SOUND
 
Twelve Discs Worth Spinning
 This is where I get to pontificate about the music I think is worth a listen. I came of age in the seventies (a decade of operatic rock, disco, punk, and sensitive singer/songwriters), so I like pop melodies, brash--sometimes abrasive--experimentation, and deep, introspective lyrics. I am also drawn to music that takes risks and bends sonic boundaries. And if you recognize any of these artists, you'll also find I am a sucker for a boy playing a guitar and singing about love (or the lack thereof). Click on the disc cover for more info.
Spoon's
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Fiercely laconic, loose, stripped-down and funky; Spoon's newest disc is shaping up to be the best rock-n-roll album of 2007.		 The Wrens' Meadowlands is the best rock-n-roll disc of the new millenium!
This group of Minneapolis expats (they now reside in Brooklyn) deliver a bevy of garage rock elegies for wasted youth and untapped potential. If Bruce Springsteen had grown up in Iowa and moved to the Twin Cities, I guarantee this is the kind of music he'd be making. My favorite disc of 2006, My Chemical Romance's The Black Parade, offers a stunning mix of emo pop, gothic rock, and sardonic caberet (all bound up in an epic narrative about a young man dying of cancer). Imagine Kurt Weil rewriting Pink Floyd's The Wall to be performed by Freddie Mercury-era Queen . . . no, really, I'm serious!

Joanna Newsom's
The Milk-Eyed Mender
Freak-folk chanteuse Newsom is a classically trained harpist, but she writes heartbreaking narratives with gorgeous melodies. Best described as a "bluegrass Bjork," Newsom is not for everyone but I can't keep this disc out of my machine. Her 2006 effort Ys, though less accessible, is no less amazing.

 I'm not really fond of greatest hits packages, but think of this as a superb mix-tape culled from hours of fanatic worship at the GBV throne. Sure, Robert Pollard wears his influences on his sleeve (Beatles, Ray Davies, Mike Stipe) but his lyrics reveal the creativity of a pomo pataphysicist.. Track 32, "I am a Scientist," is a classic dollup of Gen-X melancholia.

Band of Horses'
Everything All the Time
This quietly lush, cooly detached collection of pop songs energized by a wall of shimmering guitars is reminiscent of The Cocteau Twins and The Velvet Underground.

 

 Of Montreal's
Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
A breakup album of sorts but also a chronicle of millennial disconnection in an era where multi-national corporations are marketing a drug for any and all conditions. Elephant 6 Collective member Kevin Barnes strips away all layers of self-pretention in this darkly sinister yet bravely revealing set of pop songs.
Montreal's Arcade Fire offer up another eclectic collection of neo-romantic pop confessionals (tempered somewhat by an earnest interrogation of a post-9/11anxiety) on their second full-length disc Neon Bible. Bright Eyes' Cassadaga
This rootsy collection of twangy declarations may be Conor Oberst's most accessible disc to date.
The Mountain Goat's
The Sunset Tree
John Darnielle's abusive step-father died in 2004, and he quickly penned this thirteen-song cycle that explores with heartbreaking honesty the thin line between love and hate.		 The New Pornographer's
Twin Cinema
This super-group from Canada (featuring Neko Case, AC Newman, and Dan Bejar) churns out complexly layered pop masterpieces. I dare you to dislike "Sing Me Spanish Techno" . . . go ahead . . . I double dare you.

TWENTY ESSENTIAL DISCS

1. REM Automatic for the People (1992)
2. Sufjan Steven's Come on Feel the Illinois! (2005)
3. The Clash London Calling (1979)
4. Pavement Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain (1994)
5. Elvis Costello King of America (1986)
6. Guided By Voices Bee Thousand (1994)
7. Built To Spill's There's Nothing Wrong With Love (1994)
8. Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation (1988)
9. Belle and Sebastian If You're Feeling Sinister (1997)
10. Wilco Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)
11. Prince 1999 (1983)
12. Elton John Madman Across the Water (1971)
13. Talking Heads Speaking in Tounges (1983)
14. Pixies Doolittle (1989)
15. Pink Floyd The Wall (1979)
16. New Order Power, Corruption and Lies (1983)
17. Ryan Adams Heartbreaker (2000)
18. Tom Waits Mule Variations (1999)
19. XTC Oranges and Lemons (1989)
20. Van Morrison Moondance (1970)