Spoon - Who Makes Your Money on Jimmy Kimmel

last.fm - Top 5 Artists

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Last.fm is an awesome service that keeps track of the music you play.  It does other stuff too I guess...like you can listen to radio stations based on the music you like to listen to.  But outside of Pandora, I have no interest in investing in other radio stations, really.

But it keeps track of what you play!  And gives you all your music stats, makes recommendations on what you might like.
 
My top 30 artists on last.fm as of 4/21/2010...

01. of Montreal - 3,846 plays
What can I say?  I love me some of Montreal.  It's not even close.  They were my definitive favorite band for several years.  I listen to a lot of other artists now, but they're still one of my faves.

Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? and Satanic Panic in the Attic are amazing albums, some of the best to come out in the past decade.  Skeletal Lamping and The Sunlandic Twins are fantastic as well.  They have multiple albums pre-Satanic that are of a different style...I've heard it described as twee.  It's interesting stuff, but for the most part, I dig Satanic and beyond.

New album later this year!  Dying with anticipation.

02. Deerhunter - 1,899 plays
Deerhunter have risen in the ranks!  Microcastle reeled me in, and I am totally hooked.  I think Bradford Cox is one of the most compelling songwriters we have out there, and dude's got a beautiful voice.  I've heard their music described as "ambient punk", and that's a pretty good descriptor.  Their music creates an atmosphere - certain tracks on Cryptograms, Microcastle and Weird Era Cont. are purely noise - but noise that comes together and sets the scene.  Then in the midst of the scene are rockin' tunes like "Cryptograms", "Nothing Ever Happened" and "Operation".

03. The New Pornographers - 1,678 plays
The new New Pornographers record Together has just leaked.  Go find it.  Only listened to it once so far, but it sounded pretty rad.  I love certain parts of Challengers ("All the Old Showstoppers", "Myriad Harbour"), but I'll concede it's their weakest album.  This is better.

The New Pornos are power pop personified.

04. Arcade Fire - 1,672 plays
I got totally obsessed with this band when Neon Bible came out.  Then I got a little burned out and put 'em down for a while.  Really excited for their third album though.  And Funeral really is incredible, holy shit.

05. Spoon - 1,215 plays
Spoon are motherfucking dependable.  Some people have twisted this quality and suggested that Spoon are boring.  In a way, I get it.  But in a lot of other ways, I totally don't get it, because Spoon are awesome.

I didn't love Transference as immediately as Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga or Gimme Fiction, but it's growing on me.  When you cover all their albums, they've built up a rock solid body of tunes.  Can't wait to catch them live again.

Spoon - "Written in Reverse" on Conan

Spoon played their song "Written in Reverse" on one of Conan O' Brien's last episodes of The Tonight Show to promote their new album Transference, which came out this week.

Spoon and Deerhunter Touring Together

Pitchfork have announced that two of my favorite bands - Spoon and Deerhunter - will be touring together.  I'd be hard pressed to come up with a more awesome double bill off the top of my head.

And shit, Miccachu and the Shapes are joining the tour as well...but not for the New York date (3/26 @ Radio City Music Hall).  That kinda sucks - I would have had a trifecta of amazing acts.  I don't know The Strange Boys, who are opening in NY.  Oh well.  It's hard to complain too much.  Spoon and Deerhunter...do you really need anyone else?

Spoon - Transference

Spoon's latest album Transference has just leaked this weekend.  I'm psyched to give it a spin.  Spoon have been producing rock solid albums one after another for a while now, I'm not expecting to be disappointed.

The New York Times did an article on the band.  Check it out here.

I like this quote from the article:

"Spoon is an increasingly rare commodity, a career band whose new album is as heavily anticipated as releases from younger blogosphere favorites like Vampire Weekend and Yeasayer."

EPs of 2009

Some of the year's best music didn't come in albums, but in EPs.  I'm not sure what the strict definition for an EP is exactly, but it's shorter than an album.  The ones I've got here are 3-8 songs long.

An EP can be perfect when you want to listen to a singular body of music, but you don't have the time or the patience to listen to a full album.  Sometimes I'll get in the car and I'll figure that the time of my trip is just about right to listen to one of these.

I think the EP is a good compromise between the ADD nature of our society, where people more often than not just listen to their iPods on shuffle, and the desire for a band/artist to release a piece of music greater than just a single song.  We might see more music released in the form of EPs in the future.

Anyway, a list of my favorite music of the year would be incomplete without mentioning these awesome records.

Animal Collective - Fall Be Kind
Animal Collective had one helluva year.  They started it by releasing the fantastic LP Merriweather Post Pavilion and they ended it by releasing this EP, Fall Be Kind.  The name is a play on the daylight savings time phrase "fall behind", reminding you to set your clocks back one hour (rather than spring forward).  Merriweather Post Pavilion has a very spring/summery feel, and they recorded this as an autumn record.  It's a sweet companion piece to MPP, and the Grateful Dead sampling track "What Would I Want? Sky" is incredible. 

Deerhunter - Rainwater Cassette Exchange
Bradford Cox's other band Atlas Sound released the full album Logos this year, but with Deerhunter he decided to go the EP route with Rainwater Cassette Exchange.  This honestly might be my favorite Deerhunter record.  The title track starts things off with kind of a surf rock vibe.  "Disappearing Ink" and "Famous Last Words" are bangin' rockin' tunes.  Then it gets mellow with the beautiful "Game of Diamonds".  "Circulation" closes the record with a wall of noise.  Five awesome tracks, no filler.

2010 Anticipated Albums

2009 has been a great year for music. It looks like 2010 is gonna pretty sweet too. There are a bunch of albums I'm looking forward to in the new year...

Spoon - Transference
The last LP we got from Spoon is 2007's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, with fantastic songs like "Don't You Evah", "The Underdog", and "Don't Make Me a Target". This year we got an EP from Spoon called Got Nuffin. It turns out that EP was an appetizer for the new album, with the title track "Got Nuffin" showing up on Transference as well. I didn't think too much of that track at first, but it's definitely grown on me. And now we have the piano-based single "Written in Reverse", which I'm loving. It sounds vaguely menacing and has a cool groove to it. Spoon have been producing solid albums time-after-time for many years now. I don't expect this effort to be any different. One interesting tidbit that I heard is that the band produced this album themselves for the first time.

Yeasayer - Odd Blood
Yeasayer's Odd Blood is the album to beat for 2010, so far. How can I say that? Um, because I've listened to it 7 times already. It's a funny world we live in now where albums are leaked out onto the internet months before their official release. But you've gotta draw the line somewhere, and my Best of 2009 list is already written. This album has a little less folk and world music influence than Yeasayer's All Hour Cymbals, and a little more electro pop and funk. I love All Hour Cymbals, but I don't need another one. I'm happy with the direction Yeasayer have moved in. These are catchy, incredibly listenable tunes. "Ambling Alp", "Madder Red", and "ONE" are early standouts.