My favorite albums of the year

I wanted to find some new music this year so I listened to many 30 second clips from I-tunes and E-Music. Some of these I found on my own and some I gleaned from other peoples recommendations.

10. Big Iron World by Old Crow Medicine Show
I first heard these guys on A Prairie Home Companion a few years back. They are a very good modern blue grass band. I really like James River Bues and Down Home Girl.





9. Good Night, and Good Luck Soundtrack featuring Diane Reeves
If you liked this movie then I believe the music had something to do with it. Dianne Reeves is so good.



8. Eighties by Grant Lee Phillips
Grant Lee Phillips has a cool haunting voice and his versions of these songs from the eighties are great. I especially like his versions of REM's So. Central Rain and New Order's Age of Consent.

7. Passover by The Black Angels
I like garage bands. The Black Angels have that great fuzzy guitar sound that I love. Check Out their song The First Vietnamese War.







6. Magic Potion by The Black Keys
The Black Keys are another garage rock band that kicks major glute. Like the White Stripes, its just guitar and drums but with a grittier blues sound. I like all their albums. Check the them out on Conan.

5. Sincerely Black Lipstick by Black Lipstick

Yes know I have three bands with Black in the names. And yes I know that this album came out in '05 but I just discovered this band and I want to promote them. Like The Black Angels, Black Lipstick hale from Austin, TX. Now there are, at the very least, three good things that have come out of Texas. (The 3rd being me. I was born in Ft. Hood)





4. Return to Cookie Mountain by TV on the Radio
I have no problem with bands who have similar sounds to other bands. If I did have that problem TV on the Radio would be my band.

3. Boys and Girls in America by The Hold Steady
The Hold Steady are a great rock and roll band. They crank out a very solid song and they do it with some of the best lyrics I've heard in a long time. This live acoustic version of Stuck Between Stations showcases their Springsteenesque writing. The album version really rocks.

2. Rather Ripped by Sonic Youth
I have been a huge Sonic Youth fan for a long time. Daydream Nation is one of my all time favorite albums. Sonic Youth have always been experimental which is great but I don't connect with all that they do. The guitar interplay of Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore is really at its best. Steve Shelly, as always, lays down a good beat. The band sounds best when Kim Gordon does the singing as in the track Reena.

1. Fox Confessor Brings The Flood by Neko Case
I really like this album. I had heard of Neko Case but it wasn't until I heard Hold On, Hold On on the radio that I became a huge fan. I downloaded the song as soon as I got home. It didn't take long for me to get the whole album. Neko has a timeless almost haunting voice. The sound of this album could have come out of the sixties yet it also has a modern quality. Maybe Sparrow has the same qaulities that some of the great songs from the American songbook have. I thought of the song Skylark by Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael when heard Neko's birdsong.