Albums of the Decade, #20-11

#20
Brendan Benson, Lapalco (2002)



A wall-to-wall outstanding slice of pop rock. There's pretty much nothing I don't enjoy about this album - the melodies are fabulous, and Benson seems to inject a lot of himself into the record. The keyboards are particularly well-used, with a driving piano on the opening track, "Tiny Spark," and the fuzzy keys on the closer, "Jetlag." Why isn't this higher? I think it's full of grade-A tracks, but so are all the albums at this point, and only a couple tracks nudge past the rest to me. To use a baseball metaphor, every track is a double with two or three triples. But to get into the top ten, you need more homers. Nevertheless, I would recommend this album highly to any indie pop/rock fan.



#19
Spoon, Gimme Fiction (2005)



An awesome, moody rock album with gritty guitars and often mysterious lyrics. I don't think it would have been out of place in the early 70s scene. Britt Daniel's voice is just strained enough to sell the darkness in each track. My personal favorite from the album is "They Never Got You," but "I Turn My Camera On" is the track most people will have heard, and with good reason.



#18
Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)



Bizarrely, I didn't really discover this album until just this year even though it pretty much dragged Wilco into the mainstream. I've got no real excuse except that until 2006 or so I was regularly behind the curve on music like this and I guess it took some time to work my way backwards. "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" alone makes the album; it's an absolutely monster opener, and not in the anthemic sense, but just in the way it builds and builds, and somehow manages to make what at first seems like a droning opening into a perfect coalescence of instruments just before Jeff Tweedy starts singing. "Jesus, Etc." and "Poor Places" also stand out to me, but the album is stunningly consistent. iTunes lists Wilco as country, but just listen to the record - they can't be pigeonholed that easily (and under no circumstance would I call them country, anyway). I have a real appreciation for a band that can pull out several different sounds on one album and have the whole thing hang together - see also Sgt. Pepper's and Physical Graffiti in particular. And yes, I just compared this album to those. Had I found it sooner, it might have had time to move higher than #18...



#17
Jack's Mannequin, Everything in Transit (2005)



Andrew McMahon is almost exactly my age (five days younger), which might have something to do with my affinity for his work. I haven't had many life experiences like the ones he relates on Everything in Transit, but his two albums as Jack's Mannequin have both been extremely personal, and that sense of twentysomething anguish can still really resonate when you're the same age. Plus, the guy just writes great melodies. How many bands could take a song about a mixtape good enough to "burn a hole in anyone" and make it anything other than completely ridiculous? It's a goofy premise, yet "The Mixed Tape" has me going every time. "Into the Airwaves," the album's closer, is brilliant. There are a few self-indulgent moments on the record, in particular the spoken-word portion on "I'm Ready," but overall it's a great collection of music and lyrics that really bring home a moment in time.



#16
The Killers, Hot Fuss (2004)



I probably like the Killers' last two albums more than most people who aren't 16 years old, but the one that everyone liked is still the best overall. I admit I think the second half is a little weaker, but you can't deny that first half - five straight techno-pop grand slams. "Change Your Mind" is a grand slam too and "On Top" another home run, but the remaining four songs are not nearly as strong, a main reason why this didn't crack the top ten. "Jenny Was a Friend of Mine" and "Mr. Brightside" back to back, though, are about as good a one-two punch as any band ever opened their career with.



#15
A.C. Newman, The Slow Wonder (2004)



For anyone who was wondering just who was most responsible for the success of the New Pornographers, Carl Newman's first solo album answered the question and then some. Brilliant front to back, the album hits epic indie rock highs with "On the Table," "Secretarial" and "The Town Halo." After this album came out I concluded that Newman simply could do no wrong; his next solo album, 2009's Get Guilty, unfortunately couldn't live up to that kind of expectation (which is why it's not on this list, though it's still a good album). Fortunately, later New Pornographers work still could.



#14
The Shins, Wincing the Night Away (2007)



Following up a masterwork (spoiler!) is always difficult, and it took the Shins more than three full years to put out a sequel to 2003's Chutes Too Narrow. In spite of a sound that might have seemed dangerously broadened on first listen, Wincing very nearly matched its predecessor with a rollicking opening and track after track of winning melodies, whether disarmingly sunny ("Phantom Limb," "Turn On Me"), more obviously dark ("Sea Legs"), or just curious ("Red Rabbits"). It's hard to live up to perfection, which might explain why it's now been very nearly three years since Wincing's release and we're once again stuck waiting for the next album.



#13
The New Pornographers, Electric Version (2003)



The title is absolutely accurate, because the driving force behind this album is track after track of ringing melodies pounding out of electric guitars. There's nothing close to an acoustic number, or anything like that. The similarity of the overall sound really helps blend Dan Bejar's songs into the whole, perhaps more so than on any other NPs record, too. Oddly, even though you could argue that the sound is almost too consistent, that never becomes a problem for me. The different arrangements spread out just enough to keep massively entertaining tracks like "From Blown Speakers," "It's Only Divine Right," "Miss Teen Wordpower," "The Laws Have Changed," "All For Swinging You Around" and "Ballad of a Comeback Kid" from really sounding anything alike, in spite of the consistent aesthetic (which no other NPs record matches).



#12
Sufjan Stevens, The Avalanche (2006)



It's really saying something when you can release a collection of "outtakes and extras" and market that as a whole new album when you've only got four albums to your credit (and really only one or two that most people have heard of). It's saying even more when that album is nearly as good as the one that spun it off. The unified tone that makes Michigan and Illinois so brilliant (spoiler!) is missing on The Avalanche, but it's about the only thing lacking amid delicate folk-pop tunes like "Pittsfield," slightly more rock-leaning songs like the title track, "Springfield" and "No Man's Land," and Stevens' typical instrumental collages like "Kaskaskia River" and "For Clyde Tombaugh." In spite of the less cohesive progression from start to finish, and not one but three alternate versions of "Chicago," The Avalanche proved both that Illinois could easily have been a double album and that Stevens' leavings were just about as good as anyone else's best work.



#11
Ben Folds, Rockin' the Suburbs (2001)



We might all have been better off had the Five not broken up - their first two albums are likely both in my 90s top ten - but with solo albums like this, who was complaining? If anything, Folds' piano was cut even further loose. Just watch him go on tracks like "Zak and Sara" and "The Ascent of Stan," to say nothing of the solo on "Fired," one of my favorite solos on any instrument in any song in history. What's more, we basically got a whole album full of vintage Folds character sketches, in particular "Fred Jones Part 2," one of his most moving songs. "Still Fighting It" is also brilliant and "The Luckiest," while perhaps a little sappy, became a go-to wedding song for a reason. Folds' ability to create genuine emotion in even small sketches has always been nearly unparalleled - look at "Eddie Walker," which sounds half-finished and is still somehow perfect - but here he almost outdoes himself. In this world, the title song is actually kind of out of place, but it's still incredibly fun and perhaps a needed break from the heaviness of songs like "Carrying Cathy." (Whatever and Ever Amen followed "Brick" with "Song for the Dumped," after all.)



Coming before the end of the year: the top ten!

Albums of the Decade, #30-21

#30
Ben Lee, Awake is the New Sleep (2005)



Ben Lee is so earnest a songwriter that at times it becomes insufferable, but Awake is the New Sleep captures him at his most perfectly balanced. The acoustic guitar-driven pop is at its peak on "Whatever It Is," "Ache for You" and "Into the Dark," but the whole album really walks the tightrope perfectly. It's easy for a twentysomething guy with a guitar writing songs about relationships and the meaning of life to sound like a total douche, but Lee's largely peppy tunes hold everything together even when the lyrics get a little iffy. (The same can't be said of Ripe, the follow-up album, which has some good songs but too often gets bogged down in its own self-importance.)



#29
The Killers, Day and Age (2008)



A lot of the focus when this album came out went to the song "Human," which had odd lyrics and seemed too dance-ready for fans who came in more on Sam's Town. Of course, this ignored the fact that "Losing Touch" and "Spaceman," the songs on either side of "Human," are two of the most fun and infectious songs the Killers have released to date. Aside from the fairly weak "Joy Ride," the whole album is pretty strong, though it never returns to "Spaceman"-level heights after the third track. For all the crap they take, the Killers just keep proving that they know how to put out solid albums and how to knock at least a couple tracks per record completely out of the park.



#28
Okkervil River, The Stage Names (2007)



By this point, no one should be surprised to see a concept album from Okkervil River, whose frontman Will Sheff seems to take real delight in tying things together. What's amazing is that The Stage Names works as well as it does, given how headlong it dives into the world of pop culture in a way their previous album (stay tuned) had not. Consider "Plus Ones" in particular, which references a good nine other songs in its lyrics, a tactic I usually can't stand, or "A Hand to Take Hold of the Scene," which actually describes scenes from real TV shows over which other Okkervil River songs were played. The music holds everything together, as well as a strong vein of emotion which Sheff mines to particularly strong effect in "Savannah Smiles" and "John Allyn Smith Sails." Few bands would be able to write a first-person song from the perspective of a poet who killed himself in 1972, much less make it deeply moving by weaving it together with "Sloop John B" - but here's the proof that Okkervil River can.



#27
Steve Burns, Songs for Dustmites (2003)



I feel bad for Steve Burns. By all rights, Songs for Dustmites should have made him a rock star; instead, few people could forget that he was "the Blue's Clues guy" and this album was never given the attention it deserved. By no means is it perfect - the production is conspicuously low-budget, and Burns' vocal talents might best be described as "capable." Still, these things don't take away from the fact that this is a great set of songs, led off by probably the best track, "Mighty Little Man." "Troposphere" and the sort-of title track, "A Song for Dustmites" are both pretty epic tunes as well, and the rest of the album is solid throughout. There's no real reason this album shouldn't have found its way onto the shelves of indie rock fans everywhere.



#26
Doves, Some Cities (2005)



The Last Broadcast is also a good album, and it's just off the bottom of this list, but the Doves album that really jumped out at me was Some Cities. The ringing guitar kicking off the title track immediately signals that this is something worth paying attention to, and the second track, "Black and White Town," continues the feeling. Much of the rest of the album is considerably moodier, on tracks like "Snowden," "The Storm" and "Someday Soon," but the whole thing still has a consistent feel, which can be attributed to a great set of tunes and the vocals of Jimi Goodwin, which pull various styles of song together. If there were any justice in the world, these guys would be as big as Radiohead.



#25
Something Corporate, Leaving Through the Window (2002)



It's a testament to how eclectic my taste is that I can follow up Doves with Something Corporate, an emo-rock band fronted by a then-20-year-old. But Andrew McMahon can really write a tune, especially one driven by a piano, which I always appreciate. For so young a band, there are surprisingly few spots on Leaving Through the Window where the age really shows - I wouldn't have put "Punk Rock Princess" as track two, "Drunk Girl" is clumsy and "iF yoU C Jordan" is just kind of petty, albeit still fun to sing along to. But the album has 14 tracks, and nearly all of the rest range from good to brilliant. "I Woke Up in a Car" may call to mind a particular age range, but it's singularly evocative, and "The Astronaut" should have been a monster rock hit. "Cavanaugh Park" and "Globes and Maps" are both great piano ballads. It may be an album that absolutely reminds me of college, but who says that's always a bad thing?



#24
Mates of State, Re-arrange Us (2008)



There aren't that many songs I feel like I could listen to on a loop almost indefinitely, but "My Only Offer," track three on Re-arrange Us, is one such. I'm not sure how long it would take me to get sick of it, but I bet it would be at least ten times through, which for a single song is probably ridiculous. It's that good. The whole album is a thoroughly effective piece with the voices of husband and wife Jason Hammel and Kori Gardner mixing perfectly with the indie-pop musical style. They've got some perfect tunes in here - "Get Better," the aforementioned "My Only Offer," "Blue and Gold Print" - and do a fabulous job of taking at times melancholy lyrics and pairing them with music in such a way that you simply can't help but sing along.



#23
Ben Folds, Songs for Silverman (2005)



"Landed" might very well be Ben Folds' best song, at least as a solo artist, but it's still just one piece of the puzzle on Songs for Silverman, a fairly melancholy album that contains virtually none of Folds' trademark humor. What it does have are a lot of great piano-driven songs, including "Late," a touchingly small-time farewell to Elliott Smith. It does lack a lot of booming highs, but I have to admit to a bias when I say that for me, good Ben Folds songs stand alongside very good to great songs by a lot of other artists. I love piano-heavy rock and I love Folds' flair for the everyday, which stands out in excellent tracks like "Bastard" and "You to Thank," along with those already mentioned.



#22
Death Cab for Cutie, Narrow Stairs (2008)



After the dreary nature of Plans, Death Cab sort of bridges the gap between that darkness and their earlier work (often still dark, but more entertainingly so) with Narrow Stairs. "Bixby Canyon Bridge," which opens the album, is plenty dark in its lyrical content, but the music isn't as much of a downer; track three, "No Sunlight," is pretty conspicuous in the contradiction between the lyrics and tune, which is curiously peppy. The album's best track, "Cath...", is about a woman giving up and marrying a guy she doesn't particularly love, but it absolutely rocks the place out. Ultimately, that's the best of Death Cab - regardless of what they're singing about, they're perfectly capable of giving you an impeccably crafted rock song with a chorus you're ready to belt out at a stoplight.



#21 The New Pornographers, Twin Cinema (2005)



For the most part, the New Pornographers just keep getting better. I do tend to think of Twin Cinema as a tiny step back, though really it was more of a lateral move. The hits here are just as strong as those on any NPs album - "Use It" is a masterpiece, and songs like "Sing Me Spanish Techno," the title track, and "Jackie, Dressed in Cobras" are great pop-rock tracks that stand with the best work the group has done. But similarly to Mass Romantic, something about the second half of Twin Cinema leaves me sort of cold. These aren't bad songs at all - in fact they're very good songs - but I just don't have the same connection to them that I do to most of the album's first half, or to the entirety of other NPs albums which will show up later. It's a very subjective opinion and I can't really defend it from a musical standpoint, but few things are as hard to quantify as exactly why a given song makes me feel a certain way. People can talk about various aspects of music all the way, but few forms of art are quite this personal. The New Pornographers are probably one of my five favorite bands, maybe of all time, but not all their work moves me the same way. Still, it says something that even an album whose entire second half "leaves me sort of cold" can find its way to just outside the top 20.

Albums of the Decade, #40-31

Onward!

#40
Coldplay, X&Y (2005)



I imagine there might be some disputing this one, especially when I tell you it's the only Coldplay album on the list. Most people would rank A Rush of Blood to the Head or Parachutes first, and even Viva La Vida is more widely loved. But X&Y is where I really came in on Coldplay, and I had a very similar moment to the one I described for Turn on the Bright Lights when I first heard "Square One" on the Borders headphones as I decided to see what the Coldplay thing was all about. And frankly I'll put this album up against all their others in terms of number of straight awesome songs - "Square One," "Fix You," "Talk," "Speed of Sound," "A Message"... really, the only ones I wouldn't go out of my way to defend are "What If," "White Shadows" and the title track, and it's not like those are terrible songs. It's probably the most consistent Coldplay album and I enjoy rocking along to it.



#39
Destroyer, Destroyer's Rubies (2006)



In his role as one contributor to the New Pornographers, Dan Bejar has always been fairly well integrated into the group's sound. Put him on his own, however, and there's a bit more of an edge to his music which really stands apart (by comparison, Carl Newman's solo albums might as well be New Pornographers albums). The high points of Destroyer's Rubies are the epic, nine-and-a-half-minute quasi-title track "Rubies" and "3000 Flowers," a song from the middle of the album which never meanders (as some of Bejar's tracks will do) and has a killer drive and riff. But the whole album has a great, consistent tone that makes it feel like a strange modern art project (what with Bejar's odd, beat-poetic, almost stream-of-consciousness lyrics) with music so solid it always keeps me coming back. It's the happy contradiction of Bejar; no matter how weird and rambling his lyrics might get, the rock is never any less solid for it.



#38
Idlewild, The Remote Part (2002)



Idlewild frontman Roddy Woomble has a bit of a lofty goal for his lyrics, which I think he thinks are more poetic than they are. Frankly, it's a little hard to otherwise explain the presence of Scottish national poet Edwin Morgan on the closing track of The Remote Part. The band's lyrics are pop-rock solid if hardly profound, but they're all that's needed to carry the music, which is really what carries the album to its heights. The Remote Part alternates almost perfectly between heavy rockers like "You Held the World in Your Arms" and "Stay the Same" and milder, often more enjoyable tunes like "Tell Me Ten Words" (probably the album's best song) and "Live in a Hiding Place." But even if it's not quite as fun when the band gets louder, and even if Woomble's lyrics aren't quite as deep as he thinks, it's a great sing-along album that doesn't let up from start to finish. It deserved more attention than it got, at least in the States.



#37
Snow Patrol, Eyes Open (2006)



Not to spoil anything, but Snow Patrol quickly became one of my favorite active bands in 2005 when I first heard Final Straw, which is coming up later. In 2006, they released Eyes Open, and while it's not as strong as its predecessor, it's a really fun album. I remember hearing "Hands Open" for the first time and being underwhelmed, but it really grew on me - and how many bands getting top 40 radio airplay would have had the balls to name-check Sufjan Stevens? Meanwhile, "You're All I Have" and "Chasing Cars" are both great hit-style songs, even if the latter got overplayed eventually. Sadly, the second half of the album just isn't quite there; while "Open Your Eyes" is absolutely epic and sounds like Joshua Tree-era U2, the three-song group of "Make This Go On Forever," "Set the Fire to the Third Bar," and, in particular, "Headlights on Dark Roads" leave me pretty cold. Still, the first half of the album is extremely strong and "Open Your Eyes" is a welcome redemption for anyone making it that far.



#36
Embrace, Out of Nothing (2004)



Another British band that barely found its way to the States at all, Embrace might have avoided notice altogether if not for the fact that "Gravity," the second track from Out of Nothing, was written by Coldplay's Chris Martin. It's a bit unfair, since Out of Nothing is a great modern rock album and "Gravity" is hardly its best track, an honor that goes either to "Ashes," "Someday," or "Spell It Out." Good luck digging any of those up on YouTube, of course. Embrace's follow-up album wasn't even released in the United States, so this is the only one of theirs I know, but it's pretty strong front to back (although the last two tracks are significantly more disposable). Why isn't it higher? Because while it goes down smooth, it's ultimately pretty conventional stuff and only a few tracks are really killers. I hope what follows can beat that standard.



#35
Guster, Keep It Together (2003)



I had hoped to include Lost and Gone Forever, still Guster's best album, but it turned out to be 1999. So we'll have to settle for Keep It Together, the nevertheless enjoyable follow-up. Was it worth a four-year wait? That might be debatable. Guster exchanged the bongos for regular drums and altered their sound for this album, and while that didn't stop them for turning out one catchy pop song after another, it might prove a disappointment to long-time fans from the days of "Mona Lisa" and "Great Escape." But it's still a good listen, with standout tracks including "Amsterdam," "Homecoming King," "Come Downstairs and Say Hello," and "I Hope Tomorrow is Like Today." There are no bad tracks, though "Red Oyster Cult" is questionable, and the consistency is there. The high points just aren't numerous enough to push it any higher.



#34
The Killers, Sam's Town (2006)



"When You Were Young" is an absolutely titanic rock song (even if it takes them a damn minute and a half to get to the song in the video; see below), and if all of "Sam's Town" could have approached that standard, we might be talking top five. But like many others down here, it's a strong, solid album with three or four high points, not enough to push it further. "Why Do I Keep Counting?" and "Read My Mind" both reach the heights, but the rest of the album is merely very good.



#33
Fountains of Wayne, Welcome Interstate Managers (2003)



No band's 2000s oeuvre was harder to appraise than Fountains of Wayne. I love their albums, but they can be wildly inconsistent, perhaps no more so than Welcome Interstate Managers, which contains some of the band's absolute best songs, but also goofy stuff like "Halley's Waitress." "Stacy's Mom" is a full-on masterpiece of comedically-inclined power pop, and everyone's heard that, but "Mexican Wine" and "Bright Future in Sales" aren't far behind. Even deep tracks like "Bought for a Song" can bring the power. But, not to sound like a broken record here, the highs soar and the rest of the album pretty much just chugs along. Traffic and Weather, FOW's 2007 follow-up, is much more consistent but doesn't hit the same highs. It would have been in the 51-55 range, probably.

(By the way, be sure to turn the volume down before playing this video if you do, because it's a lot higher than others. Blame it on EMI, who doesn't seem to want this video embedded and forced me to do some digging.)



#32
The New Pornographers, Mass Romantic (2000)



General rule: New Pornographers albums are awesome. Mass Romantic, however, is not as awesome as most. The hits are absolutely there - the title track, "The Fake Headlines," "Jackie," "Letter from an Occupant" - but - again - the rest of the album does not rise to the same heights. In fact, almost the entire second half of Mass Romantic is comparatively uninteresting to me - I'm not saying I don't like it, but if I only had 20 more minutes in which to listen to music I would skip to another CD after "Letter from an Occupant" ended. But these guys were just getting warmed up.



#31
Death Cab for Cutie, Plans (2005)



Give Death Cab for Cutie credit - they really had some balls for releasing arguably their least commercial record ever right after signing to a major label. With that said, Plans spends a little too much time being miserable and depressing for my liking, even by Death Cab standards. "Marching Bands of Manhattan" kicks things off in fine fashion, but it's all downhill after "Soul Meets Body," with the exception of the stellar "Crooked Teeth," feeling completely out of place between "Someday You Will Be Loved" and the supremely depressing "What Sarah Said." This isn't to say it's a bad album by any stretch. "I Will Follow You Into the Dark," however morbid, is a wonderful song, and really, aside from "What Sarah Said," Death Cab manages to inject a lot of life into even the darkest material. In fact, that ability might sum up their entire career, but it's never more true than on Plans, the kind of album that might have been a complete disaster in other hands but still managed to go platinum under Death Cab's capable musicianship.



All right, 20 down, 30 to go! Come on back soon, if you care.

Albums of the Decade, #50-41

It's kind of amazing to think we're at the end of a decade. (No points for commenting either (a) that we're always at the end of a decade or (b) that "the real decade ends next year!") When the 2000s started I was a senior in high school; now I'm less than six months away from getting my second bachelor's degree, I'm engaged to the love of my life, I'm almost completely bald... you know. Stuff happened.

One thing that happened much more in the 2000s than at any point prior was that I got into actual contemporary music, rather than listening to mostly classic rock supplemented with Blink 182. While the Beatles are and always will be my favorite band, there was a good deal of music in the 2000s that actually could compete with them for my affections, at least on a per-album basis. And there was a lot of other good stuff too. So without further ado, I'm going to be counting down my 50 favorite albums of 2000-2009.

#50
The All-American Rejects, Move Along (2005)



The start of a big countdown might not be the best place to mention this, but here goes: I'm not an extremely discerning music fan. I mean, I am, but ultimately if something sounds good to my ears I don't really care how many other people are listening to it. The music on this list mostly falls into three categories: reasonably obscure indie stuff; indie or indie-like stuff that ended up rather well-known; and stuff that would be considered "popular." The All-American Rejects certainly fall into the third category, probably more than any other band on this list with maybe one or two exceptions. But this is a difficult album to deny - "Dirty Little Secret" and "Move Along," the two big standout tracks, are both big, bop-along anthems, and if the other tracks rarely hit similar highs, they're certainly appealing enough. It's not a completely vanilla album either - "Night Drive" has a great pulsing percussion part that recalls a drum line, while "Can't Take It" is based around a string section. It's mainstream pop rock (with a bit of an emo cast), but it's about as good as albums of that sort get.



#49
Pete Yorn, musicforthemorningafter (2001)



The first half of Yorn's breakthrough album is such a string of hits that this album could easily have placed much higher - "Life On A Chain," "Strange Condition," "Just Another," "Black," "Lose You," and "For Nancy" are all great songs. The second half of the album can't say the same - aside from "Sleep Better" and the hidden track "Girl Like You," I can take or leave most of it. It's not like it's terrible, but compared to the compelling nature of the first six tracks it feels disposable. (Even "Sleep Better" is somewhat forgettable outside of the chorus.) The album earns a place on the list legitimately, but a full album of songs like the first six - or, heck, if they'd been spaced more evenly! - could have been top 30.



#48
Jet, Get Born (2003)



Jet got a lot of credit at the time for having a "throwback" sound, as if they were the only band that sounded like a 70s rock outfit. But you don't have to pretend that Jet were inventive to rock out to songs like "Are You Gonna Be My Girl," "Rollover D.J." and "Cold Hard Bitch." Between the hits, Jet alternated between songs that sounded basically the same as the hits ("Get What You Need," "Get Me Outta Here," "Take It or Leave It") and songs that played like power ballads when alternated with the anthemic rock of the hits ("Move On," "Radio Song," "Timothy"). It's all good stuff, although it's weird that Jet didn't seem to know what kind of band they actually wanted to be, and after rocking out to a song like "Cold Hard Bitch," do you need a bring-down mellow groove like "Come Around Again" or do you want more rock?



#47
Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago (2008)



An album that basically defines "stripped-down," Justin Vernon famously holed up in a Wisconsin cabin for three months and emerged with For Emma, Forever Ago, which is pretty much nothing but a falsetto-pitched Vernon and a guitar, plus some production. It sounds like an album born out of solitude, and it's exactly the kind of album I'd want to take with me if I decided to become a recluse. Many of my favorite albums evoke certain times and/or places, and this is one such. Why, then, is it not higher? Evocative though it is, it's not an album on which a lot of songs stand out, at least not to me - aside from the astonishing closer "Re: Stacks," things run together a bit, and with the falsetto it's hard to pick out a lot of the lyrics. These are not fatal flaws - obviously I really like all the albums on this list - but I didn't feel like I could rank it much higher as a result.



#46
Belle & Sebastian, The Life Pursuit (2006)



I had heard some of their earlier stuff and not really cared much for it, but I think this album was recommended to me by eMusic, and I liked it. It's shiny, jangling pop, although at times it can also get a bit funky. "The Blues Are Still Blue" is the standout for me, with "Sukie in the Graveyard" not far behind, but the whole thing is a day-brightener, with entertainingly quirky story-lyrics, ringing guitars, and the kind of harmonies and call-and-response vocals that suggest everyone's having a good time.



#45
Ben Folds, Way to Normal (2008)



Even a bad Ben Folds album is better than most, in my opinion, but this was certainly not a great Ben Folds album. (Those are to come.) The best of Way to Normal can stand with most of Folds' other work, but its worst plumbs a low for probably my favorite contemporary artist. Folds shows he can still turn out entertaining piano rock on tracks like "Hiroshima," "Dr. Yang" and "Brainwascht," and does his trademark slow jams with "Cologne" and "Kylie from Connecticut." But there's a very bitter streak lingering pretty close to the surface in a lot of the songs, and while Folds has implied that the album was not significantly affected by his divorce from Frally Hynes, it's hard to fully buy that. Attempts at social commentary like "The Frown Song" and "Free Coffee" also fall rather flat. Like some of the other albums down here, the highs more than make up for the lows, but one is left with a sense of what might have been had the whole album matched the aching tenderness of "Cologne" in its quality level.



#44
The Reindeer Section, Son of Evil Reindeer (2002)



Give Gary Lightbody credit - he had a side project going before Snow Patrol had even really hit it big. Son of Evil Reindeer was actually the second Reindeer Section album (following 2001's Y'All Get Scared Now, Ya Hear!) and it combined even more musicians than the first. It's odd to think that something like two dozen Scottish musicians are involved when listening to Son of Evil Reindeer, because it's not exactly some big, bombastic thing like the Polyphonic Spree. It's not even as loud as Snow Patrol; rather, it's mostly a lot of fairly soft, quiet songs along the lines of "Budapest" and "I'll Be Here When You Wake." But when you get an album of pleasant, sweet-sounding songs, who really cares how they got made?



#43
Five for Fighting, America Town (2000)



This album nearly defined my freshman year of college, receiving heavy rotation, and we got to feel like we were on the cutting edge; then "Superman" turned into an enormous hit and suddenly the magic was gone. I don't consider myself one of those guys who gets upset at bands that "sell out," but I saw Five for Fighting live when they (well, he) opened for Vertical Horizon, for crying out loud. (By the way: Vertical Horizon put on a surprisingly kick-ass show.) America Town isn't some indie masterpiece, but it's a very strong album of piano-driven pop rock, with plenty of good tunes besides the hits (the title track still resides on a mix CD I use as wake-up alarm music). Unfortunately, fame gave us The Battle for Everything, which contains a song called "Angels and Girlfriends," which is exactly as bad as it sounds like it would be. I lost interest at that point, but America Town remains a great album.



#42
Interpol, Turn on the Bright Lights (2002)



Another album which might be higher if it weren't something of a soundscape for me. I can't tell you much about this album's lyrics because what I tend to hear is the music, but lest you think that's not an endorsement, I still remember being in Borders and playing the first track, "Untitled," in the headphones - when the drums kicked in at 40 seconds, I was already thinking, "I'm buying this album." You've gotta be good to be that immediate.



#41
Green Day, American Idiot (2004)



Aside from maybe The Killers, it doesn't get more mainstream on this list than Green Day, but there's a good reason. After having been ingrained in the public consciousness with 1994's Dookie, Green Day spent almost a decade doing not much else; aside from "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" off 1997's Nimrod, little notice was taken of them, and 2000's Warning suggested at things to come with songs like "Minority" but was mostly ignored amid a wave of newer pop-punk bands. It took American Idiot to blast Green Day back to the forefront, and it did so deservingly. Released less than two months before the 2004 elections, American Idiot was a ballsy concept album, a screed against government, right-wing politics, religion and much more that became perhaps the first pop-punk record in history to actually deserve the word "punk." And it rocks, too.



That's the first ten. It only gets better from here. And this will actually be finished before the end of the year (I promise).

Variations on a meme by Haydn

Some sort of meme going on. Alma passed it to me. It involves getting five words that remind the meme-giver of you, upon which you have to expand.

1. Tomatoes

I like that this reminds Alma of me, given that it's a well-known fact that I hate tomatoes. Well, to be clear, I hate unadorned tomatoes - I can't abide by the taste, and I find the skin and seeds pretty gross. In general I'm rarely a huge fan of things that try to mix sweet and savory, and the basic taste of a tomato steps too far into "sweet" territory without going far enough to just be a fruit. And the basic taste frankly makes me ill. Now, you puree the crap out of it, throw in some spices and pour it over pasta (or onto a pizza, or whatever), and I'm there. But pull it off the vine and I'm walking in the other direction.

2. New Jersey

Earlier in our relationship, Alma caught me "woo"-ing a few times when New Jersey was mentioned on television, and started prodding me to do so whenever it came up and I didn't say anything. I always viewed Chicago as a home away from home when I was growing up and certainly rushed back here when I got the chance, but I'm missing New Jersey more than I probably expected I would. It's made worse by the fact that I have no reason to go back anymore, given that I no longer have family there, and so that mild longing has been allowed to fester; I haven't set foot in the state since 2004. It's to the point where I've been strongly considering going to my 10th high school reunion - which I'm assuming will be sometime next year - just to give me a reason to have some Toro Loco salsa and a Millburn Deli sandwich, and drive down Scotland Road again.

3. Geography

It's kinda my thing. I don't really have much explanation for this one - for whatever reason, I was fascinated by globes and maps as a kid, reading the world atlas and various Hagstrom street maps of local New Jersey counties compulsively. (I have such fond memories of those Hagstrom street atlases of the late 80s that a few years ago I found some on eBay and considered going after them until I realized that would be completely insane.) I still know all the world capitals even though I haven't studied in years. (For that matter, I really never studied - at some point in grade school I just realized I had absorbed them by sheer osmosis, and then I periodically tested myself, looking up any I couldn't recall. I still recall the woman at my Irish homestay eyeing me suspiciously when she "caught" us in her library - because I wanted to find an encyclopedia to look up the capital of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which I had realized I couldn't remember at the time. Kingstown, btw. I think that's the last time I even forgot one, and that was the summer of 1996.) I can be distracted by a book of maps for hours at a time. I like thinking about traveling to new places almost as much as actually being in those places, because the on-paper aspect of geography is so enticing to me. I realized on my walk yesterday that I even love just seeing street signs at intersections, because I like making the connections in my head. Yes, it's weird. On the other hand, Alma has to love this, because she is not good with directions and now she never has to worry about it.

4. Lift

AKA the greatest soda in existence. My obsession began in New Zealand in the summer of 2000; I'm a huge lemonade fan, but I don't think I'd ever had a sparkling lemon soda at that point, or at least not a mass-market one. (San Pellegrino Limonata - which I probably hadn't had at that point anyway - is good but frankly a little too strong for regular consumption.) I drank a lot of it on that trip (and its Pepsi counterpart Solo), but back in the US... nothing. For years it was my holy grail. Sunkist Lemonade was the only thing that came close and it only seemed to be sold in Minnesota for three months a year. Alma once got me a couple cans of Lift via a friend of hers who knew of an Australian import store near her hometown in Arkansas, and that was a big thrill, but getting them regularly was impossible. Jewel for a while had Club Lemon in a British import section, but that seems to have gone by the wayside and it's not the same as Lift anyway. Suddenly, around six months ago, I wandered into a Jewel in Lincoln Square and... Sunkist Lemonade. All of a sudden it's gone national, or at least it's fully penetrated the Chicago area. But it's not quite the same - Sunkist has caffeine and so isn't an all-hours drink, and anyway I'm not 17 anymore and trying to drink little to no pop. But the legend of Lift lives on, and if I ever get back to New Zealand like I want to, I'm sure I'll have a few cans for old times' sake.

5. Neuropsychology

As of right now, I'm thinking this is my future career. I hadn't necessarily conceived it from the start, but one of my reasons for getting into psychology in the first place was my interest in knowing why people think and behave how they do, and it's only a short step from there to the root cause (or at least a primary root cause): activity in the brain. Many of the deficits are frankly just immensely compelling, although it's not like all neuro patients are going to have aphasia or anterograde amnesia or Capgras delusion. But the connections in the brain are mysterious and fascinating - it's said that we know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the ocean floor, but we might know more about either of those than we do concretely about how the brain works, thanks to plasticity, tangled cortical networks, and hundreds of millions of neurons that don't behave identically for any two people. It's not a puzzle any one person can solve in a lifetime, but I'm willing to take the tiniest crack at trying.

So that's me, or a few things anyway. If you want five nouns that remind me of you, post in the comments. Alternately, don't.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

In 2007, the Indians won 96 games. In the ALCS, they were up three games to one, looking like a decent bet to win their first World Series in almost sixty years.

We know what happened next. The Red Sox won the next three games, 7-1, 12-2 and 11-2, the biggest rebound thumping since the Braves turned around a 3-1 deficit against the Cardinals in the '96 NLCS with wins of 14-0, 3-1, and 15-0. And it was the Red Sox who went on to the Series, which they won in four straight.

It got worse from there for Cleveland. The next year there were big expectations. But Travis Hafner vanished, Fausto Carmona forgot how to pitch, and while Cliff Lee won the Cy Young with a ridiculous 22-3 season, it wasn't enough. The Indians finished 81-81 and that's only with a strong August in which they reeled off ten straight wins at one point; in early July they were as many as 16 games under .500 and almost as many games out of first in a Central division that was eventually won by a thoroughly mediocre White Sox team. And on July 7, they traded star pitcher (and reigning AL Cy Young) but free agent-to-be C.C. Sabathia to the Brewers for minor-league pieces.

Expectations weren't crazily high for 2009, but they did exist - more than one expert picked Cleveland to rebound and win a wide-open AL Central. They didn't. Instead, they one-upped their mediocre 2008 campaign. Fausto Carmona pitched even worse, somehow. Expensive free agent signing Kerry Wood only saved 20 games. Cleveland finished 65-97, tied with the Royals for last (though the Indians could be said to have stayed ahead on run differential). The team was further dismantled. Offseason trade acquisition Mark DeRosa was shipped to St. Louis in late June, and Victor Martinez went to Boston at the trade deadline. On the same day, reigning Cy Young winner Cliff Lee was dealt to Philadelphia for yet more pieces to be used for a theoretical rebuild.

Now, you're an Indians fan. Your team just traded the reigning AL Cy Young in consecutive seasons. Your new manager was recently fired by the worst franchise in baseball. And on Wednesday night, the two Cy Young pitchers who were together on your team as recently as July 6, 2008 will both take the mound for Game One of the World Series, another World Series that your team won't win, just like every other one since 1948. Don't get me wrong, as a Cubs fan I can only have so much sympathy, but... damn, it must suck to be an Indians fan today.