- Mates of State – Bring it Back
I have this on vinyl, I have this on iPod and I haven’t stopped playing it since spring 06. My number one and an absolute must own album. - Love is All – 9 Times That Same Song
Cacophonic and confusing at first but this album really grew on me over the year. I would LOVE to see this band in concert. - Ratatat – Classics
Instrumental, fast-paced and awesome. The absolutely perfect album for motivating, working out or getting work done without being distracting. - I’m from Barcelona – We’re from Barcelona
Fun pop music like they don’t make anymore. Damn, I wish I was in Barcelona. - Shearwater – Palo Santo
Okkervil River offshoot, very good. - Saturday Looks Good to Me
Always the best, I don’t understand why no one has heard of this band. Their 30 track out-takes and b-sides album this year destroyed my last.fm statistics this year. Get them on eMusic. - Sunset Rubdown – Shut Up I Am Dreaming
Wolf Parade side project of some sort and just as genius. - The Pipettes – We Are the Pipettes
Second most fun album of the year. Ridiculous bubblegum for your ears but you have to admit you love it. - We Are Scientists – With Love and Squalor
California hipsters, good old school rock ‘n roll idie. - Amy Milan – Honey from the Tombs
Amy Milan’s long awaited solo and country(!) album. A little uneven but some fantastic tracks I keep coming back to. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a skinny boy. - Tokyo Police Club – A Lesson In Crime
Home town heroes. Saw this Toronto band originally ages ago at Sneaky Dees and didn’t think much at the time. Clearly they’ve been practicing. This album innovative, expressive and very cool. - Islands – Return to the Sea
Damn I miss the Unicorns, but Montreal’s the Islands are clearly the next best thing. brilliant lunacy and complete disregard for any traditional notions of melody and song structure… kindof just like the Unicorns…
Honorable mentions: The Awkward Stage, Love Kills, Heartless Bastards, Band of Horses, The Knife
Hmm, calls for a music podcast do you think? Brother can you spare some bandwidth? (last month’s podcasts blew through 25GB…)
Many of these are available at emusic. Affiliate deal: ( Get 25 FREE Music Downloads). Emusic is not quite as good a deal anymore as it once was (grrr), but still significantly cheaper per track than iTunes and with all the goodness of high bit rates and mp3 – no DRM infection whatsoever (a mode of distribution I think we should all be supporting).
Happy New Year Everyone.