MOG

Hello! So this is my first MOG posting. I'd like to use MOG as an opportunity to keep up writing about music while I'm not doing it professionally at the moment. Who knows how often I'll actually post on this thing, but as my inaugural post, here are some more year-end lists. If you're anything like me, you spend too much time reading these kinds of things, and way too long making them yourself. Might as well share.

My Top 50 Albums of 2006

1. Love Is All - Nine Times That Same Song

Technically, this album came out last year, but you were lucky if you could find it until this year (when it was released in the States, anyway). That's only relevant because it's a shame when release dates and availability make it so something as extraordinary as this album gets only a passing notice. Nine Times That Same Song is the best album I heard this year. I would venture to say that when 2006 is swept under the rug as a just-OK year for music, it's the only thing that will be considered a classic.

Everything about Nine Times That Same Song is well-considered, from its exhilirating opening call of "One More Talk!" in "Talk Talk Talk Talk" to its pitch-perfect pacing. Even though it's short enough to be an EP, this is an album in the truest sense. I wouldn't say there's not a weak spot, but every song manages to leave you wanting more.

What isn't perfect is the sound of the thing. Josephine Olausson's vocals nearly drown in reverb so she has to scream them free, not to mention that she, along with the saxophonist, only have the slightest hint of what tune is. The production's also about as good as anything you could do in your basement. It's not an accident. It's a perfectly calculated equilibrium of off-kilter sensibilties, heavily anchored by great riffs, shout-along backup vocals and hooks upon hooks. Oh, also! An amazing rhythm section--who else outdoes the bass solo on "Busy Doing Nothing," or the drums on "Spinning and Scratching"?

The lyrics? When you can hear them, it's always a treat. "We like the same kind of cheese" on "Used Goods" comes to mind as wonderfully irreverent, but the mind-numbing passion in "Make Out Fall Out Make Up" has the best ones, chronicling whilrwind teen romance with surprising bits of heartbreak ("I think I'll spend all day in bed").

Nine Times That Same Song, I think, is only a throwback because it recalls days when you didn't download an album for one song or an easily accessible sound, but rather an album full of songs where your favorite changes from week to week. "Trying Too Hard," which outstrokes The Strokes in less than two minutes, comes close, but after a year of listening to it, "Felt Tip" doesn't get old. It's a perfect encapsulation of youth on record, like all your favorite high school songs all at once, "Don't Speak" bleeding into "Dreaming" and "Don't Your Forget About Me."

2. Liars - Drum's Not Dead

Liars collects, dusts off and updates the otherness of the underground music of the last 40 years on Drum's Not Dead. They recorded this in the same place David Bowie did his Berlin trilogy, and you can hear the same insular internal-logic at work here. An unhealthy obsession with drums ("A Visit From Drum," "Drum Gets a Glimpse," etc.) has never lead to such beautiful sounds made by the instrument. The drum's their guiding light here, and it leads to some of the most transcendent moments on an album full of them. Drum's Not Dead is as sex-and-death obsessed as most rock n roll, but the insistent beat and atonal vocals of "Hold You, Drum" don't sound post-punk, not even proto-punk. It's something ancient, tribal. You're also not going to find an explanation for any of the album's overarching themes. "Let's Not Wrestle Mt. Heart Attack" sounds like world is coming apart when Angus Andrews screams partway through, whereas "The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack," full of watery guitar riffs and backup vocals, is an intensely beautiful closer to an album that leaves you shaken.

3. Band of Horses - Everything All the Time

Band of Horses aren't particularly handsome or anything, but I can't help but think they're the cutest fucking band on the planet. Not cute in the "we're so cute" Boy Least Likely To way. No offense to that band, or most twee bands, but it's just so put-on, whereas Band of Horses sing their sad little hearts out. "The First Song" is an untouchably gorgeous bout of Johnny Marr-style guitar overlaying that could make your grandma sigh. It sounds like the cover the album looks. That, and "Wicked Gil," an requisite indie-rock staple, are like a buffer to the occasionally embarassing but always charming earnestness of the rest of the album. I can't hear more than a few seconds of "Part One" without getting goosebumps. "Slowly dear, ask would you dance with me?" "More covers for you/Sleep soundly dear 'cause I have to go/I love you always." It's basically lyrical crack for closet cornballs. How do you even write lyrics like that in 2006? There's no room for cynicism on an album that closes with a song that says "Let's bury ourselves, and haunt someone tonight." Thank God.

4. The Knife - Silent Shout

OK, everyone loves this and so do I. I'm still not gonna get behind the "ho ho ho" song, it's fucking scary.

5. Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass

I'm pretty much a sucker for anything Yo La Tengo, but nothing they'd done in years had this much power--or was just so fucking enjoyable. Yo La Tengo pulls out all the stops by giving fans everything they want from the decades-old band and still pulls a few surprises. Noodly guitar soundscapes ("Daphnia"), gauzy folk ("I Feel Like Going Home"), and the perfect pop song ("Black Flowers") are all signature Yo La Tengo. But it's not business as usual; Ira Kaplan has never sounded as unleashed as he does on "Pass the Hatchet," nearly 11 minutes of guitar bliss, nor has Georgia Hubley sounded as hollowed and sexy as she does on "The Room Got Heavy." And the double-dose of Peanuts-pop with "Beanbag Chair" and "Mr. Tough" should take the place of that overplayed Vince Guaraldi crap the next the A Peanuts Christmas is on TV.

6. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain

TV on the Radio cemented their status as a band that "matters" this year with Return to Cookie Mountain by staying as outre as any indie band but embracing rock n roll as a medium. Cookie Mountain roars off the bat with the funeral march-rock of "Playhouses." But it stays true to their art-rock roots, employing cut-and-paste sound tactics on "I Was a Lover," which sounds less labored-over than it probably was, the processed sitar sitting comfortably with breakbeats, shoegazer guitar and soul harmonies. And It goes without saying that Tunde Adebimpe has the best voice in indie rock, all passion and no pretense. TV on the Radio are one of the few bands that still make you step back and change the way you think about music. When you hear Bono flapping his gums, this is what you wish his band sounded like.

7. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale

The best hip-hop album of the year is a tireless 24-track revelation from someone who could be resting on laurels upon laurels at this point. Wu-Tang sounds great as ever on "9 MIlli Bros.," but despite his numerous guest appearances, the star is Ghostface, breaking our hearts in "Whip You With a Strap" and freaking us out with a stonery indie-rap jam for the ages in "Jellyfish." Even Ghostface himself seems to be a fan -- he released another album this year, simply called More Fish.

8. 120 days - S/T

I get the feeling no one wanted to get behind 120 Days because of their obviousness. They're signed to Vice, they sound like Joy Division and look like Panic! At the Disco and they played CMJ, like, 120 times. Of course none of that matters for shit. What made this one of the most exciting debuts of the year wasn't the promotional push behind them, but rather their musical feat. Everyone copies Curtis and co. because, well, Joy Division is one of the best bands ever, but none of the She Wants Revenge types does a damn thing with the sound, except dumb it down. Not so here. "Come Out (Come Down, Fade Out, Be Gone)," my favorite song of the year, gets only better and better across the course of its nearly nine minutes. It starts, like most of their songs, as just atmosphere, untill that pulse comes in, carrying on its back an indelible synth riff. Their vocalist (something Norweigan with a lot of v's and dots) does his best Bono emoting over the rest, which manages to touch on krautrock, new wave, noise rock, primitive house, Night Rider, Atari, the Stone Roses, Brian Eno, electroclash, and everything else stupid and brilliant about 1975-1985. The first half of this album has all the energy and ingenuity of the first post-punk bands.

9. Peter Bjorn and John - Writer's Block

In a year some of the best releases were some of the most fucked up, it's great to be able to really get behing a fantastic pop album. Writer's Block is the best one--ten pristine songs of earnest longing, in the proudest britpop (well, europop) tradition. "Young Folks" had everyone whistling, but the album's beginning run of songs is unbeatable.

10. Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury

Clipse's fury is something ill and foreboding, disguised as club banging hip-hop. Those "uh huhs" on "Mr. Me Too" are deliciously nasty, not like sipping Cristal in the club or whatever, like blacking out at someone's house afterward. There's more faded ennui here than on scores of indie rock releases geared towards affecting disafectedness, but it's not the slightest bit lazy either, full of weird hooks consisting of bells, meows and fake gun sounds. It's nice to see the Neptunes take something this strange because I'm pretty sure the Power set isn't buying. "Wamp Wamp" is fun enough to get 50 Cent fans tired of his posturing as of late who liked "Grindin'," but mostly, this isn't for either them nor fey hipsters, although the scary synth vocals on "Keys Open Doors" are closer to late-era Radiohead than anything else. It's for anyone else willing to ask for their hip-hop to to deliver brains and brawn in equal doses.

11. Junior Boys - So This is Goodbye

The best nighttime music of '06 from two guys on their laptops. Junior Boys have every bit of the techy romanticism of the Postal Service, and the sexiness of Air, but with a maturity, and moodiness, not often seen in electronic music. Andi Tomi's breathy turn on "In The Morning" adds a gorgeous pale shade to So This is Goodbye, but my favorite song is "Count Souvenirs," which is a huge Depeche Mode ripoff, but on an extremely hushed and nuanced album, this song feels the quietest and most intimate--the wavery keyboard isntrumental in the middle is simply stunning.

12. El Perro Del Mar - S/T

My hypothetical indie-rock couple of the year: EPDM's Sarah Assbring and Jim Noir. Who else but cheery-as-fuck Noir could help Assbring cure "this loneliness?" Think about it - they're perfect for each other. Each one has a missleading last name - which one would you think is the goofball, and which one the miserable one from the names Noir and Assbring? But seriously, she is awesome. Go buy this album, or download it. What does it sound like? A lot better than Cat Power's last album, which was pretty good. Need to know more? It digs up girl group angst and vomits it out through one of the most relentlessly fragile voices around. Even her song about a dog is fucking sad. "What a feeling...what a feeling for a dog," sound so empathetic it's pathetic. It's experimental, with warped backup vocals in place of banal harmonies, and is still catchier than bands that take themselves half as seriously. It's a total downer, in the best way imaginable. Still need more? She's kind of a babe.

13. Sunset Rubdown - Shutup I Am Dreaming

At this point, hipsters will follow Spencer Krug off a bridge, not because they're lemmings but because he rarely fails to deliver. More mysterious and hesitant than Wolf Parade, SR has the same spazziness, redirected into atmospheric music with nods to the piratey Tom Waits realm, 4AD goths like Cocteau Twins, and bread-and-butter indie rock like Guided By Voices. That's not to say they sound like any of those artists--SR don't really sound like anyone, which is a feat I certainly wasn't expecting from a guy who would be excused for sounding burnt out. He doesn't. "When someone says fuck me, someone else says OK!" Krug is so confident in his weirdness, we barely notice he's scratching at the walls.

14. Grizzly Bear - Yellow House

I heard once that Dave Matthews' "Crush" was supposed to mimic having an orgasm. Sadly for DMB, it just sounds like cum in your fingers. "Lullabye," on the other hand, sounds exactly like the inside of someone's brain who's climbing towards ecstasy--but one who's asleep. It's like the dream of sex is better than the real thing. You, too, might think about things this mindless while listening to Yellow House, a deep and ethereal album that recasts folk as a featureless clay, reshapen to mimic the feeling of dreaming so lucidly you wake up not knowing where you are.

Bt dubs, did anyone read the RS interview with these guys, where all they did was focus on how they have a big following with the gay bear community? Hilariously irrelevant!

15. The Roots - Game Theory

Both thrilling and no-fun-at-all: That's the Roots' rap, except for when they let loose on an atypical good-times jam. There's none of that on Game Theory. All you get is genius rapping over a band that schools just about any indie rock band alive, that's all. "In the Music" and "Here I Come" cement themselves into your head as soon as you hear them. Game Theory almost defines itself by name: It's the sound of a group having tried everything - attempted masterpiece, pop concession - and saying fuck it, let's do what we do best. The low-profile attempt yields a nearly completely solid album for the Roots, who have always been brilliant but inconsistent. Perhaps their best, and certainly one of the year's best.

16. Tapes n Tapes - The Loon

Tapes n Tapes didn't strike me as anything special at first, perhaps because you could fill up five paragraphs with a list of sound-alikes and Pavement-rip-offs. But their approach - to record as much music as possible, often improvised, then parse them into songs - makes every riff feel like you're hearing it for the first time, since you don't quite know where it's going next. This is one of the few bands to be able to mimic Sonic Youth's style of improvisation that still sounds planned, although unlike that (obviously far superior) band, they make their improvisations almost exclusively into hooks, perfectly strung together in a way few others would think of, or let themselves.

17. Herbert - Scale

Sexy without the sex, this is after-dinner music for 25-to-35-year-olds who don't yet want to throw in the towel. Repeat listens reveal generous detail in within each electro-jazz helping, making Scale a more engrossing and memorable experience each time.

18. Scott Walker - The Drift

"Clara," the second song on Scott Walker's x album (and second in 11 years), is so eerie it seems to have the power to positively change your surroundings. Listen while driving downtown at night, and the grime and lights seem magnified a thousand times. Could be the incredibly fucked-up noise that starts about two minutes in, some terrible combination of white guitar noise, horror movie violins and percussion by way of someone punching a side of beef (which, in the subsequent female narrative that follows, represents a bird trapped in an attic). It goes beyond saying that Scott Walker has to be pretty fucking twisted to put that into a song, but he's also endlessly creative. Not for the faint of heart.

19. The Pipettes - We Are the Pipettes

We are an indie rock boy wank fantasy is more like it -- three cute girls with great voices that sing Motown-style harmonies with a Stereolab-style vocal exchanges, over nearly perfect arrangements of Strokes-style indie pop. I heard "Pull Shapes" in an Italian thrift store and "Dirty Mind" in Grey's Anatomy and the music sounds equally at home. I'd like to see the girls write their own tunes, and outsell the Long Blondes, but if neither happens, We Are the Pipettes is a nearly too good to be true debut.

20. Girl Talk - Night Ripper

What kind of girl talk girl are you? The kind that pairs Ciara with Elastica, layers rapping over "Scentless Apprentice" and takes the best parts of some of your favorite songs (and some of your least favorite) to make something endlessly entertaining.

21. Joanna Newsom - Ys

I'm not of the opinion that this is either the masterpiece championed by indie sites, nor is it "hard to stomach," as one popular music mag called it. It is at first, but if you have patience, Ys has its rewards. At only five songs long, Ys is a gamble that doesn't always pay off - "Monkey & Bear" goes nowhere fast, and stays there for nine minutes, and overall, the orchestrations provided by Beach Boys collaborator Van Dyke Parks are too distracting, and mixed too loudly, instead making Newsom's performance and lyrics the backup. The best songs let her sing on her own with only light touches of production. For my money, "Sawdust & Diamonds" is the best, and a reminder of why you still want to listen to Joanna Newsom, even when she pulls back so far into Joanna Newsom Land that she's barely visible. Her harp gallops along so fast, you don't notice that there's not much more happening than one woman singing in playing. She's like the Eddie Van Halen of harpists - there doesn't need to be much else beause she colors ever space with expressive harp melodies. And when she builds to the final utterances of "desire" in the end, breaking the spell of her narrative string to emote, it adds up to one of the year's most transcendent musical moments. See it live for the full effect - right now, there isn't a more magnetic performer around.

22. Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped

A grower-not-a-shower, like most SY albums. Which is weird, when you consider this is their cleanest attempt at going pop. Most songs hit around four minutes, without a single extended noise break in the whole set, and with a meticulousness never previously heard in a Sonic Youth album. Their calculations almost always work, in the way "Incinerate" and "Do You Believe In Rapture?" build to monumental guitar harmonies. Thurston and Kim still fuck around plenty, as "Sleeping Around" and "What a Waste" prove, but stripped of any excess.

23. Beach House - S/T

Yeah, a beach house where it rains all damn day, but you hate the beach because you're so pale, and your wife left you because you're depressing, but you're too tired to care, and also the house is haunted and a ghost ate your dog, but other than that they're not such bad people. This record sounds so aged, tired and lonely that it's the opposite of depressing, totally content in its moroseness. "Love you all the time, even though you're not mine" is also the best, most haunting opening line to an album in recent memory.

24. Man Man - Six Demon Bag

What's a six demon bag? Is it a totally fucking rad band of assholes who call out other bands because not everyone can do Tom Waits, Captain Beefheart, Pirates of the Carribean and Evil Dead in the same band?

25. Boris - Pink

Both punk and metal seem laughable as labels for Boris. I don't know of too many bands in either genre who start their albums with seven-and-a-half minute shoegazer soundscapes, before chucking it to the street with the next song, a two-and-a-half minute barrage of screams and Black Sabbath riffs. It doesn't let up once, with guitars almost as loud as My Bloody Valentine (and at least five times as many parentheses in the song titles).

26. Fujiya & Miyagi - Transparent Things

I'm guessing I'm not the only one who had "Fujiya, Miyagi, Fujiya, Miyagi" going through their heads for at least a week. Half Can, half Gorillaz, Fujiya & Miyagi don't quite sound like they're sure if they'd rather be artsy kids in the attic or fuckups drinking in the basement. For those of us who like it both ways, that's just fine, and if things go horribly awry after 'Transparent Things,' we'll still have "Conductor 71," the best reimagining of Krautrock since Stereolab's heyday.

27. Mission of Burma - The Obliterati

OK, so there's a song called "Donna of Sumeria," 'The Obliterati' sounds like a rejected Star Trek race and these guys are old enough to be your creepy has-been uncles. So what? You'd never know it unless you read too many magazines. Hopefully, clueless teenagers will buy 'The Obliterati' thinking it's some band of post-punk upstarts tearing shit up. Despite their age, one else this year played as hard, or sang with as much venom.

28. Califone - Roots and Crowns

Califone's music alone conjures a sort of decayed decadence, like some undead civilization gathering to feast, but this time around, they've decided to grace us with more structured songs based around traditional components (hooks, riffs, audible lyrics, etc.). They didn't need to at all, but it's a welcome change that will probably get Califone more fans than a weird, desert-folk rock band ever thought possible.

29. Comets On Fire - Avatar

Kicks about as much as the Nickelodeon series of the same title (which is lots). Comets on Fire's attempts at straightforward songwriting are a mixed bag - the hooks are pretty Kansas-esque - but they're smart enough to let the songs unleash into their trademark freakouts before you lose interest. Like the Allman Brothers, but psychedelic and fucking crazy.

30. Juana Molina - Son

Molina used to be a comedian and TV star in Argentina before she moved on to making music. Good move. Molina's hypnotic take on folk seems to take inspiration from nowhere other than her own mind, looping melodies and fingered progressions around each other to create something immediately memorable, but still otherwordly, using little else than her guitar and voice.

31. Destroyer - Destroyer's Rubies

Maybe it's a little cocky for Dan Bejar to call his own songs "rubies," but we could hardly disagree. He sounds so confident in his rambling, fantastical voice, all you can do is ride along. "Painter In Your Pocket" evokes Felt and the Go-Betweens at their most dynamic.

32. Figurines - Skeleton

Man Man said it best with their "no more Pavement bands" decree. OK. But just one more. Figurines gave us the one thing we really want from an indie pop band--tunes, not pretense--with nary a stinker over the course of 15 high-strung, hook-laden songs.

33. The Thermals - The Body, The Blood, The Machine

Ten body-and-blood-pumping songs from an irrate, power-chord loving trio. One of them's a kick-ass pop song ("A Pillar of Salt").

34. Justin Timberlake - Futuresex/Lovesounds

Superb singles, backed by a nearly as great album. The terrible stab at promoting awareness about Crystal Meth is its only misstep.

35. The Hidden Cameras - AWOO

For some reason people jumped ship when the Hidden Cameras dropped the pee pee references. They're all the better for it. Without the overly baiting lyrics and "gay church folk" pretense, the Hidden Cameras emerge as an ace pop band, favoring hooks over gimmicks in gems like "Lollipop," "Learning the Lie" and especially "The Waning Moon." Like XTC on ecstasy, and gayer.

36. Mylo - Destroy Rock 'N' Roll

Somehow lost in the shuffle, one of the year's best electronic albums had both dancefloor crowders and loungey head-trips in no short supply. If you aren't already, "In My Arms" will make you gay, girl.

37. Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere

What the hell is this? Oh, it's just an unclassifiable rock-soul-hip-hop band that somehow had the biggest worldwide hit of the year -- and we're still not sick of it.

38. Subtle - For Hero: For Fool

Who else manages to evoke Grandmaster Flash and Broken Social Scene within the same song? And gets away with it?

39. Camera Obscura - Let's Get Away From This Country

Belle & Sebastian should be wandering the Scottish countryside right now, desperately seeking a new bag because this is the second year standing that Camera Obscura schools them at their own game.

40. Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood

Neko Case is a long-sufferer of year-end music list exclusion. Even flashing her New Pornos membership card, Case is often relegated to the good-but-not-the-best sidelines because she's not glamorous or gimmicky. Fox Confessor seeks to break her streak, offering song after song of sad, spiritual deliverance from one of the best voices alive.

41. Tom Ze - Estudando o Pagode

A self-proclaimed purveyor of "sung journalism," Ze has been at it since the '60s, inspiring Caetano Veloso, among others. But no history is necessary to enjoy Estudando, as proven by modern Tropicali tracks like the buoyant "Eleau." David Byrne loves him, and so should you.

42. Tim Hecker - Harmony in Ultraviolet

Dark, cerebral and intensely beautiful, Hecker's glacial harmonies are the stuff of dreams.

43. Cat Power - The Greatest

Well...not really (that would be 2003's You are Free). But when you've written one of the best songs of the year (the title track) and an album of moody (but not too moody), bluesy pop that you and your parents can agree on, and it's not Norah Jones, who's counting?

44. Peaches - Impeach My Bush

Peaches' third full-length (and her best album yet) is catchier than gonorrhea. Hilarious and a whole lot smarter than it got credit for. The only real talent to emerge from the demise of electroclash.

45. Mastodon - Blood Mountain

Is there anything funnier than hipsters trying to get into metal? Probably the only thing more ridiculous is pretending Mastodon doesn't rule. Overall, it doesn't match Leviathan at song-for-song fury, but its high points, like the sharp harmonic turns of "Capillarian Crest" and polyrhythms of "Colony of Birchmen" pulverize any criticism against metal's worth. Somewhere in heaven, Beavis is smiling.

46. Lily Allen - Allright, Still

MySpace! Tesco! Fake grime! Lily Allen had enough fun references and sass in kiss-off "LDN" and perfect summer-breeze jam "Smile" to warrant her ubiquitousness.

47. CSS - Cansei De Ser Sexy

Obvi they're not tired of entertaining the shit out of us. Are you still resisting these guys? Stop trying so hard.

48. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife

Even no-fun Decemberist deriders like me had to admit that The Crane Wife was pretty impressive, dropping the NPR faux-politico schtick to craft ten-minute, soulful prog folk with enough movements and keyboard flourishes to back up its extended Japanese folktale narrative. Something about some bitch with feathers, but it doesn't really matter, the music holds.

49. White Magic - Dat Rosa Mel Apibus

Scary girl folk is all the rage, with excellent releases from Joanna Newsom, Bat for Lashes, Lavender Diamond, My Brightest Diamond and White Magic, whose alternating banshee screes and low-intoning vocals are haunting.

50. Daylight's For the Birds

On! Air! Library! produced one album of dreamy, tech-inflected pop in 2004 and then broke up. But in their wake, we get not one, but two excellent new bands. A Cloud Mireya, which includes Prefuse 73's Scott Herren, writes lighter-than-air tunes guaranteed to induce comatose. Even better is Daylight's For the Birds, who are languid enough for sleepy time, but keep the melodies in songs like "To No One" and "Worlds Away" tugging at your heartstrings even as they tuck you in.

More good shit: Flying Canyon - S/T (dusty codeine folk), J Dilla - Donuts (R.I.P.), Be Your Own Pet - S/T (fun!), Sparklehorse - Dreamt For Light Years In the Belly of a Mountain (dense, but rewarding), Lansing-Dreiden - The Dividing Island (uneven album, amazing sound - new wave/shoegaze/miami bass with a brilliant single), OOIOO - Taiga (freaky cheerleader pop from an ex-Boredom and her friends), Hot Chip - The Warning (two of the year's best singles and other pleasantries), The Changes - Today is Tonight (like Phoenix, with better tunes), Islands - Return to the Sea (catchy, irresistible indie pop, and some of the worst rapping you'll ever hear), Beyonce - B'Day (FUCK YES)

20 Singles/Songs I Liked

1. 120 Days - Come Out 2. Cat Power - The Greatest 3. The Raconteurs - Steady As She Goes 4. Nelly Furtado - Maneater 5. Peter Bjorn & John - Young Folks 6. Junior Boys - In the Morning 7. The Clipse ft. Pharell - Mr. Me Too 8. Love Is All - Felt Tip 9. Beyonce - Check On It 10. Help She Can't Swim - Midnight Garden 11. The Strokes - You Only Live Once 12. Hot Chip - Boy From School 13. Lily Allen - Smile 14. Swan Lake - All Fires 15. Tapes n Tapes - Manitoba 16. The Gossip - Standing In the Way of Control 17. Jim Noir - Eany Meany 18. Camera Obscura - Hey Lloyd 19. OOIOO - Uma 20. Christina Aguilera - Ain't No Other Man

10 Worst Hypes, Disappointments and Bad Albums

1. Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, I'm Not

Good. Then you're not the second coming. You're the worst regurgitated pulp that reminds people of why they stopped liking Britpop. Arctic Monkeys represent the worst of modern music media, especially in the UK, where anything that gets written about gets devoured by listeners, regardless of any talent, and recommended for no reason other than to be in on something. It's like the top designers got together and decided tighty whiteys were back in style, and everyone agreed and started wearing their old Fruit of the Looms, skidmarks and all.

2. I'm From Barcelona - Let Me Introduce My Friends

I don't care! Especialy about how how many people are in your band. I was hoping Broken Social Scene's massively disappointing self-titled 2005 album would sound the death toll for the bloated indie rock collective, but now we get this 20-plus band that somehow manages to sound anemic and lacking a single original musical idea. Or even any good recycled ones.

3. Thom Yorke - The Eraser

See Jay-Z.

4. Jay-Z - Kingdom Come

Not terrible, just bland. Which, when you're dealing with one of the greatest musical talents of our time, is even worse.

5. ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - So Divided

I stuck with them through the unfairly panned Worlds Apart, but this is too much: lazy, sarcastic and tuneless. No one's divided on this one.

6. The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America

Am I missing something here? I am, aren't I? I'm tempted to bite my tongue because even my brother likes these guys, and he's not much for hypey indie bands, but come on! Who likes bar band music? No one! It just sounds like replacement Replacements to me, without any of the grit. I'll give them "Chillout Tent" though, an irresistable and somewhat poignant boy/girl narrative about meeting while totally blasted.

7. Bonnie "Prince" Billy - The Letting Go

What happened, BPB? 'Superwolf' was fucking rad. Bring back Matt Sweeney after the Chavez reunion because this has all the intrigue and energy of a cinder block.

8. Lindstrom - It's a Feedility Affair

It's a what? It's a sucky album nobody likes?

9. The Strokes - First Impressions of Earth

Say what you will: You know how excited you were when the Strokes first brought us out of the butt-rock tail end of the '90s, and you know Room on Fire had more staying power than even they probably thought possible. This album, save for a couple of winners, is everything the Strokes of 2001 hated about everyone else: boring, bloated and aimless.

10. Danielson - Ships

Listening to this whiney, shoddy piece of driftwood for the fourth time is when I decided: You shouldn't have to try so hard to like music.

5 Great EPs

Voxtrot - Raised By Wolves (who else is dying for a full-length?) Help She Can't Swim - Midnight Garden (female-led indie pop/post-hardcore and my pick for most promising band of 2007) Born Ruffians- S/T (wild and invigorating bread n butter indie rock) A Sunny Day In Glasgow - S/T (head-spinning dream-pop that sounds like sugarcoated nightmares) Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Gold Lion single (if anything on 'Show Your Bones' was as good as "Let Me Know" and the Diplo remix of "Gold Lion," it would have been a miraculous album)

Posted on 01/12/2007