Lot's Wife

8) The Pipettes, We Are the Pipettes

Perfect pop that in my ideal world (animals would be neon, Lisa Frank-ized in this world) owns the charts. But since the reality of my life is one where animals are brown and don't do cartwheels in space, I'll have to be content that The Pipettes are a bit of an indie sensation... in the UK at least.

This is the album that the early women of rock and the riot grrls paved the way for: fully liberated sex romp pop music, man-hunting but un-threatened.

"Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me" has the best chorus of any single this year, but "Pull Shapes" is overall the most infectious three minutes on the album. I love these girls.

Download pull_shapes.mp3

9) M. Ward, Post-War

I'm sexually attracted to M. Ward. Is that so fucking wrong? IS IT?
But that doesn't mean he made my top ten just for being SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.

Post-War is a gorgeous album of broken Americana, singer-songwriting at its very best. The material translates well live but belongs, for the most part, as an album to listen to as a late night sort of revelry.

The best track from the album is a cover of Daniel Johnston's "To Go Home." Neko Case guests on the chorus, a reminder of some wonderful lyrics:

I'll be true to you/ Oh yeah/ You know I will
I'll be true for you forever/ Or Until
I go home

Download to_go_home.mp3

10) Xiu Xiu, The Air Force

Xiu Xiu's best album.

Coherent and in-check-- Xiu Xiu's problem has always been a strange mix of taking themselves far too seriously one second ("Ian Curtis Wishlist," "Support Our Troops, Oh!" or the entirety of La Foret) or not nearly serious enough ("I Broke Up (SJ)," "King Earth, King Earth")-- The Air Force is extremely strong, lyrically and as experimental pop/rock/whatever.

Download the fantastic "Save Me, Save Me".

The album's three closing songs, "Save Me, Save Me," "The Fox and the Rabbit," and "The Wigmaster" are pretty much perfect.

Download the_fox_the_rabbit.mp3

11) Sparklehorse, Dreamt for Lightyears in the Belly of a Mountain

Sparklehorse has been one of my very favorite bands for years. Mark Linkous is one of the most amazing, complicated songwriters I have ever listened to.

On this new album, the first since the much fan-adored, critically confused It's a Wonderful Life, Linkous returns with a damaged, "staticking" album, a recording that further pushes apart the bipolar parts of Good Morning Spider into the crackling ballads and desperate rock tracks.

I'm not sure if Mark Linkous is doing ok right now. I hope he keeps making music and that the frequency of the output increases. This is one of the few songwriters I know that really get it.

I posted a link to download "Morning Hollow," awhile back.. "Ghost in the Sky" is the other side to that coin.

Download ghost_in_the_sky.mp3

12) I'm From Barcelona, Let Me Introduce My Friends

The idea of a band as a collective is a little too socialist for me, too big and cute to work (Polyphonic Spree anyone?) unless said band is chock full of real-life socialist Swedes.

I'm loving that I'm From Barcelona is so single-minded in its pursuit of feel good goody goody-ness that it actually somehow works. I'm as anti-happiness as the next person, but Let Me Introduce My Friends actually makes me feel a touch bad about my insistence on living the snarky life. Just a touch.

"We're From Barcelona" fills me with a desire to round up all my friends to show them off to any and everyone and invite people to come join us as we  go run around together, holding-hands in vast fields of amber(!).

Because, like this Swedish collective, I want to lie and say we all get to holiday together in Barcelona. Good friends should get to do shit like that.

Download werefrombarcelona.mp3

13) Swan Lake, Beast Moans

O Canada! for it's superbands, if nothing else.

Dan Bejar has become more important to me than my boyfriend (ha!) with new releases seemingly coming  every other week with two of my favorite bands, Destroyer and The New Pornographers.

Now a new supersideproject (with Wolf Parade's Spencer Krug and Frog Eye's Casey Mercer) to stroke my Bejar fetish. Swan Lake is a sonic 180 to The New Pornographers' multi-harmonized power indiepop; Beast Moans is a messy, gorgeous album. It's difficult and a little obnoxious (come on, a chorus! a lyric I can repeat without sounding super twatty!) yet the end result is so frenzied and full of such obvious mutual respect/adoration (circlejerk, really) that any pretensions aren't really that hard to let slide.

It's a great debut album from a very well-conceived project.

"City Calls" is at once the most disjointed yet unified track, call-and-response nonsense. Less immediately wonderful than the single "All Fires," but ultimately the best track from Beast Moans.

Download city_calls.mp3

Such Mystery!

Some poor soul found this gay, gay little blog yesterday after he (I'm assuming sex, but I'm assuming right) googled:

Satisfying Wife

I am so very intrigued about This Man.

Is This Man a wonderful, loving husband? Always on the search for exciting, gloriously pleasuring techniques that will keep his partner writhing and gasping for more, yes, more? Or looking for ways to meet her every emotional and (I daresay) spiritual needs? Is This Man on a quest to pave the rose-petaled road to a lifetime of marital bliss, a union of souls to become the thing of legends? When asked what makes him whole, happy to be alive, This Man doesn't have to think about the answer. "Satisfying my Wife," this man says, his voice breaking just slightly.

Or does This Man hate his life? He finds the memory of shared nuptials the greatest of frauds? Hearth and Home a world a misery? Is This Man desperate for something sexier, something younger? None of what has come to be is This Man's fault, not one little bit. It is Her! The Evil Woman! So now This Man is searching, desperate to find that one thing that makes life worth a damn. "A Satisfying Wife," he says, the look in his eyes betraying his firm voice. This Man no longer really believes in such a creature.

To both This Mans-- he of gentle spirit, and he of no soul:

You're both shit out of luck around here.

14) Howe Gelb, 'Sno Angel Like You

Sometimes even an album with very high acclaim  still manages to slip through the cracks virtually unnoticed. Howe Gelb's newest album received an 8.3 at pitchfork, yet didn't make it onto even one of the writing staff's individual lists. Same story with pretty much everyone: the album is #12 on the list of the top 30  releases at metacritic, yet I've found it on only one year-end list.

'Sno Angel Like You is, frankly, just not a very cool album. It's Southern rock, every track backed by a gospel choir. It's smart and textured. It takes a listen or two to really establish its presence. But definitely worth it. And, without a doubt, one of the best albums of the year.

Music critics are a strange, fickle bunch.

"That's How Things Get Done" a slap-my-ass-as-I-leave-the-house kind of song. A little scolding. I love how he sings the word, "bear." You know, just cuz.

Download thats_how_things_get_done.mp3

15) El Perro del Mar, El Perro del Mar

It's so comforting to listen to this escapist mope music. El Perro del Mar is one of the years most unassuming, unabashedly lovely albums. Sarah Assbring's voice is just on the edge of faltering on pretty much every note, but she's no Chan Marshal: it's a genuine album, but there has to be a wink with lyrics like "All them feelings you've got for me/ Is like for a dog." I mean, there are handclaps with the tears.

Download "Candy" here, from a previous post gushing about these Scandinavians. I mentioned in that post that El Perro del Mar is a lot like Julee Cruise. I think it's actually more that Angelo Badalamenti's production style and muted instrumental solos are the forerunners to this album (minus the creepy factor).

"God Knows (You Gotta Give to Get)" is the album's bittersweet highlight.
Download god_knows_you_gotta_give_to_get.mp3

16) Nelly Furtado, Loose

Nelly Furtado’s third album is one strange pop proposition.

“Promiscuous” and “Maneater” were, of course, the dancefloor monsters of the year. Those tracks, along with Loose’s other bootybumper, “No Hay Igual,” and midtempo tracks “Glow” and “Do It,” are the backbones to the album’s chart success. All good and good. But what I like about Loose is its complete and utter spazzattack of genres: Pop, World (I love the blanket ridiculousness of the “World” label), a touch of Hip-Hop, and downright Adult Contemporary ballads (if, admittedly, it is decidedly left field).

Related tangent: I don’t fear Adult Contemporary as a genre. I’m afraid of lots of other things: WhiteDreads, CPAP machines, rapist dolphins, etc. etc. (valid phobias, all) but I certainly don’t stay awake at night dreading an embracing of highly showy vocal lines, weepy ballads, heavy-handed production and Top 40 fame—as long as there’s a meaty hook somewhere in there. Indie Rockists’ (I’m being wildly general) hatred of this genre except when pronouncedly ironic or swallowed and shat as guilty-pleasure is to miss out on some really fantastic songwriting and genuinely talented performers. Like, for instance, Nelly Furtado.

I’m so defensive! Shoo. But really, this is the mainstream album of the year. Better than Justin Timberlake’s. I swear!

“Say It Right,” atmospheric pop? This isn’t something I’m super accustomed to, but I love it.

Download say_it_right.mp3