1. Andrew Bird – Armchair Apocrypha: The first four songs on this album are damn near perfect and the rest is consistantly nice, including the iTunes add-on “Sick of Elephants”. I played “Plasticities” for my English 112 class and they used these words to describe it: inspirational, dynamic, relaxing, mellow, fantastical, Beatles, Guster, Dave Matthews (because freshman year of college, everything’s Dave Matthews), and one of them made a good case for the lyrics being about fighting death. Big year for Bird: He also did a great Daytrotter session and put out an EP featuring an acoustic demo of “Heretics”.
2. Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
3. Radiohead – In Rainbows
4. Once Soundtrack
5. Modest Mouse – We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
6. Wilco – Sky Blue Sky
7. MIA – Kala
8. Josh Ritter – The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter
9. Iron & Wine – The Shepherd’s Dog
10. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss – Raising Sand
Nothing too surprising, here, but I stand by ’em. I’ve spent a lot of time this year listening to older stuff (as in any year older that ’07), especially since the move. Stuff includes: The Beatles – “Love,” Bjork – “Medulla,” Bruce Springsteen – “Nebraska,” Bob Dylan – “Modern Times,” Elliott Smith – “From A Basement On A Hill,” Gillian Welch – “Soul Journey” and “Time (The Revalator),” Nick Drake – “Way to Blue.” I also dig the Michael Ocean album and the Good Cheer recordings on their dot com. Special thanks to Forbes Library for their decent, eclectic music collection.
* That’s web-cute for “favorite”. My sponsors have been asking me to throw more of that crap on here. Personally, I hate it.