MAKE YOU WANNA HOLLER HI-DE-HO

Professional and everything.

So last night Bob and I spun records at Vaudeville Mews.Thanks to Ladd, Bradie, Patrick, Dustin and everybody who came out to ring in 2013 with us. Here's what we played:

YEAR OF THE GLAD

These guys listen to music.

So I've been putting together a little online radio station for eMusic the past few months. (If you don't know eMusic, it's a subscription music discovery service, and I'm honored to contribute alongside all of the super-knowledgeable critics who write there.) While I don't necessarily expect anyone to want to trawl through all of my playlists, I figured I might as well share the songs I've added so far.

Maybe bands will Google themselves and see I'm not a big jerk all of the time? Maybe you'll skim the names and either nod your head in agreement or spit out your coffee in frustration, wondering why I put x on my list but not y? Maybe nobody will ever see this? Who cares!

P.S. If you're in town, please don't forget, Bob Nastanovich and I will be spinning records until we fall down over at Vaudeville Mews on New Year's Eve.

AND TO MY RIGHT, A PERFECT 10...

Sleigh Bells' best song of 2012: "End of the Line"

ALBUMS

1. Frank Ocean: channel ORANGE

2. Fiona Apple: The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do

3. Beach House: Bloom

4. Chromatics: Kill for Love

5. Allo Darlin': Europe

6. Jens Lekman: I Know What Love Isn't

7. Killer Mike: R.A.P. Music

8. Japandroids: Celebration Rock

9. Lotus Plaza: Spooky Action at a Distance

10. TNGHT: TNGHT EP

TRACKS

1. Solange: "Losing You"

2. Cassie: "King of Hearts (Richard X Remix Edit)" (related)

3. Frank Ocean: "Bad Religion"

4. Usher: "Climax"

5. Japandroids: "The House That Heaven Built"

6. Bat for Lashes: "Laura"

7. R. Kelly: "Share My Love"

8. Titus Andronicus: "In a Big City"

9. Sky Ferreira: "Everything Is Embarrassing"

10. BenZel & Jessie Ware: "If You Love Me"

Elite Gymnastics: "Andreja 4-ever"

A COW PIE OF DISTORTION

FIVE ALBUMS
Beach House: Bloom
Chromatics: Kill for Love
Killer Mike: R.A.P. Music
Allo Darlin': Europe
Heems: Nehru Jackets

TEN TRACKS
Cassie: King of Hearts (Richard X Remix Edit)
Usher: Climax
Lotus Plaza: Come Back
Saint Etienne: Tonight
Carly Rae Jepsen: Call Me Maybe
Arctic Monkeys: R U Mine?
Bruce Springsteen: We Take Care of Our Own
Danny Brown: Grown Up
Tanlines: All of Me
Sun Kil Moon: Sunshine in Chicago

These past six months have been like a waking dream. In November, my wife and I had our first child, so as any parent will understand, the line between waking and sleeping has been thin. But I've also been writing every morning for SPIN -- something I wouldn't even have imagined as a possibility when I was thumbing through the magazine's 1997 year-end list for CD recommendations back in high school. And, month after month, I've been putting together sprawling "best of 2012 so far" posts without ever hitting the "publish" button.

I decided maybe I should let that be a lesson to myself. Most times, when I do these lists, I err on the side of too much information. But we're all overloaded with information these days, and I'm definitely part of the problem. So as much as I'm dying to mention all the dozens of other albums, EPs, mixtapes, and tracks that have been killing me this year -- and I did manage to make it to a few shows, too! -- I'm going to leave it here for now: five full-length releases I can't imagine 2012 without, plus 10 songs I expect to keep in heavy rotation until the next time I do one of these lists.

I'll be DJing again at Vaudeville Mews' outdoor PBR Bar on Saturday from 9 p.m. until whenever, so come out if you'll be in the neighborhood. I'm sure I'll spin some of my other recent favorites, and I'll do my best to post a setlist here.

Until then, thanks for following along!

WHY WOULD THAT MUPPET BE STARVING?

OK, so I didn't finish this before the Village Voice's Pazz & Jop (my poll entry is here). I barely even finished it before the Super Bowl. But I'm going to throw it up here anyway. For posterity!

Here's a Spotify playlist of some songs it seems to me now people might be less likely to have heard.

Oh yeah, and last year I did a list of "best shows," but I definitely don't have time for that now. The Poison Control Center for sure here in DSM. Purity Ring was cool, too. Crystal Castles pre-Lollapalooza, maybe?

QUARTERLY-ISH REPORT 2Q 2011

Hey, look! Prompt for once.

A ridiculously incomplete, highly subjective selection of stuff I've been enjoying this year that didn't already appear on my previous quarterly report.

QUARTERLY-ISH REPORT 1Q 2011

He's human, I'm human, you human.

So usually I try to limit my quarterly reports to albums and tracks that technically came out in the previous three months. But I always post these things waaay late. And release dates matter less than ever. So please consider this a provisional "best of 2011 list"-- with huge omissions, I'm sure-- dated as of... now?

CAN YOU HELP ME FIGURE THIS OUT?

I'm a fool now that it's over.

"I wish somebody would do a Pazz & Jop-style list made up of only people's #1 albums and songs," I tweeted Nov. 10. "Feel like #10s (and #50s!) are irrelevant." This led me into a really fun and enlightening e-mail back and forth with my friend and the person who used to hand me wines I'd love but then immediately forget how to describe intelligently (I'm telling you I must just have a terrible sense of smell, which would also explain why I dislike bland foods such as mayonnaise or American cheese but will gladly quaff a red wine recommended to me-- accurately-- as tasting like "fried ice cream and green peppercorn"), Cole Chilton. Now, Cole started with the premise that, as previously niche interests have become more popular, a narrow top 10 list tends to miss a lot, which seems inarguably true. In our conversation, he also (it seems to me correctly) noted that top 50s and other long lists constitute a form of "signaling"; a longer list signals that a critic has taken the time to listen to so much and with such critical attention that you should take this person's top pick very seriously. And then we started talking about how he approaches rating the wines he tastes, which was super interesting but really none of my business to start sharing here.

I guess it's Cole's second point that starts to nag at me. Readers of this blog and its Tumblr are probably bored by now with my constant crusade for the idea that there's always at least a slight potential gap between a sign and what it signifies. (I just finished reading this great book called The Gift by Lewis Hyde, and I found out that Albert Einstein, of all people, made sort of a similar argument in a different context: "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.") By the same token, I start to wonder if all the effort that gets expended signaling expertise risks taking away some of a list's communication of any actual expertise. It might be the journalist in me talking, too: If we're signaling our own expertise, are we really serving the readers' interests first? Or our own? (Like, when you're a reporter, sometimes you want to quote a source in an article, because the source took the time to speak with you and you want them to speak with you again, but it only muddles up the account for the reader, whose interests come first, so you cut the quote and apologize to the source.)

But mostly, I worry about the effect that lists of a gazillion albums can have when they're assembled into a poll. For all the greater potential for diversity that has come with the internet, you ultimately seem to have more critics working for less money and listening to the same basic universe of albums. I have plenty of disagreements with Chuck Eddy's essay for the Village Voice at the beginning of the year, "The Year of Too Much Consensus," but I, um, agree that there's an awful lot of consensus. When everybody is filing a list of 10 or 50 or 100 "top" albums of the year or whatever, does this basically mean that the medium-profile, critically safe stuff that ends up in people's 8th spots or 35th spots is going to rise to the top, just because it's going to be on everybody's list somewhere, given a long enough list? Someone with access to the actual data could correct me on this, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if year-end lists end up being more in accord with critics' #1 albums than with their #12s. If my worries are at all well-founded, though, here's where I again think about the reader: As a music fan, how much do I care about an album that some critic ranks at #10 but not a single critic in the country ranks as #1? (Might such choices sometimes be as much about "signaling"-- ooh, a token [insert niche] pick!-- as about how much, if we really thought about it, we'd expect ourselves to enjoy the record if we were in our readers' shoes?) Could the cumulative effect of year after year of longer and longer lists be not to give readers more choices, as the numerical growth might indicate, but rather, to constrict them by providing an unnatural consensus based on what looks good on a list more than on what makes us passionate?

As with all of these debates I constantly find myself stumbling into on the internet, there are of course shades of gray, and I recognize there's probably never a clearcut situation where one choice is purely "signaling" and another is purely based on how passionate we are about a record. And I mean, really, here's the worst part: While it's easy for me to come up with my top album, or even my top 3 albums, once we get past that, I keep coming up with more and more records I enjoy and want to share with you in case you might like them, too (or is it partly, as with my example earlier of quoting a source in a news article, because I want to show the artists and other critics who like them that I'm not a hater? Who knows!). So here are a whole bunch of records that while I'm listening to them make me feel stuff and think stuff and maybe occasionally wanna move around and shout stuff and I hope if nothing else I can pass some of those feelings along to you.

So here's my 2010 year-end wrap-up post. For the albums list, I used an expansive definition of what constitutes one album, which I think is appropriate considering artists are experimenting with new ways of releasing music now that the album is in decline; for the tracks list, I tried to limit choices in the top 50 to two per artist, although The-Dream kinda sneaks through because I wasn't counting guest appearances (or songwriters, for that matter).

I LIVED ON A FARM, YEAH, I NEVER LIVED ON A FARM

Ain't that some shit?

Tiger Trap: "Supercrush"

Long-overdue quarterly report for stuff from, like, July 1 to September 30, but I don't promise I didn't make some exceptions. I never like doing these:

ALBUMS
Deerhunter: Halcyon Digest (review)
Big Boi: Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty
Best Coast: Crazy for You
Das Racist: Sit Down, Man
Robyn: Body Talk Pt. 2
Tennis: Tennis (cassette)
Tamaryn: The Waves
Darren Hanlon: I Will Love You at All
Rick Ross: Teflon Don
How to Dress Well: Love Remains (review)

Apologies to Wavves, No Age, Working for a Nuclear Free City, Glasser, Superchunk, the Walkmen,  Los Campesinos! (EP), Junip, Andrew Cedermark, Washed Out (CD-R), Kingdom (EP), Salem, El Guincho, Gold Panda

Special extra apologies to Das Racist for not spending enough time with Shut Up, Dude before my 2Q list

Stuff I thought I'd really like and never quite warmed to but still might end up loving: Matthew Dear, Jamey Johnson, John Legend and the Roots, Oneohtrix Point Never

Stuff I thought I'd really like and never warmed to and don't expect to listen to again: Cee-Lo's Stray Bullets mixtape

TRAXX
Cee-Lo: "Fuck You"
Deerhunter: "He Would Have Laughed"
Das Racist: "hahahahaha jk?"
Deerhunter: "Helicopter (Diplo & Lunice Mix)" (I like to think of this song as my cat's theme song right now... she's been moping in the corner ever since we brought home a dog yesterday. Sad!)
Tennis: "Marathon"
Jens Lekman: "The End of the World Is Bigger Than Love"
Robyn: "Hang With Me"
Warpaint: "Undertow"
Duck Sauce: "Barbra Streisand"
Les Savy Fav: "Let's Get Out of Here"

Apologies to Cheryl Cole: "Parachute (Ill Blu Remix)", Das Racist: "You Oughta Know" (technically 2Q but needs to be reiterated ahead of year-end consideration, besides, it's my list), Deerhunter: "Revival", Digital Dubstar [ft. Miss Fire]: "Can't Say No", Dream Cop: "Daily Mirage", the Fives (ft. Vanya Taylor): "It's What You Do (Hottest by Far)", Frankie Rose and the Outs: "Little Brown Haired Girl" (should've been on my 2Q list), Gold Panda: "Same Dream China", Kisses: "People Can Do the Most Amazing Things", Maximum Balloon [ft. Little Dragon]: "If You Return", NDF: "Since We Last Met", Nicki Minaj: "Your Love", No Age: "Fever Dreaming", R. Kelly: "Fireworks", Robyn: "Criminal Intent", Still Corners: "Endless Summer", Superchunk: "Everything at Once", Teen Daze: "Wet Hair", Teengirl Fantasy: "Cheaters", the Walkmen: "Stranded", among many others

The track you should pick from The-Dream's Love King, a 2Q album: "Make Up Bag", if only for the title pun (can you believe this hasn't been done before? Or has it?) and T.I.'s persuasively remorseless verse ("All that I do for you is just a part of me doing me").

LIVE SHOWS
- Pitchfork Music Festival (LCD Soundsystem, Robyn, Titus Andronicus, Major Lazer, Pavement, Big Boi, Beach House, Neon Indian, Surfer Blood, Freddie Gibbs, Best Coast, Sleigh Bells, Modest Mouse, more). July 16-18, Union Park (Chicago).
- 80/35 Music Festival (Spoon, Modest Mouse, Yo La Tengo, the Walkmen, the Cool Kids, Zola Jesus, Califone, Evangelicals, the Poison Control Center, more). July 3-4, downtown Des Moines.
- Pavement, with the Poison Control Center. Sept. 11, the Uptown Theater (Kansas City).
- Best Coast, with Male Bonding. Sept. 17, Grinnell College.
- Tennis, with Maid Marian, the Land of Blood and Sunshine, the Seed of Something. Sept. 17, Vaudeville Mews.
- Devo. July 24, Walnut Street Bridge.
- The Poison Control Center, with Christopher the Conquered, Why Make Clocks, the Atudes. Aug. 29, Des Moines Social Club
- Darren Hanlon, opening for David Dondero, with Derek Lambert. Sept. 28, Vaudeville Mews.
- Black Mountain, with Mondo Drag. July 26, Vaudeville Mews.
- Toro Y Moi, opening for Phoenix. Aug. 10, People's Court.
- Tim Kasher, with Cashes Rivers, Parlours. Sept. 27, Vaudeville Mews.
- Retribution Gospel Choir, with Why Make Clocks, Wolves in the Attic. Sept. 30, Vaudeville Mews.
- YellowFever, with Coyote Slingshot, the Seed of Something. July 19, Vaudeville Mews.
- Abstract Rude, with Musab, Gadema, Young Tripp. July 11, Vaudeville Mews.

The Strokes: "Under Control"

The Softies: "Goodbye"

I'M RIGHT OVER HERE WHY CAN'T YOU SEE ME

Happy summertime.

Long-overdue quarterly report for stuff that came out (or, in the case of tracks, hit the internet) from April 1 to June 30. I'm never on top of these kinds of posts like Tom Breihan, and I'm not even gonna pretend to be ready to write blurbs about all of these, but we do what we can, right? I promise my third-quarter report will be more prompt. Potentially.

ALBUMS
Robyn: Body Talk Pt. 1 (review) (interview)
Sleigh Bells: Treats
ceo: White Magic (interview)
LCD Soundsystem: This Is Happening 
The Poison Control Center: Sad Sour Future
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti: Before Today
The-Dream: Love King (review)
Caribou: Swim
Allo Darlin': Allo Darlin' (review)
The Drums: The Drums

(Apologies to Tracey Thorn, Tame Impala, the Radio Dept., Delorean, Crystal Castles, Drake, Flying Lotus, Chemical Brothers, Janelle Monae, Julian Lynch, Wild Nothing, James Blake, Josh Ritter, Beach Fossils, Big KRIT, Emeralds, Race Horses, Wiz Khalifa, Foals, etc. etc.)


TRAXX
Robyn: "Dancing on My Own"
Robyn: "Cry When You Get Older"
Katy Perry [ft. Snoop Dogg]: "California Gurls"
Josh Ritter: "The Curse"   
Ciara: "I Run It"  
Big Boi: "Shutterbug"
Best Coast: "Boyfriend"  
LCD Soundsystem: "I Can Change" 
Salem: "King Night"
Gauntlet Hair: "I Was Thinking..."

(A haphazard, incomplete, probably embarrassing-in-six-months assemblage of other 2Q tracks for your consideration: Aeroplane: "We Can't Fly", Allo Darlin: "Kiss Your Lips", James Blake: "CMYK", ceo: "Come With Me", the Chemical Brothers: "Escape Velocity", Crystal Castles: "Baptism", Crystal Castles: "Celestica", The-Dream: "Florida University", The-Dream: "Love King", The-Dream [ft. T.I.]: "Make Up Bag",  Flying Lotus: "MmmHmm", Japandroids: "Younger Us", Kendal Johansson: "Blue Moon", JTJ [ft. Sophia & Sanchila]: "It's You", Alicia Keys [ft. Drake]: "Unthinkable (Remix)",  LCD Soundsystem: "Dance Yrself Clean", LCD Soundsystem: "Drunk Girls", M.I.A.: "Born Free", MNDR: "I Go Away", Kate Nash: "Don't You Want to Share the Guilt", Sleigh Bells: "Tell Em", Sweater Girls: "Do the Sweater")

LIVE SHOWS
-  Love Is All, with Tyvek. April 8, Vaudeville Mews.
- The Poison Control Center, with Christopher the Conquered, Mynabirds, Wolves in the Attic, Derek Lambert. April 30, Vaudeville Mews.
- Coyote Slingshot, with Wheels on Fire. June 9, Vaudeville Mews.
- Damien Jurado. June 6, Vaudeville Mews.
- Julian Casablancas. April 23, People's.
- The Twilight Sad, with Mono. May 18, Vaudeville Mews.
- Woodsman, with the Autumn Project, Statocyst. June 30, Vaudeville Mews.
- The Beets. June 10, Vaudeville Mews/April 23, Beechwood Lounge.
- Harlem, with the Jitz. May 5, Vaudeville Mews.  (Ben and Travis will not agree on this placement.)
- Canby, with Golden Veins, Skypiper. May 1, Vaudeville Mews.
- The Love of Everything. June 24, Vaudeville Mews.
-  Pearly Gate Music, with Love Songs for Lonely Monsters, Land of Blood and Sunshine, Seed of Something. June 9, Vaudeville Mews.


I woulda posted the 9/19/71 Stonybrook version but it's not on YouTube.

NEED AN EXTRA HOUR ON THE CLOCK JUST TO SHOW YA

 Where is the love?

Belated quarterly report for individual tracks. Requirement for this list was just that a track had to have been out there in some form by March 31, 2010, as best as I could possibly incorrectly tell as I was posting this (so for example Robyn's "Dancing on My Own," a surefire top 10 for me right now, is not included; Poison Control Center's "Being Gone" isn't, either, but if the video had come out March 31 instead of April 1 it would be). Meanwhile, in albums news, please consider Erykah Badu dropped from my first-quarter top 10 and Ke$ha added (what was I thinking?). Also: another selection of incongruous Black Eyed Peas photos.

Tell me what I'm forgetting:

1. Ciara [ft. the Dream]: "Speechless" In a post today, this funny and weird and actually pretty astute Tumblr blog called Pitchfork Reviews Reviews (not sure exactly how I should feel/write about it because no doubt I will eventually come up for review-- at the very least, it's a worthier adversary than most criticize-the-critics blogs in the last five years) says Pitchfork has never covered The-Dream, except in a single news item about Lil Wayne. This is, technically speaking, not true. The old Forkcast, which you can only find in your RSS reader these days, covered "Shawty Is a Ten," a "Shawty Is a Ten Remix" with R. Kelly, "Falsetto," the "Falsetto" video, "I Luv Your Girl," and "Let Me See the Booty," plus Dream productions like "Touch My Body" and "Umbrella." What, you expected me to say something about the song? Without speech. For now. (OK, except to say I never thought The-Dream would keep finding new and better variations on his "ella ella"/"ay ays," or that Ciara would out-"Promise" her own "Promise.")



2. Tanlines: "Real Life" When I wrote about this track for Pitchfork, I missed something crucial. First of all, my use of the word "sad" was totally off, although the Brooklyn duo do bring an air of melancholy to this vaguely tropical synth-pop stunner, which should fit nicely between New Order and the Tough Alliance on a mix. I know this isn't what you should normally do with dance music, but let's go through the lyrics again: "You might think I'm still that way/ It's only natural/ It was a past life thing, it was a past life thing/ It wasn't anything at all." In the context of having been "lost" ("trouble was I was alone"), it's clear he's not looking back on something sadly/wistfully, as I'm afraid my review suggested-- he's reassuring a lover, "OK, when I was single, I was a jerk-- mistakes were made-- but not only is that over, it might as well never have happened." Words easier said than followed through upon, given what we know about human nature, and maybe that's what makes them poignant. I still love how the song seems like it's about to end, but then comes back for another chorus. No idea what's with the chant of what sounds like "mass aloha"-- it's just the sort of thing somebody should be singing at the end of this song, right?




3. DOM: "Burn Bridges" I'll have a lot more to say about this band, who like labelmates Golden Girls hail from Worcester, Mass., but for now just read Dom's interview with Ryan Dombal and listen to the song. I wouldn't be surprised if another Dom track (probably "Living in America" or "Jesus") edges this one out as my favorite by the end of the year.




4-10. Aloe Blacc: "I Need a Dollar". Janelle Monae [ft. Big Boi]: "Tightrope". Robyn: "Fembot". Das Racist: "Shorty Said (Gordon Voidwell Remix)". Spoon: "Out Go the Lights". The Drums: "I Felt Stupid".

Yes, we can.

Incomplete list of assorted other tracks for your consideration, no particular order:
Caribou: "Odessa" 
Nicole Kidman: "I'm in Love With a Jehovah's Witness"
Liars: "The Overachievers"
Titus Andronicus: "No Future Part Three: Escape From No Future"
Los Campesinos!: "A Heat Rash in the Shape of the Show Me State Or, Letters From Me to Charlotte"
Dum Dum Girls: "Bhang Bhang, I'm a Burnout"
Alley Boy [ft. Young Dro]: "Tall"
Delorean: "Stay Close"
Rox: "My Baby Left Me"
Goldfrapp: "Rocket (Richard X One Zero Remix)"
Tracey Thorn: "Oh, the Divorces!"
Gorillaz: "To Binge"
Young Money [ft. Lloyd]: "Bedrock"
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti: "Round and Round"
Drake: "Over"
Surfer Blood: "Catholic Pagans"
Lindstrom & Christabelle: "Baby Can't Stop"
Neon Indian: "Sleep Paralysist"
Zola Jesus: "Night"
jj: "Pure Shores"
Here We Go Magic: "Collector"
These New Puritans: "We Want War"
Four Tet: "Sing"
White Hinterland: "Icarus"
Rich Boy: "So Look Good"
Rich Boy [ft. Yelawolf]: "Go Crazy"
The-Dream: "Love King"
Toro Y Moi: "Blessa"
Beach House: "Used to Be"
Robyn and Diplo: "No Hassle"
Field Music: "Them That Do Nothing"
Sonny and the Sunsets: "Too Young to Burn"
Best Coast: "Wish He Was You"
Cloud Nothings: "Can't Stay Awake"
Spoon: "Written in Reverse"
Love Is All: "Less Than Thrilled"
Cults: "Go Outside"
Active Child: "Wilderness"
El Perro Del Mar [ft. Robyn]: "Change of Heart (Rakamonie Remix)"
Golden Girls: "Amateur Teen Sex Attics"
Ludacris: "How Low"
Baths: "Maximalist"
Starkey: "11th Hour"
Young Dro and Yung LA: "Black Boy, White Boy"
Junkie XL [ft. Jan Hammer]: "Made for Each Other"
The Besnard Lakes: "Albatross"
Gyptian: "Hold Yuh"
Fiveng: "Jonah"
Marina and the Diamonds: "Hollywood"
Dead Gaze: "Back and Forth"
Freddie Gibbs: "Crushin' Feelin's"
J Stalin [ft. Jacka]: "Red & Blue Lights"
Mr. Dream: "Knuckle Sandwich"
Yelawolf: "Pop the Trunk"
Kisses: "Bermuda"
Joker: "Tron"
Arches: "Comin' Back Again"
Teen Sheiks: "Germs"
So Cow: "Random Girls"
Young Dro: "Go to the Club"
Tycho: "Coastal Brake"
Kelis: "Acappella"
Shout Out Louds: "Walls"
Chat Room: "Mom's Web Dating Again"
The Knife in Collaboration With Mt. Sims and Planningtorock: "Colouring of Pigeons"
Cold Cave: "Life Magazine"
Marvelous Darlings: "I'll Stand By Her"
Radio Dept.: "Heaven's on Fire"
Bullion: "Say Goodbye to What"

 Glamorous/Clumsy (pick yr fave).

THE COUGH, THE WIND, THE RAIN WAS RIGHT

 I'm so 3008. You so 2000 and late.

I was going to try to list a top 15 or 20 albums or something, but then I realized I was only 100% sure of my top five, so I decided I'd just go ahead and rip off Tom Breihan all the way. I tried to stick to stuff that came out between January 1 and March 31; if we're lucky, I'll post some of my favorite individual tracks of the first quarter before the next one comes around. Apologies to Zola Jesus, Surfer Blood, These New Puritans, Lindstrom & Christabelle, Dum Dum Girls, Gorillaz, Cloud Nothings, Akira Kosemura, Sonny and the Sunsets, Yelawolf, Race Horses, Tanlines, Ted Leo, Broken Bells, Active Child, Gil Scott-Heron, Field Music, Fabolous, etc. etc. (Oh, and I have some photos from the Black Eyed Peas show at Wells Fargo Arena, not sure if I'm going to end up using them with a possible essay so I figured I'd throw those up just for something pretty to look at.... There's more where these came from, too.)

Let's get it started in here.

1. Spoon - Transference. OK, I know they're playing 80/35. I know there's not an obvious hit on Transference like "The Underdog." And I know that after my first few listens, I was telling people Spoon probably shouldn't play a festival like 80/35 this year, because the new album was just too much in its own little world-- should've grabbed 'em after Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (of course, they'd go and name the accessible one Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga). But Transference is the album I've probably listened to most this year-- I went out and bought it on vinyl, and for some reason I haven't felt the need yet to pick up the new Titus Andronicus on vinyl, so I guess I must like this better, huh?-- and you know what, I think I was just being paranoid. Because once people spend more time with this album, I feel like it's going to move up a whole lot of year-end lists: It's just one of those albums that is totally its own, unified experience, from its The Graduate-goes-record-geek cover art (a 1970 image by William Eggleston; I picture the kid from the cover hiding out in his bedroom, trying his best to escape for a little while by making music that sounds like the records he thinks are cool) to its weird, off-center production and unexpected audio interference-- plus it happens to have another great batch of songs, from a band with no shortage of them. Spoon's own Britt Daniel and Jim Eno produce, so when "The Mystery Zone" cuts off suddenly or "Before Destruction" starts to sound like your cell phone is too close to the speaker (or when you notice how "Who Makes Your Money" has no question mark but "Is Love Forever?" does), you gotta figure it's intentional; there are auteur films, and this is an auteurs' album. And I have no clue what it all has to do with the psychological concept of transference, but I get that they're singing about communication here, communication breakdowns really-- and I can't think of a more important subject now that we're all connected to each other but struggling to express ourselves in a meaningful way between "likes" and "pokes" and Farmville. Nor can I imagine a rock album expressing that struggle with as much smoldering gorgeousness. There's the White Album-style cut-loose rocker to showcase Daniel's fantastic howl ("Written in Reverse"), the taut post-punk groover that reminds you how most of Transference was recorded at the same studio as tourmates Deerhunter's Microcastle ("Got Nuffin'")-- there's even a piano lullaby ("Goodnight Laura"). My favorite is probably "Out Go the Lights," which you can hear here. Spoon already had their day in the major-label sun, such as it is, so they knew there was no point trying to duplicate the success of "The Underdog." This is the sound of a band with nothing to lose. And nothing to gain except an album its members might like, whether it gets through to other people or not. Here's betting it does.

2. Beach House - Teen Dream. Beach House have been coming up with new ways to be sure they'd get described as "languid" for three albums now. I wasn't sure they'd top Devotion, an intimate slow-burn dream-pop album I'd recommend to anyone who liked either Mazzy Star's So Tonight That I Might See or Britney Spears' Blackout. But they did. And how: You're still going to remember a haze of impressions more than the individual songs, at least until you've listened as many times as I have, but "Norway" broadens the Baltimore duo's scope to include 1980s Fleetwood Mac-style choruses, "Used to Be" is a marvelously restrained piano-based song about a couple growing apart (the lyrics suggest one ending, the warmth in the music makes me hope for another), "Silver Soul" is just a bigger, more impassioned version of the kind of thing they've been doing since their debut's outstanding "Apple Orchard." You may have read that Victoria Legrand has a classically trained voice, but compared with that earlier stuff, it now sounds rock-trained, honed by a few years of touring; Alex Scally's guitar lines have new arrangements to snake through. "Zebra" motif aside, there's nothing black-or-white about this album-- the lipstick-smeared pink on the inner cover (I picked this one up, too, double-vinyl with DVD of kinda lame videos) suits it just fine.

3. Love Is All - Two Thousand and Ten Injuries. I won't even pretend this would've been this high if not for the Swedish five-piece's great show at the Vaudeville Mews a couple of weeks ago. Love Is All have been one of my favorite bands since debut 9 Times That Same Song, and I was a big fan of sophomore album A Hundred Things Keep Me Up at Night, too, so don't get me wrong; there are few bands I'd rather turn to for punk-spiked indie-pop with braying saxophones and painfully accurate reflections on single life. But the first track I heard from the album was the uncharacteristic "Take Your Time," which had my expectations low-- borrowing from the Clean's "Tally Ho" was one thing, but what, they're doing Pachelbel's "Canon in D" now? Then I listened like 10 times to get ready for the show and another 2,000 times since picking up the physical record, and it doesn't hurt a bit.

4. Titus Andronicus - The Monitor. I have a feeling a lot of people are going to rally around this one just because it's great to hear something so ambitious in an indie-rock scene flooded with too-cool-to-try lo-fi and too-commercially-savvy-to-try licensing bait. But I think there's a lot more going on here than just an overblown Civil War concept album with a multiplatinum rap record's worth of (indie-famous) guest stars. I liked Titus Andronicus's previous album OK, and I enjoyed them when I saw them live, especially when the New Jersey dudes were jumping off of speakers and cussing about politics and stuff, but I had a hard time hearing past the Bright Eyes-ish quaver in Patrick Stickle's voice. Then again, Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst wasn't the first to sing that way-- I wonder how fans of David Dondero felt when Fevers & Mirrors came out-- and there's no way a vocal style could cause me to dismiss an album that makes me pump my fists and sing along so many times (as Tom says, great driving album). So, let's see, the Civil War: Our side won, right?

5. White Hinterland - Kairos. A review in UK magazine The Wire says this isn't an r&b album as much as something "to inspire wistful gazing onto snow-covered landscapes." I respectfully disagree.

6-10. Los Campesinos!, Romance Is Boring; Four Tet, There Is Love in You; Liars, Sisterworld; Toro Y Moi, Causers of This; Erykah Badu, New Amerykah Part Two (Return Of The Ankh) 

 Mazel Tov. (L'chaim!)

IT'S NOT A QUESTION OF UNDERSTANDING IT, MAN. IF YOU FEEL IT, YOU FEEL IT, STUPID

Here are a few of my favorite tracks of the year that weren't already on this ridiculously sprawling list back in September.

The Tough Alliance: A New Chance (Juan Maclean Remix)
Four Tet: Love Cry
A Sunny Day in Glasgow: Close Chorus
Big Boi [ft. Gucci Mane]: Shine Blockas
Yo La Tengo: More Stars Than There Are in Heaven
The Drums: I Felt Stupid
Surfer Blood: Swim (To Reach the End)
Joy Orbison: Hyph Mngo
Raekwon (feat. Inspectah Deck, Ghostface and Method Man): House of Flying Daggers
Los Campesinos!: The Sea Is a Good Place to Think About the Future
Lindstrøm & Christabelle: Baby Can't Stop
Skooda Chose [ft. Twista and Mikey Rocks]: Loungin'
Mountain Goats: Genesis 30:3
Paramore: Brick By Boring Brick
Emalkay: When I Look At You
Memory Tapes: Plain Material
Flaming Lips: Watching the Planets
DJ Quik and Kurupt: 9x's Outta 10
Camera Obscura: French Navy
Annie: Songs Remind Me of You
Museum of Bellas Artes: Who Do You Love

CONSTANTLY WANDERING, DOING... SOMETHING

Sorry I've been away. Here are too many songs I've liked this year to count, in some kind of order that could totally change after I've had a few more months to process 'em:

• Japandroids: "Young Hearts Spark Fire"
• Bat for Lashes: "Daniel"
• Atlas Sound [ft. Noah Lennox]: "Walkabout"
• Neon Indian: "Deadbeat Summer"
• Big Pink: "Velvet" [simply, huge]
• Delorean: "Seasun"
• Black Eyed Peas: "I Gotta Feeling" [i heard Erika's "Relations" and DJ Sammy's "Heaven" again last weekend at a wedding reception. i want to go out and hear this song and have it feel the way those dumb-sounding but euphoric and catchy dancepop songs did when i was going out more. this one is way better.]
• Fever Ray: "If I Had a Heart"
• jj: "my life, my swag"/"my swag, my life" [grouping these two together is kind of cheating, i know]
• Yo La Tengo: "More Stars Than There Are in Heaven"
• Animal Collective: "My Girls"
• Taken by Trees: "Watch the Waves (Memory Tapes version)"
• Thom Yorke [ft. Andy Yorke]: "All for the Best"
• Young Jeezy [ft. Jay-Z] : "My President Is Black (Remix)"[my iTunes has this from January... but was I late?]
• Gloriana: "Wild at Heart" [pretty sure this group has not one iota to do with the Quickspace song "Gloriana". i found this song through the tumblr blog of a teenage girl whose other musical loves were apparently Taylor Swift and John Mayer (not sure how i found the blog, but anyway). as i've written elsewhere, this is just a happy song that makes me wish i was a 15-year-old just out of school for the summer, thrilling to the warmth and the wide open possibilities ahead, aware i'm about to grow up but not quite able to comprehend it just yet. and utterly twitterpated on a hopeless crush that's not so hopeless after all, at least for one song.]
• Das Racist: "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (Wallpaper Remix)"
• Drake [ft. Bun B and Lil Wayne]: "Uptown"
• Black Eyed Peas: "Boom Boom Pow" [i wish i liked the Gucci Mane and 50 Cent version better, because I feel like that one is, well, COOLER, but i think this original is more coherent and fun-- "HD flat"! and of course, there's ingeniously crafted seeming casualness: "i'm so 3008, you're so 2000 and late"]
• Phoenix: "1901"
• Major Lazer: "Keep It Goin' Louder [ft. Nina Sky and Ricky Blaze]" ["Girl, I wanna party with you" --> Diplo is the new Black Eyed Peas, and that's a GOOD thing] [title is awfully forgettable tho]
• Morrissey: "It's Not Your Birthday Anymore"
• Röyksopp [ft. Robyn]: "The Girl and the Robot"
• Nodzzz: "Is She There?"
• Atlas Sound [ft. Laetitia Sadler]: "Quick Canal"
• Neon Indian: "Should Have Taken Acid With You"
• Gucci Mane: "Gorgeous" ["have ya seen me lately?"]
• Dan Deacon: "Snookered"
• Air France [ft. Roos]: "GBG Belongs to Us"
• Joker: "Digidesign"
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs: "Skeletons"
• John Rich: "Shuttin' Down Detroit" [The bailout is already yesterday's issue, and I can't ride for Rich's ignorance-flattering model of populism anyway. But Naomi Klein once went on Maddow and called the financial rescue "the greatest heist in monetary history." She hasn't been invited back. And Rich manages to stage a great old-fashioned protest here, catchy and emotionally resonant, with the likable if slightly wrong-headed bravado of a late-1960s country standard like "Okie from Muskogee".]
• Rich Boy: "Drop"
• jj: "ecstasy"
• Deerhunter: "Famous Last Words"
• So Cow: "Shackleton" [no blood on HIS hands, Villalobos]
• Animal Collective: "Brothersport"
• Delorean: "Deli"
• Roy Davis Jr. [ft. Erin Martin] : "I Have A Vision (The Juan MacLean Remix)"
• Phoenix: "Lisztomania"
• Skooda Chose [ft. Twista and Mikey Rocks]: "Loungin'" ["still hated by internet bloggers ... i'm just makin' money and loungin'."]
• Taken By Trees: "My Boys"
• Drake [ft. Trey Songz and Lil Wayne): "Successful"
• Morrissey: "Something Is Squeezing My Skull"
• The Embassy: "You Tend to Forget"
• Dum Dum Girls: "Catholicked"
• The Smith Westerns: "Be My Girl"
• Super Furry Animals: "The Very Best of Neil Diamond"
• Salem: "Redlights"
• Jeffrey Lewis: "Roll Bus Roll"
  
• Passion Pit: "Moth's Wings"
• Real Estate: "Black Lake"
• avner: känslor [the title means "feelings". this is the swedish electropop "clocks" meets the swedish electropop "some things last a long time" plus full-on psych/noise coda]
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs: "Zero"
• Big Pink: "Dominoes"
• Basement Jaxx: "Raindrops"
• Breeders: "Fate to Fatal"
• Wilco: "You and I"
• John Talabot: "Sunshine"
  
• Mount Kimbie: "Maybes"
• Washed Out: "Feel It All Around"
  
• Memory Cassette: "Surfin' (Save a Whale Version)"
• Lil Wayne [ft. Pharrell]: "Yes"
• BBU: "Chi Don't Dance"
• Art Brut: "Mysterious Bruises" [they might be more of an albums list pick this year, though]
  
• Super Furry Animals: "Inaugural Trams"
• God Help the Girl: "Come Monday Night"
• Bill Callahan: "In Hindsight" [the best song I own about John Tyler]
• Floating Points: "K&G Beat"
• Bibio: "Fire Ant"
  
• The Flaming Lips: "Silver Trembling Hands"
  
• Zomby: "Fuck Mixing, Let's Dance"
• Rainbow Bridge: "Big Wave Rider"
• Sexy Kids: "Sisters Are Forever"
• Röyksopp: "Happy Up Here"
• John Mayer: "Heartbreak Warfare" (03/28/09, Lido Deck of the Mayercraft) [here's your lo-fi! "red wine and ambien/ you're talkin' shit again", "if you want more love/ why don't you say so?", strummy strum stum lighters strum]
• Pains of Being Pure at Heart: "Young Adult Friction"
• DJ Kaos: "Love the Nite Away (Tiedye Mix)"
• Gold Panda: "Quitters Raga"
• Guido: "Way You Make Me Feel (Punchdrunk)" [i still don't OWN this. which is a crime.]
• M. Ward: "Stars of Leo"
• Drake: "Best I Ever Had"
• Girls: "Lust for Life" [all right, all right-- this is sneaking up on me like the Strokes did]
• Sebastien Tellier: "Kilometer (Aeroplane Italo '84 Remix)"
• Decemberists: "The Wanting Comes in Waves (Repaid)"
• Jay Reatard: "It Ain't Gonna Save Me"
• The-Dream: "Kelly's 12 Play"
• Dan Deacon: "Surprise Stefani"
• El Perro Del Mar: "Change of Heart"
  
• Ganglians: "Cryin' Smoke"
• Wavves: "So Bored"
• Arctic Monkeys: "Cornerstone"
• Young Jeezy [ft. Lil Wayne and Drake]: "I'm Goin' In"
• A Sunny Day in Glasgow: "Close Chorus"
• K'Naan: "Kicked, Pushed"
• Tiny Vipers: "Dreamer"
• Gucci Mane [ft. f. OJ Da Juiceman, Rock City & LA the Darkman]: "Overboard"
• Kurt Vile: "Beach on the Moon (Recycled Lyrics)"
• Pissed Jeans: "Dream Smotherer"
• Rick Ross: "Rich Off Cocaine"
  
• Young Dro [ft. Yung LA]: "I Don't Know Y'all"
• Ellie Goulding: "Starry Eyed"
• Eve: "Me and My (Up in the Club)"
• Patten: "Version (Test Mixxx)"
• Pisces: "Drea One"
• Kurt Vile: "Freedom"
• Blue Daisy [ft. LaNote]: "Space Ex"
• YACHT: "Psychic City (Voodoo City)"
• HEALTH: "Die Slow"
• Name the Pet: "Get on the Bus"
• Bearsuit: "Muscle Belt"
• Best Coast: "Sun Was High"
• Future of the Left: "The Hope That House Built"
  
• Small Black: "Depiscable" Dogs"
• Nosaj Thing: "Coat of Arms"
• TVO: "Dwyer"
• Babe, Terror: "Summertime Our League" (I like this concept a lot-- theoretically, this would be the Loveless of the recent ethereal, electronically enhanced summer music thing-- but people are probably right to say it drags a bit unless you're in exactly the right mood)
• A Sunny Day in Glasgow: "Walking Pneumonia"
• Desire: "If I Can't Hold You"
  
• Jean on Jean: "Tonight"
• John Mayer: "Who Says I Can't" (05/06/09 at Hotel Cafe, Los Angeles)
  
• Kid Cudi: "You Can Call Me Moon Man" (OK, I really only like the last 20 seconds or so, but I really like those last 20 seconds)

My big non-current discovery of the year so far, through a covers compilation and a couple of reissue-ish promos in my pile, is Kath Bloom. Sad slow gorgeous simple folk from the 1970s and 1980s in New England (best known through filmmaker Richard Linklater). A little Joni Mitchell, a little Vashti Bunyan, a tiny smidgen Patsy Cline. I bet people who like Tiny Vipers will like this.

Still have a lot of new music to digest. Including new stuff by the Twilight Sad. Also need to listen to the new album by Des Moines locals Why Make Clocks, among others. And those last couple of Radiohead tracks will probably factor somewhere in the list... I don't have to file my final top 50 until after Thanksgiving, usually, so there's plenty of time to winnow these down. And to figure out what I forgot.

(Grizzly Bear's "Two Weeks" and "While You Wait for the Others" are both still on my playlist for further consideration-- I ain't givin' up that easy.)

...AND ADOBE SLATS/SLABS

Truth in advertising.

50 Records That May or May Not Show Up on My 2009 Year-End Top 50 (in alphabetical order):

A-Trak: Infinity + 1
Ada: Adaptations - Ada Mixtape #1
Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion
Art Brut: Art Brut Vs. Satan
Atlas Sound: Logos
Bat for Lashes: Two Suns (long interview-- plz excuse the pompous intro)
Bibio: Ambivalence Avenue
The Boy Least Likely To: The Law of the Playground/The Best B-Sides Ever
Dan Deacon: Bromst (track review)
Deerhunter: Rainwater Cassette Exchange EP
Delorean: Ayrton Senna EP
DJ Koze: Reincarnations
DJ Quik and Kurupt: BlaQKout
DJ Sprinkles: Midtown 120 Blues
Drake: So Far Gone mixtape
The Dream: Love Vs. Money
Dum Dum Girls: Dum Dum Girls EP (track review)
El Perro Del Mar: Love Is Not Pop mini-LP (track review-- ignore the number; this was originally an unranked blog post)
Fall Out Boy: Folie a Deux
Fever Ray: Fever Ray (interview)
God Help the Girl: God Help the Girl (ABC News video review)
Japandroids: Post-Nothing (track review; live review)
Jeremy Jay: Slow Dance
jj: jj n° 2
Kurt Vile: God Is Saying This to You
Lil Boosie: Thug Passion mixtape
Major Lazer: Guns Don't Kill People... Lazers Do
Maxwell: BLACKsummers'night
Micachu & the Shapes: Jewellery
Morrissey: Years of Refusal (live review)
Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas: II
Neon Indian: Psychic Chasms EP
Neko Case: Middle Cyclone
Nodzzz: Nodzzz (track review)
Paper Route Gangstaz: Diplo & Benzi Present... Fear and Loathing in Hunts Vegas
Phoenix: Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Playboy Tre: Liquor Store Mascot mixtape
Röyksopp: Junior (track review)
Shrag: Shrag
So Cow: So Cow
Spoon: Got Nuffin EP
A Sunny Day in Glasgow: Ashes Grammar
Super Furry Animals: Dark Days/Light Years
Taken By Trees: East of Eden
TVO aka The Village Orchestra: The Dark Is Rising EP
UGK: UGK 4 Life
Various Artists: Underwaterpeoples Compilation
Yeah Yeah Yeahs: It's Blitz!
Yo La Tengo: Popular Songs
Zomby: Where Were U in 92?

still very much on the fence w/ (and may still wanna vote for by year's end, who knows): Grizzly Bear, Dirty Projectors

also need to listen to more (among, duh, many others): Girls, Free Energy, The Rational Academy, Modest Mouse new EP, Rick Ross, the Smith Westerns, Nosaj Thing, Javelin, Pictureplane, Black Jazz Consortium, Nudge, Omar S, Dinosaur Jr., Ganglians, Avner, Future of the Left, Tim Hecker, Tiny Vipers, Ducktails, Gui Boratto, Very Best, Lake, Jay Reatard, Vivian Girls, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.