MOG

Here are the albums I put in SA's top 10, and why.

10. Chris Joss-Teraphonic Overdubs

  On Joss' most recent release, he creates the ultimate cool. A record so cool in fact, that it uses its disc as the club it wants to be played at. If you want a summer record that's a bit more substantial than Girl Talk, this is a good pickup.

9. Steven Malkmus and the Jicks-Real Emotional Trash

   Malkmus is this guy, in this band, on Matador, they're indie rock, and they have Janet Weiss from Sleater-Kinney on drums. Yeah, this is reminiscent of a Pavement album, but that's not a bad thing. Steven and his Jicks are a more mature version of his seminal band, but the creative songwriting still remains.

8. Subtle-ExitingARM

    If there's a record label I love that most people don't listen to, it's anticon. Their most famous output may very well be cLOUDDEAD, but damn that band is over. Two members of that group make the list, and the first is Doseone. Enter the band Subtle, who are composed of Dose and a band of others who make truly alternative pop songs. Damn catchy and strange.

7.The Cool Kids-The Bake Sale EP

   Remember when hip-hop was all about the 808 and some nice rhymes? Mikey and Chuck do, self-producing their beats and telling you just how gangster they aren't. A 10-song EP is ordinarily considered long, but this one felt short. Turn it on and keep it on repeat, for a long time.

6.Jamie Lidell-Jim

  Duffy, Adele, Estelle, Winehouse and the like all bore me. They all fill the unnecessary gap of "soul-ifluenced British female singer", with cookie-cutter songs. Duffy, I'll have some mercy on you and myself by just listening to Jamie instead. On his most traditional album to date, Lidell makes perfect pop songs. I've got the irrestibly catchy chorus to "Greenlight" stuck in my head, and then it becomes "A little bit of feel good", and it's great. Pure vocalists need to get familiar with this record.

5.Cut Copy-In Ghost Colours

  I was born in the late eighties, and if I wanted to know what the few years before it sounded like, two albums on the list will definitely help me out. One is In Ghost Colours, the second album from Australian group Cut Copy. A great dance album, with pure pop ideas.

4. Fuck Buttons-Street Horrrsing

    You can't pronounce this band's full name on air, and chances are you're being challeneged. Melodically noisy, this Englsh duo use everything at their disposal to make long, sweeping epics that have more composition than drone. Live, they're actually really entertaining-because it's LOUD. The debut from Fuck Buttons isn't as scary as it might appear, in fact, it's quite rewarding.

3.M83-Saturdays=Youth

   Another album about the 80s. As I said in another thread, this sounds like a John Hughes movie. It also sounds like an M83 album, a fact I find more important. I liked M83 beforehand, as Anthony Gonzalez's mutli-layered keyboard attack was drenching and enjoyable.  This disc might sound like Judd Nelson dissecting his family life, but it's a fantastic composition nonetheless.

2.Cadence Weapon-Afterparty Babies

  Hip-hop isn't dead, it just moved to Canada. twentysomething rapper Cadence Weapon shines on his breakthrough sophomore album, a mix of clever hooks, pop culture references, and solid songwriting. Solid start to finish, with instrospection and (failed) attempts at the club banger, this album is destined to be a hidden classic.

1. Why?-Alopecia

   Damn. No album has quite had a hold on me as this anticon release from former cLOUDDEAD member Yoni Wolf (who was named Why?) and his band.  Yoni's lyrics have something new every time, a new meaning to every song. Alopecia has some deep shit, but it's all wrapped up in crafty style-shifting songs. "The Vowels, Pt II" lets you know right at the start how optimistic this album is gonna be : "I'm not a ladies man/ I'm a landmine, filming my own fake death".  Scattered among the album are more pessimistically optimistic words of wisdom, such as "I haven't seen you in a long time but yours is a funeral I'd fly to from anywhere". "Billy the kid did what he did and he died", Yoni matter-of-factly states in "Song of the Sad Assassin".  Dark lyrics, but sometimes you need darkness to find the light.