My Top 10 for 2011

My Top 10 of 2011 - a/k/a my once yearly posting! (And it's oh so late!)

10. Cut Copy - Zonoscope - when it comes to electro dance, I like mine Australian. A good, not great, third LP from the Cutters. Other than "Sun God," nothing really stands out, but overall it's a good album.

9. Fred Falke - Part IV - when it comes to electro house, I like mine French. I've always been a fan of Falke (especially his collaborations with Alan Braxe), and I'm glad to see a full-length from him. As you would expect, Part IV is full of sweeping synths and groovy bass lines. Falke's 2011 remixes were great as well, especially for Metronomy's "The Look."

8. The Naked and Famous - Passive Me Aggressive You - Nice indie rock from New Zealand with alternating male/female vocals. "Young Blood" is clearly the winner of the tracks here.

7. Class Actress - Rapprocher - A good follow-up to the Journal of Ardency EP and overall a consistently good album, although I don't think any of the tracks are as standout as those on the EP. Still, great electro-pop with sultry vocals.

6. The New Division - The Rookie EP and Shadows - Great electro-pop, on both the EP and the debut album. Definitely an early to mid career Depeche Mode sound. Lovin' "Starfield" and "Opium."

5. Still Corners - Creatures of an Hour - A rich etherial, slightly shoegaze, sound with breathy vocals. "Into the Trees" and "Endless Summer" are standout tracks.

4. The Rapture - In the Grace of Your Love - So glad to see The Rapture back, and back to their old tricks. Even with the loss of Matty Safer, the band puts together a great album of danceable rock. "How Deep Is Your Love" practically demands that you get up and move.

3. Foster The People - Torches - I think everyone jumped on Foster The People by the end of the year. How can you not like "Pumped Up Kicks"? I like Torches a lot, but hate when the best tracks on a debut LP are those that appeared on the prior EP (here, "Helena Beat" and "Kicks").

2. Friendly Fires - Pala - They really grew into their sound with this album. Such a step up from an overall consistency standpoint from their self-titled debut. "Hurting" and "Helpless" are absurdly good.

1. Thievery Corporation - Culture of Fear - Quite possibly Thievery's best yet - solid tracks from start to finish. Still the same downtempo/dub/chillout/bossa sound, but done well. "Tower Seven," "Fragments" and 'Stargazer" are three of their best tracks ever. It's really been a Thievery year for me, as I've repeatedly been listening to their earlier stuff as well - things like "Lebanese Blonde" and "38:45 A Thievery Number."

Honorable Mentions:

Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto - not bad overall, but not great either. "Paradise" is quite good, but the rest feels over-produced. I'd love to see a song like "Shiver" written again, but I think Coldplay is too big for that now.

Today The Moon, Tomorrow the Sun - WILDFIRE - Not sure how I missed these guys, but their latest, WILDFIRE, is very expressive, in your face indie rock, and if you ever wanted more Metric, TTMTTS are your band.

Liam and Noel - Different Gear, Still Speeding and Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - if you take the 5 best songs from each album and put them together, do you get an Oasis album? Hopefully, as I found both of these efforts lacking. A few good tracks to pick out though - such "Roller" from Liam and "AKA ... What a Life!" from Noely G.

Radiohead - King of Limbs - I love Radiohead, but it's hard for me to get excited about everything they put out nowadays, including King of Limbs (which does have good moments).

Stand-Out Tracks Otherwise Not Set Forth Above:

Beastie Boys - "Don't Play a Game That I Can't Win" - love this reggae roller.

Chase & Status - "Blind Faith" - I love the epicness of this track.

Craft Spells - "After This Moment" - A nice, poppy groove.

Cults - "Go Outside" - How can anyone not like this summery sing-song?

Dum Dum Girls - "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" - hard for me to like a Smiths cover, especially one of my favorite Smiths songs, but Dum Dum did a great job here - the harmonizing is quite nice.

Fonda - "Better Days" - A nice shoegaze throw-back (Lush meets School of Seven Bells perhaps)
Lana Del Rey - "Blue Jeans (Penguin Prison Remix)" - The remix really added a nice groove.

Little Dragon - "Crystalfilm" - sultry electro-pop - very similar to Class Actress actually, but with a cool Swedish vibe, of course (and god how I love "Feathers" from their last album)

Moving Units - "Until She Said" - Happy to have Moving Units back, again with their groovy dance rock

Mr. Little Jeans - "The Suburbs" - A hauntingly beautiful cover.

The Strokes - "Under The Cover of Darkness" - Nice to see The Strokes back with what they do best.

TV On the Radio - "Will Do" - I couldn't stop listening to this song when I first picked it up - such a beautiful expression of sound.

Vanessa Carlton - "Green Grass of Spring" - not normally an artist found in my collection, but this song is so good, it makes me want to cry.

Rediscovered or got back into in 2011:

Interpol - I really rekindled my love with Interpol this year. They've always been my "New York" band - they were up and coming when I moved to NYC and became the "it" band pretty much immediately after. I forgot how much I loved them.

My Top 10 For 2010

Although my blogging is non-existent these days, I still think I have good musical tastes - so hear you go, dear public, my Top 10 for 2010:

10. DOM - Sun Bronzed Greek Gods - DOM's music just makes you want to get up and move. Indie rock backed with swirling synths. "Living in America" is vying for my song of the year. A shame that this EP only has 19 minutes worth of music though!

9. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs - I've never really been that into Arcade Fire, but The Suburbs is quite good. "Ready to Start" is a great single.

8. Tears Run Rings - Distance - Yes! More perfectly constructed "newgaze" - love it. These guys really sound like an updated Slowdive. "Inertia" and "Reunion" are the top of the crop from this album.

7. Crystal Castles - (II) - a nice dark electro album here - some tracks are a little too crunchy/choppy for me, but others, such as the wonderful "Celestica," are fantastic. Although not on this album, nice touch for collaborating with Robert Smith on a vocal version of their cover "Not In Love."

6. Groove Armada - Black Light - a nice mix of big beat and house, with enough vocal tracks to sing along to. "History" with Will Young and "Shamless" with Bryan Ferry are must-haves.

5. Class Actress - Journal of Ardency - probably the best electro-pop I've heard in years. I've played the title track from this EP over and over and over again. Cannot wait for a full-length.

4. New Young Pony Club - The Optimist - less electro-pop than their debut (which really wasn't an over electro-popped album, but certainly dancier), I really think that this is what Elastica would have sound like a decade later. Dancey punk, this album does not disappoint. Best track is "Lost Girl"

3. Interpol - Interpol - very good, but not great, album (at least compared to their past work). I do not think anything could ever match the majesty of "Turn On the Bright Lights," so it's always hard to compare Interpol albums. Some good stuff here though - "Barricade" is fantastic and perhaps my favorite song from 2010. I realized that the best Interpol tracks have a heavy bassline in them, and "Barridcade" and "Success" have such a bassline.

2. Underworld - Barking - perhaps their best since Beaucoup Fish, this album toes the line between big beat, trance, house and straight up club disco. Love "Bird 1," "Scribble," and "Always Loved a Film."

1. School of Seven Bells - Disconnect From Desire - Really just a perfect album - laid-back and "dreamy" in many respects, but also makes you sit back and take notice. "I L U" is one of the best tracks I've heard in years, and "Bye Bye Bye" has such a great electro-shoegaze throwback sound to it.

Honorable Mention: Goldfrapp - Headfirst - glad to see that Ms. Goldfrapp has returned to her electro ways. Her best album since Supernature. As always, soaring vocals, but again over top of a lush soundscape; and UNKLE - Where Did the Night Fall - glad to see UNKLE get back to its trip-hop past. I absolutely love "The Answer."

Tracks that I loved from 2010: In addition to those noted above, I loved The Black Keys' "Tighten Up," The Chemical Brothers' "Swoon," Kisses' "Bermuda," Klaxons' "Echoes," Shit Robot's "Take 'Em Up" (with Nancy Whang on vocals), Still Corners' "Endless Summer," Tamaryn's "Love Fade," Violens' "Acid Reign," and United Nations of Sound's "Are You Ready" (hooray for the return of Richard Ashcroft!),

I think my biggest disappointment in 2010 was Gorillaz' Plastic Beach - sort of all over the place.

Music that I re-discovered in 2010 (a/k/a likely to have happened to come up while shuffling my iPod and I forgot how much I loved) - Ned's Atomic Dustbin (God Fodder is just fantastic); Everything But the Girl (I forgot how good Walking Wounded and Tempermental were - and I actually discovered "Tracey In My Room," an incredible remix of "Wrong," for the first time about a month ago); DJ Spiller's "Groovejet (If This Ain't Love);" and tracks off of Siouxsie and The Banshees' singles collections, such as "Fireworks," "Dazzle," "Cities in Dust" (perhaps my favorite Siouxsie song) and "The Killing Jar."

"Disconnect from Desire"

Yet again I am coming out of blogging retirement to praise a track that I absolutely love - School of Seven Bells' "I L U." This may be one of the best tracks I've heard in years. Somehow, with this track SVIIB managed to continue the bridge from The Cocteau Twins to Gala-era Lush to 2010, something I didn't hear on their debut album Alpinisms. (I also love another new track of theirs, "Babelonia," which has a little MBV flavor to it.)

I'm a big fan of SVIIB. I loved a few of On! Air! Library!'s songs (especially "Feb." which is fantastic, but sadly only 2:14 long), and SVIIBadds more of an electronic twist to their prior-incarnation's music. The new SVIIB album - Disconnect from Desire - comes out tomorrow. Buy it here.

Best of 2009

Can't beleive that this decade is over. Crazy to think that the garage, "New York" sound, and new-new wave that were becoming all the rage when the decade started have now given way to, well, I don't even know what the current "sound" is.

Anyway, here's my Best of 2009. I found that I liked invidual tracks better than albums as a whole in 2009, so even if these are my "top" albums, I do not necessarily think they are top quality overall:

10. The Whip - X Marks Destination - Excellent dance-rock with a new wave feel, Manchester's The Whip will either make you get up and dance, or get up and scream. (Ok, this album came out in 2008, but didn't make it's US debut until 2009)

9. 2020 Soundsystem - Falling - Cool, dancey grooves that sound like another Soundsystem (LCD), but with more of an electro than funk flare.

8. Hotels - Where Hearts Go Broke - Shades of early New Order and early Duran Duran (especially on "Lelani") from this shoegazey, post-punk band from Seattle.

7. Doves - Kingdom of Rust - Solid effort from Doves, certainly more upbeat (as much as Doves can be) than previous albums. "Spellbound" harkens back to Lost Souls.

6. The XX - XX - Artsy, cool trip-hop tunes. The XX is just a kick, a snare, and a few samples away from being Portishead. The Them Jeans Drum remix of "Shelter" shows how great these The XX is with hard drums behind them.

5. The Cribs - Ignore the Ignorant - As usual, great guitar rock from The Cribs, and Johnny Marr's influence is quite apparent here. "We Were All Aborted" and "We Share the Same Skies" are fantastic tracks.

4. Moby - Wait for Me - Downtempo and chill in parts, in your face in others, Moby puts together yet another engaging album. The Apparat remix of "Pale Horses" really brings something to the table.

3. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix - How can you resist the catchy "1901"? Seems like this album is showing up on a lot of top 10 lists, so apparently not many people could. "Fences" may be the best track on this upbeat indie-rock album from the French rockers.

2. Franz Ferdinand - Tonight - great album from start to finish. Classic Franz - dancey, upbeat, witty lyrics. Led by singles "Ulysses" and "No You Girls," Franz once again makes you dance. "Lucid Dreams" is also a standout track.

1. Metric - Fantasies - I've always liked Metric, but for the first time, I think they put together a complete package with their latest album, Fantasies. "Help, I'm Alive" is such an incredible song (and the Twelves' remix is even better), and singles "Gimme Sympathy" and "Sick Muse" are great sing-song indie rock tracks.

2009 also saw the fantastic remix of Saint Etienne's Foxbase Alpha - wonderfully entitled Foxbase Beta - a crisper, modern take on the classic album. Air France also put together a great remix of "Spring," which may be my favorite Saint Etienne track.

Great tracks from 2009 - Empire of the Sun's "We are the People", Hook and The Twin's "Transport", the aforementioned Twelves' remix of "Help I'm Alive", Detachments' "The Flowers That Fell" (and its remix by Parallels), The Pains of Being Pure at Heart's "Higher Than the Stars" (and the Saint Etienne remix of that track), Passion Pit's "The Reeling" and even U2's "Magnificent" (and the Fred Falke remix as well).

Finally, I'm not sure what to make of The Bravery's Stir the Blood. It's pretty synth/electro heavy, which I love, but the vocals and lyrics are so poor. I know Sam Endicott wants to be all DIY, but I'd love if he would work on his vocals a bit more. I'm still a fan of The Bravery, but it's hard to take them seriously.

Metric's "Help I'm Alive"

I've decided to come out of blogging retirement for one simple purpose - to point out how fantastic the Twelves's remix of Metric's "Help I'm Alive" is. A great song to begin with, but the remix is a nice piece of electro-juiced mayhem that just asks you to get up and dance. The Twelves have done a nice job of bringing us back a decade or so when Daft Punk first started throwing out electro goodness.

And Metric's new album Fantasies is great. I think I always liked Metric ("Dead Disco" has been kicking around on my iPod and in the back of my head for a few years now) but never really thought about it.

My Top 10 for 2008

Pretty good year for music. A lot of familiar names on my list, but that may be because I didn't discover as much new music as I used to (unfortunately didn't have time). But the familiar names put out some great material!

10. Beck - Modern Guilt - Beck's vocals, rhtythm and melodies over Danger Mouse's beats. What's not to like? Sounds a lot like Gorillaz with Beck's magical touches. "Orphans" and "Gamma Ray" lead this album.


9. Friendly Fires - Friendly Fires - "One day, we're gonna live, in Paris." You hear them sing it, and you beleive it. Fantastic dance rock (if we are alowed to use that term any more) - kind of a happier The Rapture. And FF put on some much talked about CMJ shows too.


8. Coldplay - Viva La Vida - A welcome return to the harder rock sound of Rush of Blood that will allow us to thankfully forget the watered down X&Y. Glad to see that Chris Martin and co. can provide epic guitar rock without sounding like complete wimps. And I love the fact that the title single "Viva La Vida" is about the Crusades...


7. Thievery Corporation - Radio Retaliation - always consistently good, Thievery delivers yet another excellent world beat, downtempo gem. Although it doesn't feature the heavy hitting guest vocalists from their previous effort (such as Wayne Coyne and David Byrne), Radio contains solid lounge/ragga/dub tracks from start to finish.


6. The Daysleepers - Drowing In a Sea of Sound - So glad to see this group's debut album drop, after two excellent EPs. Similar sound (shoegazey dream pop with flourishes of The Cure thrown in for good measure - especially on the track "Summerdreamer" below), but the LP seems to lack the drive as those releases - unnecessarily slow in parts. Overall it's quite good though - "Twilight Bloom" and "Run" are must have tracks.


5. School of Seven Bells - Alpinisms - I was a big fan of a few of On! Air! Library!'s songs, and was pleased to see the Deheza sisters resurrect in the form of School of Seven Bells. SVIIB is a nice combo of shoegaze, laptop rock, and downtempo grooves, with the sisters' perfect harmonic vocals. "Half Asleep" and "Conjurr" are worth the price of the album.


4. The Cure - 4:13 Dream - Some very good stuff here. Not brilliant, and not Disintegration, Pornography, or even Wish, but overall a good album. With Porl Thompson back in the fold, this album harkens back to some earlier Cure stuff. Robert's voice, however, is starting to strain (as if it wasn't before). Not sure how much longer he can hold out. "Underneath the Stars" and "The Hungry Ghost" are the standouts.


3. Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul - Solid effort for the Gallagher's and Co., and pretty much follows the standard Oasis guitar rock form, with some bluesey and psychadelic aspects thrown in for good measure. The singles "The Shock of the Lightning" and "I'm Outta Time" were well chosen. And both "Falling Down" and the Chemical Brothers' remix of that track are probably the best things that came out of this album.


1b. The Verve - Forth - Such brilliance on Forth. This album harkens back to A Northern Soul and certainly starts where Urban Hymns left off. Richard definitely needed the rest of the band to make good, powerful rock songs (his solo albums started to drag into whining drivel), and McCabe's touches are all over the album. So many great tracks here - "Sit and Wonder," "Love Is Noise," "Rather Be" and so forth. Their live "reunion" show was fantastic as well - the MSG Theater show was one of the best live performances I've ever seen.


1a. Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours - Pure electro-awesomeness. While Bright Like Neon Love had many great moments, In Ghost Colours shows the musical maturity of Cut Copy (Lead vocalist Dan Whitford summed it up perfectly - "The album is a lot more realized than the first one. I think all of us, when we think of the first one, we agree we sort of got half way there. But on the new one we got a lot closer to the sort of sounds we're after."). Great tracks from start to finish, including "Feel the Love," "Out There on the Ice," "Far Away," and "Nobody Lost, Nobody Found" (bonus teack "Sands of Time" is a key pick-up as well). And they put on the best live shows out there - how can one not jump up and down when CC hits those keyboard crescendos? Excellent remixes from this album abound too - especially Knightlife's Sun Soaked Reprise of "So Haunted", which just features the best parts from the original track - starting with the rising keyboard hits around the 3 minute mark. Nothing in 2008 made me want to move more than this album.


I couldn't decide if I liked Forth or In Ghost Colours better - resulting in a tie for my favorite of the year!

Other great music from 2008 - Glasvegas' "Geraldine", MGMT's "Time To Pretend" (not a fan of the album, but I love that song), the Fred Falke remix of Whitest Boy Alive's "Golden Cage" (possibly the greatest electro track ever), Booka Shade's The Sun & Neon Lights, and Little Boots' "Stuck on Repeat."

Disappointments - Portishead's Third - no samples, sparse, and kinda blah. I know a lot of people are putting this on their "best of" lists, but to me the album pales in comparison to the two previous efforts. Although there are a few decent songs, I don't feel as if I'm in a 1960's noir spy film as I did with their previous efforts. Bloc Party's Inticamcy - the elctronic driven effort from Bloc Party was very underwhlming. A few good tracks, but overall it's such a tumble from the classic EP and Silent Alarm.

Oh and some old gems that I rediscovered this year included - Swervedriver's Mezcal Head, Daft Punk's Homework, Orbital's II, Sing-Sing's The Joy of Sing Sing, and Swayzak's Loops from the Bergerie.

Best of 2007

I must say, 2007 was a much better year than 2006 in terms of music. We're not talking 2005 here, but there are so many good albums this year - it was quite difficult coming up with a "Best of 2007" list. However, I didn't find many "new" artists in 2007, as my list reflects bands that are on their second, third, or later albums - many of whom put out debuts that I loved.

First, while I cannot justify putting this on the list since it's a comp with re-issued tunes, I thought that the best release in 2007 was The Brit Box: U.K. Indie, Shoegaze, and Brit-Pop Gems of the Last Millenium - words cannot describe how fantastic this box set is. It might as well have been called "The Musical History of Christopher" as it spands all of the genres I've loved in my music-listening career - from 80's indie (The Smiths, Jesus and Mary Chain, The Charlatans, The Stone Roses) to shoegaze (Lush, MBV, Chapterhouse, Swervedriver, Ride) to Britpop (Suede, Oasis, Blur, Sleeper). It even had some stuff that I forgot I loved, like Ned's Atomic Dustbin's "Grey Cell Green" and Mansun's "Wide Open Space."

And now for the list...

10. Hard Fi - Once Upon a Time In the West - No in-your-face tracks like Stars of CCTV, and nothing as good as "Hard To Beat" (hands down one of my favorites of all time), but Richard Archer seems to have grown up a bit musically and came up with an overall solid effort. Single "Suburban Knights" probably ranks as the best track, but "Watch Me Fall Apart" and "We Need Love" show musical maturity. Nice work boys!

9. The Bravery - The Sun and The Moon - For a band that was loved and then hated by bloggers two years ago (people seem to be very passionate about these guys - and music snobs tend to hate them), seems like no one talked about them this year. All of their faux-theatrics aside, I've always liked their music (although Sam's vocals could be worked on - he usually talks or screams, rather than sings), and The Sun and The Moon provides me with more great music. The whistle singalong in "Bad Sun" is quite fun, and "Time Won't Let Me Go" and "Fistful of Sand" show that The Bravery can still bring it.

8. Chemical Brothers - We Are The Night - Pretty much what you'd expect from the Chems - big beat over tight synths, with vocals coming from indie heavy hitters (here, it's Kele Okerle and The Klaxons, among others). I'm not going to replace Exit Planet Dust with We Are the Night in my Chem rotation, but this is quite the effort.

7. Interpol - Our Love To Admire - I was very nervous when Interpol signed with a major label. I figured they'd up the Antics and come out with radio-friendly singles. Much to my delight, quite the opposite was true. "The Heinrich Maneuver" is indeed a great radio single, but overall, this album is nowhere near a commercial effort. With their usual dark and brooding sounds, Interpol delivered a good, not great, album that will not annoy me by being played on the radio every hour.

6. Kaiser Chiefs - Yours Truly, Angry Mob - A much better live band than a studio band, the Kaisers put together a pretty good tracklist with Yours Truly, Angry Mob. "Ruby" is a splendid singalong single, and actually, "Thank You Very Much" and "Everything Is Average Nowadays" are also great tunes to singalong to. With this album, the Kaisers have shown that they've matured musically in the past two years.

5. Radiohead - In Rainbows - The most talked about album this year was more for its distribution than its music. In Rainbows is good, but not in the same echelon as OK Computer, Kid A, or even Hail to the Thief. Some hauntingly beautiful tracks here though - especially "All I Need" and "Videotape." Almost gives you chills. Can't belive that this was the same band that gave us "Anyone Can Play Guitar" (which, after listening to Pablo Honey, really seems believable).

4. Underworld - Oblivion With Bells - Karl Hyde and Rick Smith have done it again. After five long years waiting for a new LP (although they did contribute to the Breaking and Entering soundtrack, as well as release some stuff on their website), they've come back with more of the trademark Underworld sound - swirling synths over big beats and non-sensical lyrics. "Crocodile," "Glam Bucket," and "Best Magmu Ever" standout. Their show in Central Park was incredible as well, and if you ever have the chance to see Underworld live - do so!

3. Apollo Heights - White Music For Black People - Rising from the ashes of the best band you've never heard of (The Veldt - whom I discovered while in school at Chapel Hill - saw them dozens of times, including as an opener for the Manic Street Preachers, and I'm probably the only person who owns all of their albums), Apollo Heights blends shoegaze-esque guitars over tight beats while adding soulful vocals on top (I believe they call their sound "soulgazing"). While only reaching in The Veldt's bag once (with a new version of "Babytalk" - if they wanted to update something, I would have loved to hear "Juicy Sandwich" again), Apollo Heights starts where The Veldt left off. "Shallow By Shallow" shows their hard-edged guitar sound, "Everlasting Gobstopper" their Cocteau-esque shoegaze, and "Disco Lights" shows off Daniel Chavis' soul. With only a couple of weak, throwaway tracks at the end, and although the album's mixing level leaves something to be desired, White Music For Black People is a must-have that you should pick up immediately.

2. New Young Pony Club - Fantastic Playroom - NYCP's debut fits perfectly in the electro-disco-punk of Modular Recordings. Teased with various singles last year, we now get NYPC in full length form. "The Get Go" sounds as good as it did when I heard it in early '06, "The Bomb" and "Get Lucky" are nice musical assaults on the senses, and "Ice Cream" is known throughout the country due to its inclusion in an HP ad. Dancey beats with 80's-like synths. Fantastic Playroom indeed!

1. Moving Units - Hexes for Exes - If you thought their disco-punk past was outstanding, throw in some Cure-like synth and you get this gem. Really pleased to see Moving Units come out with such a great follow up to Dangerous Dreams. The trademark hi-hats and funky bass lines are here, but more rythmic guitars with the aforementioned synths make this a more complete album than Dangerous Dreams - more of an indie rock sound really. "Dark Walls," "Pink Thoughts," "Wrong Again," "Paper Hearts" are the standout tracks, but frankly, everything on here is good.

Others worth mentioning: Editors' An End Has A Start (a good album, but nowhere near as good as The Back Room. There are no in-your-face-fantastic songs like "Munich" (God that song was good!) but Tom Smith and co. string together a few good tracks here, including "The Racing Rats," "Bones," and "An End Has A Start"); David Gahan's second solo effort Hourglass(the singles "Kingdom" and "Saw Something" are worth picking up, and the album is very Playing the Angel-like); The Klaxons' Myths of the Near Future (the 2007 Mercury Prize winner; "Magick" and "Forgotten Works" really get you going); and Maps' We Can Create (nice, chillout music, especially "You Don't Know Her Name").

My biggest letdown this year was Bloc Party's A Weekend In the City. It's actually a decent album when compared to most music out there (and I love the title), but nowhere near as good as Silent Alarm or their earlier EPs. It has a fair amount of highlights, but it's slow and drawn out in parts.

See ya in 2008!