. Years after people stopped caring about electroclash, they put out this album. Not that it's particularly electroclash. I can never get my electronic music subgenres straight anyway. But there's just so much feeling and energy. This came on while I was running and it just made it so much better.

And then of Montreal followed up the brilliant Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer. Anything they would do would not live up to that. But Skeletal Lamping is a part of Hissing Fauna. It is a continuing saga of Georgie Fruit, the character of Kevin Barnes' id come to life. So on the surface this album is just a bunch of dirty sexy party songs, but beneath you can feel some misery breathing its hot breath, encapsulating everything and giving it a certain unease. I was worried about revisiting this one because at the time I felt like I was the only one who appreciated it, and maybe I was seeing something that wasn't there because I wanted to like it so much. But I can still feel what he put into this album, and it's still a lot of fun but also contains that dread that is more subtle than what Hissing Fauna achieved because the party songs are even more outrageous.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. I'm glad Grinderman was a thing because it properly got me on track to get more interested in Nick Cave projects. Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! is a great rock and roll album that continues down the track of Grinderman to just punch you in the gut and then keep its fist there, in your gut, while it electrocutes you. Maybe instead of a fist punching your gut it's a guitar. I don't know.

Another great songwriter from that era but in a completely different vein, Jonathan Richman had a great album "Because Her Beauty Is Raw and Wild," which is indeed in quotation marks. It's just a heartbreaking album, which has two versions of the same song about how we can't block heartbreak. He hits an interesting intersection of funny and sad and thoughtful.

Ted Leo & The Pharmacists put out a quickie EP to raise money for something, I forget what. Related to the election though. I actually saw them play in town with Eugene Mirman (!) because the DNC was in Denver. Anyway. the EP is great and intense.

One of my favorite combinations was KatJonBand, who put out a self-titled album. This album reminds me of walking my dog around our apartment complex in the suburbs. I must have listened to it a lot then to forget I was living in the suburbs. But it was Kat Ex from The Ex (maybe my favorite drummer??) and Jon Langford from The Mekons (and other things). Which makes for a cool combination of folky and driving rhythm.

KatJonBand "Limbo"

Carried to Dust might be my favorite Calexico album. Particularly the three songs in a row that I gave four stars to, which sum up all of my favorite things about this band: "Inspiracion" (upbeat song in Spanish), "House of Valparaiso" (midtempo song featuring Sam Beam), and "Slowness" (countrified slow jam that hits me right in the heart). Can't be beat.

Okkervil River followed up their excellent The Stage Names with the equally excellent sequel album The Stand Ins. More clever lyrics, more of that Okkervil energy, and the best opening song they have (after the previous album closed on the best closing song they have!).

And finally, album of the year obviously went to TV on the Radio for Dear Science. I wrote a lot of hyperbole about this one (I always do!) in that best of 2008 post linked above, if you would like to read that. What can I add that time has changed about this album? None of my love for it has left over the past 8 years. It is an amazing experience to listen to this with some immersive headphones. Just let it wash over you. The production is perfection. It might be the band's crowning achievement, as they built up to this for a couple albums and the ones since then have been more of a denouement as they have scaled back their ambition a bit. So this might be the peak for who I consider the peak band of the past decade. Just the way all the pieces fall into place. The harmonies, the different instruments, the beats, the passion, the chaos, the lyrics, the everything. My two favorite tracks ("Shout Me Out" and "Family Tree") are polar opposites in style, and I love them for completely different reasons. This album hits everything.

TV on the Radio "Family Tree"

Other noteworthy notes:

• I wanted Miss Kittin to outlive the electroclash movement in popularity, but Batbox didn't end up being as successful as it should have been. Still, when I listened again a good 8 years later it held up quite well. Check out the song "Barefoot Tonight."
• Raconteurs' second (and last?) album Consolers of the Lonely came out. Enjoyable stuff.
• And The Kills. Randomly they popped up right after Raconteurs. Before The Dead Weather was even a thing!
• Crystal Antlers rocked so hard!
• Thao with the Get Down Stay Down put out the awesome We Brave Bee Stings and All, which is quite enjoyable.
• And Adele, with 19. Way back when!
• Similarly, I did like Duffy.
• Remember when Lykke Li was a new thing? Youth Novels has so much more of a twee sound than her recent albums, kind of a poppier El Perro del Mar. But I like it.
• And of course El Perro del Mar. From the Valley to the Stars takes the sadness of the first album and puts it through an AM radio of pop.
• Why? put out what I think was their first non-hip-hop album Alopecia. Just a lot of cleverness that I appreciated.
• I wanted to like Emmylou Harris' All I Intended to Be more than I did, but it's still worthwhile for a few choice cuts and always worthwhile for her amazing voice.
• Al Green with a late career stunner produced by ?uestlove!
• The first Titus Andronicus album was pretty great, but really just a preview of things to come.
• Santogold! That used to be what she went by! 
• Momofuku was the first Elvis Costello album I was slightly less jazzed about. I'm not sure why. There are still a couple stunners, and as I look over the track listing more than just a couple, but after The Delivery Man I don't know what I was expecting...
• Those Flight of the Conchords guys are hilarious! I'm going to see them this July at Red Rocks!!
• Neat, Beck produced by Danger Mouse!
• That Girl Talk album Feed the Animals is some mashup magic, and the best thing for running (aside from White Van Music).
• Little Jackie had some fun sass, I remember discovering them when they played on Conan (whichever show was on at the time!)
• Randy Newman hit a similar place to Jonathan Richman.
• Fleet Foxes. I dig it. Their next one ended up being my favorite of that year. But I don't remember the first one (and preceding EP) well enough to write about it properly at all.
• Nada Surf is pleasant always.
• Smoking Popes came back to this world and Stay Down was a quite good return.
• DeVotchKa was quite great on A Mad and Faithful Telling.
• According to my entry from 2008, I loved The Odd Couple by Gnarls Barkley. I still enjoy a couple songs, but I don't know what that was about. I don't dislike it, but it didn't stick out to me on the revisit.
• Oh, and Kanye did that 808s & Heartbreak album. People on the Internet seem to like/love that album for some reason. Any of my friends I talk to (who like Kanye otherwise!) agree that it is not good. I don't know what we're missing. I thought revisiting it would be a revelation but instead I just kind of hated it again. I get it, you want to create a crying robot or something. But the songwriting itself is sub par, I'd much rather listen to some actual singing, and pop has been done so much better by so many others. I mean, if this is what it took to get Kanye where he needed to be to put out My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, so be it. It's worth it and everything. But I still do not like 808s and Heartbreak and I don't suspect I ever will.

(EDITED TO ADD: I forgot to include the playlist for my mix! here it is!)
Nothing We've Actually Seen Has Been Mapped or Outlined
1. Fleet Foxes "White Winter Hymnal"
2. Gnarls Barkley "Blind Mary"
3. She & Him "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?"
4. Jonathan Richman "When We Refuse to Suffer"
5. Frida Hyvonen "Birds"
6. Okkervil River "Lost Coastlines"
7. TV On The Radio "Shout Me Out"
8. Miss Kittin "Barefoot Tonight"
9. Ladytron "They Gave You A Heart, They Gave You A Name"
10. Bill O'Reilly "DO IT LIIIIVE!!!!!!!!1111 (DiscoTech Mix Version 2)"
11. KatJonBand "Crackheads Beware"
12. The Magnetic Fields "Too Drunk to Dream"
13. of Montreal "Gallery Piece"
14. The Roots featuring Truck North, Dice Raw & Porn "Singing Man"
15. Atmosphere "Yesterday"
16. Calexico "Slowness"
17. The Mountain Goats "Lovecraft in Brooklyn"
18. Ludacris featuring Nas & Jay-Z "I Do It for Hip Hop"
19. Wale "The Freestyle (Roc Boys)
20. Rhymefest "Can't Make it"
21. Big Boi featuring Andre 3000 & Raekwon "Royal Flush"
22. The Breeders "Here No More"

Next Time:

What comes after 2008? 2009. That means Dirty Projectors, Mos Def, and The xx. Lots of other stuff. Sonic Youth, St. Vincent, The Antlers, Yo La Tengo, Japandroids, and even more other stuff. It actually looks pretty good!

Oscar Hopes & Predictions 2016

Hello, Dear Readers!

I'm going to act like I have a big fan base of readers. Whoever reads this, thanks for reading this!

I almost didn't do this but I was then tasked by a friend to do it, so I might as well get my thoughts out there. The thing with this year's Oscars, aside from all the other things with this year's Oscars, is that I just finally got through basically all of the major films two nights ago. So with the big thing happening tomorrow, there's not much time and if you wanted to read thinkpieces about them then you've already had plenty of chances elsewhere. No matter. If you're reading this you're probably my friend and you probably just want my specific perspective on them.

First, here is what I have NOT seen:
Trumbo, The Danish Girl, 45 Years, Joy, Creed, three of the animated features (Shaun the Sheep Movie, Boy & The World, When Marnie Was There), Cinderella, Winter on Fire, Cartel Land, ALL of the shorts (though I'm considering using my Google rewards monies to watch the live action and most of the animated shorts tonight and/or tomorrow...), any of the foreign language films aside from Mustang, The 100-Year-Old Man..., and any of the movies with just songs nominated (but I listened to the songs, just now!).

So I'll go from the bottom up, based on the order they appear on the official webpage. One of these years I'll update my spreadsheet to be in the order they are presented in for the actual show!

Writing (Original Screenplay)

Nominees: Bridge of Spies (Coen Brothers!), Spotlight, Ex Machina, Inside Out, Straight Outta Compton
Hopes: I would be quite happy if Ex Machina won. Just the whole story is so well told, so logical yet I didn't see the very logical ending coming. Just a great movie overall and I want it to win something. All of the nominees are very good movies though.
Predictions: I'm going Spotlight. And I won't be the least bit upset about it.

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

Nominees: The Martian, The Big Short, Room, Carol, Brooklyn
Hopes: I'm going Carol. Since it was snubbed in the best picture and director races, it should get something and the writing was beautiful. I can't speak to how well it was adapted from its source material, but the final product came out so wonderfully.
Predictions: The Big Short because I think everybody loved it. Plus it did a great job of simplifying a complicated subject matter that it was very important that everyone understood.

Visual Effects

Nominees: Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant, Ex Machina, The Martian, Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Hopes: How can you not go with Mad Max? All the amazing practical effects, the whole look is a big part of what made the movie so special.
Predictions: Mad Max all the way.

Sound Mixing

Nominees: Bridge of Spies, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, The Revenant, Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Hopes: Sticking with Mad Max for all of the technical awards.
Predictions: The Revenant. No real reason.

Sound Editing

Nominees: The Martian, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant, Sicario
Hopes: Mad Max
Predictions: Mad Max. I don't know. Maybe it should be my prediction for both sound ones. So the past several years since I started keeping track, EVERY TIME there is ONE difference between the two sound categories. As if they are just trying to prove that they are different.

Live Action/Animated/Documentary Shorts

I'm just sitting this one out for now. Unless I happen to see them. I did see there was a Don Hertzfeldt one for animated, so let's just go with that one.

Best Song

Nominees: "Simple Song #3," "Til It Happens to You," "Manta Ray," "Earned It," "Writing's On the Wall" 
Hopes: As a longtime Antony & The Johnsons fan who didn't keep up and didn't even know she was now ANOHNI, I'm going to hope for this longshot to pull through. "Manta Ray."
Predictions: Gotta go Gaga, "Til It Happens to You." I just listened to all the songs and that is a powerful one. The kind that wins these kinds of things.

Original Score

Nominees: Bridge of Spies, Sicario, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Hateful Eight, Carol
Hopes: As I think about it some more, I think Carol had the most striking score.
Predictions: One of the two veterans probably. I'm going to say Ennio Morricone for The Hateful Eight because he is legendary.

Makeup & Hairstyling

Nominees: The Revenant, The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window, Mad Max: Fury Road
Hopes: As cool as Leo's beard was, Mad Max baby.
Predictions: Mad Max baby.

Foreign Language Film

Nominees: A War, Son of Saul, Embrace of the Serpent, Theeb, Mustang
Hopes: Since Mustang is the only one I saw, I'll go with that one. I saw it at the Denver Film Festival and it was a definite highlight. Just a great film. Of course, I'd have to see others to see if I am justified in this opinion!
Predictions: No idea. I think I heard Embrace of the Serpent was great, so I'll go with that one. Last minute edit: Son of Saul is that holocaust movie, it's totally going to win.

Film Editing

Nominees: The Reventant, Spotlight, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Big Short
Hopes: Sticking with Mad Max. I think I want it to just dominate! But the fact that it remained coherent for an entire feature-length car chase scene means it was edited super awesomely.
Predictions: The Big Short because editing had such a crucial role in this film. It was disjointed yet somehow coherent.

Documentary Feature

Nominees: Amy, The Look of Silence, Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom, Cartel Land, What Happened, Miss Simone?
Hopes: The Look of Silence. Just the audacity of this film. Just the human face it put on genocide. Just the restraint shown by the protagonist and filmmaker when confronting these monsters. The sadness. The needing to forgive, not the need of the perpetrators, but the need of the victims to be able to forgive these people. It was so powerful and left me with a lot to think about. Possibly even greater than its companion piece the (similarly nominated, didn't win) The Act of Killing.
Predictions: Amy all the way. Those music documentaries always win. I'm picking this over the Nina Simone one because it was just so heartbreaking and also a great commercial success.

Directing

Nominees: George Miller for Mad Max: Fury Road, Adam McKay for The Big Short, Lenny Abrahamson for Room, Alexandro G. Inarritu for The Revenant, Tom McCarthy for Spotlight
Hopes: Listen, all of these movies were great in their own ways. But if we're talking director as an auteur, as the uncompromising visionary, I can't vote for anyone but George Miller. Mad Max was a singular vision if I've ever seen one.
Predictions: It could be anyone. I'm going with Tom McCarthy for Spotlight just because directing is often associated with working with actors and the actors in Spotlight all did such a terrific job.

Costume Design

Nominees: Carol, Cinderella, The Danish Girl, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant
Hopes: I kind of loved the outfits in Carol. I think it's because I am so into 50s fashion. I don't know. But Rooney Mara's clothing was pretty great.
Predictions: The Danish Girl just because. I never know with this costume stuff!

Production Design

Nominees: The Revenant, The Danish Girl, The Martian, Bridge of Spies, Mad Max: Fury Road
Hopes: Are you kidding? Mad Max was just one big exercise in production design!
Predictions: The Martian because hey, Mars!

Cinematography

Nominees: The Hateful Eight, Carol, The Revenant, Sicario, Mad Max: Fury Road
Hopes: Pretty hopeless at this point until he works on another huge Oscar contender prestige production, but can Roger Deakins please please please win for Sicario? Every time I see one of his films, it is abundantly clear that he is far and away the best DP in the business. All the cool tricks he comes up with in silhouette, camera movement, smoke/fog, etc.
Predictions: Robert Richardson for The Hateful Eight. Because it was pretty damn cool looking in 70mm. Colorado is a beautiful state!

Animated Feature

Nominees: Shaun the Sheep Movie, Anomalisa, Inside Out, Boy & The World, When Marnie Was There
Hopes: I don't really have hope for Anomalisa but I want it to win. I'm a Kaufman lifer. I know it's not going to win. And as my friend said, it's "lesser Kaufman." But even lesser Kaufman leaves you with a lot to think about and this was a really cool minor story about a short lived anomaly. Pretty beautiful in its simplicity with just a few tricks thrown in there that you could only do effectively with animation.
Predictions: Inside Out. And that's perfectly fine. One of the best Pixar movies yet, and that is really saying something. Pretty much a lock though.

Supporting Actress

Nominees: Rachel McAdams for Spotlight, Rooney Mara for Carol, Jennifer Jason Leigh for The Hateful Eight, Kate Winslet for Steve Jobs, Alicia Vikander for The Danish Girl
Hopes: Jennifer Jason Leigh! Big fan, and she was great. I'd also like to note however that Rooney Mara was so great in Carol and could have been considered the lead of that movie.
Predictions: I hear they are going crazy over Alicia Vikander, so let's say her. I didn't see The Danish Girl but she was great in Ex Machina this year!

Supporting Actor

Nominees: Sylvester Stallone for Creed, Tom Hardy for The Revenant, Mark Rylance for Bridge of Spies, Mark Ruffalo for Spotlight, Christian Bale for The Big Short
Hopes: I liked Mark Rylance so much in Bridge of Spies. Such a great subtle performance that made such a likeable character, which was crucial (as my friend pointed out, the movie just wouldn't have worked if his character wasn't likeable).
Predictions: Hollywood loves a comeback story, so Sylvester Stallone it is! Creed is also the one nominee in this category that I didn't see.

Lead Actress

Nominees: Brie Larson for Room, Charlotte Rampling for 45 Years, Cate Blanchett for Carol, Saoirse Ronan for Brooklyn, Jennifer Lawrence for Joy
Hopes: Man, this is one stacked field this year. I only saw three of them, but they were fantastic performances. But I think the most heartbreaking performance was by Brie Larson in Room. Even as kind of a support player to the child (that kid was amazing too!), she did such a beautiful job as someone just doing the best she can for her son under extremely horrendous circumstances.
Predictions: I was originally going to say Cate Blanchett (even though Rooney Mara probably had a stronger performance in that film), but I'm just going to put all my eggs in the Brie Larson room.

Lead Actor

Nominees: Bryan Cranston for Trumbo, Matt Damon for The Martian, Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant, Michael Fassbender for Steve Jobs, Eddie Redmayne for The Danish Girl
Hopes: This field seems pretty weak by comparison. Everyone did their usual good work (just assuming with Cranston & Redmayne), so Leonardo DiCaprio going above and beyond kind of makes sense to me. He did pretty well.
Predictions: Leonardo DiCaprio and his grunting and limping. Duh.

Best Picture

Nominees: The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, The Revenant, Room, Spotlight
Hopes: I'm going to just rank them because I want to say something about each of them.
1. Mad Max: Fury Road. As I said before, this is the one. The fact that a silly action movie with badass guitar flamethrowers is even my top pick speaks to the astonishing feat that this film was. Wow.
2. Room. Not only was the acting phenomenal, it managed the incredible feat of making a movie about being stuck in a shed somewhat uplifting, it showed the perspective of a child growing up in that shed (the whole world as far as he knew), and it just made me cry.
3. Spotlight. Because of all the great performances and the portrayal of journalism...I don't know, it was just intense.
4. The Big Short. There is no good guy. It is an important film for people to see and understand. It is infuriating but necessary. And just enough funny.
5. Brooklyn. A very pleasant film and I didn't mention her in the acting category but Saoirse Ronan just carried the whole film. A good portrayal of immigrants that we all can relate to, because almost all of us in this country are descendents of immigrants. Look like you know where you're going.
6. The Martian. A pretty astonishing tale of survival. Matt Damon was so charismatic and brought so much to what would have been a pretty bleak movie. Cool science too!
7. The Revenant. A pretty astonishing tale of survival. What keeps you alive? I feel like I kind of hate on this movie more than I should. I just think the director is overrated and after finally seeing this movie that it was also kind of overrated. I found myself bored at times, maybe I just wasn't in the right space for it. Still, lots of great performances, some very intense action sequences, some great cinematography, a good package.
8. Bridge of Spies. I don't like putting this on the bottom because I liked it quite a bit. But all eight of these were quite good. I just felt like this was Steven Spielberg doing his thing, which is very competent (even expert) directing, and everyone doing a very competent job (even expert, in the case of Mark Rylance), and putting together a quite good movie. Just not the best picture of the year.
Prediction: The Revenant. It seems pretty unstoppable at this point. I'd be pleasantly surprised if one of the others wins though.

So I guess I'll see how happy/psychic I am this year! I don't have the best record with these things.


And finally, my general comment about the Academy Awards: There are always going to be snubs, horror will rarely if ever get any recognition, and there is a huge problem with the lack of diversity. Kubrick never won except for visual effects. Hitchcock never won. The best films out there are often completely unrecognized by critics and the academy alike. See Dope, It Follows, and Liza the Fox Fairy for some of my personal favorites of 2015 that received no nominations. Watch Tangerine (I didn't see it but it seems essential). And if Carol had been nominated for best picture it'd probably be at #3 on my list up there. Anyway, I'm saying all that to make a point. The Academy Awards are important to me in spite of all that. For one, they tend to be quite good movies and I always make a point to try to see as many as I can. It's my excuse to see more movies. And the nominated movies play at strip malls and the like. Which means more people than usual are seeing these artistic movies by artistic people. Sure, they could see them and more at art houses, and they should. But they don't. So this is a fairly reliable support system for smart cinema. Yes, they all have studio support pushing for them to get nominations, rather than being an organic thing, but the end product is still generally a victory for quality cinema.

An Ear For An Era: 2007

I've been putting off writing this one for some time now. Maybe not on purpose. Mostly just because I was busy with Christmas and catching up on the ton of music I'd acquired in the previous couple months in an attempt to have some sort of grasp on the music of 2015. Not that I ever felt I even sort of caught up on that. But I've spent the past month listening to recent acquisitions released from 2013-2016. 2016 is Bowie. That's a whole other thing. I always make it a big deal to myself what my first album of a year is and I'm so glad it's Bowie this year.

Okay, where am I?

2007 was my favorite year for music. So much so that I was hoping to get this up by the end of the year so I could say something like "2007 was my favorite year of 2015!" but at least that's here, so that's something.

When I started this project I was looking forward to 2007. I was wondering if context would make a difference, if I'd change my opinion on 2007 music because it might have just been the sheer quantity I consumed that year that helped me find so many albums I loved (and in many cases, my introductions to many artists that I love). But that's not really how it works. Because these are albums I loved and they will always be albums I love. Regardless of context. Are there some lesser albums? Of course. Just like every year. But the top bunch are amongst my tip top bunch of all time.

I'll try to not make this too long but I feel like there will be a lot I will want to write a lot about. And things that deserve full paragraphs might end up in the notable things at the end just because there's so much great here.

I guess I can get started since I've already made the intro much too long.

It started this time with Ted Leo & The Pharmacists. I'd long respected them and lots of my friends liked them, but Living With The Living was where I finally really got it personally. The energy, the passion, the politics...they really captured my feelings during the Bush years and the aftermath of the war in Iraq. And then the slightly softer songs were just so damn catchy, it's just a great album from front to back. And it has one of my favorite lines that really exemplifies the whole reason I have this blog project, from "The Lost Brigade." Repeating and repeating, more and more earnest...

"Every little memory has a song."

2007 was a year I was so into music that it was the year I got to go to SXSW in Austin for work. We interviewed tons of bands, saw tons of shows, just absorbed the whole thing, and it was amazing.

We had to run to try to catch Les Savy Fav's set and only caught the last song. To this day that is the only time I witnessed LSF live, which is a big regret (but not as big as if I had missed it completely!). We interviewed Tim and he gave us some fun soundbytes because he is a very clever man. Anyway, the album. Let's Stay Friends is the album from this year and is a huge ball of energy, just like the band.

The other SXSW story I have to share is when we went to a "US vs Norway" showcase. We went through the line outside and asked people "US or Norway??" and got some great answers. Then we went inside and a band was playing called The Lionheart Brothers. I was supposed to get some footage of bands playing so I sat there taping them. And continued to. And was completely mesmerized by this band with its spacey guitars and lovely vocal harmonies, matched by a driving beat. They don't have very good distribution in the states but I got their album Dizzy Kiss on itunes, one of the few albums I've ever bought on itunes.

When we headed back home after an amazing few days with very little rest, I think it was an early morning flight. Everyone was so tired and I listened to my iPod in the airport. And this memory has this song. And the lyrics don't really fit it much other than being tired, but I was picturing the film of our journey, and it was the end credits, and I saw everybody sitting half-dead or napping at the airport, everyone with their own favorite adventures and memories, and this song played.

Sundowner, "This War Is Noise"

Yes, Chris, best known for The Lawrence Arms, one of my favorite songwriters in two of my favorite band, and the man who wrote my senior quote, put out his solo debut as Sundowner. Four One Five Two. Just a great set of songs, including a couple Lawrence Arms covers that he completely transforms. But "This War Is Noise" will always take me back to that airport in Austin and the recovery from one of the best weekends of my life.

Another memory has a song (or an entire album!). I had just gotten The Shepherd's Dog by Iron & Wine and I got sick. Sicker than usual. I never take sick days but I had to go home and take some drugs. And I put it on the turntable and listened to it. And about halfway through the album I realized that no, there wasn't a female guest vocalist on all of those songs. My record player had gotten all messed up and was playing everything at some rpm between 45 and 33. Oh, and the album itself: it's great!

Hey guys, Shellac only puts out an album every several years and it is always an event. Excellent Italian Greyhound was my first "new" Shellac album. The End of Radio kicked off my "it was 2007" mix CD and was a great statement on the state of music. The rest of the album is just pure Shellac. Rage, calculated rage, and aggression (calculated aggression).

Speaking of calculated aggression, I have a confession. I didn't really start listening to Nick Cave until Grinderman. Their self-titled debut as Grinderman is so great and it introduced me in a more official capacity to the genius that is Nick Cave.

Deerhoof came onto my radar with Friend Opportunity. Kind of. I had heard a few songs but it always seemed so weird and abrasive (both qualities I've loved for a while, but for some reason I couldn't get into them). Friend Opportunity was my opportunity to really understand them and spend more time listening to them (particularly because it came out early in the year!) and really find the catchiness aspect they excel at. Catchy and weird rather than abrasive and weird. With pieces of the right kinds of abrasive.

Another band known for being catchily abrasive and weird is Animal Collective. After reading some great reviews and loving the idea in theory I picked up Strawberry Jam and I tried. I really, really tried to get into it. But I couldn't. It just wasn't the right kind of catchy or abrasive. The right kind of weird maybe. But I gave it a bunch of spins and it didn't do much for me. Cut to a couple months later. Riding in a friend's car. He has it playing on the stereo. Suddenly I love it. It had snuck into the back of my brain!

Panda Bear (of said Animal Collective) had the highly lauded Person Pitch album that year as well. Less weird, more beautiful in general, and a similar burrowing quality.

I listened to 23 by Blonde Redhead a lot at work that year. It was one of just a few albums on my computer there but it always made me feel so good to put it on. I don't know if they've hit this balance of synthiness and catchiness in the years since.

Perennial favorite Enon had what ended up being their final album Grass Geysers...Carbon Clouds. This one was a little more focused than usual, almost to its disadvantage. I always like the kitchen sink approach of their albums and this was more rock-centric. But that made the songs that stray from the straightforward beat (such as "Pigeneration") that much more interesting in this context. They are having a lot of fun on this album and you can tell.

Okkervil River really hooked me with The Stage Names. As good as Black Sheep Boy was (and I was too much of a latecomer for it to be "my" Okkervil River album), The Stage Names is just so catchy and smart, sad at the right times, and really reminds me of the French New Wave of cinema. Will Sheff is so learned about music and he has so many references that are placed at the perfect place while putting his own spin on everything, it's just fun to listen to and catch everything flying by. But especially when the last song goes into "Sloop John B" and gives me such a rush of joy.

Okkervil River, "John Allyn Smith Sails"

Spoon has always been on a hot streak. I remember we ambushed Britt Daniel at the Monolith Music Festival and talked about his new album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (even he had to count on his fingers to get the title right). This one might even be better than the average Spoon album. It seemed like they really expanded their sound here without losing their core. It's great fun.

The Shins hit a high point (and I got them the same day I got my first album of 2007) with Wincing The Night Away. Or I just accepted them into my world. Friends and loved ones already loved them, and they were hugely popular because of Garden State, but I didn't have much interest in them until I decided to have interest in EVERYTHING around this time. And I liked it, some catchiness reminiscent of The Beach Boys, and a great kickoff beat to start the whole thing.

Speaking of a great kickoff beat, how about that LCD Soundsystem? Sound of Silver could have been #1 and maybe if I take everything into account it is now. Just the one-two punch of "Someone Great" and "All My Friends" hit me on such a personal level and are some of my favorite 14 minutes of music.  Surround that with some great party jams and end it with an earnest ballad and you've got a classic on your hands. I don't know how necessary it is for me to write much about this since everyone seems to know about them (how about the hype around their reunion only 5 years after their hiatus?!), but this is really something special.

LCD Soundsystem, "All My Friends"

I feel like !!! started off their still-going streak of greatness with Myth Takes. I really dig their earlier material (and you may recall that their EP/single thing was basically at the top of my list in 2005) but they did what they kind of set out to do. They reached a certain kind of maturity here (keep in mind that they are still as gleefully juvenile as ever with lyrics and antics; I'm talking about the way they handle a groove) that has propelled them way beyond anyone's expectations.

Talib Kweli had a banner year in 2007. He started it off with a free collaborative EP with Madlib. This was kind of what kicked off my interest in Talib, and I ended up ranking the free EP very highly on my year-end list. It felt like nobody remembered it since it came out at the very very beginning of the year, but it sits close to my heart. I'm guessing a big part of that is because he is such a great artist and it was my window to a world of talent. But he also put out a very long, very acclaimed album called Ear Drum. Probably the most successful he has been at the pop thing. I was less interested in it at the time but upon revisiting it, it really works for him. He's tried a few times to be a popular rapper and shed the "conscious" label even though he's so good at that as well.

How are we already to the end of the great Guru? Guru's Jazzmatazz Vol. 4 was released in 2007 and was my real intro to his great voice. His delivery had a certain knowing swagger to it, an authority that makes me take notice. Gang Starr was before my time and just about all of the Jazzmatazz stuff was as well. He came into the studio once and talked about his new vegetarian diet and healthy lifestyle, which made his heart attack just that much more shocking. I don't feel like I'm doing justice to the album or the man, but just give him a listen.

Guru's Jazzmatazz featuring Kem, "Connection"

I finally "got" Kanye West when he put out Graduation. He has gone on to even greater heights, but I just really liked how vulnerable he allowed himself to be (briefly) on this album, it made him human. Plus he'd just dissed George W Bush on national television so he was getting good will from me.

I really really liked American Gangster by Jay-Z. It seemed like he really found some inspiration from that movie and had to put it out there. It's just full of great songs, from the catchy ones (Roc Boys) to the inspired (Pray).

Saul Williams and Trent Reznor released an optionally free album (around the same time as Radiohead)  so I really tried to help get the word out. The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! is a very intense and confrontational album about race in America, with some great production by Trent Reznor. It was like nothing I had heard before, the mix of industrial and beat-poetry-hip-hop, and should have been more successful than it was.

Janelle Monae finally released her EP and the beginning of her Metropolis arc and it was just so great right out the gate. The two follow-up LPs are absolutely amazing, but the kickoff EP is more than just promising. It is a full chapter of greatness, an introduction to a very interesting career indeed.

I didn't really like M.I.A. at first but then we got the video for "Boyz" at the station. As obnoxious as it was, it really dug into my brain and I ended up getting the album. Kala. And I really really got the appeal. Such a fantastic album, including the never-going-out-of-style "Paper Planes."

I picked up a single by Jesca Hoop out of a free bin because it had a quote by Tom Waits. Turns out she worked as a Nanny for Mr. Waits, which is a pretty funny concept to me. But his endorsement was not unfounded. Her debut album Kismet is really something special. I'd call it my introduction to "quirky" female singer-songwriters. Because my ignorant brain always equated them to softer folky stuff. But Jesca Hoop jumps all over the place with her vocals and her production and her rhythms and lyrical content in a way that is so engaging and fun to follow.

Nicole Atkins will always be related in my mind to Jesca Hoop because she was the other great woman singer-songwriter I discovered around the same time. But her stuff is less bouncy and more brooding. I always wanted to edit together a dramatic dance sequence set to "The Way It Is."

Jens Lekman too?? When I first got Night Falls Over Kortedala I thought he was getting too soft. Particularly the front end of the album sounds almost new agey in its mix (despite the usual lyrical brilliance). But it works and you get used to it. Plus this has the very personal song "It Was a Strange Time in My Life," which also takes me back to walking my dog around Congress Park when I lived over there. For whatever reason. I know I listened to that song pretty obsessively and probably listened to the album a few times while doing that.

My #1 album at the time, after much internal debate, was Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? by of Montreal. I have written a lot about this album so I won't spend too much time here except to say that I still love it, and this time around I could really feel the transition from the front end (gleeful depression) and the back end (gleefully shoving that depression back so far you can almost pretend it's not there). Such nuance on an album that feels so much like a circus is quite an accomplishment. Making me feel like a sad clown at a psycho carnival but still wanting to dance and sing along, no wonder it was the best of the best.

And the other other album that could have been #1 with a different order of operations was Mirrored by Battles. When it came out I was producing a show where we talked about the new albums every Tuesday. I took on the research portion myself because I really didn't want to miss anything. I didn't know anything about this band except what I was reading about the pedigrees of the members (including someone from Don Caballero) but it turned out we had a video available! We played this video after I made the host talk about how cool this band was, and that day I went out and bought the album. And listened to it a lot.

(Note: I can't find the video on YouTube so this is just the song)

Battles, "Atlas"

Other Stuff of Note:

• I feel like I'm being a jerk putting Neon Bible by Arcade Fire way down here. It's probably lots of people's favorite album of the year. But to me this is where it felt like they started to believe their own hype. Self importance. Revisiting it 8 years later, my tune has changed a bit and it has a lot of great songs, I just wish it didn't feel like it thought it was as great as it is.
• My official first acquisition was Best Kept Secret by Ultramagnetic MCs. It still took me a long time to get any of their earlier material but I wasn't huge on this anyway. I like the other sides of Kool Keith.
• I didn't listen to Modest Mouse as much as I probably should have but We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank was a good one.
• Dinosaur Jr: same. Beyond is way beyond expectations for a reunion album, it's like they didn't miss a beat.
• Wilco kind of officially went "dad rock" with Sky Blue Sky, but that just means it's something my dad and I would probably both enjoy. I have a specific memory of going to a shoot for work and listening to this album for the first time in a couple weeks and deciding I quite liked the direction they were heading.
• There was an Amnesty International benefiting John Lennon tribute album, and when I was listening to it I was remembering how boring most of the contributors were and I was wondering why I'd bought it. Then I remembered it was a benefit. And also there are a couple gems on there, including a rare Postal Service cover of "Grow Old With Me." That stuff's way at the back though after lots of U2, Christina Aguilera, Aerosmith, etc etc.
• The I'm Not There soundtrack is much more successful. A great Bob Dylan tribute album with heavy Calexico involvement.
• I really dug the party mode White Stripes on Icky Thump after they started taking themselves seriously on the previous album.
• You know how KRS-One is the Teacha? I learned a lot about hip hop just listening to his album with Marley Marl called Hip Hop Lives.
• There's an Evil Dead musical and it came out in 2007. I just got the cast recording to play at our Evil Dead party when the show premiered. Pretty ridiculous but I enjoy much of it.
• I continued to be loyal to CocoRosie even though they just wouldn't quite be exactly what I hoped for.
• I really really wanted to like the Chrisette Michele album but couldn't get beyond the production and the lyrics. Great voice though.
• Simian Mobile Disco, they were pretty awesome.
• Kate Nash writes some pretty interesting songs. At the time she kind of felt like a Lily Allen ripoff but upon further investigation I can appreciate her style and her songwriting is on a much higher level.
• Dirty Projectors' experimental Rise Above is a cool way to do a tribute. But the best is yet to come with them...
• Boxer was my introduction to The National but at the time I just thought it was serviceable indie singer-songwriter stuff. It would take me a bit to really appreciate them.
• I also got back into They Might Be Giants! The Else is a lot of fun.
• The New Pornographers are too damn consistent. Everything feels new and great with them.
• Feist! The Reminder was a great reminder of her powers. "One Two Three Four" was inescapable but the whole album is fantastic. I really should have put this in a full paragraph form. But I love the sound of her voice and the songs and the words and all of it!
• I dug Joss Stone at the time.
• More Nina Nastasia please! 
• Also where I got into Aesop Rock. None Shall Pass was almost too much for me to handle.
• Qui had David Yow in them for a little bit. Love's Miracle is what they have to show for it. One of my more favorite abrasive albums of recent memory.
• Rumblings of some guy named Bon Iver.
• Radiohead too!?!? How much stuff is there to write about?! In Rainbows was that crazy industry changing album (or not) that allowed people to pay what they wanted to a band that was in a position to do something like that. The music itself is quite good.
• Do you like to D.A.N.C.E.? So does Justice!
• Old dudes Paul McCartney and Neil Young remained relevant with some quite good albums.
• Andorra is the end of a certain part of Caribou's trajectory. I dig it.
• I was still sleeping on some Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings at the time but 100 Days, 100 Nights is some classic throwback soul. Obviously.
• Sentai, including former member(s) of Black Eyes, are way too overlooked.
• The Weakerthans too man! Too much stuff.
• Lupe Fiasco's The Cool.

Mix From The Time: 2007 Was It

1. Shellac - The End of Radio

2. Battles - Atlas

3. Blonde Redhead - Silently

4. The Lionheart Brothers - Hero Anthem

5. LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends

6. Kanye West - Can't Tell Me Nothing

7. Talib Kweli & Madlib - Time Is Right

8. Animal Collective - For Reverend Green

9. !!! - All My Heroes Are Weirdos

10. Enon - Dr. Freeze

11. Jesca Hoop - Intelligentactile 101

12. Jens Lekman - It Was a Strange Time in My Life

13. M.I.A. - XR2

14. KRS-One and Marley Marl - Nothing New

15. Jay-Z - No Hook

16. of Montreal - A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger

17. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - (Hidden track from the bonus EP)

18. Okkervil River - John Allyn Smith Sails

Next Time:

2008! Great! Breeders! The return of Del! DeVotchKa! Gnarls Barkley! The Roots! She & Him! TV On The Radio! And More! This was the year I was unemployed and got a job and moved to the suburbs so...yay!

An Ear For An Era: 2006

Hello there! Long time!

These are going to be spread out quite a bit now. Because we are entering the world of me acquiring all of the music. Full on.

2006 was a rough year. I lost a good friend and my great grandmother.
2006 is also the last time I've been to Chicago (other than driving through). I went to the Touch & Go Records anniversary show and saw tons of bands I never thought I'd see like Shellac, The Ex, Scratch Acid, and lots more. That was awesome.
I also had plantar fasciitis. That sucked for going to a big music festival.
That's mostly it. There is too much music to talk about so I'm kind of pushing that off here. But okay, let's go.

I made a change here for 2006 because it's the first full year that I had this computer I'm using right now, so I was able to divide it up by when I added stuff to my library. So I shuffled everything I added in the first quarter of the year, then second, etc. And then all the stuff I added after the year had ended. Which was a ton in this case. It kind of made it weird because I knocked out all the stuff that dominated my year at the beginning. Because in 2006 I listened obsessively to that early 2006 stuff all year. And then the stuff I added afterward I barely listened to.

Anyway. This order may be random.

Early on in the year I felt like women were putting out a lot of great music. In fact, when I made my end of the year mix I dedicated a full CD to female fronted jams. In retrospect, that was kind of silly because they don't need to be segregated out. That seems a little insulting now. So I apologize! But I will still segregate them here to point out how many great female artists put out great music in 2006. And/or I discovered a lot of great women as my mind was quickly expanding in the music world at this time.

It started with Cat Power. The Greatest. I hadn't heard of her before this but such a strong album of melancholy. And then Beth Orton. Comfort of Strangers had me obsessed with her singing voice. I can't quite put my finger on it but it just sounds so amazing to me. It also helped that we saw her do a sound check at the Gothic Theater, which has amazing sound, and it just filled the place. I also quite enjoyed Katharine Whalen's solo album Dirty Little Secret. She was from Squirrel Nut Zippers. She's got a great voice and this album employs it in various interesting ways. El Perro Del Mar was interesting, a sad sad version of girl pop.  Jess Klein has an incredible voice reminiscent of Emmylou Harris. I already was a fan of Nina Nastasia but On Leaving might be my favorite album of hers. Just short, sweet, a bunch of slices of life. My favorite song is "Our Day Trip," which kind of says it all. It's not about moving away or changing your life, it's about a day trip. Just taking a day off.

Disclaimer: Several of these British artists' albums didn't come out in the states until 2007. I set the release date as 2006 anyway, even though my experience of this stuff was just various singles that came in out 2006 and then the full album in 2007. One such example: The Pipettes may have had their music written by a man, but I just loved them for their personalities and pizazz and singing as much as the music. Before it became kind of an overdone thing, they had that 60s throwback stuff DOWN. I saw them live and it was magical. Rosay was my favorite. Did you have a favorite?

The Pipettes "Pull Shapes"

Similarly, Lily Allen's debut Alright, Still didn't come out here until 2007 even though we were clamoring for it on the strength of her MySpace popularity! But I quite like "LDN." And "Smile" is nice now that it's been so long since it was overplayed. And her sassy songs about stupid boys are a lot of fun too.

Same with Amy Winehouse! Oh man, was she special. Back to Black is so much more than "Rehab." Do yourself a favor if you only know "Rehab," listen to this album.

I'm going to use Outkast as a segue here because the highlight of Idlewild was my introduction to one of my favorite female artists, Janelle Monae. On "Call The Law," there's a little bit of Big Boi on there but it's really just a showcase of Janelle Monae's vocal prowess. She completely steals the show. I didn't even know the half of it, of course. Her concept albums that would follow are so much more than a powerhouse voice. But this was my first exposure to her and just knocked me out.

Outkast featuring Janelle Monae "Call The Law"

Food and Liquor by Lupe Fiasco was a great intro to a great talent who kind of fell off. Or maybe I'm the one that fell off. Because as much as I love "Daydreamin'," some of it seems a little too on-the-nose (I am aware I used that same expression below for Neil Young). But I guess I've felt the same way about The Coup and when you want to get your message out to the masses you kind of have to.

J Dilla's last album from his lifetime was the amazing Donuts. Such a great collection of beats that I now recognize on stuff that came out later by great MCs. It was nice to run to. And then The Shining, his first posthumous album with great artists such as Pharoahe Monch (I love that song "Love") and Black Thought. It is no wonder he is so desperately missed in the music world. A rare talent.

My first non-alternative-or-whatever hip hop album was Fishscale by Ghostface Killah. I just wanted something different and this one got good reviews or whatever. So I dove right in. And I loved it for the most part! Especially the more soul songs, but especially "The Champ," which became my favorite song to pump be up for kickball.

Remember how inescapable Gnarls Barkley was? I revisited this inescapability by having tons of versions of "Crazy" on my computer so it came up lots of times. Besides that, St. Elsewhere was a fantastic crossover album that everybody loved.

Teddybears' Soft Machine is a classic party record as far as I'm concerned. Great Swedish dance music featuring the likes of Neneh Cherry and others, the definitive version of "Cobrastyle," and of course Iggy Pop on "Punkrocker," which is maybe my favorite song to run to.

The Lawrence Arms, one of my favorite bands of all time that I'm sure I've written about many times here, put out Oh! Calcutta! and it was just strange to me. It was their most straightforward punk rock album at a time when I was getting out of the business of punk rock (not that I ever did or will completely get out of that business!). It's a favorite of the band based on how much of the stuff they play in concert since it came out, but I didn't get into it nearly as much as everything else they put out. They even put out an album recently and I love it and immediately was drawn to it more than this one. But I really think I need to just give it some more spins. The same goes for Lawrence Arms side project The Falcon. Unicornography continues in that direction and I'm just not as much into it.

I had a similar reaction to Happy Hollow by Cursive. They'd put out these amazing personal albums where Tim Kasher would just stare into his own soul and bare it for all of us and poke and prod it with hot things, and this one was just an attack on the bible belt. Which isn't unwarranted, it just felt like a cheap and easy subject. But it's not like he can keep making albums about himself. In retrospect, it's still a very good album. It just will never hit that place in my heart reserved for Domestica and The Ugly Organ.


Calexico's first album since I officially became a fan was probably the least Calexico-sounding album they put out. Garden Ruin was closer to indie rock than the others, but they did it so effectively and with quite a big of grace that it turned out really strong. Particularly the closing track, which is a perfect fusion of the two genres for a truly epic, building track.

Calexico "All Systems Red"

Also great at epic songs was Yo La Tengo. And great at album titles: I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass is one of the best album titles ever. This was when I really personally started getting into YLT and the way they have 10+ minute songs that you want to go for hours, along with nice shorter pop songs. But the best for me was this sad song. As discussed, I had some tough times this year and the best song for feeling sad was "Black Flowers."

Yo La Tengo "Black Flowers"

The Gothic Archies' Tragic Treasury was a great collection of Stephin Merritt songs based on the Lemony Snicket books. Those dudes are friends! And similarly fantastic with linguistics! Daniel Handler actually came into work and performed one of these songs ("Scream and Run Away") on air, and it was really really awesome.

The Crane Wife may be The Decemberists' crowning achievement. Or maybe that's just because it's the first one I got. But it is a very special album with epic folk songs and catchy angry songs and lovely other songs. Protest music of the 21st century!

I finally got into The Mountain Goats (I am now a devotee and get everything!) with Get Lonely, a lovely album. The only reason I really even got into them though was because they had a music video directed by Rian Johnson, who I admired for Brick. But the song the video was for turned out to be a great slice of life, and just a great way to get into a great band (and a great director who would go on to direct an upcoming Star Wars movie!).

The Mountain Goats "Woke Up New"

My number one album officially at the time was The Life Pursuit by Belle and Sebastian. I still love this one quite a bit. It dominated my year. Kind of more rock than they'd previously done, maybe a little more pop and a little less precious.

However, my real number one in retrospect is one that topped everyone else's lists that year. TV On The Radio just blew up with Return to Cookie Mountain and they were one of my favorite bands at the time. The only reason I put them at #2 at the time was because it came out later in the year and I'd spent all year getting obsessed with the pop sounds of Belle & Sebastian. Plus its positivity helped me through tough times. But Return to Cookie Mountain is a monolith of a record, it has so much happening, and is what got me started on all my hyperbolic talk about TV On The Radio being the most important band of the decade or whatever and all that. I particularly love the four song stretch of Wolf Like Me - A Method - Let The Devil In - Dirtywhirl. The way they build on each other and ebb and flow is just perfect. And particularly particularly "Let The Devil In" with its primal cleansing expression of pure emotion is still one of my favorite songs ever made.

TV On The Radio "Let The Devil In"

Observations. Lots of stuff will go here.

• Arctic Monkeys! They actually were the first I listened to here. I thought they were kind of overrated at the time but it was a blast to revisit them.
• Other British/European bands had a similar sound. I kind of got sick of that sound in 2006 but I enjoyed all of them quite a bit this time around. Dirty Pretty Things, Brakes, The Fratellis, Mando Diao, etc.
• Ray Davies solo! fun!
• They just announced a reissue of the first Jenny Lewis solo album. She has a lovely voice but I was a little underwhelmed by the lyrical content. Still enjoyable.
• Loose Fur. Jim O'Rourke and Jeff Tweedy! Having a lot of fun.
• Kris Kristofferson put out another album and it was solid. I saw him with my dad on the tour for this album!
• Sonic Youth was rather excellent on Rather Ripped.
• Remember Neil Young and his Living With War album about impeaching George W Bush? I dug it at the time but now it feels a little too on-the-nose.
• I kind of dug Peaches' dirty response to hating on W though. Impeach My Bush indeed.
• Raconteurs were pretty good I guess!
• Elvis Costello put out an album with Allen Toussaint about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. It was quite lovely.
• Supersystem were awesome.
• Game Theory saw The Roots pissed off, and it made for some very compelling music. I really like this stage in their career. It was also around the time I finally got into them so...
• The Return of Dr. Octagon was a scam! Kind of! I guess it is officially legit but I remember getting so mad at that album. I got it because it was The Return of Dr. Octagon, but then found out it was more of a remix album of a few demos or something. I don't remember the whole story. But it's weak as far as Kool Keith albums go, doesn't even include that much of him, and is more electro than anything else. It's weird.
• ...Nogatco Rd. was much better. A more legitimate Kool Keith sci-fi release. And look at that title in reverse if you didn't figure it out. The REAL return of kind-of Dr. Octagon.
• Weird Al. Straight Outta Lynwood. Yet another classic! Particularly for "Trapped In The Drive Thru," which my wife couldn't stand but I think is brilliant.
• I'm going to put this here. I just realized that one of the bonus tracks on Return to Cookie Mountain was an El-P remix of "Hours." Was that the first time they worked together? Because TVOTR backed Run The Jewels on Colbert and it was so awesome and they need to work together more.
• I wasn't super into Pieces of the People We Love by The Rapture at the time, because I wanted it more rock like the amazing previous album...but upon revisit, I'm pretty impressed with it. It's quite fun.
• American V: A Hundred Highways by Johnny Cash was just heartbreaking. "Rose of My Heart" was amazing. Rest in peace.
• Ludacris being serious can be pretty damn good. Release Therapy has "Tell It Like It Is" which is a great raw expression from him.
• Modern Times by Bob Dylan was pretty good!
• Remember Lady Sovereign? I quite enjoyed her at the time but now I know more about hip hop and find her a bit bland and trying-too-hard.
• I only have one Cunninlynguists album, A Piece of Strange, but I like it a lot and need to get more. And I need to listen to this one more.
• Rhymefest. Blue Collar is a catchy record. He is a very enjoyable rapper. I remember we got mad at him for homophobia a couple years later. And I stand by that. But why do we hold some rappers to different standards than others? We just have high hopes for some I guess.
• ...I did like that P.O.S. album and he had a good statement about that on his.
• Rock Plaza Central is great too! A concept album about robot horses deserves more than just a bullet point but damn there is a lot of music to cover. If you are reading this, listen to "Anthem for the Already Defeated," one of my favorites!
• Islands! 
• Cut Chemist!
• Tom Waits put out that three disc compilation Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards. Too much to even begin to write about it. It has an awesome Daniel Johnston cover though. Among many other things.
• I thought revisiting Yellow House by Grizzly Bear would make me love it but I still didn't think it was all that special. I don't know why, I think I'm supposed to like it but it sounds too fussed over for me. I think I like their next album more though.
• I didn't get Ta-Dah by Scissor Sisters until later in life even though I was a fan of their first album and got subsequent albums. Just the idea of them not doing dance music didn't seem appealing to me. But of course it is a great album. Like good Queen songs kind of?
• Hank III's best album is probably Straight to Hell. That hidden 42 minute track is something that just has to be heard.
• Hot Chip! So good!
• More amazing women! Bat For Lashes! Joanna Newsom! Neko Case! Gossip! Nicole Atkins (just an EP but a great EP)!
• Peter Bjorn & John! Come for the "Young Folks," stay for the rest! Stay forever!
• How about The Knife!
• Model/Actress was a project from a dude from Brainiac. It sounded great. All we got was an EP.
• I wanted to run to LCD Soundsystem's 45:33 Nike track thing but it didn't work out. Awesome set of music though.

2006 Mix From 2006:
It Was 2006
1. Gnarls Barkley "Go-Go Gadget Gospel"
2. Polysics "Toisu!"
3. Model/Actress "Wait, What?"
4. The Streets "Memento Mori"
5. Thom Yorke "The Clock"
6. Elvis Costello & Allen Toussaint "Who's Gonna Help Brother Get Further?"
7. Belle and Sebastian "Dress Up in You"
8. Yo La Tengo "Black Flowers"
9. Mr. Nogatco "Bionic Fuse"
10. Ludacris "Tell It Like It Is"
11. The Raconteurs "Intimate Secretary"
12. Loose Fur "The Ruling Class"
13. Kris Kristofferson "In The News"
14. Neil  Young "Let's Impeach the President"
15. The Gothic Archies "Shipwrecked"
16. Built to Spill "Liar"
17. TV On The Radio "Let The Devil In"
18. Sonic Youth "Incinerate"
19. The Lawrence Arms "Jumping the Shark"
20. Calexico "All Systems Red"
21. Johnny Cash "Rose of My Heart"

It Was 2006: The Women (I really do apologize for doing it this way!)
1. Cat Power "Empty Shell"
2. The Dresden Dolls "Sex Changes"
3. Peaches "Two Guys (For Every Girl)"
4. CSS "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above"
5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Gold Lion"
6. Lady Sovereign "Public Warning"
7. The Pipettes "We Are The Pipettes"
8. Neko Case "John Saw That Number"
9. Nina Nastasia "Our Day Trip"
10. Lily Allen "LDN"
11. Katharine Whalen "Want You Back"
12. Outkast featuring Janelle Monae "Call The Law"
13. Beth Orton "Shopping Trolley"
14. Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins "Rabbit Fur Coat"
15. El Perro Del Mar "Dog"
16. Joanna Newsom "Monkey & Bear"
17. Cat Power & Karen Elson "I Love You (Me Either)"

Next Time:
2007 has long been declared my favorite year of music. Was it just because I was at such a level of consumption that I discovered a lot of great albums then, or was it actually that good? Without even looking ahead...of Montreal, Battles, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Jesca Hoop, Shellac, LCD Soundsystem, Animal Collective, Talib Kweli, M.I.A., Okkervil River...