Honorable mentions 2011.5

Mid-year point, some close-to-the-top favs (with little regard to the rules this year):

Fucked Up, David Comes To Life/David's Town
Radio Dept., Passive Aggressive: Singles 2002-2010
The Luyas, Too Beautiful To Work
Josh T Pearson, Last of the Country Gentlemen
Dodos, No Color
Pure X, Pleasure
Peter Tosh, Equal Rights (Legacy Edition)
Best Coast, iTunes Session
Austra, Feel It Break
One Hundred Dollars, Songs of Man
Wugazi, 13 Chambers

Later updates this week (really!)

200

The 200th post, for what it's worth....

Here's a link to the Carl Wilson article on Destroyer I mentioned on last night's show.

Also mentioned: Tennis' blog.

Not mentioned and should have, my annual visit with Jen on New Wave Wednesday next week, March 2. Per past couple of year's practice, we'll be looking at songs from 20 years back, this time 1991. Fun!

Best of 2010

1. Best Coast, Crazy For You
2. Broken Social Scene, Forgiveness Rock Record
3. Surfer Blood, Astro Coast
4. Land of Talk, Cloak and Cipher
5. Beach House, Teen Dream
6. Drive-By Truckers, The Big To-Do
7. Cotton Jones, Tall Hours in the Glowstream
8. Corin Tucker Band, 1,000 Years
9. The Posies, Blood/Candy
10. High Places, High Places vs. Mankind
11. Bonjay, Broughtupsy
12. Keep Shelly in Athens, In Love With Dark
13. Heavy Cream, Danny

Honorable mentions 2010

Ahem....
Where were we?

Tomorrow's show we'll be looking at the best of 2010, but for now here's a list of almosts, in no particular order:

Ra Ra Riot, The Orchard
Arcade Fire, The Suburbs
Jenny & Johnny, I'm Having Fun Now
Gigi, Maintenant
Owen Pallett, Heartland
Joanna Newsom, Have One On Me
Local Natives, Gorilla Manor
The New Pornographers, Together
Caribou, Swim
Dum Dum Girls, I Will Be
The Bitters, East General
Aerial Pink's Haunted Graffiti, Before Today

Stay tuned (and join the Facebook page while waiting, we're easy to find).

Best of 2009: Baker's Dozen

This is almost laughable really, and no apologies, but I have let the blog languish a bit. Our previous entry was our mid-year best, and now we have the year-end summary some four months later. I guess the avalanche of social networking sites, tweets, facebooks, and the like have simply done me in. Actually, I keep thinking of things to say here and elsewhere, but by the time I get on the computer, I'm looking at a score of news about music, promo downloads from labels, news updates, a tidal wave of information that sometimes not even a librarian can sort out.

Still, great year for music, and some of my favorites definitely hit me in the latter part of it, as yon list shall demonstrate. Between last entry and this, though, nothing tops the thrill of sitting down and interviewing the artist responsible for my top CD, as well as seeing her twice in one year. Wish I had a link to point you to, but tech difficulties couldn't get an archive copy to work, so only my memories will suffice.

Enough, here we go with my favs for '09:

1. Neko Case, Middle Cyclone
2. Visqueen, Message to Garcia
3. Bruce Peninsula, A Mountain Is a Mouth
4. Girls, Album
5. Family of the Year, Songbook
6. The Balconies, The Balconies
7. Animal Collective, Merriwether Post Pavilion
8. Dirty Projectors, Bitte Orca
9. Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest
10. You Say Party! We Say Die!, XXXX
11. Young Galaxy, Invisible Republic
12. Jemina Pearl, Break It Up
13. Prefab Sprout, Let's Chang the World With Music

Comments as always. Playlist for the next few weeks:
1/18: Jay Reatard, Evening Hymns, The Dutchess & the Duke, Los Campesinos!
1/25: Best Coast, Zeus, Jason Collett, Talk Normal, White Denim
2/1: Jeff the Brotherhood, Vampire Weekend, TBA

This blog may be pulling up roots and moving soon to an easier interface, but in the meantime, you know where to find me...

Best ofs, updates, etc.

Way overdue, this one. The Best of 2009 (So far) as follows:

1. Neko Case, Middle Cyclone
2. Bruce Peninsula, A Mountain Is a Mouth
3. Dirty Projectors, Bitte Orca
4. Crystal Antlers, Tentacles
5. Ha Ha Tonka, Novel Sounds of the Nouveau South

Subject to change of course in the intervening weeks. The new Yo La Tengo album, for example, is stunning.

---No show tonight, though I'm pleased to report I'll be co-hosting First Impressions with Deputy Dulen tomorrow night (8/4) at 8:00. Plenty of fresh stuff and surprises and excellent patter are promised.

---August already?

---Some playlists for the next couple:
8/10: Bibio, Wye Oak, The Fiery Furnaces
8/17: Mercury Music Prize special: Horrors, Bat For Lashes, La Roux, Glasvegas, Florence and the machine, Speech DeBelle
8/24: no show
8/31: fresh Canadian music

Honorable Mentions 2

I knew I'd think of a few more:

Moby, Wait For Me
We Were Promised Jetpacks, These Four Walls
Ohbijou, Beacons
The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, self-titled

Best of 2009 (so far): the Honorable Mentions

This coming Monday, we present our usual mid-season look at the music of the year so far, what has particularly made my ears perk up, though not necessarily my determination of "the best". I'm not that arrogant. But the music that I keep coming back to time and again over a several-month period, when I'm not sure what to play, I know I can slip in the player and listen without any sense of boredom, with chills and once in a while even a tear.

This year I seem to be particularly inundated with new music, much of it unknown, and I'm embracing a number of things that are either debuts or especially challenging, though much of it does get put aside after a listen or two. When the number of spins start approaching a double digit, we know we have a winner on our hands. As always, the releases from Mississippi Records and the Yeti compilations give me plenty to chew on, though for our purposes here they can't be listed.

Herewith, the releases just missing our top five, though in a couple of cases I may have thought very, very strongly about putting them in my number four or five position. Frankly, though, it's even more fun to spotlight the unknown and champion something new.

These have an approximate order, but depending on my mood or time of day, can be interchangable:

Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest
Animal Collective, Merriwether Post Pavilion
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, It's Blitz
Junior Boys, Begone Dull Care
The Field, Yesterday and Today
Akron/Family, Set 'em Wild, Set 'Em Free
Charles Spernin, The Happiness Project
Matt Krefting, I Couldn't Love You More

Tune in July 20 for the top 5 at mid-year (I'm sure long-time listeners can guess what some of them are).