• 

  The Complete Plantation Recordings

  Muddy Waters

  1993 | Geffen

  I love Muddy Waters, he'd always have a couple entries in my Top 20. I saw him play in Detroit. I actually liken that scene to The Stooges, because at that time all the British guys were coming over and playing the blues back to us [Americans], and at some point, you go, "Well, that's good, but it ain't the real thing," so then we'd start going [back] to the old guys... and listening to them, and in a way that's what happened to us: people are coming back to watch us, because we did the original work. We're kind of the old blues guys of rock!
  
  Iggy went to live in Chicago, pre-Stooges, to check out that scene. He was the drummer for a band called The Prime Movers, and they were very much a Chicago Blues-style band. They were quite good actually.

  more »
• 

  Charley Patton: The Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order, Volume 1

  Charley Patton

  2013 | Document Records / The Orchard

  There's a lot of real esoteric original delta blues — Robert Johnson and all those guys — and you just can't touch them. I haven't tried to play it much, but I love to listen to this stuff.

• 

  Most Things Haven't Worked Out

  Junior Kimbrough

  2000 | Fat Possum Records

  I didn't ever see him myself, but Iggy took him out on the road, and I think they made a record, or at least a couple of songs together. I initially got in contact with Fat Possum because RL Burnside, Junior and all those guys were on that label. I started looking at their catalogue, and I said, "Hey you guys, I'm this guitar player, could you send me some of your... stuff?" and they ended up sending me this huge boxful of almost everybody that was interesting on their catalog. So I'm quite familiar with their stuff!

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• 

  El Camino

  The Black Keys

  2011 | Nonesuch

  I like the Black Keys, especially this later stuff. It's some of their best songwriting.

• 

  Talking Book

  Stevie Wonder

  2000 | Motown

  All this Motown stuff was in the air while we were growing up in Detroit. Stevie Wonder would actually play at the state fair, which was just an open field basically with a bunch of equipment, and he'd be on a stage which wasn't more than two feet high, with four guys around the edges so he wouldn't fall off, and he'd play "Fingertips," right up close and personal. I love "Superstition"... too — it's a great song.

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• 

  A Love Supreme

  John Coltrane

  2003 | IMPULSE!

  Coltrane was a master. A Love Supreme, that's also an amazing record. He was completely plugged into something.

• 

  The Köln Concert

  Keith Jarrett

  1999 | ECM

  My favorite is the Köln Concert by Keith Jarrett, which would've been in the mid-to-late '70s, but Spheres is pretty good, too, from around the same time. He's an improvisational pianist, and some of the things he's done are just incredible, very free, almost jazzy sometimes, but very melodic. He's also played with a ton of very good musicians.

• 

  Roger The Engineer / Over Under Sideways Down

  The Yardbirds

  2009 | The Yardbirds / Cadiz

  I was a huge Yardbirds fan, I saw them play both with Jeff Beck and with Jimmy Page. That was prominent in my evolution. They were so exciting. They had a big hit over here with 'For Your Love', and then that attracted a lot of people to get their albums and stuff, and those albums were incredible, like Over Under Sideways Down — all those songs. Jeff Beck is one of... my very top guitar heroes. A couple of years ago, we were in France, but we came over to the UK to see an artist, and he was playing with her, so I got to meet him backstage, and that was a big thrill for me.

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• 

  Are You Experienced

  The Jimi Hendrix Experience

  2010 | Legacy Recordings

  Before I joined The Stooges, we had a friend in common: Ron Richardson, who was the manager for the first band I helped found, called The Chosen Few. He was someone Ron Asheton knew, and he went out to California for the Monterey pop festival, and brought back home Are You Experienced? It was just a game-changer for all of us — after that, nothing was the same.

• 

  Bringing It All Back Home

  Bob Dylan

  1987 | Columbia

  I was into Bob Dylan even more than Iggy was. I patterned my whole life around Bob Dylan. He would be No. 1 on my list, every record he made except for a few, I like 'em all! Bringing It All Back Home is a great album.

• 

  Kick Out The Jams

  MC5

  1999 | Rhino

  The MC5 were well established at the time when The Stooges started. I wasn't in the band at that time, but I saw all those guys play at the Grande Ballroom and so forth. They were pretty mindblowing, I always liked them. They were quote-unquote, high-energy. Kick Out The Jams was a great tune, but the thing about the 5, though, was that they were all caught up with this political thing,... too. They had that Trans-Love thing going on, and lots of hippie politics. That aspect of the band didn't really resonate with me, but they were good guys, and great players, and they still are, the ones that are left. Fred Smith was a really good songwriter — real simple.

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• 

  Loaded

  The Velvet Underground

  1987 | Atlantic Records/ATG

  I loved that Loaded album [final Velvet Underground album, from 1970], I used to play it all the time. A couple of years later, the Raw Power Stooges played Max's Kansas City [legendary rock 'n' roll club] in New York, and Lou came in and sat down at our table and was trying to pitch us to do a couple of his songs. Because of course he was in the last wave... of the Tin Pan Alley music writers. I had to inform him, "We write our own songs, Lou, we don't want any of yours!" Maybe in hindsight we were stupid, because he does write good songs.

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• 

  Radio Ethiopia

  Patti Smith Group

  1996 | Arista

  She's a good friend. When I first went to New York in The Stooges, we always would stay at the Chelsea Hotel, and they had coffee makers in the room. I was making coffee, and in those days I was using sugar, so I knocked on Ig's door and said, "You know anybody around here? I need some sugar." And he said, "Well, I know this girl upstairs," so I went knocking... on her door, and I said, "Hey, I'm here in the hotel with the Stooges, and, er, do you have any sugar?" So that was the first time I met Patti Smith. She lived there of course, so she had sugar!

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• 

  New York Dolls

  New York Dolls

  1987 | Island Def Jam

  We were contemporaries of The New York Dolls, and I really liked those guys. We'd see them on tours and stuff, and hang with them sometimes when we were in New York. I knew The Ramones a little bit as well. When they'd come out to Hollywood, they'd hang with me. They were nice guys!

• 

  Double Nickels On The Dime

  Minutemen

  SST Records / The Orchard

  This album was the heyday for those guys. It's a good record. They were great players unlike some bands in the punk era, and Mike's really a talented musician. Today, in his own band, he's writing what he calls operas, but they're basically a huge string of one-minute songs, and they play them back to back [à la vintage Minutemen], and it's amazing to see how they can remember all that stuff... — there's maybe 30 or 40 of those things back to back. He's a very astute student of the industry as well, so he an interesting guy to work with.
  
  I didn't pay attention to any of this kind of music when I was out of the business. At first I didn't even believe that all these guys were copying my style. I'm like Rip van Winkle, I just left everything and went to sleep.

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• 

  Push the Sky Away

  Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds

  2013 | Bad Seed Ltd / AWAL

  We played in Australia with them. I do feel that Nick's live act — I think he's taken a few pages out of Iggy's book. There's nothing wrong with that — I mean, even The Boss [i.e. Bruce Springsteen] crowd-surfs now. You gotta go with what works, right?

Donald Byrd, “Jeannine”

• 

  At The Half Note Cafe: Vols 1 & 2 (The Rudy Van Gelder Edition)

  Donald Byrd

  2004 | BLUE NOTE

  Donald Byrd assembled a great band in the late 1950s, and At the Half Note Cafe captures them in sizzling form. There's a vigor and energy to this live recording that's lacking in some of Byrd's early Blue Note studio sessions. On the joyous "Jeannine," Byrd is economical and restrained, willing as always to give ground to those around him. In this case that includes Pepper Adams's nervy, wild sax and Duke... Pearson's spritely piano.

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Donald Byrd, “Hush”

• 

  Royal Flush

  Donald Byrd

  2006 | BLUE NOTE

  By 1961, the 29-year-old Byrd had established himself as a hard-bop cornerstone, recording five studio albums for Blue Note and guesting on many more. Few listeners who dropped the needle on Royal Flush could have guessed they were witnessing the debut of a legend. The breezy, bluesy gem "Chant" introduced the world to Herbie Hancock, who Byrd had mentored throughout the early 1960s. Years later, Hancock would remain grateful for Byrd's belief... in him, as well as this piece of advice from Byrd that the young, struggling pianist wouldn't understand until years later: never give away your publishing rights.

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Donald Byrd, “French Spice”

• 

  Free Form (The Rudy Van Gelder Edition)

  Donald Byrd

  2004 | BLUE NOTE

  By 1962's excellent Free Form, Byrd was beginning to stray from the bop-derived formulas that had long defined mainstream jazz. His band was evolving, thanks to an increasingly confident Hancock, and here they're joined by Wayne Shorter, in one of his last freelance gigs before signing on with Miles Davis. Byrd's role as a connector of ideas is particularly evident here on the moody, abstract title cut, the funky "Pentecostal Feelin'" and... the playful, elegant "French Spice."

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Donald Byrd, “Christo Redentor”

• 

  A New Perspective (The Rudy Van Gelder Edition)

  Donald Byrd

  1999 | BLUE NOTE

  Byrd was entering a fruitful, adventurous phase of his career by the time of 1963's A New Perspective. But if the album cover suggested a turn toward the modern — Byrd leans against the door of a curvy sports car — his experiments would have to plumb the distant past first. This was one of Byrd's best "spiritual" records, essentially a hard bop record featuring a gospel choir. Fantastic and life-affirming from... start to finish, the choir's textures and exhortations perfectly complement the band's rhythms and effervescent solos. It's highlighted by "Christo Redentor," Byrd's mournful trumpet rising above a chanting din.

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Donald Byrd, “Fancy Free” and “The Dude”

After cutting a few solid, if straightforward, Blue Note sides in the mid ’60s, Byrd began moving away from acoustic jazz in the later part of that decade. Miles Davis had gone “electric,” and soon others were following suit. For Byrd, it began with Duke Pearson’s electric keys, which radically shaped the texture of 1969′s Fancy Free, lending everything a freer, more felicitous feel. In 1970, he released Electric Byrd and there was no going back. In retrospect, plugging in suited Byrd’s accommodating style. “The Dude” isn’t radically different from some of his more rhythm-driven numbers from the early 1960s, only the groove is front and center. Fusion remains a dirty word among some jazz devotees, but it was more than a tweaking of the jazz sound. It was also a new approach to composition and recording. Electric Byrd‘s “Xibaba,” for example, is an absorbing, almost shapeless piece that finds Byrd and his new band — featuring Brazilians Hermeto Pascoal and Airto Moreira — concerned more with ambience and energy than structure.

• 

  Fancy Free

  Donald Byrd

  1993 | Blue Note Records
• 

  Electric Byrd

  Donald Byrd

  1996 | BLUE NOTE

Donald Byrd, “Black Byrd”

• 

  Black Byrd

  Donald Byrd

  1992 | BLUE NOTE

  Electric Byrd and 1971's Ethiopian Knights had formalized Byrd's turn toward the funkier, fusion sound then sweeping the jazz community. It was 1973's Black Byrd that turned jazz's civil war into a popular phenomenon. Thanks largely to production from Larry and Fonce Mizell — a member of the Corporation, Motown's hit-making production squad — Black Byrd didn't sound like anything else around. "Black Byrd" was a groove, but one you could sing... along to. While Miles was flirting with avant-garde classical composition and psychedelic chaos, Byrd and the Mizells were turning toward radio-friendly rhythm and blues. To the horror of traditionalists, Black Byrd — with its attention-grabbing synths, funky percussion and vocals — was one of Blue Note's best-selling albums of the decade.

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Blackbyrds, “Blackbyrds’ Theme”

• 

  The Blackbyrds

  Blackbyrds

  2007 | Fantasy Records

  Byrd held a series of university teaching posts throughout the 1970s, and at least two bands formed out of his classes: North Carolina Central University's N.C.C.U. (which later became his backing band in the late 1970s) and Howard University's Blackbyrds. Byrd and the Mizells produced the first few Blackbyrds records, but they were never just a Byrd vanity project. They always seemed like a very creative funk band with jazz chops, especially... on their trio of classic early albums — 1974's self-titled debut ("Funky Junkie," "Summer Love"), Flying Start ("Walking in Rhythm," "Blackbyrds' Theme") and 1975's City Life (featuring the B-boy classic "Rock Creek Park").

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Donald Byrd, “Think Twice” and “Wind Parade”

The partnership between Byrd and the Mizells peaked on these two albums from the mid ’70s, Stepping into Tomorrow and Places and Spaces. It was on tracks like the sensual “Think Twice” or the genial funk of “Dominoes” that they began distinguishing their sound as more than just jazz with R&B characteristics. The compositions are sophisticated and atmospheric, as indebted to the instrumental interplay of Byrd’s past as to the technology of their present. There’s an open, spacey feel to the albums, a sign of Byrd and the Mizells’ growing confidence within this new jazz idiom. Occasionally, the songs from this era are also ridiculously catchy, as on the adventurous, frequently sampled classic “Wind Parade.”

• 

  Stepping Into Tomorrow

  Donald Byrd

  2000 | BLUE NOTE
• 

  Places and Spaces

  Donald Byrd

  1997 | BLUE NOTE

Donald Byrd and 125th St. N.Y.C., “Love Has Come Around”

• 

  Love Byrd

  Donald Byrd And 125th Street, N.Y.C.

  2008 | Rhino/Elektra

  By 1981, Byrd could safely claim some kind of connection to every significant jazz musician of the previous 30 years. The only thing left, obviously, was to record an album with soul man Isaac Hayes. Backed by 125th St, N.Y.C. (previously known as N.C.C.U.), Love Byrd is a fairly snoozy effort highlighted by an unlikely gem: "Love Has Come Around," a dancefloor scorcher (and playlist staple of legendary DJ Larry Levan).

Black Moon, “Buck em Down (remix)” and Guru and Donald Byrd, “Loungin’”

Hip-hop and dance music made jazz relevant to kids in the early ’90s. Not everyone cared for the repurposing of their old sounds, but Byrd embraced it. After all, Byrd’s jazz-funk had been divisive in the ’70s, but decades later it was these intrepid works that producers like DJ Premier of Gang Starr or the Beatminerz gravitated toward. Byrd was sampled countless times, but I’ve always loved how the Beatminerz’s Evil Dee rearranged “Wind Parade” for Black Moon’s “Buck ‘em Down” remix, lending the steely original a bit of grace. For Guru, Gang Starr’s other half, his Jazzmatazz series was essentially a way to give back. “Donald Byrd — word/ On the track, quite exact,” Guru hails, and Byrd matches the rapper’s gruff monotone with some playful, old school riffing.

• 

  Diggin' In Dah Vaults

  Black Moon

  2005 | Nervous Records
• 

  Jazzmatazz Volume 1

  Guru

  1993 | NOO TRYBE

J Dilla, “Think Twice”

• 

  Welcome To Detroit

  Jay Dee aka J Dilla

  2003 | BBE Music / !K7 Records

  Jay Dee made a name for himself as one-third of A Tribe Called Quest's beat-making faction (the Ummah). Thanks to his work on Common's critically acclaimed Like Water for Chocolate and Q-Tip's post-Quest endeavor Amplified, Dee has also established himself as a hip-hop super-producer. While Dee's stock continues to rise (working with Janet Jackson, Erykah Badu, and Macy Gray), his underground projects have been less fruitful. Reason being, when it comes to... enlisting new MCs to collaborate with, Dee has yet to locate a lyricist capable of augmenting his sublime production. This fact became apparent during Dee's short-lived stint as a member of Slum Village, and the trend continues with his first solo outing, Welcome 2 Detroit. Here, Dee continues to showcase a diverse assortment of sensuous melodies and booming funk samples. The Detroit-bred MCs who Dee chooses to highlight -- Phat Kat on "Rico Suave Bossa Nova" and Beej on "Beej-N-Dem, Pt. 2" prove to be very mediocre lyricists. Yet Dee did manage to round up a few hometown prospects, as Frank N Dank liven up "Pause" and Elzhi rips a few furious verses on "Come Get It." Though Dee flips a few clumsy bars as well, Welcome 2 Detroit really takes off when he sticks solely to an instrumental script, retouching trumpeter Donald Byrd's "Think Twice" and transforming Kraftwerk's indelible "Trans-Europe Express" into the strippers'-anthem-in-waiting "B.B.E. (Big Booty Express)."

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Los Pirañas,Toma Tu Jabón Kapax

• 

  Toma Tu Jabón Kapax

  Los Pirañas

  2012 | Vampisoul / The Orchard

  These three young guys from Bogotá had the same backround as I did in rock, punk and DIY, and they decided to bring back cumbia in their own manner. They recorded this live studio album in a very free, experimental way. When their recordings came into the office, we had to figure out how to tag them for distributors: Basically, it sounds like Krautrockers playing experimental cumbia on bass, guitar, and drums... with no overdubs. Their main sound is cumbia, but it's a natural sort of fusion that really works. Their other bands are Frente Cumbiero and the Meridian Brothers.

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Cumbia Beat, volumes 1 & 2

We did this in collaboration with a good Peruvian friend who turned me on to his country’s music. He brought all his records to Europe and played me stuff every time I was at his place. This Amazonic psychedelic stuff was totally unheard and really vibrant. He said, “Let’s put them out. No one else is and I know the labels and musicians. I saw some of these bands with my father as a kid. On Sundays we’d go to a park and drink beer, eat food, and dance.”

• 

  Cumbia Beat Vol. 1

  Various Artists

  2010 | Vampisoul / The Orchard
• 

  Cumbia Beat Vol. 2

  Various Artists

  2012 | Vampisoul / The Orchard

Back to Peru, volumes 1 & 2

When you open a music book in the occident, it says things like, “In the ’60s, rock ‘n’ roll turned into the British invasion, then psychedelia, then progressive and then blah blah blah.” Peru has a similar progression but it’s not so clearly defined: It’s very mellow and mixed and special. Back to Peru is provides a general introduction to Peruvian music of the ’60s and ’70s. There’s some dance music, like the Gozalo compilations, but there’s a lot that’s moodier, midtempo and more psychedelic, like good Badfinger or late Beatles. They’re also good with melodies, like the Brazilians; maybe it has to do with their weather, food and education. Most of them are self-taught but were serious about making it sound good in the studio. You can find stuff like We All Together or Telegraph Avenue, who make a terrific sound comparable to any American band of the time.

• 

  Back To Peru Vol 1

  Various Artists

  2010 | Vampisoul / The Orchard
• 

  Back To Peru Vol 2

  Various Artists

  2009 | Vampisoul / The Orchard

¡Gózalo!, volumes 1 & 2

Gozalo means “enjoy” in Spanish, and these compilations focus on tropical dance music for partying and good times. Like Colombia, Peru is like a little continent unto itself. So much was happening there in the ’50s, ’60s and early ’80s, before the military took over in South America and everything turned a bit grayer. Listening to this music makes me jealous of anyone who lived there during that time because it was very open.

• 

  ¡Gózalo! Vol 1

  Various Artists

  2010 | Vampisoul / The Orchard
• 

  ¡Gózalo! Vol 2

  Various Artists

  2010 | Vampisoul / The Orchard

¡Saoco! The Bomba and Plena Explosion in Puerto Rico 1954-1966

• 

  ¡Saoco! The Bomba and Plena Explosion in Puerto Rico 1954-1966

  Various Artists

  2012 | Vampisoul / The Orchard

  We got in touch with Yannis Ruel, a French journalist. His wife is Puerto Rican, so he spent a lot of time there and found out about all this music. It was like when we started reissuing Fania stuff: You could find it in markets on cheaply done CDs with no liner notes. He thought it should be done right, and very few albums in Puerto Rico are like it. He wrote... an incredible essay that reads like a sociological and musicological dissertation. We're at work on volumes two and three.

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Rangarang: Pre-Revolutionary Iranian Pop

• 

  Rangarang

  Various Artists

  2011 | Vampisoul / The Orchard

  A guy based in Washington, D.C., claimed to be the grandson of the guy who recorded these tracks. His grandfather was killed by the Iranian revolutionaries. He sent us a bunch of material to select and compile. It was very difficult. We couldn't find much information about some of the artists. We went by the music rather than by famous names or big hits. It's fascinating to think about this music in... the context of where it was being made and what came before it — a musical explosion in a strange social moment.

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Bola Johnson, Man No Die

• 

  Man No Die

  Bola Johnson

  2010 | Vampisoul / The Orchard

  The guy representing Nigeria's Premiere label sent us a batch of 1960s and '70s material this trumpeter and bandleader recorded for Phillips. We learned that Bola has even more recordings out, but we don't know how many because even though he's on Facebook, he never replied to us for information or pictures or anything. He's still playing but doesn't seem to care. The world may seem much smaller these days, but there... are still big holes everywhere. Bola's a complete performer who can play all kinds of African music. This compilation has everything from soft highlife to hard funk like Fela Kuti's, who influenced him.

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Flipper Psychout

• 

  Flipper Psychout

  Various Artists

  2010 | Vampisoul / The Orchard

  This was compiled by Alessandro Casella, a record collector and DJ who runs Rome's Micca Club. He got deep into Italian library music and was hired by Flipper to go into its vaults and find material to offer to labels. Mainly, it's music done for publicity, films and television in the early '70s, and the number of different moods and styles was endless. Alessandro came to us with tracks that are psychedelic,... sexy and quite incredible. That kind of music was being produced in Britain, of course, but it was also being done in southern Europe — France, Italy and even Spain. There's a lot more on the way. We're working on a project with the Spanish library music of Warner Chappell, which has something like 15,000 recordings. But it's too much. You need an expert or else you'll spend half your life on it.

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Los Saicos, ¡Demolición! The Complete Recordings

• 

  ¡Demolición! The Complete Recordings

  Los Saicos

  2010 | Munster / The Orchard

  This is the most significant Munster release at the moment for me. Los Saicos recorded six singles in 1964 and '65, but no albums at all. It was very mysterious. I used to play them for all my friends. I'd put the needle down and they'd say, "What is this?!" The band only played its own stuff, no covers. Their themes were a bit sinister: cemeteries, jails, executions, bombings and demolition. They... even had their own Peruvian TV show. They were stars, and then they split up, quit and didn't play any more music. The bandmember we got in touch with lives a very wealthy life in Washington, D.C., where he works for NASA. He became an engineer. We've gotten many licensing requests for them. I'm very proud of this because we may never see anything as unique as Los Saicos again.

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Lyres, Lyres, Lyres

• 

  Lyres Lyres

  Lyres

  2012 | Munster / The Orchard

  I really worshipped the Lyres during my formative years when I was doing the fanzine, and I saw them live a few times. A gap opened between the punk explosion and grunge, and the Lyres were one of the more interesting bands to appear. It was not easy to deal with Jeff Connolly; he's a bit of a perfectionist [laughs]. But it's very good music and I'm glad we did it. No... one else had reissued them except for Matador more than 15 years ago. I'm happy we've made them wider-known.

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Andy Votel Shares 5 Treasures from the Finders Keepers Trove

• 

  L'enfant Assassin Des Mouches

  Jean Claude Vannier

  2007 | B-MUSIC

  Orchestral, psych-rock concept album by Gainsbourg's right-hand man, and FK's first release.
  
  
  When we set up Finders Keepers, I'd already had this record for about four years. There was a rumour going around that there was a sequel to Histoire de Melody Nelson by Serge Gainsbourg, who I'm a big fan of, but it soon became evident that I was more a fan of his arranger, Jean-Claude Vannier, as most of the stuff... I like was between 1968-73 — their years together. Nobody could find this album because there's nothing written on the sleeve — no title or name — but after years and years, I just found a copy in a shop. Everybody in France put me off speaking to Vannier — they told me he was arrogant and that he couldn't speak English — but it was like they were protecting him, really. When I finally met him I discovered he was a polite, encouraging and influential man who has since become a good friend — and he can speak English better than I can. No one dared release this record in France, but I just thought, it has to be out there.

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• 

  Minor White

  Emma Tricca

  2010 | B-MUSIC

  Spare and timeless, finger-picked folk-blues from John Renbourn-approved singer-songwriter.
  
  One of the key attractions of music for me is its femininity and sadly, you don't get that much in Manchester. All I ever talk to Emma about is Italian horror films, because she's Italian. I never talk to her about music, because I'm really not qualified; she's almost like a genius. Jane [Weaver, recording artist and Votel's wife] and I saw her at... the Green Man Festival in 2006 and couldn't believe how brilliant she was, but you could put her up a tree and she'd be amazing. Emma could have existed 300 years ago and she could exist in 300 years time. What she does is 100 per cent honest.

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• 

  Possession

  Andrzej Korzyñski

  2012 | FINDERS KEEPERS

  Polish composer's previously unreleased, experi-chestral OST for the 1981 horror classic.
  
  Korzynski was a mainstay in my record collection for years, but I didn't know anything about him. It's hard to find out about anything Polish, really, but I've been collecting Polish records since I was about 18, when I went to there on an art-school trip. Soundtracks were never released as records in their own right in Poland, and as Korzynski was... primarily a soundtrack artist, he wasn't a household name. But he did go to Paris in the late '60s and that explains everything about Korzynski's sound — people always say he's like the Polish Jean-Claude Vannier.

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• 

  Selda

  Selda

  2007 | B-MUSIC

  Debut Anatolian folk/psych-rock album from acclaimed Turkish singer/ songwriter and musician.
  
  Selda's a folk heroine, but super-militant; she'll wear Gucci sunglasses and a Fendi handbag, with a parka and a bullet-belt. I discovered Turkish music when I was in Germany and there was a really heavy, fuzz guitar sound on this record that blew my mind. Then I realized it was actually a saz, put through a fuzz pedal. People say The Beatles... are the most influential band in the world, but they're not. The Shadows are, because they're instrumental, so language isn't an issue. That's how the Andalou rock scene started and Selda was one of its earliest female musicians. She has this incredible voice, full of pain that's just unrivaled.

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• 

  Man Chest Hair

  Various Artists

  2012 | FINDERS KEEPERS

  Compilation of hirsute and avowedly male '70s rock from the Mancunian underground.
  
  Manchester has got a habit of approaching music with its elbows out, pushing to the front of the queue; it's very male-oriented. But the stuff that didn't force its way to the front got forgotten. It sickens me that people think music in Manchester just went straight from The Hollies to The Smiths, like the '70s didn't exist. In the '60s... when all the clubs in the city centre got shut down, the music went to satellite towns like Bolton and Stockport. There was a German record I'd been after for years and years, and then I found out the band were from Stockport and that blew my mind.

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eMusic Editors’ Finders Keepers Picks

• 

  Pomegranates: Persian Pop, Funk, Folk and Psych of the 60s and 70s

  Various Artists

  2010 | B-MUSIC
• 

  Sarolta Zalatnay

  Sarolta Zalatnay

  2009 | B-MUSIC
• 

  Paint a Lady

  Susan Christie

  2007 | B-MUSIC
• 

  Well Hung

  Various Aritsts

  2009 | B-MUSIC
• 

  Selda

  Selda

  2007 | B-MUSIC
• 

  Absolute Belter

  Various

  2010 | FINDERS KEEPERS
• 

  Solla Solla

  Ilaiyaraaja

  2011 | FINDERS KEEPERS
• 

  The B-Music of Jean Rollin

  Various Artists

  2012 | FINDERS KEEPERS

• 

  ATO Records Spring Sampler 2013

  Various Artists - ATO Records

  2013 | ATO Records
• 

  Don Giovanni Records Sampler

  Various Artists - Don Giovanni Records

  Don Giovanni Records / Believe Digital
• 

  Polyvinyl SXSW 2013 Sampler

  Various Artists

  2013 | Polyvinyl Records
• 

  Dead Oceans Winter 2013 Sampler

  Various Artists - Dead Oceans

  2013 | Dead Oceans / SC Distribution
• 

  Here's To Another 21 Years! - SAMPLER

  Various Artists

  2012 | Kill Rock Stars / Redeye
• 

  Wind-up 15th Anniversary Sampler

  Various

  2012 | Wind-Up
• 

  Stash Rituals: Mexican Summer/Software Spring 2012 Sampler

  Various Artists

  2012 | Mexican Summer
• 

  Hey Girl, Hey

  Various Artists

  2012 | Polyvinyl Records
• 

  ATO Records Fall Sampler 2012

  Various Artists - ATO Records

  2012 | ATO Records
• 

  The Modern Jazz Stylings of Blue Canoe Records Volume 1

  Look What The Cats Drug In

  2008 | Blue Canoe
• 

  Nacional Records eMusic Label Sampler

  Various Artists

  2012 | Nacional Records / The Orchard
• 

  Now Hear This! - The Independent Music Awards 11th Annual Winners

  Various Artists

  2012 | Various Artists / TuneCore
• 

  METAL BLADE RECORDS 2012 Summer Sampler

  Various Artists

  2012 | Metal Blade Records / The Orchard
• 

  Broken Ground - Single (Alt Edit) [eMusic Exclusive Advance]

  Jodis

  2012 | Hydra Head Records / Redeye

Album of the Year

Record of the Year

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  Somebody That I Used To Know

  Gotye

  2012 | EP/SINGLE

  Stepping out from behind the piano/drums of Melbourne indie pop three-piece the Basics for the third time, Belgian-Australian multi-instrumentalist Wally De Backer, aka Gotye's first solo record in five years, Making Mirrors, reveals a love of the '80s pop scene, which extends far beyond the usual influences of the current nu-synth brigade. Unexpected chart-topper "Somebody That I Used to Know," a collaboration with New Zealand vocalist Kimbra, is an oddball break-up song... whose stuttering rhythms, reggae hooks, and hushed vocals sound like the Police as remixed by the XX.

  more »

Song of the Year

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  We Are Young

  fun.

  2011 | Fueled By Ramen

  fun. is one of those bands that came seemingly out of nowhere to ascend to the top of the charts. Usually, those groups piggyback the steez of some other currently radio-ruling act. fun. doesn’t. On its breakout second album, the New York trio draws from hip-hop, power-pop, emo, ’70s art-rock, singer-songwriter balladry, contemporary R&B and Broadway; a combo you’ll likely only find right here. Singer Nate Ruess — who also writes the... ardent lyrics and highly sing-able melodies — has a Freddie Mercury thing going on vocally, and Some Nights opens with a flurry of Queen-y harmonies and symphonic gallantry. But after that, all bets are off. The runaway success of “We Are Young,” the first substantial rock song in ages to not only top the pop charts but also put a justified critic’s darling, avant-R&B diva Janelle Monae, on the radio where she belongs, is particularly amazing considering that Ruess’s first band, the Format, was dropped by the same major that now distributes both fun. and Monae.

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Best Pop Vocal Album

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  Stronger

  Kelly Clarkson

  2011 | RCA Records Label

  It's been nine years since Kelly Clarkson was crowned as the inaugural American Idol, and in that time she's remained the show's ideal; she's a technically gifted singer with charm to spare, an inviting smile, and a knack for inhabiting hooks like they're barnhouse lofts squirreled away on Texas farm. Even the most Idol-allergic music consumers have embraced the combination of melody, perfectly calibrated guitar grit, and wailing that made up her... 2004 hit "Since U Been Gone"; other songs in her catalog, like the sassy "Walk Away" and the girl-group throwback "I Want You," are similarly indelible.
  
  In keeping with Clarkson's career — and the ethos of Idol — her fifth album takes its inspirations from all over the pop map. While Dr. Luke and Max Martin, who shepherded "Gone" and the lead single from Clarkson's previous album All I Ever Wanted, aren't present, the producers in the mix give Stronger a texture that shows how the genre of "pop" can be a jumping-off point, and not an endgame. "You Love Me" is muscular guitar-pop with gorgeous new-wave flourishes blossoming on its pre-chorus; "Dark Side" has a delicate lullaby threaded throughout; "Honestly" opens with a floating haze of guitar distortion that could be mistaken for a chillwave track. The through line between all these stylistic leaps is Clarkson's voice, a formidable instrument that knows when to get vulnerable and when to absolutely blow. (Chillwavers could probably stand to learn a lesson or two from her.)
  
  What gives Stronger its extra oomph is the confidence exhibited by Clarkson as she sings lyrics about self-acceptance being a key to love ("Dark Side") and rumor mills that she wishes would stop churning ("You Can't Win"). Escaping the Idol machine has been a great thing for Clarkson, who sometimes takes on the role of the pop world's ombudsman when she's defending her former show against the "authenticity" police or rolling her eyes at former Idol meanie Simon Cowell's declarations that she's not interested in being a pop star. That Stronger allows her to drop the façade that other pop stars might depend on for dear life, and address both the characters in her songs and her audience directly, speaks both to Clarkson's charm and to her growing maturity as an artist.

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Best New Artist

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  Some Nights

  fun.

  2012 | Fueled By Ramen

  fun. is one of those bands that came seemingly out of nowhere to ascend to the top of the charts. Usually, those groups piggyback the steez of some other currently radio-ruling act. fun. doesn't. On this, its breakout second album, the New York trio draws from hip-hop, power-pop, emo, '70s art-rock, singer-songwriter balladry, contemporary R&B and Broadway; a combo you'll likely only find right here. Singer Nate Ruess — who also writes... the ardent lyrics and highly sing-able melodies — has a Freddie Mercury thing going on vocally, and Some Nights opens with a flurry of Queen-y harmonies and symphonic gallantry. But after that, all bets are off. The runaway success of "We Are Young," the first substantial rock song in ages to not only top the pop charts but also put a justified critic's darling, avant-R&B diva Janelle Monáe, on the radio where she belongs, is particularly amazing considering that Ruess's first band, the Format, was dropped by the same major that now distributes both fun. and Monáe. That Arizona band teamed with Redd Kross/OFF! bassist Steven McDonald for its second album, 2006's Dog Problems, and Ruess and McDonald continued honing their smarty-pants eclecticism on fun.'s 2009 debut Aim and Ignite, with the help of its multi-instrumentalists Jack Antonoff and Andrew Dost, formerly of Steel Train and Anathallo. Here the trio trade McDonald for Jeff Bhasker, a hip-hop/R&B guy who produced monster hits for Kanye West, Jay-Z and Beyoncé. Together, they layer seemingly incompatible genres with reckless but radio-friendly glee, as if a music nerd's iPod somehow got into the hands of a Bruno Mars.

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Best Dance/Electronica Album

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  Bangarang EP

  Skrillex

  2011 | Big Beat Records/Atlantic

  Nominated for five Grammy Awards, shortlisted for the prestigious BBC Sound of 2012 poll, and courted by everyone from Chicago producer Kaskade to metal icons Korn, former From First to Last frontman Sonny Moore's transition from post-hardcore vocalist to dubstep producer couldn't have realistically gone any smoother. However, despite his unprecedented success, there's still a question as to whether he can apply his now trademark, demonic, wobble bass drops and thumping syncopated... beats to a whole album. Named after the battle cry of the lost boys in Steven Spielberg's Hook, his fourth consecutive EP Bangarang (also his first Top 40 entry in both the UK and US) suggests he'll have to be on his game on the forthcoming full-length Voltage if he's to avoid an Emperor's New Clothes scenario. While the bombastic Wall of Sound displayed on 2010's Scary Monsters & Nice Sprites initially provided a unique take on the UK dubstep genre, Skrillex's lack of progression means there's a distinct sense of déjà vu among its seven tracks, particularly on the relentless, scattershot bleeps, chopped-up vocal hooks, and repetitive loops of opener "Right In" and the rap-metal fusion of "Kyoto." Even when he does think outside the box -- as on "Right on Time," a percussive, hard house collaboration with 12th Planet and Kill the Noise which eventually builds into a feverish slice of happy hardcore, and "The Devil's Den," a chaotic hook-up with Wolfgang Gartner which takes in everything from old-school rave to ska to techno — the results are more headache-inducing than thrilling. There are a few more encouraging signs, such as the Doors-featuring "Breakin' a Sweat," which combines proggy guitar hooks, psychedelic organ chords, and Jim Morrison samples with a snarling, Prodigy-esque vocal and a filthy slab of dub bass to produce one of the year's most unexpectedly successful partnerships, and the multi-layered trance of closer "Summit," given an ethereal sheen thanks to Ellie Goulding's lilting tones, both of which suggest Skrillex should utilize his melodic leanings more often. But overall, Bangarang is a disappointingly formulaic affair which hints for the first time that the wheels may soon slowly begin to fall off.

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Best Rock Album

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  El Camino

  The Black Keys

  2011 | Nonesuch

  The Black Keys, Akron's unsuspecting blues-rock saviors, faced ridiculous pressure in following up their expansive 2010 breakout effort, Brothers. Big things happened in the subsequent year: The duo (vocalist/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney) graced the cover of Spin, tucked away three GRAMMYs, played SNL and raked in huge piles of advertising cash — big-deal developments for a band that recorded their debut album in a basement nearly a decade earlier.... Brothers found the band at a creative and commercial high-point, simultaneously embracing soulful pop melodies and the spirited muscle of their live shows, even as they gently experimented with psychedelic overdubs — emphatically darting away from the sleepy, awkward soundscapes of the Danger Mouse-produced identity crisis Attack & Release.
  
  On El Camino, the Black Keys are done trying to impress anybody, sounding wonderfully unhinged throughout the album's compact 38 minutes. The name of the game is hard-hitting focus; spontaneity; keeping it simple, stupid; never over-thinking or over-cooking any swampy chorus or tossed-off lyric ("Hey, my my, she's a money-maker/ Hey, my my, she's gonna take ya," goes one gem). After only producing one Brothers track (the emphatic "Tighten Up"), Danger Mouse returns to man the boards — and though his approach on Attack & Release was heavy-handed, never quite gelling with the duo's style, he takes a wiser backseat approach on El Camino. His presence still lingers (check that whirring Hammond organ and retro-glock twinkle on the hooky "Dead and Gone"), but this time around, he's adapted to the Keys' raw rock approach, instead of forcing a synthesis with his bread-n-butter symphonic electro-pop.
  
  The looseness is intoxicating. "Money Maker"'s beastly bass lags behind a millisecond or two, pushing and pulling in gnarly blues warfare with Auerbach's guitars. Carney, charmingly, still swings with the finesse of a caveman on Ritalin — despite his finest efforts at a multi-tiered groove on standout "Stop Stop," dude nearly trips over his own drum sticks. Those sassy female vocalizers on "Gold on the Ceiling" would fit nicely onstage in a broke-down backwoods bar. The acoustic-ballad-turned-electric-stomper "Little Black Submarines" unintentionally evokes Tenacious D channeling Led Zeppelin, and the result is a goofier (yet no less rocking) "Stairway to Heaven" demoed in a truck-stop bathroom stall. Meanwhile, "Sister" is the Black Keys at their glammiest and hammiest, Auerbach's fuzz-bathed, bee-stung guitars layered impeccably over a wicked Carney stomp.
  
  Perhaps the Black Keys are America's finest rock band only because the competition is so depressingly slim. Regardless, with two straight knock-outs on their resume, these guys have clearly earned the title.

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Best Alternative Album

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  Making Mirrors

  Gotye

  2012 | Samples & Seconds / Republic

  Stepping out from behind the piano/drums of Melbourne indie pop three-piece the Basics for the third time, Belgian-Australian multi-instrumentalist Wally De Backer, aka Gotye's first solo record in five years, Making Mirrors, reveals a love of the '80s pop scene, which extends far beyond the usual influences of the current nu-synth brigade. The hugely experimental follow-up to 2006's Like Drawing Blood doesn't discriminate against other decades, as evident on the impossibly uplifting... '60s retro soul of "I Feel Better," the '70s West Coast harmonies of the ethereal lullaby-like closer "Bronte," the '90s Beck-esque scuzzy garage rock of "Easy Way Out," and the 2000s hushed, claustrophobic dubstep of "Don't Worry, We'll Be Watching You." But seemingly unaffected by the constant comparisons with the likes of Sting and Peter Gabriel, it's the era of early new wave, dub, and worldbeat which defines its 12 tracks. Unexpected chart-topper "Somebody That I Used to Know," a collaboration with New Zealand vocalist Kimbra, is an oddball break-up song whose stuttering rhythms, reggae hooks, and hushed vocals sound like the Police as remixed by the XX, "Smoke and Mirrors" echoes the avant-garde pop of Gabriel's So, with its pounding tribal drums, orchestral flourishes, and new age melodies, while there are also nods to George Michael's "Faith" on the acoustic gospel-pop of "In Your Light"; the impassioned Aussie rock of Midnight Oil on the ecologically themed "Eyes Wide Open," and electro pioneer Thomas Dolby on the strange, vocodered vocals, spoken word samples, and skank guitars of the trippy "State of the Art." Familiar they may be, but some credit has to go to De Backer for managing to weave these eclectic retro sounds into a cohesive affair, which proves that along with recent efforts by Art vs. Science and Architecture in Helsinki, Australia is fast becoming one of the biggest purveyors of quality experimental pop.

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Best R&B Album

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  Black Radio

  Robert Glasper

  2012 | BLUE NOTE

  Pianist Robert Glasper has jazz chops sophisticated enough to satiate diehard purists and an affinity for hip-hop and R&B that has resulted in collaborations with Q-Tip, Maxwell and Mos Def. Black Radio scrambles these influences, with Glasper's Experiment quartet (including Derrick Hodge on electric bass, Casey Benjamin on sax and vocoder, and Chris Dave playing drums), laying unpredictable music beneath a bevy of high-profile guests. In this era of... Pandora-style musical-profiling, where listeners can narrow down exactly what they think they want, the project absorbs genres like a sponge and squeezes out surprises with a tinge of tang and froth. It avoids the sappiness of "smooth jazz," the stilted self-reference of "hip-hop jazz" and the suffocating cushion of "quiet storm," yet there's a lush sensuality that permeates the beats, bop rhythms and bracing moments of curiosity and intellect.
  
  Glasper understands that this Experiment is best undertaken as a tactile experience - as Shafiq Husayn rap-drawls in the opener, "Lift Off," all you need is your ears and your soul. To drive home the point, the beguiling yawl and coo of Erykah Badu sends the Afro-Cuban classic "Afro Blue" into the air like a large kite in a steady wind, its tail trilling. Rappers Lupe Fiasco and yasiin bey (better known as Mos Def) variously distill verbal science and wig out on wordplay ("turtles from a man hole"?), knowing the live quartet can alter the texture and freestyle the route as the situation warrants, on "Always Shine" and "Black Radio," respectively. There is a throwback nature to Black Radio, and not only because Sade ("Cherish The Day," with Lalah Hathaway on vocals), David Bowie ("Letter to Hermione," featuring Bilal channeling Stevie Wonder) and Nirvana (a deconstructed and vocoderized "Smells Like Teen Spirit") are covered. There are moments reminiscent of the soul-jazz fusion of Bobbi Humphrey and Donald Byrd back on Blue Note in the late '70s, or Soul II Soul and Me Phi Me back in the '80s, or Alphabet Soup and Mint Condition in the '90s, with a dollop of 21st-century hip-hop on top. Why reinvent the wheel when you can modify the ride?

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Best Rap Album

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  Take Care (Deluxe Version)

  Drake

  2012 | Cash Money Records/Young Money Ent./Universal Rec.

  Drake shot to the upper echelon of hip-hop fame by bypassing nearly every single rule of traditional cred-getting, and none of the ensuing jokes about his role as Wheelchair Jimmy on DeGrassi: The Next Generation or his own penchant for soft-batch hashtag-rap have knocked him back down. If anything, sophomore album Take Care actively doubles down on the things that make him so contentious among traditionalists — the emotional exposure, the singsong... delivery (now manifested more often as straight-up R&B singing), the lyrical focus on relationships — but infuses them with a subtle dose of self-aware ambivalence.
  
  He still acknowledges success — the first line on the album is "I think I killed everybody in the game last year, man" — while "Underground Kings" and "Crew Love" are human-scale acknowledgments that he can afford nice cars and expensive vacations. Yet he still carries himself as though his main concern is connecting with other people without letting status obscure his intent. Most of the people in question are women; they get romantically flattered ("Make Me Proud"), ruefully drunk-dialed ("Marvin's Room"), anxiously reconciled with ("Take Care") and coldly, then regretfully, dumped (the Stevie Wonder feature, "Doing it Wrong").
  
  In the process, Drake foregoes hashtag gimmickry and stretched-to-fatigue punchlines in favor of straightforward confessions, letting the guests — including top-form Nicki Minaj, Rick Ross, Andre 3000 and mentor Lil Wayne — fill in the pull-quotes. The production does the rest — a gauzy atmosphere of post-Dirty South beats, built around muted, glowing ambient tracks from Noah "40" Shebib, T-Minus and one-shots from Boi-1da, Just Blaze, Jamie xx and Lex Luger — and the sound complements the nuances of Drake's voice in a way that subsumes it almost completely. The end result is an album that feels like the most integral fusion of hip-hop structure and R&B soul-baring since 808s and Heartbreak.

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Best Country Album

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  Uncaged

  Zac Brown Band

  2012 | Southern Ground/Atlantic

  In a sense, it's possible to measure the progress of the Zac Brown Band by the magnitude of their guest stars. In 2010, they consolidated the breakthrough of 2008's Foundation by enlisting Jimmy Buffett and Alan Jackson for duets — elders whose very presence suggested they were passing a torch (although, to be sure, Buffett has a far greater pull on Brown's sound than Jackson). Two years later, it is the Zac... Brown Band who occupy the power position, drafting in peers, not idols, to play alongside. And it is a diverse batch: twee, twiddly Jason Mraz co-writes the sprightly opening cut, "Jump Right In," with Zac, Trombone Shorty colors "Overnight" with some New Orleans funk, and upcoming folk/blues troubadour Amos Lee sings on "Day That I Die," each guest representing a different field for the ZBB, each suggesting the range of this ever-evolving nominal country band. And at this point, the Zac Brown Band would fit the grander stages of such worldly, knowing vaguely hippie enclaves as Bonnaroo better than they would a rocking country outlet somewhere in the Deep South. But Southern they are, in sensibility and sound, reflecting not the dusty beer joints and cutthroat honky tonks of the middle of the 20th century but the sports bars and sandy beaches of the present, the kinds of places where the kin of the Allmans feel as Southern as the descendants of George Jones...and where a bearded soft rock crooner like Zac Brown is happy to make evident his debt to James Taylor. Brown's sweeter side isn't hidden here but it's not quite as prominent as it's been in the past, either. He has plenty of soft, crooning melodies but there's a bit of bluegrass and a bit of reggae, a little blues and a lot of rock. Above anything else, Uncaged is a Zac Brown Band album, one that emphasizes the range of this quintet and its elastic interplay. It is the sound of a band operating from a position of considerable strength: they're confident, assured, even playful, having fun bending the rules and blurring boundaries, eager to please but never pandering. It's the rare album that suggests how good the band would be in concert yet still sounds vibrant on record.

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Best Jazz Vocal Album

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  Radio Music Society

  Esperanza Spalding

  2012 | Heads Up

  Now Esperanza Spalding is making even the Grammys look hip. In her first outing since she was named Best New Artist in 2011, Spalding puts a dozen tunes into her stylistic spin cycle for a tour de force of pop glitter, jazz swing, folk moodiness and a dollop of hip-hop swagger on the dense-but-dazzling Radio Music Society. This is the work of an artist who refuses to choose, mocking genre labels with... guileless ambition. (Her original concept was to pair this disc with the classically-oriented, string-laden Chamber Music Society back in 2010, until her record company convinced her the menu would be too large for public consumption.)
  
  By ignoring boundaries, Spalding upends expectations. She enlists august jazz tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano to provide a dulcet lilt to a Stevie Wonder cover ("I Can't Help It") and hip-hop titan Q-Tip to play glockenspiel and co-produce the jazzy tribute to her native Portland, Oregon("City of Roses"). Assembling a phalanx of 23 players and vocalists for a flashy, powerhouse "Radio Song," she sings about the giddiness of being seized by a new jam coming out of the speakers as her own electric bass wends its way through the song's buoyant center. Three songs later, with just the sparse backing of organist James Weidman, she tells the saga of a man falsely imprisoned for 30 years on a bogus murder conviction. On Radio, both extremes are fair game.
  
  As was the case with Chamber Music Society, Spalding's vocals are her ace in the hole. Her range is limited, but her assured and agile phrasing is ideal for carrying out her talk/sung approach. It enables her to credibly pull off a bluesy, big-band-like torch song ("Hold On Me") and to surf atop a youth choir on the anthem "Black Gold." And then there's "Vague Suspicions," a dense and sophisticated number with Jack DeJohnette on drums, about the tacit accommodations Americans make to avoid thinking too much about the consequences of drone strikes and the other elements of remote-control war. It's a grim, simmering number, its closing moments featuring Spalding sarcastically cooing, "Next on channel 4: celebrity gossip." It's a typically astute and self-aware take from an artist who is the closest thing jazz has to a young celebrity.

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Best Jazz Instrumental Album

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  Unity Band

  Pat Metheny

  2012 | Nonesuch

  Freedom from stylistic constraints has never been an easy thing for Pat Metheny. As one of jazz's greatest composers, guitarists and texturalists, he's compiled on a stockpile of characteristic compositional devices. Any Metheny fan can identify his white-noise-spewing guitar synths and Ornette-style "out" constructions from 40 paces. But Metheny's tools never become clichés; they're just steps from which he keeps climbing.
  
  Unity Band is yet another example of Metheny's perpetual growth spurt. Metheny's... first record to feature a tenor saxophonist since the mighty 80/81 (with Dewey Redman and Michael Brecker), it sounds both familiar and fresh. Metheny sandblasts new creative paths through well-worn terrain, joined by tenor player Chris Potter, perennial Pat Metheny Group drummer Antonio Sanchez and inspired young bassist Ben Williams. Potter is a muscular foil for Metheny, inspiring him to comp and solo with abandon. The guitarist, though typically brilliant, can sometimes sound hamstrung by his dense PMG studio arrangements. But revamping his afore-mentioned compositional tools through new band mates, Metheny sounds truly inspired on Unity Band.
  
  Metheny's bittersweet acoustic guitar (is there a better acoustic jazz guitarist?) opens "New Year" with a bossa nova lilt, quickly drawing you in. Metheny is soon subsumed by Potter's astringent tenor, followed by group solos over a Metheny-trademarked, high-flying vamp section. Fret-encompassing swoops ("vroom vroom") and guitar synth caterwaul infuse the funky Latin sashay of "Roofdogs," the band firing smoke and sparks as Potter's soprano sax solo winds through solar flare like explosions. Here on soprano, and elsewhere on bass clarinet, Potter shakes clean his hefty Brecker influences to improvise with originality. Sanchez storms Unity Band as well, constantly stoking the intensity level as Williams responds with graceful solos and empathetic support. His solo bass introduction (another Metheny device) to "Come and See" leads to heated solos all around over a feverish pulse. An acoustic guitar-driven ballad, "This Belongs to You," follows, then "Leaving Town," which touches on old PMG favorite "James" in its melody and overall shape. The bell-like chord structure of "Interval Waltz" recalls master guitarist Jim Hall, creating a lovely arc of an arrangement, leading to a beautiful guitar solo over a floating swing pulse. "Signals (Orchestrion Sketch)" is like nothing on any Metheny record, its clattering, Frank Zappa styled (Varese? Stravinksy?) orchestral bed emoting like humorous robots beating street percussion. "Then and Now" sounds a bit like Weather Report's "A Remark You Made" in spirit, followed by closer, "Breakdealer," which with its clunky race to the finish, is Unity Band's only deal-breaker.
  
  Should Pat Metheny replace his main group with the freshly minted Unity Band? The guitarist is re-inspired by material that hints at years of development to come, and this is one killer band. But probably not. Metheny's vision is too broad to be contained by one band and one band alone.

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Best Reggae Album

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  Rebirth

  Jimmy Cliff

  2012 | Jimmy Cliff - Rebirth

  In 1972, Jimmy Cliff's performance in The Harder They Come introduced U.S. filmgoers to the vibrant desperation ofKingston life, and his inspirational yet tough-minded songs highlighted the movie's soundtrack. Already an established hitmaker at the time, Cliff seemed poised to become Jamaica's first international superstar. Instead he misjudged American audiences, pitching vague homilies and pop professionalism to the AM crowd, allowing Bob Marley to leapfrog past him by assuming a prophetic mantle... and exciting hip FM rockers with his political defiance.
  
  On Rebirth, Cliff now eyes a more judicious audience: middle-aged rockers weaned on punk and alternative. Shepherded by his producer, Rancid frontman Tim Armstrong, the 64-year-old rides the lithe throwback grooves of reggae revivalists the Aggrolites and Hepcat with a young man's grace, particularly on two smartly chosen covers — the Clash's "The Guns of Brixton," which transplanted Cliff's character from The Harder They Come into a London slum, and Rancid's "Ruby Soho." ("Rebel, Rebel" is good too, but it's not the Bowie tune.) Cliff's political complaints haven't grown much more specific — "World Upside Down" cries out against "Too much injustice," then proposes "love" as the answer. But his exhortations not only retain the warmth and humane spirit of old but have gained depths of pained sympathy with age, especially when he laments how "They took the children's bread/ And gave it to the dogs."

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Brooklyn

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  Reasonable Doubt

  Jay-Z

  1996 | Roc-a-fella / TuneCore

  Every rapper needs a creation myth — Illmatic opened with Nas and A.Z. counting money over snippets from Wild Style, the devil's sons redeemed by hip-hop. Biggie opened Ready to Die with a gripping audio collage of his first twenty-odd years, as though his rag-to-riches tale was one you needed to learn. Jay opened Reasonable Doubt with a heartbeat, but its quickening pace suggested it was the sound of fear —... of moving your first package; of holding your first gun; of seeing a man die; of the moment when you realize you have grown up too fast. This wasn't an album deeply concerned with where Jay had been, since he had already built his name as a rather successful drug dealer. This album was about one man's rebirth, and as soon as that ticking heart gave way to the gloss and floss of "Can't Knock the Hustle," it was clear that Jay, too, had arrived.
  
  
  
  "My pops knew exactly what he did when he made me/ Tried to get a nut and he got a nut," he bragged on that opening cut, as Mary J. Blige bellowed an achingly hopeful chorus borrowed from Mel'isa Morgan's "Fool's Paradise." But was Jay really a "nut," our "worst fear confirmed"? There is something cool and composed about Reasonable Doubt, as he plays straight man to Biggie's true nut on "Brooklyn's Finest" or earns his stripes on the icy "Dead Presidents II" — two of the finest songs of Jay's career. "We used to fight for building blocks/ Now we fight for blocks with buildings that make a killin'," he raps on the truly disturbing "D'evils." But even there he sounds chillingly assured against DJ Premier's spooked Allen Toussaint sample.
  
  
  
  History recognizes Reasonable Doubt as evidence of Jay's genius, but it all could have ended up very differently. Reasonable Doubt arrived during a tumultuous turn in the history of hip-hop. Nas'disappointing It Was Written would come out a week later, and hip-hop's obsession with the Mafioso lifestyle would soon bloat to cartoonish extremes. The Wu-Tang Clan would spool out of control, and within the next year, Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G. would ascend to martyrdom. Yet the culture's growth was still exceeding all expectations, and hip-hop would need new, larger, flashier heroes. And in Jay-Z, it found its pinnacle.

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• 

  Daily Operation

  Gang Starr

  1992 | NOO TRYBE

  Straddling the very fissures where the old school gave way to the new, Gang Starr's 1992 masterpiece Step in the Arena was the sound that took rappers 15 years to perfect. In the few months that followed, New York would be scrambling to reinvent itself in the year Los Angeles broke, but Daily Operation was coolly classic-sounding; like Led Zep's Physical Graffiti, it's an unstoppable summary of everything that makes its genre... great — the most rollicking breaks, the silkiest rhyme patterns, the most nimble cutwork, the most head-knocking snares.
  
  For being the greatest MC/DJ duo in rap history, Gang Starr were never flashy, gaudy or showy. Guru and DJ Premier are jazz heads at heart, and they understand the idea of "being in the pocket" — note how Guru brags that his vocals "complement the slow phat groove" in "Stay Tuned." But don't mistake their smoothness for soft: The production (handled by the duo) cycles through some of the most harried samples around, always hiccupping with hums and tics and audience noise and hummingbird strings — peaking with a manic one-second loop of hard-funk footnote Sugar Billy Garner in "B.Y.S."
  
  The magic is in the details — how Premier gently stretches and bends KRS-One's voice in "Ex Girl to the Next Girl"; the way Guru can makes something as devilishly simple as "You see the mic in my hand? Now watch me wreck it now" seem like liquid perfection; how "Take It Personal" adds extra bass drums hits to the iconic "Skull Snap" break to make it even more skull-snappy. Daily Operation is an uncluttered masterpiece by a group with a catalog full of them.

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• 

  Life After Death

  The Notorious B.I.G.

  1997 | Bad Boy Records

  Released just 16 days after his March 9 death by drive-by shooting, there's an eerie prescience to the Notorious B.I.G.'s Life After Death. Several things — that title, the hearse-featuring album cover, the crushing closing track, "You're Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You)" — gave Life After Death a bizarre resonance. But this is much more than paperwork from the morgue. In fact, rap stardom gave The Notorious B.I.G. a new lease; he... attacks with testosterone-filled glee. The album's title is about second chances at money, fame and sex after a tumultuous youth; a true second life. The result, worth every second of its expansive double-LP running time, is actually more about light and wealth than its predecessor, which was defined by a grim fatalism. The hits say as much. Consider that old speedboat-riding chestnut of hip-hop opulence, "Hypnotize" or the Diana Ross-lifting exuberance of "Mo Money Mo Problems." The giddy, quite funny "I Got A Story To Tell" finds Biggie creeping with the lady friend of a New York Knicks player and then retelling the tale to his boys, embellishing like a grandfather serenading some awestruck tots. Biggie's desire to croon — really, croon — crops up repeatedly here, as on the goofy extended "Playa Hater" or the thudding Miami bass of "Another." Even "Ten Crack Commandments," a steely DJ Premier production and drug-dealing manifesto has a delightful service-y quality — memorable and useful! So many of his lyrics became sampled and repeated hip-hop aphorisms — "If you don't know, now you know"; "It was all a dream..."; "Went from ashy to classy"; and so on. This is a crucial part of the Biggie mythology, the stickiness of his writing.
  
  After the success of Ready To Die Biggie used his follow-up to indulge his fantasies. Working mostly with Puff Daddy's in-house production crew, The Hitmen (Carlos "July Six" Broady, Nashiem Myrick, Deric "D-Dot" Angelettie, Stevie J, Ron "Amen-Ra" Lawrence), it's surprising how many of the songs here are about sexual conquest; at times you may yearn for his debut's brutality. But over time, Life After Death reveals itself as a sensual work — the lyrics to the R. Kelly-featuring "Fuck You Tonight" are specific, attentive, lascivious in ways that might make Luther Campbell blush. Biggie is less rapid-fire throughout, whether rapping or singing, letting that charismatic, jowly burr traipse into Isaac Hayes territory. His reach is longer, too, featuring paeans to his beloved '80s R&B, production from distinguished contemporaries like Mobb Deep's Havoc and Wu-Tang Clan's RZA, and guest shots from stars old (DMC, Too $hort) and new (onetime paramour and protégé Lil' Kim, a young friend named Jay-Z, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony).
  
  That collaboration with Bone Thugs, the whirring "Notorious Thugs," forced a flood light on rap's ever-expanding regional purview. Exposing — and paying homage by emulating their distinctive half-sung double-time flow — to Cleveland's own was just one more example of Biggie's almost perverse palm-reading — he simply knew where the genre needed to go. The song's reference to "So-called beef with you know who" anchors the album's more serious undertones. Biggie, of course, was feuding with ex-friend 2Pac for some time as he began recording the album. Pac was gunned down in Las Vegas six months before its release, but that didn't stop Big from including "Going Back To Cali," a perhaps too-braggadocious act of defiance in the service of an insatiable ego.
  
  The backend of the second disc is the most tremulous and grandiose. The underrated single "Sky's The Limit," a defiant turn on "My Downfall," and RZA's "Long Kiss Goodnight" are all mythmaking songs that ultimately sting in light of Big's fate. And the closing track, "You're Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You)," is the hazy epilogue to a cinematic reconfiguration. That it all doesn't end in death is its own sort of optimism, tragically inaccurate though it was.

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• 

  Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star

  Black Star

  2002 | Rawkus Entertainment

  While Puff Daddy and his followers continued to dictate the direction hip-hop would take into the millennium, Mos Def and Talib Kweli surfaced from the underground to pull the sounds in the opposite direction. Their 13 rhyme fests on this superior, self-titled debut as Black Star show that old-school rap still sounds surprisingly fresh in the sea of overblown vanity productions. There's no slack evident in the tight wordplays of Def and... Kweli as they twist and turn through sparse, jazz-rooted rhythms calling out for awareness and freedom of the mind. Their viewpoints stem directly from the teachings of Marcus Garvey, the legendary activist who fought for the rights of blacks all around the world in the first half of the 20th century. Def and Kweli's ideals are sure lofty; not only are they out to preach Garvey's words, but they also hope to purge rap music of its negativity and violence. For the most part, it works. Their wisdom-first philosophy hits hard when played off their lyrical intensity, a bass-first production, and stellar scratching. While these MCs don't have all of the vocal pizzazz of A Tribe Called Quest's Phife and Q-Tip at their best, flawless tracks like the cool bop of "K.O.S. (Determination)" and "Definition" hint that Black Star is only the first of many brilliantly executed positive statements for these two street poets.

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• 

  Liquid Swords

  Genius/GZA

  1995 | Geffen
• 

  Return To The 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version

  Ol' Dirty Bastard

  2009 | Rhino/Elektra
• 

  Black On Both Sides

  Mos Def

  2002 | Rawkus Entertainment
• 

  Reflection Eternal [Train Of Thought]

  Talib Kweli

  2002 | Rawkus Entertainment
• 

  When Disaster Strikes

  Busta Rhymes

  2007 | Rhino/Elektra
• 

  Wrath Of The Math

  Jeru The Damaja

  1996 | Island Def Jam
• 

  Hard Core

  Lil' Kim

  2005 | Atlantic Records
• 

  Ill Na Na

  Foxy Brown

  1996 | RAL

Queens

• 

  Paid In Full

  Eric B. & Rakim

  2005 | ISLAND RECORDS

  One of the most influential rap albums of all time, Eric B. & Rakim's Paid in Full only continues to grow in stature as the record that ushered in hip-hop's modern era. The stripped-down production might seem a little bare to modern ears, but Rakim's technique on the mic still sounds utterly contemporary, even state-of-the-art -- and that from a record released in 1987, just one year after Run-D.M.C. hit the mainstream.... Rakim basically invents modern lyrical technique over the course of Paid in Full, with his complex internal rhymes, literate imagery, velvet-smooth flow, and unpredictable, off-the-beat rhythms. The key cuts here are some of the most legendary rap singles ever released, starting with the duo's debut sides, "Eric B. Is President" and "My Melody." "I Know You Got Soul" single-handedly kicked off hip-hop's infatuation with James Brown samples, and Eric B. & Rakim topped it with the similarly inclined "I Ain't No Joke," a stunning display of lyrical virtuosity. The title cut, meanwhile, planted the seeds of hip-hop's material obsessions over a monumental beat. There are also three DJ showcases for Eric B., who like Rakim was among the technical leaders in his field. If sampling is the sincerest form of admiration in hip-hop, Paid in Full is positively worshipped. Just to name a few: Rakim's tossed-off "pump up the volume," from "I Know You Got Soul," became the basis for M/A/R/R/S' groundbreaking dance track; Eminem, a devoted Rakim student, lifted lines from "As the Rhyme Goes On" for the chorus of his own "The Way I Am"; and the percussion track of "Paid in Full" has been sampled so many times it's almost impossible to believe it had a point of origin. Paid in Full is essential listening for anyone even remotely interested in the basic musical foundations of hip-hop -- this is the form in its purest essence.

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• 

  Raising Hell

  Run DMC

  2005 | Arista

  There's no mistaking Run-DMC's loud-and-proud staccato flows for today's crop of mumbly-even-when-they-shout rappers; if one thing dates the trio's rhymes, it's that they sound like they're having fun lobbing lines back-and-forth, rather than monomaniacally droning through gangsta clichés. (Just listen to the way Run shouts "Ronald's!" to DMC's "Those burgers are..." set-up on the 27-second personal history lesson "Son of Byford.") It's no surprise why Raising Hell became one of the first... hip-hop albums to truly break through to Middle America after a few years of post-"Rapper's Delight" woodshedding for the genre: that sense of play between the two MC's is infectious. With one of the best opening four-song runs of any old-school hip-hop album, these Hollis boys may not have expected to change pop, but they sure knew how to put their best foot forward.
  
  
  
  That quartet is the core of Run-DMC's legacy: "Peter Piper" introduced many a non-New York resident to the sampled drum break, with its effervescent scratched-in segue from a terse, monochromatic drum machine beat to the funky, full-color bells of Bob James' "Take Me to the Mardi Gras." Future auctioneer-shaming fast-rappers may have made "It's Tricky" sound slow, but even if it's no longer the tongue-twister to beat, Russell Simmons' and Rick Rubin's cut-up of "My Sharona" makes it the funkiest, fuzziest rock-rap this side of Tone Loc's Delicious Vinyl classics. With some of Jam Master Jay's most vicious scratching and zilch in the way of ear-friendliness, "My Adidas" is one of the most counter-intuitive, and perversely catchy, examples of corporate name-dropping in rap history. And "Walk This Way," the culturally ingrained collab with a brink-of-extinction Aerosmith, is the model of raunchy, no-sell-out selling-out. Perhaps nothing, even near-numbing familiarity, can fully clean up Joe Perry's riff.
  
  
  
  But that's only four songs out of 12. The rest of Raising Hell may lack the first quarter's immediacy, but it's a reminder that, even as one of the groups that put hip-hop over the top from a pop standpoint, Run-DMC were first-and-foremost servicing a hardcore audience of rap fiends who'd stuck with the genre through its commercially lean years. "Is It Live" is as much a percussion workout as a flow showcase, the backing track little more than an agitated duet for drums and scratching. And "Hit It Run" subsists on just a steady thwacking rhythm, frenetic beat-boxing, and more amelodic turntable interjections. What sells the album's minimalist excursions into almost pure rhythm is that aforementioned vocal enthusiasm. Like those millions of fairweather pop fans tricked into picking up Raising Hell on the basis of its MTV-monopolizing hit, the rappers 'glee sells the album as "pop" even if it resembles the modern-day version even less than 1986's crop of Billboard hitmakers.

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• 

  Illmatic

  Nas

  Columbia

  The very first thing you hear on Illmatic is the lonely sound of a subway train rolling over the tracks and disappearing into the distance. It's followed by the faint sound of young Nasir Jones's very first on-record appearance, on Main Source's "Live at the Barbeque." The "Barbeque" verse made clear that this kid was A) excitable, and B) very eager to make an impression: before his 32 bars are over, he... has dubbed himself a "police murderer"; kidnapped the president's wife "without a plan,"; compared himself to the Ku Klux Klan; and confessed that he "went to hell for snuffing Jesus" (when he was twelve). As far as ear-grabbing first appearances go, it's pretty serious stuff, right up there with Busta Rhymes's jack-in-the-box verse on "Scenario."
  
  But here it's just background music, prelude. Only two years have passed since "Live At the Barbeque," but from the first moments Nas's voice enters on "The Genesis," it's clear that it might as well have been a thousand. "Niggas don't listen, man," he sighs wearily while his crowing buddies count cash behind him. At 23, he had already become the oldest soul in the room, and Illmatic is a document of every single thing that soul has seen. In one long, deep breath, Nas unfolds all of 1980s New York City — "The ghetto is like a maze, full of black rats, trapped" — with himself rattling around inside, neither the hero nor the anti-hero, just the observer. Illmatic is a life's work — a life — in eleven songs, and it's no wonder Nas will never top it. It can't be topped. He can title his late-period albums as many controversial things that he wants, but Illmatic will reverberate forever beyond him, for it is a reinvention of New York rap, an unimpeachable poetic document, a timeless bildungsroman, and a source of more ill rhymes than almost all other rap albums ever recorded combined. You may recoil at gangsta rap's nihilism, it's zero-sum view of life, it's anger and darkness, but if you have any desire to know anything about hip-hop, than you must own this.

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• 

  The Infamous

  Mobb Deep

  1995 | RCA Records Label

  An album featuring "Shook Ones Pt. II" repeated 16 times probably would have been enough to secure Mobb Deep's legend. Their signature song — one of the 1990s' signature songs — remains haunting both musically and lyrically, a collection of moments wherein the listener is awestruck by how Prodigy and Havoc wrote, arranged or said that.
  
  Luckily, The Infamous, the diminutive Queensbridge duo's 1995 follow-up to the patchy Juvenile Hell, is one of... the greatest albums ever made. It feels as desperate, claustrophobic and exhausting as Havoc and Prodigy's rhymes, from the somber "Survival of the Fittest" or the nightmarish "Trife Life" to the depressingly upbeat "Drink Away the Pain" and the Queens anthem "Give Up the Goods." Even the carefree Crystal Johnson hook of "Temperature's Rising," their radio lunge, is neutralized by their weed-pushing lyrics and a bed of face-smack drums. It's a punishing, relentless hour of music — the sound of two kids who've grown up too fast, not wanting to forget a second of it. A personal favorite is "Right Back At You," a funeral march of a posse cut that features plucky Mobb disciple Big Noyd, Raekwon and Ghostface, back when they together ruled the food chain and took no orders, every stereo "bangin' Nas, Mobb Deep and Wu."

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• 

  4,5,6

  Kool G Rap

  1995 | Cold Chillin'
• 

  The Low End Theory

  A Tribe Called Quest

  1991 | Jive
• 

  The Best Of Organized Konfusion

  Organized Konfusion

  2008 | Nasty Habits Music / The Orchard
• 

  Legal Hustle

  Cormega

  eOne Music / Entertainment One Distribution

Manhattan

• 

  Licensed To Ill

  Beastie Boys

  1995 | Def Jam/RAL

  Wherein being a dickhead is an asset. Adam Horowitz, Mike Diamond, and Adam Yauch — three punk-y, pissant Jewish kids from New York's Lower East Side — took rap in its nascent years and predicted the future: lying. Or, at least, kidding. Before the Beasties came along rap had certainly been fun, and clever, too, but rarely this funny. And their debut, a colossal success that eventually sold 9 million copies, bridged... a social gap with producer Rick Rubin's chest-caving classic-rock refixes that nicked Sabbath and Zeppelin and Steve Miller. Rubin's perfunctory drum programming and keen ear for mega-riffs makes these songs as pumped as ever. But it's the kids who kicked it.
  
  What has traveled through the cycle of examination in the 20-plus years since its release, are the relative merits of cultural appropriation. When Licensed was released, many rap allegiants rejected the caustic and puerile punchlines of these three white boys. It's not hard to see why — rhyming about robbing, drinking, drugging, and girls. And the hits — particularly "Fight For Your Right" and "No Sleep Till Brooklyn" — have developed a kind of mustiness, used in one too many movies, championed by too many dunderheads. What early critics missed was the skill the Beasties brought with them. On songs like "The New Style" and fan favorite "Paul Revere," we hear three hip-hop loyalists doing their best Run DMC impression, rapping furiously, dropping their shrill voices hard on the one, and doing the mic-sharing routine as well as any of their contemporaries. That sort of lyric-writing, from line-to-line, rather than verse-to-verse is a complex process, but it sounds seamless here. And when it really sings, as on the booze-binge ode, "Brass Monkey," you can hear these nice boys completely redefining party music.

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• 

  Straight Out the Jungle

  Jungle Brothers

  1989 | Warlock Records

  If you heard DJ Red Alert's Hot 97 radio show in the late '80s, the Jungle Brothers — MCs Afrika Baby Bam and Mike G, with DJ Sammy B — were familiar fixtures, and this record is a beautiful throwback to the so-called Golden Age.
  
  
  
  The production on their debut, by the group, with some seasoning from Red Alert (who is, in fact, Mike G's uncle), is far from polished. And that's part... of its allure. One listen to "Braggin'and Boastin'" and it's clear that Sammy B was cutting live as Mike and Bam threw loose rhymes back and forth.
  
  
  
  "Jimbrowski" is equally sloppy, with a Funkadelic drum sample so amplified it almost feeds back. And the mock-tender "I'm Gonna Do You" let's you know that these guys love booty, but aren't going the LL "I Need Love" route to get it. And just when you think that all the JBs are about is goofin', they hit you with one of the more important "conscious" (before the word was ever bandied about) cuts of the decade, "Black Is Black."

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• 

  No Way Out

  Puff Daddy & The Family

  2005 | Bad Boy Records

  Before releasing his first solo album, Puff Daddy (aka Sean "Puffy" Combs) was famous as the producer of the Notorious B.I.G., Junior Mafia, Craig Mack, Lil' Kim, and many other rappers. As he was making his solo debut, the Notorious B.I.G. was murdered, and that loss weighs heavily on Puff's mind throughout No Way Out. Even though the album has some funky party jams scattered throughout, the bulk of the album is... filled with fear, sorrow, and anger, and it's not only evident on the tribute "I'll Be Missing You" (a duet with Faith Evans and 112 that is based on the Police's "Every Breath You Take") but also on gangsta anthems like "It's All About the Benjamins." That sense of loss makes No Way Out a more substantial album than most mid-'90s hip-hop releases, and even if it has flaws -- there's a bit too much filler and it runs a little long -- it is nevertheless a compelling, harrowing album that establishes Puff Daddy as a vital rapper in his own right.

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• 

  Lifestylez Ov Da Poor & Dangerous

  Big L

  1995 | Columbia
• 

  Best Of / 20th Century

  Kurtis Blow

  2003 | ISLAND MERCURY
• 

  The Message

  Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five

  Rhino
• 

  6 Feet Deep

  Gravediggaz

  IndieBlu Music / Entertainment One Distribution

The Bronx

• 

  By All Means Necessary

  Boogie Down Productions

  1988 | Jive

  The murder of DJ Scott La Rock had a profound effect on KRS-One, resulting in a drastic rethinking of his on-record persona. He re-emerged the following year with By All Means Necessary, calling himself the Teacher and rapping mostly about issues facing the black community. His reality rhymes were no longer morally ambiguous, and this time when he posed on the cover with a gun, he was mimicking a photo of Malcolm... X. As a social commentator, this is arguably KRS-One's finest moment. His observations are sharp, lucid, and confident, yet he doesn't fall prey to the preachiness that would mar some of his later work, and he isn't afraid to be playful or personal. The latter is especially true on the subject of La Rock, whose memory hangs over By All Means Necessary -- not just in the frequent name-checks, but in the minimalist production and hard-hitting 808 drum beats that were his stock-in-trade on Criminal Minded. La Rock figures heavily in the album opener, "My Philosophy," which explains BDP's transition and serves as a manifesto for socially conscious hip-hop. The high point is the impassioned "Stop the Violence," a plea for peace on the hip-hop scene that still hasn't been heeded. Even as KRS-One denounces black-on-black crime, he refuses to allow the community to be stereotyped, criticizing the system that scoffs at that violence on the spoken recitation "Necessary." "Illegal Business" is a startlingly perceptive look at how the drug trade corrupts the police and government, appearing not long before the CIA's drug-running activities in the Iran-Contra Affair came to light. There are also some lighter moments in the battle-rhyme tracks, and a witty safe-sex rap in "Jimmy," a close cousin to the Jungle Brothers' "Jimbrowski." Lyrics from this album have been sampled by everyone from Prince Paul to N.W.A, and it ranks not only as KRS-One's most cohesive, fully realized statement, but a landmark of political rap that's unfairly lost in the shadow of Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions.

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• 

  Return Of The Boom Bap

  KRS-One

  2007 | Jive

  Released in 1993, KRS-One's first official solo album opens with "KRS-One Attacks," a DJ Premier-hatched collage of the legendary rapper's most famous moments with his previous group, Boogie Down Productions. It was a bold gesture, especially for someone who had spent the previous seven years redefining the sound of hip-hop — but by the end of Return of the Boom Bap, KRS-One's old credentials no longer mattered. This was a fantastic, hard-hitting... record, its creator's preexisting legacy notwithstanding.
  
  It was important that KRS' solo debut didn't merely feel like another B.D.P. record, and his collaboration with producers like DJ Premier, Showbiz and Kid Capri helped move him toward a new, more stripped-down style. "Outta Here" is hip-hop history in less than five minutes, as KRS runs down his autobiography over a hammering Premier beat. The blunted escapades of "I Can't Wake Up" is a rare moment of levity, while the title track is exactly what you imagine "boom bap" should sound like. The most memorable moments are shout-outs to law enforcement: the furious "Black Cop" and the still-thrilling "Sound of Da Police." Return of the Boom Bap is a milestone in two regards: while it's a bracing update of the B.D.P. sound, it's also the beginning of a wholly new legend.

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• 

  The Art Of Storytelling

  Slick Rick

  1999 | RAL
• 

  Capital Punishment (Explicit Version)

  Big Pun

  1999 | LOUD Records
• 

  It's Dark And Hell Is Hot

  DMX

  1998 | RAL
• 

  Looking For The Perfect Beat 1980 -1985

  Afrika Bambaataa

  2005 | Rhino

Those Other Two Islands

• 

  It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back

  Public Enemy

  1995 | Def Jam/RAL

  There are no words too hyperbolic, no expressions too excited to describe the tectonic impact Public Enemy's second album had on the world. It is that vital and that infecting. Nominally a rap album, It Takes A Nation... is more like a sound grenade, thanks to the Bomb Squad's quadruple-stacked sampling, hypeman par excellence Flavor Flav's sonorous squeal, and leader Chuck D's stentorian flow — dependent not so much on meter, like... most rappers, but instead a kind of confident, formless roar.
  
  "Chuck's a powerful rapper. We wanted to make something that could sonically stand up to him," The Bomb Squad's Hank Shocklee told the Daily News when the album was released. So drum maniacs Hank and his brother, Keith, along with the musical heart of P.E., Eric "Vietnam" Sadler, seized the challenge, creating songs, if you can call them that, that whinny and snarl and ping and clash, incorporating screeching saxophones, cross-cutting vocal samples, hissing teapots, hard-nosed breakbeats, and empty hallway pianos lines. It's a fast and new kind of electric blues — or, in places, a broken, discordant jazz — they stumbled upon. Chuck takes the music and uses its harshness to deliver unrepentant political jeremiads. "The follower of Farrakhan/ Don't tell me that you understand/ Until you hear the man/ The book of the new school rap game," he raps on "Don't Believe The Hype," the totemic single. Chuck's politics are confusing beyond calls for righteous Black Panther and Nation of Islam-inspired unity. But as The New York Times' Jon Pareles wrote at the time of the album's release, P.E. refracted the notion of "individualism" in rap, demanding a new "community," encouraging activism and cynicism in equal measure. Whether denouncing a rotting, rotten prison system and governmental authority on "Black Steel In The Hour of Chaos," or the locally debilitating crack epidemic on "Night Of the Living Baseheads," Chuck's fury is so persuasive, you may find yourself punching the sky during these songs without regret. It Takes A Nation... has aged remarkably well, as sonically arresting, and socially unforgiving as any album you're likely to hear. No one made being uncompromising so inspiring.

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• 

  Enter The Wu-Tang

  Wu Tang Clan

  1993 | RCA Records Label

  Along with Dr. Dre's The Chronic, the Wu-Tang Clan's debut, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), was one of the most influential rap albums of the '90s. Its spare yet atmospheric production -- courtesy of RZA -- mapped out the sonic blueprint that countless other hardcore rappers would follow for years to come. It laid the groundwork for the rebirth of New York hip-hop in the hardcore age, paving the way for everybody... from Biggie and Jay-Z to Nas and Mobb Deep. Moreover, it introduced a colorful cast of hugely talented MCs, some of whom ranked among the best and most unique individual rappers of the decade. Some were outsized, theatrical personalities, others were cerebral storytellers and lyrical technicians, but each had his own distinctive style, which made for an album of tremendous variety and consistency. Every track on Enter the Wu-Tang is packed with fresh, inventive rhymes, which are filled with martial arts metaphors, pop culture references (everything from Voltron to Lucky Charms cereal commercials to Barbra Streisand's "The Way We Were"), bizarre threats of violence, and a truly twisted sense of humor. Their off-kilter menace is really brought to life, however, by the eerie, lo-fi production, which helped bring the raw sound of the underground into mainstream hip-hop. Starting with a foundation of hard, gritty beats and dialogue samples from kung fu movies, RZA kept things minimalistic, but added just enough minor-key piano, strings, or muted horns to create a background ambience that works like the soundtrack to a surreal nightmare. There was nothing like it in the hip-hop world at the time, and even after years of imitation, Enter the Wu-Tang still sounds fresh and original. Subsequent group and solo projects would refine and deepen this template, but collectively, the Wu have never been quite this tight again.

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• 

  Strictly Business

  EPMD

  2010 | SNOOP DOGG CATALOG
• 

  Radio

  LL Cool J

  1995 | Def Jam/RAL
• 

  Supreme Clientele

  Ghostface Killah

  2000 | Epic/Razor Sharp Records
• 

  Wu-Tang Forever (Explicit)

  Wu Tang Clan

  2007 | LOUD Records

Carpark & Acute

Who They Are: Based in Washington D.C., Carpark and its sublabel, Acute, was founded by Todd Hyman in 1999 and has remained defiantly left-of-the-dial ever since.

What to Expect: Free-roaming and obstinate indie rock that nods toward the past – Cloud Nothings contain a few well-chosen shards of ’90s emo, TEEN gently references the more ethereal end of late ’80s post-punk – while still maintaining a distinct musical voice.

• 

  Attack On Memory

  Cloud Nothings

  2012 | Carpark Records

  For the last few years, 20-year-old Cleveland native Dylan Baldi has been recording a steady torrent of endearing lo-fi pop contagions. Released under the name Cloud Nothings, Baldi's songs are so simply constructed, so innately hooky, they almost sound easy: His 2010 compilation Turning On was a happy murk of lint-covered guitars, three-floors-below drums, and vocals so crackly, they could have been sampled off a ham-radio. Last year's self-titled follow-up was crisper... and snappier, bounding along with the sort of energy of school kids finally released into the wilds of summertime.
  
  Baldi could easily have replicated that joyful noise sound for a few more albums, and no one would really have objected. Thankfully, though, he got bored. And bold. And kinda angry. Attack on Memory contains a lot of recognizable Cloud Nothings DNA - speedy riffs, forebrain-hugging melodies - but it grafts them onto a monstrous-sounding framework, courtesy of engineer Steve Albini. On Memory, Baldi's ostensibly straightforward power-pop numbers are stretched out and bulked up so efficiently, it feels like he somehow jumped three records ahead in less than year.
  
  In fact, Memory veers so forcefully from its predecessors that, at first listen, it's a bit jarring: The opening track, "No Future No Past," is a slow-burn grind of spangled, in-utero guitars and tortured vocals, with Baldi intoning the words "give up/ come to/ no hope/ we're through" so harshly, it sounds as though his larynx is going to flip him off and jump out of his throat. Even more adventurous is "Wasted Days," a nine-minute(!) peal with a lithe, lupine guitar break that sounds like Greg Sage conducting Hawkwind.
  
  Baldi hasn't given up on the quick-fix pop song, as evidenced by short, piercing numbers like "Fall In" and "Our Plan." But even those tracks feel mega, emboldened by Jayson Gerycz's battering-ram drums and Baldi's squeezed-dry vocals (by the time the album finishes, you're surprised he's able to get a word out at all). Those who've followed Cloud Nothings thus far will be happily walloped by Memory, yet even newcomers will find it a blast, in every sense of the word.

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• 

  June 2009

  Toro Y Moi

  2012 | Carpark Records
• 

  Explore EP

  GRMLN

  2012 | Carpark Records

• 

  In Limbo

  TEEN

  2012 | Carpark Records

  Kristina "Teeny" Lieberson used to play keyboard for Brooklyn indie rockers Here We Go Magic, and while her own dreamy electro-psych sister act relies on slightly different ingredients, the results can be similarly spellbinding. TEEN's 2011 digital-only EP Little Doods leaned toward narcotic lo-fi jangle that recalled Mazzy Star. Mixed and produced by Spacemen 3's Sonic Boom, and engineered by Here We Go Magic's Jen Turner, full-length debut In Limbo is a... brainy, immersive and often-intriguing blend of pulsing krautrock drone and bouncy Phil Spector harmonies. The 11-track set has its share of reverby retro-pop gems, whether confidently thrumming "Better," lovesick space-prom waltz "Charlie" or insistent, surf-flecked "Electric." Elsewhere, on tracks like free-flowing synth workout "Unable" or crunching, Beta Band-skewed "Why Why Why," TEEN sprawls out to suit the youth-appropriate album title. Either way, In Limbo is an alluring, sometimes-enchanting stroll along the blurry line between hooks and incantations.

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• 

  Melt

  Young Magic

  2012 | Carpark Records
• 

  Music For Neighbors

  Trypes

  2012 | Acute Records

Hippos in Tanks

Who They Are: Nicking their name from a novel by William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, this L.A. label is known for their similarly stream-of-consciousness approach to electronic music.

What to Expect: At a time when the acronym EDM is doubled over with exhaustion, Hippos in Tanks represents everything the genre can be at its best. There’s an eeriness and otherworldliness to their albums – every last one – that the genre’s more popular practitioners woefully lack.

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  The Narcissist II

  Dean Blunt

  2012 | Hippos In Tanks / World Music / Redeye
• 

  LP

  Deon

  2012 | Hippos In Tanks / The Orchard

• 

  Sushi

  James Ferraro

  2012 | Hippos In Tanks / Redeye

  On 2011's Far Side Virtual, James Ferraro specialized in gleaming surfaces: Bright tunes played on ultra-bright neo '80s synths, festooned with FX that alluded to the sonic detritus of digital life (the squeal-pop that announces you've logged onto Skype, for instance, which ends Far Side's title cut). Sushi sounds more deliberately broken, like a cross between Machinedrum's Room(s) and old Prefuse 73 – arrangements that halt and stammer a la Chicago juke... ("Playin Ya Self"), crumple up old house music ("Baby Mitsubishi"), and push hip-hop through a crisply fluttering laptop sieve ("Jet Skis & Sushi"). Ferraro initially planned on calling this album Rainstick Fizz Plus, then Shoop2DaDoop – jokey names that get to the geeked-out party spirit embodied by the likes of "SO N2U" (clap-happy and funky, a la Si Begg's late-'90s Buckfunk 3000 releases) and the sideways skank of "Flamboyant." It's silly, of course – but it moves anyway.

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  Everyday Grace

  Whitecar

  2012 | Hippos In Tanks / The Orchard
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  Exo

  Gatekeeper

  2012 | Hippos In Tanks / The Orchard

HoZac

Who They Are: Todd Novak’s Chicago-based label that also hosts the raucous and aptly-named HoZac Blackout festival every year.

What to Expect: 50 million tons of melody, delivered at the highest possible volume. HoZac’s roster likes it loud – they specialize in garage and amped-up power pop – but there’s always an infectious hook lurking beneath the din, waiting to burrow deep into your brainspace.

• 

  Radar Eyes

  Radar Eyes

  2012 | Hozac / Revolver

  Don't call it just another garage-punk offering; HoZac's been doing that for years. On Radar Eyes' self-titled debut LP, the Chicagofoursome offers a pop-centric affair, all layered, fuzzy guitars and hook-laden vocals. The driving, forward momentum of "Accident" and the shit-kicking guitars of "Summer Chills" front like these Windy City residents wanna fight, but it's their pretty melodic sensibilities that encourage repeated listens. "Prairie Puppies" is an unabashed Jesus and Mary Chain... hat-tip, "I Am" attempts to hide its candy-shop leanings underneath an impenetrable wall of feedback, and songs like "Secrets" and "Disconnection," with big bass, heavenly organs and druggy atmospherics, suggest they may be the spiritual brethren of the Black Lips. The entire affair ends with the spooky, Suicide-esque "Side of the Road," reaffirming that Radar Eyes are just as effective students of rock as they are practitioners.

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  Crystal Anis

  The Liminanas

  2012 | Hozac / Revolver
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  Horizon Fires

  Nice Face

  2012 | Hozac / Revolver
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  This Looks Serious

  Rayon Beach

  2012 | Hozac / Revolver
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  More For The Masses

  The People's Temple

  2012 | Hozac / Revolver
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  Games

  Games

  2012 | Hozac / Revolver
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  1982: Dishonorable Discharge

  Puffy Areolas

  2012 | Hozac / Revolver

Mello Music

Who They Are: Alarmingly consistent – their 2012 docket of releases contained exactly zero misses – this Arizona hip-hop label ably carries on the tradition of major label genre pioneers like Tribe Called Quest and Black Star.

What to Expect: Expertly-crafted, consistently thoughtful hip-hop that puts an emphasis on deft wordplay, usually over beats that recall the genre’s Golden Age. It’s to their great credit that their releases never once sound dated or self-consciously retro. They’re sharp, sturdy and surprising, every single time.

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  As Himself

  Stik Figa

  2012 | Mello Music Group / The Orchard

  For hip-hop fans who value authenticity, Stik Figa is as real as it gets — it's just that for him, reality is an ordinary-dude life in Topeka, defined by pragmatic goals and modest honesty. Originally locally-released in 2009 and picked up for wider distribution after some productive collaborations with Oddisee, the fittingly titled As Himself is a short but comprehensive introduction to an engaging, hard-working everyman MC. With an easygoing voice that... glides through finely detailed, scenario-setting lyrics, he finds insightful personal angles on daily-grind things — the elusiveness of aspirational materialism ("Flaudgin"), the community-anchoring nature of the local mom-and-pop shop ("Corner Store"), growing up self-aware of his childhood awkwardness ("Class of 2000") — while still coming correct on big-picture material like the Aaron Neville-invoking Great Recession study "Medicine." Producer Michael "Seven" Summers bolsters the album with sinuous funk that splits the difference between box-Chevy South and Rhymesayers-style Midwest, making an unpretentiously perceptive rapper sound even more down-to-earth.

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  Trophies

  Apollo Brown

  2012 | Mello Music Group / The Orchard
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  People Hear What They See

  Oddisee

  2012 | Mello Music Group / The Orchard
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  The Earn

  yU

  2011 | Mello Music Group / The Orchard
• 

  Home Is Where The Art Is

  Substantial

  2012 | Mello Music Group / The Orchard
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  Libretto: Of King Legend

  The Black Opera

  2012 | Mello Music Group / The Orchard
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  Flight Plan

  J. Bizness

  2012 | Mello Music Group / The Orchard

Profound Lore

Who They Are: This Canadian label may have started as a hobby for its founder Chris Bruni, but its profile elevated rapidly in the notoriously discriminating metal scene.

What to Expect: The most challenging, forward-thinking and inventive metal around. The bands on Profound Lore typically roam far outside hard rock’s usual boundaries, incorporating doomy ambience and oblong song structures into their infernal albums.

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  Cold of Ages

  Ash Borer

  2012 | Profound Lore / Revolver
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  Come the Thaw

  Worm Ouroboros

  2012 | Profound Lore / Revolver
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  Of Babalon

  The Howling Wind

  2012 | Profound Lore / Revolver
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  Bless Them That Curse You

  Locrian & Mamiffer

  2012 | Profound Lore / Revolver

New Amsterdam

Who They Are: Brooklyn-based label specializing in populating the gap between “indie” and “classical”

What to Expect: Depending on the release, you might get wry, witty chamber pop; avant-garde a cappella; steampunk big-band jazz; a conservatory student’s take on ’70s AM radio, or something even more delightfully weird.

• 

  Roomful of Teeth

  Roomful of Teeth

  New Amsterdam

  Unless you have already seen and heard Roomful of Teeth live, there is little to prepare you for the effect of this avant-garde a cappella octet from New York. Well, actually, there's a lot to prepare you – if you've heard, say, the chanting of Tibetan Buddhist monks, and Bobby McFerrin's Circlesong improvisations, and John Cage's Songbook, and the Swingle Singers – and, let's say, pygmy yodeling and Meredith Monk – then... you're good to go. Roomful of Teeth creates a richly-textured sound that uses a seemingly endless palette of vocal techniques: overtone chant, rhythmic clicks and buzzes, luminous chords and piercing Balkan-style close harmonies, drones, and spoken word (usually to found texts). In the wrong hands, this kind of thing could be dangerous, but Roomful of Teeth has fallen in with the right crowd.
  
  Released by New Amsterdam Records, which has become a home for the so-called indie-classical movement, the group's debut release includes new works written specifically for the band by some of that movement's leading lights, including composers Judd Greenstein, William Brittelle, Sarah Kirkland Snider and indie rocker Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs. With such a distinguished list of guest composers, it might be a little surprising to find that some of the record's highlights come from the group's own Caroline Shaw, whose suite of pieces named after Baroque dance forms (Passacaglia, Courante, Allemande and Sarabande) is a tour de force of vocal mischief-making, with collage-style spoken texts woven into a web of singing, semi-singing, and other less easily identified vocal noises. Again, in the wrong hands it would be a mess, but Roomful of Teeth is never less than completely musical, even lyrical.
  
  Snider's "Orchard" is sensuous and beautiful, and possibly a little darker than it seems at first. Greenstein's works are the most reliably rhythmic and will appeal to fans of Meredith Monk; this particular Meredith Monk fan thinks "Montmartre" might be the best of the three. And Brittelle's "Amid the Minotaurs," on the surface one of the most conventionally-structured pieces here, is a truly subversive piece of anti-pop.

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  Loving the Chambered Nautilus

  William Brittelle

  New Amsterdam
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  The Bright Motion

  Michael Mizrahi

  New Amsterdam

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  Victoire: Cathedral City

  Victoire

  New Amsterdam

  You know that numb, nagging feeling at the base of your brain when you're awake at 4 a.m., watching the ceiling cracks start to swarm in front of you? Victoire's hesitant, haunted instrumental miniatures are that feeling made manifest. Comprised of five women from the NYC contemporary classical scene, Victoire first came to our attention in 2008. eMusic released their moody, inscrutable four-song EP A Door Into the Dark on eMusic Selects.... The evocative title perfectly matched the music contained within — the four pieces were a chill of creeping unease, the breath of cold air from behind the cracked-open basement door. The four songs lasted a total of 20 minutes, but they lingered like a premonition.
  
  The move from A Door Into the Dark to their full-length debut is summed up, again, in the title — Cathedral City is a bold step from dank, cramped beginnings into real space. The four songs on A Door Into the Dark are here, but they have been re-recorded, and in the process, have acquired a whole new bottom floor. The music now resounds startling in all directions. The MIDI keyboard that wells up in "Like A Miracle" now sounds less like a glitch in the drum programming software than an all-devouring monster run amuck. There is a new note of bassy menace in Lorna Krier's glittering electronics as well; "I Am Coming for My Things," the gorgeously lonely and unresolved meditation on an achingly sad voice mail, has a new seismic rumble beneath it.
  
  There are four new pieces on the album as well, and they flesh out the band's morbid, anxious vision. Missy Mazzoli, the composer and musical engine behind the band, loves staircase chord progressions — most of these pieces are built on a four-chord descent with a few unexpected detours built in. They are poised on the trap-door hinge between major and minor, with melodies that probe their way hesitantly from bar to bar, the clarinet often floating free while the violin and keyboards circle warily. The sunburst of unison vocals on the title track offers the lone shaft of light, lifting the album uncertainly, and fitfully, toward a kind of transcendence. But soon the mood sours again; Mazzoli's music never settles. Painting the funk of a cloudy head-state with a virtuoso palette of blacks and greys, Victoire suggest volumes of unspoken emotion before gliding away.

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  Spears: Requiem

  Gregory Spears

  New Amsterdam
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  Penelope

  Shara Worden

  New Amsterdam

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  Song from the Uproar (The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt)

  Missy Mazzoli

  New Amsterdam

  Young Brooklyn composer Missy Mazzoli's exhilarating and ultimately heartbreaking Song from the Uproar contains traditional operatic elements – among them, romance, tragedy and cross-dressing. However, the story of the real-life Isabelle Eberhardt (1877-1904), who traveled nomadically through the mountains and deserts of North Africa dressed as a man, converted to Islam, and joined a secret Sufi brotherhood to struggle against French colonialism before perishing in a flash flood, strains against the bounds... of belief. Does this tale demand three tidily arcing acts or a thousand and one nights?
  
  Mazzoli's solution is to concentrate on the heaviest emotional moments of Eberhardt's journey in 15 songs linked by electronic sounds. Performed by the five-member Now Ensemble (clarinet, bass, electric guitar, piano, flute), four singers and the splendid mezzo-soprano Abigail Fischer as Eberhardt, Uproar splits the difference between opera and alt-rock. (Mazzoli's all-female modern classical ensemble Victoire was a 2008 eMusic Selects pick.) Melodic and other epiphanies bubble up unexpectedly and dramatically from Mazzoli's personal minimalist palette. These include the birdlike flute song of delight in "I Have Arrived," the heady instrumental color wheel of "Oblivion Seekers," and perhaps the opera's real tragic climax, the two-part "Mektoub (It Is Written)," a lacerating threnody in which Eberhardt mourns the betrayal of her Algerian lover, singing "How quickly love evaporates / Leaving me a desert." Not so much opera as distillation, Mazzoli's version of Eberhardt's short, memorable life is a marvel of compact complexity itself.

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• 

  the rain is a handsome animal (17 songs from the poetry of e.e.cummings)

  Tin Hat

  New Amsterdam

  Tin Hat, formerly the Tin Hat Trio, is a quartet here, but this remarkable album has a fifth collaborator: the poet e. e. cummings. The Rain Is A Handsome Animal is a song cycle comprised of settings of cummings's poetry by all four members of the group (there are also three instrumental settings), and features the earthy, distinctive voice of the group's founding violinist, Carla Kihlstedt. Like all Tin Hat albums, this... one offers a contemporary acoustic take on Americana, chamber music and jazz. And while their previous albums have included one or two vocal tracks, with guests like Tom Waits and Willie Nelson, this is the first one to make Kihlstedt's vocals the center of attention.
  
  The choice of cummings is a natural one for Tin Hat; the American poet held the classical forms of poetry in high regard, but not so high that he neglected the sounds and rhythms of vernacular American English, and the blues. For the musicians in Tin Hat, which includes Mark Orton on guitar and dobro; Ben Goldberg, clarinet; and Rob Reich on accordion and piano, cummings must have seemed a kindred spirit. Elegantly woven through a fabric of typically quirky instrumentation, those texts lead the quartet in several directions. "anyone lived in a pretty how town" is the most clearly rooted in traditional American music, with the poem's bluesy/folksy quality echoed in Rob Reich's setting. "Buffalo Bill," an elegiac text by cummings, is perhaps the most poignant, culminating in an emotional, if ambiguous, brass choir. "little i," a Kihlstedt setting, features the silvery tone of her e-string violin (a fiddle with four high, thin e-strings that suggests the sound of the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle) and some of her most appropriately tremulous singing.

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#100 Gentleman Jesse, Leaving Atlanta

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  Leaving Atlanta

  Gentleman Jesse

  2012 | Douchemaster / Revolver

  "No turning back, I gotta get out of town," Jesse Smith sings on Leaving Atlanta's "What Did I Do." Four years in the making,Atlanta power-pop king Gentleman Jesse's sophomore album was inspired by a series of wildly unfortunate events in his life. The album is dedicated to friends he lost to cancer (ATL punk staple Bobby Ubangi) and drugs (Jay Reatard), and in the time between his debut full-length and this one,... Smith had his nose broken in a violent mugging, the result of which graces the cover of his 2010 HoZac single. For a time, it seemed like the only away Smith could get away from the drama would be to flee the city.
  
  But, as he told ATL alt-weekly Creative Loafing in a recent interview, "Atlanta is like an abusive lover that you can't leave." And even on opener "Eat Me Alive," one of the album's strongest statements musically or otherwise, Smith sings that "this city's trying to eat me alive," but tempers the statement instantly with the follow-up, "it's as good a place as any to try to survive." A handful of Leaving Atlanta's tracks reinforce the album title's thematic leaning, but there are also songs of triumph ("Rooting for the Underdog"), and lost love ("You Give Me Shivers," the fantastic "I'm Only Lonely [When I'm Around You)]") mixed in throughout.
  
  While the years may have been rough on Smith, they've been kind to his songwriting. As he's admitted frequently, the former Carbona rarely emphasizes lyrics, instead focusing on titanic melodies and infectious guitar licks. And yet, Leaving Atlanta boasts several inspired lines. Milton Hammond's organ parts flesh out the arrangements, and three-part harmonies delight. There are several distinctly Springsteenian moments, too, and these, along with an utterly dark tale of a killer on the run ("What Did I Do"), show that Smith is not content to be "The Power-Pop Guy" forever. Much like his self-titled debut, Leaving Atlanta concludes with a quintessential closer, this one called "We Got to Get Out of Here." As the groove-locked tune barrels along, it becomes clear that the "here" in question could be referring to a negative mindset as much as a locale.
  
  "I know you're feeling kind of uptight/ but you should come out with me tonight," Smith sings on "Kind of Uptight." Is he talking to a girl? Maybe, but it could just as easily be a self pep talk to and from a guy who needs to break free of the drudgery of a city turned against him. After all, you can give up on a situation when things get difficult, but it takes real character to push forward and find the bright spots, even if they're obscured by all manner of death and nastiness. Or to take on an optimistic attitude, as Smith sings in the very same song: "Everything will be all right/ So, come on, and take my hand tonight."

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#99 ERAAS, ERAAS

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  Eraas

  ERAAS

  2012 | felte / The Orchard

  Like urban explorers, Brooklyn post-rock duo ERAAS haunt the gloomy husks of krautrock, darkwave, industrial and dreampop, finding pulsing life within them. Their dark and beat-driven self-titled debut draws on well-established subgenres, but feels utterly new: The immaculate production, full of audible space and teeming with intricate layers, is part of the reason, but most of it is due to the duo's keen command of their style. The result is a clean... draught of weird beauty.
  
  The vocals are mostly blurred or submerged, but the rhythmic music itself gibbers and groans volubly, intimating all kinds of fearful and wonderful things. Each track combines the sensuous with the spiritual and the highbrow with the underground in some fresh way: Some tracks, like "Crescent," toy with dissonance and subtle tonal tension, yet go silky across the ears. Others, like "At Heart," ride quasi-house beats and post-punk bass lines while somehow evoking sepulchral stillness. It's so varied that listening can feel like they're scanning through netherworld radio stations. Ghastly drones resolve into haunted new-wave hooks. Horror-film score movements give way smoothly to tribal folktronica. And it's all relentlessly pretty and surprising, beguiling expectations at every turn. The musical ideas are complex and abundant but never tedious, so it's a visitation as satisfying as it is eerie.

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#98 Pop Zeus, Pop Zeus

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  Pop Zeus

  Pop Zeus

  2012 | Pop Zeus / TuneCore

  Like a John Singer Sargent trapped beneath a greasy glass frame, Pop Zeus – the project of one Mikey Hodges – smothers opulent hooks in buckets of scuzz. It's no surprise he nicked the project's name from a Bob Pollard song; like the Fading Captain himself, Hodges cuts sweetness with sand, nodding lazily towards '80s jangle pop but ruthlessly chipping off the high-gloss, making what's left feel as raw and as... twitchy as an exposed tendon. But don't be fooled: The attention to melodic detail – the graceful melodic slopes and canny moments of counterpoint between vocals and guitars make it clear Hodges is no yawning, indifferent de-composer. "Devil's in the Details" is the album's dollar-store "Lust For Life," its rangy guitars and busted-jalopy percussion doing its best impersonation of Pop's raw thunder. "It doesn't even matter to me," Hodges hollers over and over as the song winds down. That he sings it with such conviction is proof that he's lying.

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#97 Maria Minerva, Will Happiness Find Me?

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  Will Happiness Find Me?

  Maria Minerva

  2012 | Not Not Fun / Revolver

  "I hate the idea of 'gigs,'" Maria Minerva told eMusic earlier this year. "It's boring! When I go out, I just want somebody to DJ from about 10 to 6." Maybe that's why Minerva's second proper LP unfolds like a break-of-dawn set from one of her crate-digging 100% Silk compatriots. Caught in a K-hole where disco balls spin in time to handclaps, rubberized bass lines and glitter-dusted beats, it's woozy and... weightless — dance music meant for actual moon walking.

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#96 Fresh & Onlys, Long Slow Dance

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  Long Slow Dance

  The Fresh & Onlys

  2012 | Mexican Summer

  By virtue of their hometown (San Francisco) and the labels they've worked with (In the Red, Captured Tracks, Sacred Bones, and now, Mexican Summer), The Fresh & Onlys are often grouped with shaggy-haired maniacs such as Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees. In reality, their gorgeous, glassy-eyed pop is more in line with The Shins, or, to use an era-appropriate comparison for the Nuggets-inclined set, the Zombies. The noisier, feedback-drenched reference points... made a little more sense when the band was just getting started, but with each subsequent release, The Fresh & Onlys have refined their tunes, trading lo-fi riffs for jangling strums, garage rhythms for elegant, choral-enhanced accompaniment. What once could've served as the soundtrack for a Vice-funded documentary now sounds appropriate for starring placement in a Wes Anderson flick, and we mean that in the best possible sense.
  
  Long Slow Dance feels like a young band discovering their true calling. The title track meditates on finding true love alongside an acceptance that nobody's perfect. "Presence of Mind" grapples with precisely that, trying to attain it amidst a world of lies and disappointment. Multiple tracks feature a protagonist longing to unshackle himself from foolishness, sometimes over clean, dramatic guitars, other times backed by horn sections seemingly borrowed from an epic Calexico jam. The whole thing feels like a coming-out party for a band that's been leaning toward its destined path all along. Perhaps the finest distillation of this weight-off-the-shoulders thesis comes in "20 Days and 20 Nights," when frontman Tim Cohen sings, "Something so heavy in my mind/ I think I wanna try and let it out." Feels good, doesn't it?

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#95 John Talabot, Fin

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  Fin

  John Talabot

  2012 | Permanent Vacation / GoodToGo

  John Talabot's Fin opens with a quiet halo of evocative nighttime sounds – owls, crickets, croaking frogs. It evokes a David Attenborough-narrated nature film, and is definitely not the intro one might expect from a house DJ based in Barcelona, let alone a guy who grabbed so many ears with a song called "Sunshine." The mist-filled seven-minute song that emerges from this dark bog, called "Depak Ine," an inscrutable reference to the... seizure medication Depakote, gathers force like a nagging doubt, accruing melodic force and rhythmic layering as it goes.
  
  It is the first of the 11 consecutive welcome surprises that comprise Fin, a record that quietly upends whatever narrative expectations you assign to it at every turn. If you heard the first single, the fleetly throbbing "Destiny," and expected a record full of moody Depeche Mode-aping synth pop, you will hit a big red Stop sign the second the following track, a motionless, melted pool of sound called "El Oeste," begins. I have listened to it 30 times or more so far this year already, and my memory still hasn't quite nailed down the track listing's pretzel logic – always a good sign.

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#94 Laurel Halo, Quarantine

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  Quarantine

  Laurel Halo

  2012 | Hyperdub / The Orchard

  There's something wonderfully unsettling about Laurel Halo's debut full-length Quarantine. A beat-less electronic album, its 12 tracks bleed into one another, creating a kind of woozy, ambient cloud cover. Hints of pop periodically break through; "Holoday," in particular, feels like the receding echo of dance music past. But ultimately, song structure is bypassed in favor of a sense of ghostly possibility that echoes both early Dntel and classical composer Steve... Reich.
  
  Halo coaxes a stark beauty out of her cascading ones and zeros, and Quarantine's tension and character stem from Halo's juxtaposition of moments of disquieting minimalism with her all-too-human voice. Prime example: "Thaw," which begins with a sentimental synth refrain that's paired with Halo's Nico-like warble — hesitations, missed notes and all. She loops her vocals on "Years" to create a breathy choir, but for most of the record they're left unadorned, sitting naked at the front of the mix, the masterpiece-defining chip in an otherwise elegant sculpture. Halo's is a world of supernatural unease, splitting the difference between the ethereal and the haunted.

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#93 Jimmy Cliff, Rebirth

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  Rebirth

  Jimmy Cliff

  2012 | Jimmy Cliff - Rebirth

  In 1972, Jimmy Cliff's performance in The Harder They Come introduced U.S. filmgoers to the vibrant desperation ofKingston life, and his inspirational yet tough-minded songs highlighted the movie's soundtrack. Already an established hitmaker at the time, Cliff seemed poised to become Jamaica's first international superstar. Instead he misjudged American audiences, pitching vague homilies and pop professionalism to the AM crowd, allowing Bob Marley to leapfrog past him by assuming a prophetic mantle... and exciting hip FM rockers with his political defiance.
  
  On Rebirth, Cliff now eyes a more judicious audience: middle-aged rockers weaned on punk and alternative. Shepherded by his producer, Rancid frontman Tim Armstrong, the 64-year-old rides the lithe throwback grooves of reggae revivalists the Aggrolites and Hepcat with a young man's grace, particularly on two smartly chosen covers — the Clash's "The Guns of Brixton," which transplanted Cliff's character from The Harder They Come into a London slum, and Rancid's "Ruby Soho." ("Rebel, Rebel" is good too, but it's not the Bowie tune.) Cliff's political complaints haven't grown much more specific — "World Upside Down" cries out against "Too much injustice," then proposes "love" as the answer. But his exhortations not only retain the warmth and humane spirit of old but have gained depths of pained sympathy with age, especially when he laments how "They took the children's bread/ And gave it to the dogs."

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#92 Pilgrim, Misery Wizard

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  Misery Wizard

  Pilgrim

  Metal Blade Records / The Orchard

  The debut full-length by Rhode Island's Pilgrim may be one of the most heralded doom-metal albums of the year (along with Pallbearer's Sorrow and Extinction), but the members of Pilgrim are completely uninterested in the recent rise of hipster doom, which is probably why Misery Wizard sounds so authentically effective. Pilgrim's apocalyptic tones are generated from piles of Lovecraft, some powerful weed and intensive study of the giants of the first two... generations of sludge, Black Sabbath, Pentagram, Trouble Saint Vitus, Sleep and Electric Wizard. By never breaking above a bloody-kneed crawl (with the exception of the mid-paced "Adventurer"), Pilgrim's lengthy, down-tuned songs maintain a genuine sense of despair and enough rhythmic variation to keep them captivating and transcend the artificial bleakness of many of their peers. When vocalist The Wizard emotes the melodic lines, "In solitude I lie alone/ In the void, a sweet release/ In darkness I can feel at peace" he sounds like he's not play acting, he's crying for catharsis, or at least some good SSRIs. But as the title implies, The Wizard's misery is our gain. Just don't let him near any sharp objects.

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#91 Alice Russell & Quantic, Look Around the Corner

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  Look Around the Corner (with The Combo Barbaro)

  Quantic & Alice Russell

  2012 | TRU THOUGHTS LTD

  A band manager of my acquaintance used to regularly warn his acts against "flutes and bongos." And he was mostly right. When modern musicians — especially British musicians — start affecting the signifiers of conscious 1970s soul and jazz, it tends to be just that: affectation. Even Tru Thoughts, one of the finest jazz/funk/hip-hop labels in the U.K., has had its misfires on this front, bands and records that may brim over... with virtuosity and good vibes, but fail to match to the heart, guts and, well, soul of their inspirations.
  
  In fact, even Will "Quantic" Holland, Tru Thoughts's star producer/bandleader, has veered into pastiche in the past. Not here, though; not by a long chalk, even though flutes and bongos abound. Alice Russell has previously voiced many of Quantic's finest moments in England, and in these sessions recorded in Holland's adopted home of Cali, Colombia, over a couple of visits by Russell between 2007 and 2011, it's clear that absence had made the heart grow even fonder.
  
  Russell's voice remains formidable, but it's her song-writing that comprises the core of this record. The arrangements and production meticulously recreate the feel of Minnie Ripperton and Rotary Connection, or vintage Colombian cumbia, but they are backdrops for the songs with a life all their own, rather than knowing retro nods. There are great stylistic twists, too: "Boogaloo 33" reminds us just how much mambo there was in classic rock 'n' roll, and the opener "Look Around the Corner" delivers the same liquid-sunshine string arrangements and grooves of Nuyorican soul. Through all of this, Russell is Quantic's anchor, singing with her characteristic blend of toughness and smoothness, and investing these impeccably written songs with emotional life.

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#90 Donny McCaslin, Casting for Gravity

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  Casting For Gravity

  Donny McCaslin

  2012 | eOne Music / Entertainment One Distribution

  Donny McCaslin has long seemed a prime candidate to update and upgrade fusion jazz-rock. Since as far back as Seen From Above in 2000, his tenor saxophone style has been fueled by a rambunctious lyricism that isn't afraid to leave skid marks on his phrases. By "Rock Me," off Declaration in 2009, he'd discovered a fertile and yet phosphorous crossroads between prog-rock and hard bop, and a year later ... href="http://www.emusic.com/album/donny-mccaslin/perpetual-motion/12340045/">fattened the mix by adding electric bassist Tim Lefebvre.
  
  But Casting For Gravity represents McCaslin's most dogged effort thus far to redefine fusion. Lefebvre is back, paired with powerhouse drummer Mark Guiliana for a potent yet still ruggedly jazz-centric rhythm section, the backbone of the quartet. Versatile keyboardist Jason Lindner occasionally steps out for a spirited solo, but is more influential in helping to determine the texture and in setting and coloring the mood. Along with producer David Binney, a longtime McCaslin ally who also sparingly adds synthesizer, they provide McCaslin with the ability to create grand gestures. There are stop-and-go grooves that escalate in intensity and fall back on themselves in dramatic tension-and-release; tonal layers that morph from liquid silk to electric sizzle and evaporate; rhythmic struts containing melodic swagger and impulsive outbursts.
  
  There are also ambient, gossamer shadings and trip-hoppy segments and songs (most obviously on the title track, "Love Song for an Echo" and "Alpha and Omega") to which McCaslin credits Richard D. James of Aphex Twin as his inspiration. While they impressively broaden the bouquet, the bolder, burning tracks like "Tension," Binney's "Praia Grande" and the shifting, suite-like "Losing Track of Daytime" feel more impressive for blending the brutish revelry of rock with the harmonic complexity and gymnastic improvisation of jazz. Or, put more simply, "blazing a trail."

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#89 Hundred Waters, Hundred Waters

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  Hundred Waters

  Hundred Waters

  OWSLA

  Gainesville, Florida-based avant-folk outfit Hundred Waters defy easy definitions on their beguiling, absorbing and richly detailed debut album. They've toured with Skrillex and recorded for his OWSLA label, and Hundred Waters has an expensive-sounding attention to production value. But it's cheap to sound expensive these days, and singer-percussionist Samantha Moss's fleetly wandering vocals here, swathed in sinuous electronics, have more in common with those of Björk, Bat for Lashes or another recent... tourmate, Julia Holter. Or a smokier-voiced Joanna Newsom: The twinkling synth tones and winding harmonies of "Boreal" belie a heroic narrative that lets its freak-folk flag. Hundred Waters run deep.

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#88 Peaking Lights, Lucifer

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  Lucifer

  Peaking Lights

  2012 | Mexican Summer

  Peaking Lights — husband-and-wife duo Aaron Doyes and Indra Dunis — make distinctly modern music of understated joy and optimism. The pair, clearly both avid crate diggers and knob twiddlers, refract their love of Krautrock, dub and analog synth music into an enthusiastically lo-fi jumble. Listening to Lucifer, where Doyes and Dunis irreverently tinker with, poke and prod these influences, can feel like peering down into the basement of a record store... through a kaleidoscope. It's an album of guts-out experimentation tamed into something intimate and sweet.
  
  The duo have said Lucifer is largely about "play and playfulness" and it's hard to disagree. "Beautiful Son," a lilting ballad about, you guessed it, the couple's new son, is a gently warped groove of electronic pulses buoyed by a spare piano melody and Dunis's simple and tender vocal. On "LO HI," baby Mikko can be heard cooing over a shuffling reggae interlude. Talk about playful. Elsewhere, Lucifer teems with sportive sounds — the bubbly romp of a bass line on the frolicking "Live Love" and the addictive, gurgling groove of "Dream Beat" stretch out nearly seven minutes each and set the rollicking tone.
  
  Despite the seemingly weighty recipe of obscure influences and tangled electronics, at the heart of Lucifer is a fun, hallucinatory, rampant spirit. It's evident the album was a joy to create and, appropriately, it's a contagious and joyous listen.

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#87 PAWS, Cokefloat!

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  Cokefloat!

  PAWS

  2012 | FatCat Records / The Orchard

  "She wasn't only just my mother," Phillip Taylor slurs over rickety, distorted guitar in the opening seconds of PAWS' Cokefloat!, continuing, "She was my friend, a good friend." As an introduction to the Glasgow trio's rowdily impressive debut album, it could hardly be more fitting, showing off both the band's throwback slacker-rock style and Taylor's blunt, decidedly un-macho lyrics. But on this 13-track, 42-minute set, what separates PAWS from so many other... garage-bound pop-punks printing out Pavement and Sonic Youth guitar tabs is how expertly – and emotively – they assail a relatively wide range of song types. "Sore Tummy" and "Miss American Bookworm" put bubblegum melodies beneath heavily scuzzed noise-pop and throat-rending screams, like early Foo Fighters but more awkward and relatable. While "Get Bent" comes across as a post-Girls acoustic kiss-off to a distant father, the stylishly chiming "Pony" steps back to critique parent-funded underground scenesters. Best of all is mid-tempo anthem "Homecoming," which begins as a bully-baiting comeuppance but morphs into a self-actualizing mission statement recalling recent European tour-mates Japandroids: "Thanks for the punches of encouragement/ I've turned my world into sing-alongs." Shout-alongs, even – punchdrunk and easy to love.

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#86 Roomful of Teeth, Roomful of Teeth

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  Roomful of Teeth

  Roomful of Teeth

  New Amsterdam

  Unless you have already seen and heard Roomful of Teeth live, there is little to prepare you for the effect of this avant-garde a cappella octet from New York. Well, actually, there's a lot to prepare you – if you've heard, say, the chanting of Tibetan Buddhist monks, and Bobby McFerrin's Circlesong improvisations, and John Cage's Songbook, and the Swingle Singers – and, let's say, pygmy yodeling and Meredith Monk – then... you're good to go. Roomful of Teeth creates a richly-textured sound that uses a seemingly endless palette of vocal techniques: overtone chant, rhythmic clicks and buzzes, luminous chords and piercing Balkan-style close harmonies, drones, and spoken word (usually to found texts). In the wrong hands, this kind of thing could be dangerous, but Roomful of Teeth has fallen in with the right crowd.
  
  Released by New Amsterdam Records, which has become a home for the so-called indie-classical movement, the group's debut release includes new works written specifically for the band by some of that movement's leading lights, including composers Judd Greenstein, William Brittelle, Sarah Kirkland Snider and indie rocker Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs. With such a distinguished list of guest composers, it might be a little surprising to find that some of the record's highlights come from the group's own Caroline Shaw, whose suite of pieces named after Baroque dance forms (Passacaglia, Courante, Allemande and Sarabande) is a tour de force of vocal mischief-making, with collage-style spoken texts woven into a web of singing, semi-singing, and other less easily identified vocal noises. Again, in the wrong hands it would be a mess, but Roomful of Teeth is never less than completely musical, even lyrical.
  
  Snider's "Orchard" is sensuous and beautiful, and possibly a little darker than it seems at first. Greenstein's works are the most reliably rhythmic and will appeal to fans of Meredith Monk; this particular Meredith Monk fan thinks "Montmartre" might be the best of the three. And Brittelle's "Amid the Minotaurs," on the surface one of the most conventionally-structured pieces here, is a truly subversive piece of anti-pop.

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#85 Jeremy Siskind, Finger-Songwriter

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  Finger-Songwriter

  Jeremy Siskind

  2012 | Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records / The Orchard

  There is a classic intimacy to the piano, sax, vocals of the Jeremy Siskind's Finger-Songwriter. Siskind's piano is a mix of elegance and storyteller charm. The slow burn of Nancy Harms's vocals is an enchantment oftentimes dispelled with a smoldering vulnerability. On sax, Lucas Pino is drifting smoke, and on clarinet, a brooding melancholia. Siskind's love of literature the inspiration for each album track, he's created an album of songs about heartbreak,... loss, and hope, delivered with a warmth and immediacy that brings the late-night jazz club to the listener.

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#84 Family Band, Grace & Lies

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  Grace and Lies

  Family Band

  2012 | No Quarter / SC Distribution

  Grace and Lies: two ghostly characters envisioned by Family Band vocalist (and former visual artist) Kim Krans as a pair of girlish sirens with wily intentions, capable of quick seduction and even quicker betrayal ("I saw them in a field behind our cabin, singing and slow dancing," she's said). It's a sinister and defeating image, but fitting; Krans and her guitarist husband Jonny Ollsin, formerly of the metal bands Children and S.T.R.E.E.T.S.,... make aching, languorous goth-folk, vaguely reminiscent of the Handsome Family and Beach House, but slower, stranger, more hollow-eyed. Grace and Lies, their second full-length, isn't a record for the nights you have people coming over, or for a midday stroll through the park — Ollsin's stark, velvety guitar and Krans's disconcertingly affect-less vocals are better suited to those very-early-morning, there's-the-sun slumps, the moments when you catch yourself reconsidering every last decision you've ever made. If that sounds impossibly depressing, fear not: Grace and Lies is buoying, a meditation on darkness that yields light. As Krans explains in "Moonbeams," it's the questioning that'll save you: "If you wonder what I need/ I'll tell you just what I need/ But I gotta hear your wondering sounds."

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#83 Pig Destroyer, Book Burner

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  Book Burner

  Pig Destroyer

  2012 | Relapse Records

  Like other extreme acts, Pig Destroyer write songs about murder, insanity and mayhem, but there's something grimier and more disconcerting about their tunes than your average Cannibal Corpse gorefest. With the release of 2004's Terrifyer, the band was already rising above the constraints of traditional grindcore, incorporating industrial sound bites, death-groove riffs, doomy atmospherics and math-metal tempo changes into their schizophrenic songs. Brutally misanthropic, their songs grimly reflect the rage, intensity and... social disconnect of minds on the edge. Book Burner is no different: "The Bug" begins with a dissonant audio collage, over which a demented voice declares, "I will sing while you croak, I will dance over your dirty corpse" and from there evolves through cacophonous blast beats, propulsive riffs, and pained moans. Equally nightmare-inducing is the opening track, "Sis," where vocalist J.R. Hayes (ex-Agoraphobic Nosebleed) roars, "My sister's dangerous/ She climbs the barbed wire fence/ Changes clothes in the back seat/ Medical gown to red jeans." There is nothing "pretty" about their music, but visceral savagery has its own allure.
  
  Book Burner delivers all flesh and no fat; Pig Destroyer attack with pinpoint precision, plowing through 19 cuts in just under 33 minutes and mapping out when to pummel, trudge and lacerate. The tag team of acrobatic drummer Adam Jarvis (who also plays in Misery Index) and guitarist and producer Scott Hull (ex-Anal Cunt) both boast the ability to turn sick, horrific and off-kilter clamor into coherent, memorable compositions.

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#82 Sea of Bees, Orangefarben

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  Orangefarben

  Sea of Bees

  2012 | Team Love Records

  When I was 11 my parents sent me to a hellhole of a sleepaway camp where I was miserable (one of the counselors made me eat tomatoes – gross!). It was at that terrible camp where I first heard the song "Leaving on a Jet Plane" played over and over, and to this day I have a Pavlovian response to those familiar lite rock folk chords: When I hear them I'm overtaken... by homesickness. It's fitting, then, that Sea of Bees' sophomore effort – a tearjerker of a breakup album written by Julie Ann Bee in response to the demise of her first relationship after coming out to her friends and family – features a lovely (and much hipper) reinterpretation of the song (simply called "Leaving") that zeroes in on that same panicky feeling, that same sense of dread. Homesickness and heartbreak, after all, come from that same sad place located in the gut-area.
  
  With sunny-sounding guitars and a sweet, ethereal voice that belies the agony of which she sings, Bee makes Orangefarben a meditation on mind over matter, the importance of gasping "I'll be fine" again and again, even when it's clear you're not. "And I know I shouldn't think those thoughts/ but I've gone ahead and thought those thoughts and I'm fine," she confesses on "Teeth," as if convincing herself that the worst may be over, that time might go about its business and provide some relief. And if that grief is never fully eradicated, if she still finds herself longing for the comfort and safety of old attachments (oh, the sad letters I wrote to my parents from summer camp!), then at least the baggage she lugs around with her will be beautiful.

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#81 Christian Mistress, Possession

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  Possession

  Christian Mistress

  2012 | Relapse Records

  The full-length debut byOlympia,Washington, quintet Christian Mistress is more than a savage, irony-free '70s metal flashback. It's an honest and lovingly composed epic that combines the sludge of Black Sabbath, the guitar harmonies of Judas Priest and the amphetamine bursts of Motörhead.
  
  Several elements levitate Christian Mistress above their peers. The most blatant is vocalist Christine Davis, who unleashes a barrage of skin-stripped melodies that support even the heaviest songs. Equally important are... the band's immaculate arrangements, which range from thuggish to progressive, recalling cult heroes like Angel Witch and Diamond Head as much as Priest and Sabbath. Also, while the Mistress clearly love great metal, they also covet classic and southern rock (check out the ZZ Top-style lick in the chorus of "Black to Gold" and the gloomy slide guitar on the acoustic intro of "The Way Beyond"). Possession offers NWOBHM and doom fans a dragon's lair of gems to behold, but to pigeonhole Christian Mistress as sword and sorcery "retro metal" is a crime worthy of a squeeze in the ol' iron maiden.

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#80 Glen Hansard, Rhythm & Repose

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  Rhythm And Repose

  Glen Hansard

  2012 | Anti/Epitaph

  There's irony in the fact that Glen Hansard's first solo album comes just a week after the Broadway musical Once triumphed at the Tony Awards. 2007's film-version original of that musical, starring Hansard and the wispy Czech pianist Marketa Irgolová, brought the romantic and creative duo widespread fame. The duo, who eventually dubbed themselves The Swell Season, began recording together in 2008, but the love affair didn't last: They announced... their breakup after touring behind 2009's Strict Joy, and Irglová married producer Tim Iseler in 2011. Hansard, meanwhile, has been living in New York, keeping an eye on Once while breaking in a new set of collaborators. While the end product isn't leagues away from his work with Irglová or his longtime band, The Frames, Rhythm and Repose steers away from the latter's anguished anthems and the former's fragile harmonies.
  
  R&R is a heartbreak album through and through, but it leans more towards self-reflection than self-laceration, like a more melancholy, less pissed-off Blood on the Tracks. (It's not surprising that the late Levon Helm was asked to guest on a track.) Those sifting for shards of autobiography will seize on lines like "We talked about talk of a gold ring/ You brought me one step closer to the heart of things" and "We married on an August night/ No priest, no church, just the big moon shining bright," from "You Will Become" and "Maybe Not Tonight." Unless you've got a chronic weakness for Irish melodrama, the album's front-loaded breast-beating starts to wear thin after a while; it's hard to hear "The Storm, It's Coming," nestled just after the midpoint, and suppress the temptation to remark that it's already done come.
  
  Fortunately, Hansard pulls out of his emotional nosedive with "What Are We Gonna Do," where a female voice (not Irglová's) lifts him out of his torpor and sets him on the path to recovery. He's still only beginning to heal by the time Rhythm and Repose draws to a close; a little "Revelate" style catharsis would have done much to lift the album out of its perpetual doldrums. But its limited palette is a lovely one, sustaining a mood that lingers like the bittersweet scent of lost love.

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#79 METZ, METZ

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  METZ

  METZ

  2012 | Sub Pop Records

  On their debut album, Canadian trio METZ has delivered a sound that's reasonably scarce in 2012: post-hardcore, pre-grunge, noise-addled punk rock. You can hear the influence of the Jesus Lizard in particular everywhere: in Alex Edkins's strained screams; in Hayden Menzies's crashing drum assault; in their relentless wave of screeching guitars, in the frenzied pace of "Wet Blanket," in the sludgy industrial instrumental "Nausea," and in their grim, dour lyrics. But the... sheer volume and force of the music don't take away from their musicianship – no individual element is covered by fuzz, thanks in part to production work from Graham Walsh (of Holy Fuck) and Alexander Bonenfant (who was behind the boards of the first two Crystal Castles records). The production shows off an intricate variety of textures lurking beneath the noise: On "Get Off," a chaotic drum barrage toward the end of the track is paired with a wavering high-pitched screech of white noise, bolstering an already-urgent moment. It's small details like that on METZ that sharpen the band's anger and attack, elevating them from your average Touch & Go apostles into a seething, unique operation.

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#78 Lotus Plaza, Spooky Action at a Distance

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  Spooky Action at a Distance

  Lotus Plaza

  2012 | kranky / The Orchard

  That Lockett Pundt, he'll sneak up on you. In Deerhunter, frontman Bradford Cox's outsize personality makes him an easy lightning rod, but Pundt has played a hardly less electrifying role as the band's guitarist. His first solo album as Lotus Plaza, 2009's The Floodlight Collective, was woozy, winsome dream-pop that confirmed Pundt's familiar gifts for ethereal sonic textures but only hinted at his growing strength as a songwriter. This follow-up is strikingly... the work of the man who wrote "Desire Lines," the rousing centerpiece of Deerhunter's peak so far, 2010's Halcyon Digest. Crystalline guitar arpeggios meet precise krautrock pulses, time-bending codas – and ear-catching '60s pop melodies. Wistful stoners' anthem "Monoliths" distills the album's shoegaze-informed style most concisely, but equally essential non-album single "Come Back" best previews the mesmerizing yet propulsive live show. Proof soft-spoken daydreamers can pump their fists, too.

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#77 Amit Friedman, Sunrise

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  Sunrise

  Amit Friedman Sextet

  2012 | Origin Records / The Orchard

  Creating his own mix of jazz and Middle Eastern music, saxophonist Amit Friedman offers a debut album of richly-textured tunes full of bombast and beauty. The use of additional percussion and an oudist brings intricacy and detail to the music, but it's Friedman's crafting of simple yet vivid melodies that elevates the songs to something very special, a splendid balance between the complex and the catchy. Furthermore, the addition of a string... trio lifts songs up to euphoric heights, but amidst all that soaring, Friedman doesn't forget to let his jazz ensemble swing. This is the kind of majestic album that'll sweep listeners up out of their seats.

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#76 Gonjasufi, MU.ZZ.LE

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  MU.ZZ.LE

  Gonjasufi

  2012 | EP/SINGLE

  It's one of the more unlikely stories from U.S.beat culture: San Diego's Sumach Ecks moves to Las Vegasto work as a yoga teacher, but not before contributing an edgy, Billie Holiday-like vocal to one track on Flying Lotus's 2008 debut Los Angeles. Impressed with his distinctive scatting, Warp Records offer him his own deal. It's a nice creation myth, and Ecks, who records under the suitably wigged-out moniker Gonjasufi, has thus far... lived up to its billing.
  
  Warp Records are classifying this as an EP, but MU.ZZ.LE – the follow-up (in 10 short tracks) to 2010's A Sufi and a Killer - sounds in many ways like the bigger record. Taped somewhere out in the Mojave, this dubbed-out desert music occasionally trips into emotional ditches that are bleak enough to soundtrack an end-times movie like The Road. MU.ZZ.LE sounds like it was recorded on filthy equipment salvaged from RadioShack dumpsters, with Gonjasufi's searing, blurted vocals dissolving immediately upon emerging from the speaker cones. Vinyl flecks dot the opener "White Picket Fence," whose dread-fuelled electric piano chords are reminiscent of Tricky's mid-'90s debut. "Rubberband' is slow, sad and stately as a Procol Harum anthem, strained by DJ Shadow through a sieve of hiss; while "Blaksuit" is a chopped-and-screwed, syrupy jam over garage punk guitar chops.
  
  You never quite know if MU.ZZ.LE's gloopy, ramshackle character is painstakingly crafted or the genuine record of serendipitous moments of improvised dementia; whatever, it breathes new life into the corpse of "triphop" and confirms Gonjasufi as a gloriously eccentric new broken beatmaster.

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#75 Neurosis, Honor Found in Decay

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  Honor Found In Decay

  Neurosis

  2012 | Neurot / Revolver

  Like the band's last album, 2007's Given to the Rising, Neurosis's 10th studio album in 27 years, Honor Found in Decay, is a cinematic, multi-dimensional exploration of texture and emotion that weaves together doom-metal, atmospheric rock, dark psychedelia, tribal metal and proto-industrial. But the experimental post-metal pioneers also delve deep into the apocalyptic folk that frontmen Scott Kelly and Steve Von Till have explored on their recent solo albums. "At the... Well" starts with slow, reverberant guitar strums and cryptic existential musings: "The blaze of a Helios sky/ Rage will blossom into iron/Blind as a worm in the earth." And "Casting of the Ages" opens with dual acoustic guitars and deep, rattling vocals atop a lolling bass line and a lazy accordion before sparking into a thudding, trudging doom trek.
  
  Honor Found in Decay is hardly uplifting; here's the opening line from the propulsive opening track"We All Rage in Gold": "I walk into the water to wash the blood from my feet." Yet the bands presentation is so artful and symphonic it reveals sheer beauty in lyrical hopelessness and inspiration in rhythmic ugliness. Unlike many post-metal albums that seesaw between reflective calm and turbulent chaos, Neurosis's dualism is more subtle and natural, and at times almost spiritual in its nihilism.

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#74 Ab-Soul, Control System

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  Control System

  Ab-Soul

  2012 | TopDawg Ent. / TuneCore

  Ab-Soul is the resident word-nerd of Black Hippy, the rap crew that includes the Dr. Dre-anointed young rap prince Kendrick Lamar and the brooding, heavy-lidded, ex-Crip leader Schoolboy Q. He's easily the most cerebral of a fairly brainy crew, and on the ferociously excellent Control System, he produces an immersive, dark and wide-ranging piece of work that takes listeners to Saturn and Andromeda ("Pineal Gland"), sardonically salutes Obama as a "puppet" ("Terrorist... Threat"), breaks our heart with a devastating first-person tale of young love and loss ("The Book of Soul"), puffs out some post-Tribe Called Quest weed clouds ("Bohemian Grove") and oh, also finds room for a sex joke as goofy as "She got that magical vag/ Let me hocus poke."

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#73 Lilacs & Champagne, Lilacs & Champagne

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  Lilacs & Champagne

  Lilacs & Champagne

  2012 | Mexican Summer

  Alex Hall and Emil Amos are the personalities behind Grails, a Portland instrumental rock collective that's happily traversed so much sonic terrain over the past decade and a half that they'd seemingly make side projects unnecessary. But where Grails absorbs and perverts genres, Hall and Amos's self-titled debut as Lilacs & Champagne is an act of deconstruction and rebuilding: The duo were inspired by Madlib's dank crate-digging and sample-stitching technique, and they... also share a love for similar source material. Unquestionably stoned in demeanor, L&C leans heavy on underground hip-hop, Krautrock, '70s psych and even an occasion Jayne Mansfield recording to create ambient music for the kind of people who find the idea of ambient music boring, or a solution for anyone who wished the sample-happy travelogues of Avalanches or Quiet Village transported them to somewhere darker.

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#72 Pop 1280, The Horror

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  The Horror

  Pop. 1280

  2012 | Sacred Bones Records / S.C. Distribution

  "Burn, burn/ burn the worm," goes the ominous chorus of The Horror's pissed-and-pulverizing opener, the perhaps-unsurprisingly titled "Burn the Worm." Subtle, Pop. 1280 is not. But you don't really need a gentle hand when your band regularly and fiercely recalls the finer moments of Liars, the Birthday Party and Swans. Where 2010's The Grid EP sported the occasional synth-heavy hook, The Horror is positively relentless, piling brutal rhythmic grinding on top of... lyrical references to dead people, bodies, death, and, well, the kind of horror that's often reserved for the cinema. Perhaps it's the addition of Twin Stumps former drummer Zach Ziemann or the apparent improvisational, on-the-spot writing process that created The Horror, but the album is a relatively bleak and corrosive listen - an accomplishment for a band that's previously broached topics including bed bugs in low-income housing projects and dystopian future worlds. But that's also part of the fun. Like their fellow wall punchers the Men, Pygmy Shrews and White Suns - bands the Village Voice has credited with drudging up the pigfuck spirit of yore - Pop. 1280 is making quite a glorious racket. If you can't stand it, maybe you should get out of the basement.

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#71 Lianne La Havas, Is Your Love Big Enough?

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  Is Your Love Big Enough? (Deluxe Edition)

  Lianne La Havas

  2012 | Nonesuch

  While inspired by the more robust Who Is Jill Scott?, Lianne La Havas's promising debut Is Your Love Big Enough? ponders dating an older man (fluttering ditty "Age") and lobs bitter accusations of betrayal (downbeat duet "No Room for Doubt") over finger-picked, reverb-tinged guitar tinged. Over top, La Havas's vocals beckon like flickering candlelight.

#70 Frankie Rose, Interstellar

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  Interstellar

  Frankie Rose

  2012 | Slumberland Records / The Orchard

  Frankie Rose spent the early part of her musical career as a member of a ragtag coven of Brooklyn retro-garage bands, including Vivian Girls, Crystal Stilts and Dum Dum Girls. Interstellar, her second solo album since moving on from those groups, shows exactly how to move your music out of the garage: Clean out all the grit and grease, put on some makeup, imagine yourself as a dragon's teardrop... on the moonscape of a Yes album cover, and blast off into a colder space. An appreciation for early-'80s new wave blankets Interstellar with a certain iciness - drum machines, oscillating keyboards, brittle-sounding guitars - but it's not frozen solid. Rose's voice unlocks these songs like a key; rather than apply the steely, remote effects given to so many electronic-pop vocalists, producer Le Chev (whose very name makes this album seem even more tilted toward the '80s) keeps Rose's voice at a tender, close distance. Though some fairy-dusted moments occur (such as the feather-light title track or the strange wood-sprite chanting on "The Fall"), this isn't a Cocteau Twins record. Rose has pop songs to sing, from winning A-side "Know Me," with its brisk Smiths rhythms, to the I-am-a-bird-now ballad "Wings To Fly." There are big, warm choruses here, and an almost childlike sense of joy and dreaming, that would seem to clash with Interstellar's cold-pressed instrumentation . But mismatched styles never seem to bother Frankie Rose - her music contains galaxies.

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#69 Chris Cohen, Overgrown Path

#68 Liars, WIXIW

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  WIXIW

  Liars

  2012 | MUTE

  With every release, invigorated both by self-imposed limits and half-baked experiments, Liars discover new aesthetic worlds. Consider the 30-minute dance-punk-to-drone closer "This Dust Makes That Mud" off their 2001 debut They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top. Nothing specific about that song, just you know, that it happened. And chew on the go-for-broke concepts of 2004's They Were Wrong So We Drowned (witches, dude) and 2010's... Sisterworld (Los Angeles, man).
  
  On WIXIW, the goal is retrofitting the past's electronic pop and dance presets into rhythmic, art-damaged dirges. Save for acid-squelch rave-up "Brats," WIXIW's songs are all nervous tension and no cathartic release. Imagine the brutal minimalism of Iggy Pop's The Idiot sharing a slow dance with the transcendent cheapness of Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works 85-92. As sun-faded synths unfold on opening track "The Exact Colour of Doubt," you almost expect lead singer Angus Andrew to croon, "I want my MTV." So retrolicious, and therefore, totally right now. For the first time since their debut, Liars sound of-the-moment rather than out on a limb. That may be the only affront left to savvy listeners anticipating the latest sea change from these puckish, post-post punks.

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#67 Miguel Zenon & Laurent Coq, Rayuela

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  Rayuela

  Laurent Coq & Miguel Zenon

  2012 | Sunnyside / Entertainment One Distribution

  Argentine novelist Julio Cortázar's 1963 classic Rayuela – in English, Hopscotch – is a fragmented tale of a Bohemian adrift on two continents. To underscore his hero's dislocation and odd thought processes, Cortázar maps a zigzag alternative route through the book for adventurous readers. On their Rayuela, Puerto Rican alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón and French pianist Laurent Coq variously evoke the novel's playfulness with language, mobile-like structure, transatlantic breadth and fascination with... jazz, as well as the bittersweet nature of expatriate life. Ably abetted by instrument switchers Dana Leong on cello and trombone and Dan Weiss on drums and tabla, they make smart, inventive, heartfelt music.

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#66 Flying Lotus, Until the Quiet Comes

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  Until The Quiet Comes

  Flying Lotus

  2012 | Warp Records

  What was Flying Lotus supposed to do, twist our synapses till they turned blue every single time out? Please – not even Hendrix could have done that. British DJ Mary Anne Hobbs may have declared FlyLo Jimi's modern equivalent, but Until the Quiet Comes, his fourth album, plays like something Jimi didn't get to stay around and make: both reflective and madcap, full of details scurrying in the margins. Take "Tiny... Tortures," which rides a near-subcutaneous bass pulse, twitchy, subtle clicks and clacks, ruminative jazz guitar flecks and flurries. Is it fusion? Maybe, but it doesn't show off the way most fusion does – it's too busy sneaking up on you.
  
  Seventies cosmic jazz has always been a FlyLo touchstone, and his forays into it can feel ponderous, such as on the brief "DMT Song," on which Thundercat's vocals are echoed into gauze over glittery electric piano and twisting double bass. But mostly he's impish, as is evident even on broader-stroked tracks such as the overtly daffy "Pretty Boy Strut," where a walking bass line meets cartoon-voiced keyboards and insistent electro-handclaps. There are fewer giant flourishes of the sort that marked 2008's Los Angeles or 2010's Cosmogramma, though. Even the big guest stars—Erykah Badu on the circularly rhythmic "See Thru to U," Radiohead's Thom Yorke on the dense whorl of "Electric Candyman" – are ingredients he stirs into the mix with impunity. As always, the signature is FlyLo's alone.

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#65 Screaming Females, Ugly

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  Ugly

  Screaming Females

  2012 | Don Giovanni Records / Believe Digital

  New Brunswick, New Jersey's Screaming Females have turned out roaring punk album after roaring punk album since 2006, amid booking hundreds of their own shows – some in basements and others in massive club venues warming up for the likes of Ted Leo, the Dead Weather and Garbage. Their Steve Albini-produced fifth LP Ugly is a darker, less melodic affair than its 2010 predecessor, which thrived on a perfect balance of... hooky choruses and frontwoman Marissa Paternoster's masterful guitar acrobatics. Paternoster hasn't lost any of the full-throated, low-alto howl, best showcased in "Rotten Apple" ("Hell is within me/ Hell's all around me now," she snarls), and as she bellows "I want you to tell me to expire" in "Expire." Ugly is long and it can feel that way, at 14 tracks, almost 54 minutes, but the high points ("Expire," "Help Me," the acoustic, string-backed closer "It's Nice") are high enough to make it worthwhile.

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#64 Bowerbirds, The Clearing

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  The Clearing

  Bowerbirds

  2012 | Dead Oceans / SC Distribution

  In "Overcome with Light," Bowerbirds' Phil Moore and Beth Tacular sing, "Yes, we had some hard work, but now it's right." Their lush third LP, The Clearing, is about unexpected challenges: Tacular's near-death experience; the ending and rekindling of the couple's relationship; building a home by hand. And despite all of that, they pulled through with their best work yet: clear, full instrumentation and a celebration of new beginnings.

#63 Ty Segall Band, Slaughterhouse

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  Slaughterhouse

  Ty Segall Band

  2012 | In The Red / Revolver

  Each Ty Segall record is a new outfit in the garage-rock prodigy's ever-increasing wardrobe. Slaughterhouse, his latest quick change, is the first release billed under his touring band, a group which includes punky wunderkinds Charlie Moothart and Mikal Cronin. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given that this is a group that's been traveling the road together, Slaughterhouse is a loose, scrappy set. Some songs are given ample jamming room ("I Bought My Eyes"), while... others are haunted-house screamers ("Slaughterhouse"). There are inspired covers with humorous studio banter ("All right, here we go, extra fast," Segall says by way of introducing "Diddy Wah Diddy."), and staring-contest noise parties (the 10-plus-minute "Fuzz War"). It's a glorious grab bag, uncouth and unkempt in its exuberance, but with a worn-in feeling derived from the players' comfort with each other.
  
  Like he did on his Singles 2007-2010 compilation, Segall forgoes the catchier, cleaner vocals he's sometimes showcased, opting instead for the feral yawls and yelps that earned the young Segall so many comparisons to the late Jay Reatard early on. Elsewhere, he does his best, fuzz-soaked Led Sabbath impression ("Wave Goodbye"), and only occasionally hints at the comfy, Nuggets-influenced jaunts he's so good at ("Tell Me What's Inside Your Heart," "Muscle Man"). Slaughterhouse isn't exactly a consistent record, but that doesn't exactly seem to be the point, either. If Segall's going to keep trying on new, inspired costumes every few months, who's complaining?

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#62 Grizzly Bear, Shields

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  Shields

  Grizzly Bear

  2012 | Warp Records

  Remember when Grizzly Bear was Edward Droste's solo project? Didn't think so. And that's okay; while the disconnect between Droste's bedroom-pop beginnings and the band's longtime status as a democracy – with Daniel Rossen at the helm half the time – has been a source of tension in the past, their third album as a full-fledged quartet is sleek and self-assured. Or as Droste admitted in a Pitchfork interview this past June,... "As we get older, more confident and more mature, we're becoming more comfortable with stepping on each other's toes."
  
  That doesn't mean that Shields is marred by muddled ideas and misdirected hostility. Thanks to several "songwriting retreats" in New York and Cape Cod, the effort is decidedly collaborative, an autumnal listen that feels alive and full of welcome left turns rather than heavy-lidded and hazy. The LP's leadoff single ("Sleeping Ute") is a perfect example of the group's push-and-pull dynamics – a tidal wave of rippled rhythms, honeyed harmonies and burbling synths. The rest of the record is much more subtle yet no less effective, as Rossen's rich melodies and spare riffs play a perfect counterpoint to Droste's fragile, emotionally-charged confessionals. Repeat listens reveal the hours that went into every hook, too, whether the finish line is reached through windswept strings and woozy jazz ("What's Wrong") or one long walk on the beach, a slow build that seems to be on the verge of a total breakdown ("Sun In Your Eyes"). Grizzly Bear emerges unscathed, however, as ready to assume the mantle of Brooklyn's most promising crossover band as they've ever been.

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#61 Woods, Bend Beyond

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  Bend Beyond

  Woods

  2012 | Woodsist / Revolver

  When Jeremy Earl left Brooklyn for the tiny upstate town where he grew up – Warwick, New York, a rural, rail-side area best known for its annual Applefest – a few years ago, his decision wasn't surprising so much as long overdue. And not just because dude's the founder of a ramshackle rock band called Woods and a lo-fi-leaning label that goes by the name Woodsist. Forestry nods aside, Earl has always... seemed like a hippie who's constantly lumped in with "hipsters" – a soft-spoken Neil Young fan who'd rather hang out with his cat, a considerable wooden owl collection, and a freshly packed bong than a poorly ventilated house full of cool kids.
  
  More important, however, is his musical vision, which has long hinted at but lurked just below the level of psych-steeped greatness that's achieved on Bend Beyond. Led by Earl's lovelorn falsetto and loose, fiery riffs, Woods' seventh album offsets its tales of frustration (lots of "it's so fucking hard" talk) with red-blooded arrangements and a clean mix that brings the frontman's hooks right into focus. It helps that the well-oiled quartet saved their jam-band tendencies for the stage and let their individual parts shine at the same time instead, from the rambunctious organ rolls and roaring guitar leads of "Find Them Empty" to the curve-hugging rhythm section of the title track. It's inviting enough to make us big city folks briefly ponder our own move to Deliverance-town, USA Well – almost.

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#60 White Lung, Sorry

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  sorry

  White Lung

  2012 | Deranged Records / The Orchard

  White Lung's pummeling second album, Sorry, isn't for the faint of heart. "I'm the disease that you've already caught," frontwoman Mish Way spits on "I Rot," one of 10 punk bursts driven by tension-filled riffs, frantic drum assaults and macabre lyrics. Yet Sorry's violent imagery is also deeply poetic – more Plath than Poe – and the album has plenty of melodic moments (unexpected chorus harmonies on "Bag," lively guitar spikes on... "Take The Mirror" and "St. Dad") to temper the aggression. Urgent and inspiring.

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#59 Ravi Coltrane, Spirit Fiction

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  Spirit Fiction

  Ravi Coltrane

  2012 | BLUE NOTE

  It's been a little more than two decades since saxophonist Ravi Coltrane fully broke into the top-shelf jazz world (as a member of drummer Elvin Jones's Jazz Machine), thus finally overcoming the daunting task of emerging from the shadow of his father, jazz god John Coltrane (who passed when Ravi was two). Now in his 40s, Coltrane continues to develop as an artist; for demonstration of his singular tenor/soprano saxophone voice and... his creativity and intimacy as a leader, look no further than his superb Blue Note Records debut, Spirit Fiction. He employs two primo bands as the anchors of the sessions: one, his longtime quartet of pianist Luis Perdomo, bassist Drew Gress and drummer E.J. Strickland and the quintet he used on his 2002 sophomore album From the Round Box; the other, trumpeter Ralph Alessi, pianist Geri Allen, bassist Lonnie Plaxico and drummer Eric Harland.
  
  Produced by Joe Lovano, Blue Note's modern-day tenor titan, Spirit Fiction shows how forward-thinking Coltrane has become as he continues to steer clear of standard formulas and aims straight for imaginative contrasts and convergences. He experiments with tunes developed by disparate layers of improvisation, notably on the doubleheader of the scrambling "Roads Cross" and the sprightly "Cross Roads", where pairs of players from his quartet are recorded individually with the results spliced together. Coltrane also opts to record in a variety of instrumental formats, including duo ("Spring & Hudson," an original with Strickland that bursts with brio), trio (a redolent take on Paul Motian's "Fantasm" with Lovano and Allen), and sextet (as Lovano joins in again with the quintet's rollicking-to-reflective spin through Ornette Coleman's "Check Out Time").
  
  On Coltrane's ballad "the change, my girl," his tenor delivers a lyrical mix of melancholy and joy, and on the three Alessi-penned tunes, the two ebulliently converse and criss-cross. As a saxophonist, Coltrane may not be a flashy, blow-with-bravado type, but his playing communicates on levels ranging from the vigorous to the ruminative. Spirit Fiction is yet another giant step in his maturation.

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#58 How to Dress Well, Total Loss

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  Total Loss

  How To Dress Well

  2012 | Acéphale / S.C. Distribution

  When one-man R&B deconstructionist Tom Krell, aka How to Dress Well, released his 2010 debut Love Remains, he was one of a a host of bedroom artists – Krell, plus James Blake, the Weeknd and others – re-interpreting FM-radio slow jams and twisting the slinky genre into new shapes. Since then, the number of contemporaries has grown while unchartered paths have shrunk, so it's commendable that two years later, Krell has distinguished... himself again, this time with tighter arrangements and more substantive lyrics.
  
  While Love Remains' longing murmurs and blown-out falsettos kept listeners at a distance, Total Loss sees Krell laying out his diary pages in tight close-up for everyone to read. Written while he was grieving the death of his best friend and recovering from a recent breakup, songs like "Cold Nites," "Running Back" and "How Many?" bare the heartbreak in Krell's somber croon. Without the low fidelity of his previous offerings (and with help from the xx producer Rodaidh McDonald) it's clear that the scratches and crackles weren't a cover for a lack of a voice: Krell's falsetto soars when refined. It's a remarkable evolution: Somewhere in the time he was fine-tuning his warped take on the genre, How to Dress Well has moved towards becoming a real R&B artist.

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#57 Yellow Ostrich, Strange Land

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  Strange Land

  Yellow Ostrich

  2012 | Barsuk Records

  Yellow Ostrich mastermind Alex Schaaf has said that the title of his new album refers to his move in 2010 from Wisconsin to New York City. Yet after making last year's The Mistress under humble bedroom-recording conditions, Schaaf upgraded to a professional studio for Strange Land, and it's that unknown habitat he seems most intent on exploring here. Opener "Elephant King" shows his hand straightaway, riding in on a sparkling guitar figure... that slowly accumulates all kinds of indie-pop filigree: harmonized singing, sustained horn tones, and an escalating parade-drum beat by Michael Tapper, whose consistently inventive percussion work comes to distinguish Strange Land in a way that recalls Steven Drozd's avant-Bonzo beats on The Soft Bulletin. Elsewhere, Schaaf builds intricate loops from tiny vocal slivers ("Marathon Runner") and chops up Tapper's playing into a kind of nimble white-guy funk ("I Want Yr Love"). None of this high-end studio tricknology distracts the frontman from making memorable melodies, as the elemental fuzz-rock gem "Stay at Home" demonstrates; "Daughter," too, should satisfy Built to Spill fans impatiently waiting for that band's new one. But it's definitely a kick to hear him let Yellow Ostrich run wild.

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#56 Wymond Miles, Under the Pale Moon

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  Under the Pale Moon

  Wymond Miles

  2012 | Sacred Bones Records / S.C. Distribution

  When he wasn't conjuring dust storms of noir-ish, twanging guitar with San Francisco garage-rockers Fresh & Onlys, Wymond Miles was quietly stockpiling his own songs. Not that we're sure where he finds the time: aside from the building buzz of F&Os, Miles earned a degree in the humanities and also became a father. Earlier, he released Earth Has Doors, which evinced a deep appreciation for the lyricism of Scott Walker. His full-length... debut is darker and more somber than the Fresh & Only's; Miles indulges his inner goth, singing of torn desires and fragile flesh on opener "Strange Desire" and sounding at times like Robert Smith fronting the Bad Seeds. Though his words tend towards the lugubrious, it's Miles's hooks, expert six-string playing and tactful placement of sounds that make the album a luminous whole. See how the theremin sweeps in during "The Thirst" or how the guitar feedback upticks on "Lazarus Rising" before receding to its original jangle. Perhaps his strategy is laid out best on "Singing the Ending," where he croons about "go(ing) gentle into that goodnight."

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#55 Esperanza Spalding, Radio Music Society

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  Radio Music Society

  Esperanza Spalding

  2012 | Heads Up

  Now Esperanza Spalding is making even the Grammys look hip. In her first outing since she was named Best New Artist in 2011, Spalding puts a dozen tunes into her stylistic spin cycle for a tour de force of pop glitter, jazz swing, folk moodiness and a dollop of hip-hop swagger on the dense-but-dazzling Radio Music Society. This is the work of an artist who refuses to choose, mocking genre labels with... guileless ambition. (Her original concept was to pair this disc with the classically-oriented, string-laden Chamber Music Society back in 2010, until her record company convinced her the menu would be too large for public consumption.)
  
  By ignoring boundaries, Spalding upends expectations. She enlists august jazz tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano to provide a dulcet lilt to a Stevie Wonder cover ("I Can't Help It") and hip-hop titan Q-Tip to play glockenspiel and co-produce the jazzy tribute to her native Portland, Oregon("City of Roses"). Assembling a phalanx of 23 players and vocalists for a flashy, powerhouse "Radio Song," she sings about the giddiness of being seized by a new jam coming out of the speakers as her own electric bass wends its way through the song's buoyant center. Three songs later, with just the sparse backing of organist James Weidman, she tells the saga of a man falsely imprisoned for 30 years on a bogus murder conviction. On Radio, both extremes are fair game.
  
  As was the case with Chamber Music Society, Spalding's vocals are her ace in the hole. Her range is limited, but her assured and agile phrasing is ideal for carrying out her talk/sung approach. It enables her to credibly pull off a bluesy, big-band-like torch song ("Hold On Me") and to surf atop a youth choir on the anthem "Black Gold." And then there's "Vague Suspicions," a dense and sophisticated number with Jack DeJohnette on drums, about the tacit accommodations Americans make to avoid thinking too much about the consequences of drone strikes and the other elements of remote-control war. It's a grim, simmering number, its closing moments featuring Spalding sarcastically cooing, "Next on channel 4: celebrity gossip." It's a typically astute and self-aware take from an artist who is the closest thing jazz has to a young celebrity.

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#54 Baroness, Yellow & Green

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  Yellow & Green

  Baroness

  2012 | Relapse Records

  Before the release of Yellow & Green, Baroness frontman John Baizley stressed in interviews that the records were going to take some risks and expand the band's sound, partly by being more direct and placing greater emphasis on songwriting. Fans of the metal band's notoriously complex music weren't quite sure how to take this assessment; their responses tended toward wariness and curiosity mixed with guarded optimism.
  
  As it turns out, the... double album Yellow & Green is pretty much just how Baizley described it: The burly metal fury of previous Baroness efforts has settled into something far more daring and diverse. Look no further than Yellow's "Twinkler" and "Cocainium." The former's primary sounds are throaty flute, stately acoustic guitar and stacked vocals — think Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven" at a Renaissance Faire, or a lusher version of Blue Record's "Steel That Sleeps The Eye." In contrast, the latter's tar-bubble riffs and oil-slick keyboards rumble like Iron Butterfly, before the song explodes into a fuzzed-out The Sword/Metallica hybrid.
  
  Although this simmering tension between aggression and restraint permeates both albums, Yellow is more focused and accessible. A nimble bass line gives "Little Things" an elastic quality, while the cattle-stampede riffage of "March to the Sea" is classic Baroness. Still, these tunes exhibit impressive concision; even the turbocharged stoner rockers "Sea Lungs" and "Take My Bones Away" contain discernible (and catchy!) hooks.
  
  Green overall is far moodier, slower and quieter than Yellow. The instrumental "Stretchmarker" is heart-wrenching psych-folk, while the ominous "Collapse" is nothing more than a tangled arrangement of folky acoustic guitar, some surging sound effects and a patient kick-drum thump. Other interesting influences crop up, too: The melancholy "Mtns. (The Crown & Anchor)" conjures Thrice's brooding post-hardcore musings, and the watery guitar textures of "Foolsong" and Green's closing instrumental track, "If I Forget Thee, Lowcountry" are reminiscent of Explosions in the Sky.
  
  It's obvious these stylistically sprawling albums represent the next step for Baroness: Like Metallica once did, or, more recently, Mastodon, they have begun to grow beyond their niche and have accordingly set their sights on expanding beyond a cult audience. If much of Yellow & Green sounds like metal for people who don't necessarily identify as metal fans, then, it hardly means the band is hardly consciously dumbing down its music for the mainstream. On the contrary, these daring albums cement Baroness's reputation as an uncompromising group of musicians who's never been afraid to flout convention when pursuing ferocity.

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#53 THEESatisfaction, awE naturalE

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  awE naturalE

  THEESatisfaction

  2012 | Sub Pop Records

  In this cloud-computing age where everyone is a fan of a bit of everything, it's good to see Sub Pop, the label most famous for bringing grunge to the world, continue to define itself not by genre but merely by brilliant music. They released their first hip-hop album in Shabazz Palaces' much-lauded Black Up last year, which featured Afro-futurist Seattle duo THEESatisfaction; the latter now get their own Sub Pop release with... their debut full-length.
  
  Opening with a fanfare of stumbling polyrhythms and speaker-blowing pomp before swerving into nimble, pared-down poetry recitation, the pair recall the boom-bap collages of J Dilla and Madlib, with a touch of Erykah Badu's simultaneous languor and clarity. With constant gear changes like these, and songs that rarely break three minutes, the record is full of personality and verve, a feeling cemented by the rapped and sung vocals. Stasia Irons and Catherine Harris-White recite everyday dramas of sex and politics and give them a magic mushroom logic, full of tangents and florid imagery; Palaceer Lazaro of the aforementioned Shabazz Palaces returns the favor on a brace of tracks mid-album, laying his nimble non-sequiturs over "God," with its beat like an elegantly stuck Bill Evans record, plus the deranged funhouse of "Enchantruss."
  
  Meanwhile, the filtered pop-rap of "Queens" could have come from Alan Braxe or Daft Punk's Thomas Bangalter in their more laidback moods, and it's easy to imagine Lil B waxing surreal over the thickly aquatic "Juiced." Irons and Harris-White have lyrical flair, melodic gifts and a varied production voice, blending it all in a sensually blunted modern soul music. But like Sub Pop, you should forget genre labels — to tie this record to one is to undermine its richness.

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#52 Nas, Life Is Good

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  Life Is Good

  Nas

  2012 | Def Jam Records

  Nas's career path has been a strange, contradictory one: It's clear that he's a legend, but he's always being pressured to live up to it, as though Illmatic was his own personal Citizen Kane. The last time he reasserted his status back in 2001, it was thanks to a feud with Jay-Z that lit a fire under his ass. But after a series of increasingly uneven late-career albums, Nas has found another... route back to form, embracing the idea that maybe his position is already secure and he doesn't have anything left to prove. But don't mistake this attitude for complacency: Life is Good, his 11th studio album, is steeped in reflection, a mixture of gratitude and regret, retrospect and foresight.
  
  The first four tracks are the kind of intricately constructed, human-level crime narratives Nas has always excelled at — statements of influence ("No Introduction"; "Loco-Motive"), tense come-up/fall-down scenarios ("A Queens Story"), payback gone tragically wrong ("Accident Murderers") — but tinged with the bittersweet undertone of not having enough peers who made it big alongside him. The last three — the ruminative, frustrated "Stay", the romantic-daydream "Cherry Wine" and the Kelis breakup wrap-up "Bye Baby" — reveal that he's just as adept talking about the aspirations and frustrations of love. And in between there's Nas figuring out how to be a model father ("Daughters"), reconciling his hood roots and his jet-set present ("Reach Out"), invoking his origins to dress down pretenders ("Back When"), and doing the memory of Heavy D proud with his hardest got-mine anthem since "Made You Look" ("The Don"). The production fits the legacy-minded tone — no brostep or Guetta, no attempts at exhuming an ossified '94, just a slate of good-to-excellent beats from names that've always suited him well (Salaam Remi, No I.D., Buckwild) and A-list R&B hooks (Mary J. Blige, Anthony Hamilton, Amy Winehouse). In a hip-hop era where the most pivotal icons are dealing with the idea of becoming elder statesmen, Life Is Good is the kind of album an Illmatic acolyte would hope a pushing-40 Nas could make.

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#51 Vijay Iyer Trio, Accelerando

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  Accelerando

  Vijay Iyer Trio

  2012 | ACT Music

  Let's not mince words: Accelerando is a source of rippling power and resplendent beauty that deserves to be called a masterpiece. (Except I suspect that Iyer, who recorded this a month before his 40th birthday, might top it on some future project.) As with the acclaimed, chart-topping Historicity in 2009, the pianist leads his trio through a stimulating collection that blends sharp originals and a surprisingly disparate array of cover tunes, from... Heatwave to Herbie Nichols to the Thriller track, "Human Nature." But in the nearly three years between the discs, the trio has been able to turbo-charge the force of their ensemble collective, without sacrificing the depth of their interactions. There are magnificent stretches throughout Accelerando — the rising to crescendo of the last half of "Optimism," much of Henry Threadgill's agile and agitated "Little Pocket Sized Demons," the title track, and Iyer's "Actions Speak," among others — where the effect is like a rock power trio along the lines of Cream or The Who, but using the language of jazz, and with a piano instead of a guitar. Iyer's two-handed chordal phrasings are cavernous, anthemic and intensely personal — he says he wants his music to be visceral, and he succeeds in spades here. Bassist Stephen Crump is a great enabler of intensity — his plucking (especially "Wildflower" and "Little Pocket Sized Demons") and bowing ("Accelerando") are brusque and bristling with contagious energy. Masterful drummer Marcus Gilmore keeps time and regulates the current with aplomb and unerringly good judgment. Accelerando feels like a unified magnum opus: The opening "Bode" pleasantly ushers you in, and the closing "The Village of the Virgins" carries the amiable goodwill of a benediction. In between is a wild, wonderful ride.

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#50 Robert Glasper, Black Radio

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  Black Radio

  Robert Glasper

  2012 | BLUE NOTE

  Pianist Robert Glasper has jazz chops sophisticated enough to satiate diehard purists and an affinity for hip-hop and R&B that has resulted in collaborations with Q-Tip, Maxwell and Mos Def. Black Radio scrambles these influences, with Glasper's Experiment quartet (including Derrick Hodge on electric bass, Casey Benjamin on sax and vocoder, and Chris Dave playing drums), laying unpredictable music beneath a bevy of high-profile guests. In this era of... Pandora-style musical-profiling, where listeners can narrow down exactly what they think they want, the project absorbs genres like a sponge and squeezes out surprises with a tinge of tang and froth. It avoids the sappiness of "smooth jazz," the stilted self-reference of "hip-hop jazz" and the suffocating cushion of "quiet storm," yet there's a lush sensuality that permeates the beats, bop rhythms and bracing moments of curiosity and intellect.
  
  Glasper understands that this Experiment is best undertaken as a tactile experience - as Shafiq Husayn rap-drawls in the opener, "Lift Off," all you need is your ears and your soul. To drive home the point, the beguiling yawl and coo of Erykah Badu sends the Afro-Cuban classic "Afro Blue" into the air like a large kite in a steady wind, its tail trilling. Rappers Lupe Fiasco and yasiin bey (better known as Mos Def) variously distill verbal science and wig out on wordplay ("turtles from a man hole"?), knowing the live quartet can alter the texture and freestyle the route as the situation warrants, on "Always Shine" and "Black Radio," respectively. There is a throwback nature to Black Radio, and not only because Sade ("Cherish The Day," with Lalah Hathaway on vocals), David Bowie ("Letter to Hermione," featuring Bilal channeling Stevie Wonder) and Nirvana (a deconstructed and vocoderized "Smells Like Teen Spirit") are covered. There are moments reminiscent of the soul-jazz fusion of Bobbi Humphrey and Donald Byrd back on Blue Note in the late '70s, or Soul II Soul and Me Phi Me back in the '80s, or Alphabet Soup and Mint Condition in the '90s, with a dollop of 21st-century hip-hop on top. Why reinvent the wheel when you can modify the ride?

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#49 Dum Dum Girls, End of Daze EP

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  End of Daze

  Dum Dum Girls

  2012 | Sub Pop Records

  Sporting black leather jackets, bright red lipstick and hangdog poses, Dum Dum Girls resemble high-school dropouts from another time – the '50s, maybe; or maybe it's the '60s; or maybe it's the '80s. Whenever it is, it's not now. But no assembly of retro references, however clever, will get you to sing with a voice as bold, outsized and sad as Kristin Gundred, nor will they get you to write melodies as... instantly indelible as she can either. Over the course of two albums, and now two EPs, her band has gone from playing misfit little garage songs punctuated by "bang-bang"s and "la-la"s to dark, glittering music exploring resignation, regret, and other big subjects that sound surprising coming from a band calling themselves "Dum Dum Girls."
  
  End of Daze, their latest, follows in the footsteps of convincingly sad bands from the Shangri-Las to the Smiths: They treat raw emotional vulnerability with musical confidence. Guitars buzz, drums boom and everything cocoons comfortably in reverb. At 18 minutes, End of Daze has no standouts and no weak spots: It's beautiful all the way through. The spiritual heart of the EP comes from the lone cover, of 1980s Scottish pop-rock group Strawberry Switchblade's "Trees and Flowers." "I hate the trees and I hate the flowers," Gundred sings over shimmering, reverberant guitars – "I hate the buildings and the way they tower over me." With just the slightest push, the simplicity that once made them playthings gets elevated to metaphor. As a title, End of Daze might be a little joke about their own maturity: The fog lifts and leaves nothing but clarity, naked and bittersweet.

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#48 Eternal Summers, Correct Behavior

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  Correct Behavior

  Eternal Summers

  2012 | Kanine Records

  Nicole Yun only knows a handful of guitar chords, but she plays them passionately. Her band, Eternal Summers, has expanded sizably on sophomore effort Correct Behavior, building on their debut's ramshackle indiepop foundation with stadium-sized hooks, extra layers of guitar, and loads of reverb. But in spite of their sonic makeover, Eternal Summers (now a trio with the addition of bassist Jonathan Woods) still understand the power of brevity and focus, striking... a balance between the naïve, home-spun charm of early gems like "Running High" and "Safe at Home" and the more expansive style they've branded "dream-punk."
  
  "Millions" is a hell of a re-introduction. With its jangly guitar lines and see-sawing chorus melody, the track sounds like New Pornographers stuck in the garage, with Yun channeling her inner Neko Case. They have their stoner-poet moment with the atmospheric prog-pop of "Heaven and Hell," Yun philosophizing "Death itself will die" over cavernous distortion – epic shit for a band who probably used to record in their mom's basement. Eternal Summers seem to have a blast exploring the limits of a legitimate studio (check the skronky, drunk toddler guitar solo on "Disappear," or the rocket-snare blast on "You Kill," or the Beach House-y preset keyboard beat on closer "Summerset"), but they rarely experiment at the cost of joyous, chest-pounding pop. Correct Behavior indeed.

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#47 The Men, Open Your Heart

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  Open Your Heart

  The Men

  2012 | Sacred Bones Records / S.C. Distribution

  There's nothing quite like a good old-fashioned, skull-splitting album-opener. Judged on those merits alone, Open Your Heart's "Turn it Around" completely fucking aces its final exam. Moreover, it's a refreshing, accessible upgrade for the Men, the Brooklyn noisemakers who set speakers smoking with last year's overdriven, occasionally overindulgent and ultimately overwhelming Leave Home. Its mix of shoegaze grandiosity and punk grit was exciting and powerful, but there were moments where one... wondered what they'd sound like if they reined it in with a couple of hooks.
  
  Open Your Heart is the answer. The album is divided roughly into three categories: rockers (the abovementioned "Turn it Around," the Buzzcockian power pop of the title track, and the straight-up hardcore "Cube"), chill-outs (the aptly titled instrumental "Country Song," the halcyon-era-Meat-Puppets-doing-Poison drinking song, "Candy") and Leave Home sister songs (building, stretch-outs "Oscillation" and "Presence"). These categories aren't compartmentalized. Instead, they mix and mingle like you do at any great party, screamers butting elbows with blue-collar laments, rave-ups doing shots with the burnouts.
  
  It's uncommon for a rock 'n' roll band to show such proficiency in genre-dabbling, but the Men pull it off, and it's exciting to think about what they might do given full-on immersion into one of the many directions hinted at on Open Your Heart. When American Sun's Holly Overton shows up to croon on a couple tracks, her feathery backing vocals providing balance to a screaming mix that often threatens to push too far into the red, it's tempting to hope she'll join the band. A record-length meditation on upbeat, Big-Star-inspired love songs would thrill, no doubt, but hey, what if they did a full-on country album? The potential, clearly, is unending. Thankfully, so are the rewards.

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#46 Bat For Lashes, The Haunted Man

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  The Haunted Man (Deluxe Version)

  Bat For Lashes

  2013 | Parlophone

  As suggested by its striking cover art, The Haunted Man is the moment where Natasha Khan, aka Bat For Lashes, proves she's strong enough to stand naked, both figuratively and literally. Her third, gentlest and most ballad-oriented effort yet is lightly adorned with autoharp, electronically estranged guitars, gossamer keys and symphonic orchestration that never upstage her whole-hearted vocals. As co-producer, Khan favors an incorporeal approach, placing phantasmic textures before hooks. She makes... room for beats, but they are typically halting, stopping and starting again as if to reinforce the album's underlying theme of building up and letting go – sometimes at the same time – of intimate yet unstable connections.
  
  Over and over again, Khan sings of lovers traumatized by the past, and how those ghosts haunt the present. In the album's most immediate track "All Your Gold," Khan sings of "a good man" that she struggles to trust with a heart that a previous lover turned black. She often adopts a motherly protector role, as on the percussive "Rest Your Head," but she also battles with her own demons: In the slow-burning title track, she aims to heal a wounded soul, but admits, "Yes, your ghosts have got me too." Khan may be the most self-contained and confessional of the current crop of female sing-songwriters, yet she resists over-sharing. Instead, she balances empathy and aching sincerity with understatedly nervy arrangements that favor mystery over familiarity. What might come off as austere in others simply seems natural for Khan.

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#45 Sun Araw, M. Geddes Gengras, The Congos, Icon Give Thank

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  Icon Give Thank

  Sun Araw, M. Geddes Gengras, The Congos

  2012 | RVNG INTL. / SC Distribution

  After six installments of Johnny Cash's American series and well-received late-career efforts by Mavis Staples and Jimmy Cliff, there's very little novel about a weathered pioneer musician teaming up with a younger admirer in the hopes of lending a bit of the old fog-and-polish to their artistic reputation. The results are, broadly speaking, similar: a restrained, tasteful facsimile of the artist's best work, prim as a pressed suit and comforting as a... cup of afternoon tea. Which is what makes the thoroughly batshit, opium-gobbling collaboration between reggae legends The Congos and the Austin musician Sun Araw so irresistible. Rather than focusing on the sound of their legendary Heart of the Congos, Araw set about to recreate the mood: murky, mysterious, vaguely occult and more than a little spooky. Like Heart, the songs still center around glassy-eyed, endlessly-repeated choruses, but on Icon Give Thanks they're distended and wobbly, strange voices drifting eerily through some narcotic hallucination. And though it can't rightly be called a resurrection – it's stranger and spookier than anything the band did in their prime – Icon Give Thanks undeniably feels like the work of the undead, coming back for a final haunting.

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#44 Orrin Evans, Flip the Script

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  Flip The Script

  Orrin Evans

  2012 | Posi-Tone Records / The Orchard

  As a pianist, Orrin Evans features a muscular attack with a meaty tonality and impatience with elongated or predictable phrasing. As an artist, he has emerged as a formidable, increasingly indispensable presence in jazz, whether leading the balls-to-the-wall Captain Black Big Band, the politically charged Tarbaby, or small ensemble recordings. Flip The Script is a trio outing with bassist Ben Wolfe and drummer Donald Edwards, both necessarily sturdy, exceptionally sentient players when... charged with accompanying Evans's dynamic approach, which blends supple conception with bold, brawny execution. Like Faith In Action from 2010, it contains Evans originals that are often jagged and fragmented but ever-purposeful, brimming with rough-and-tumble rhythms and ruminations variously reminiscent of McCoy Tyner, Muhal Richard Abrams, Bud Powell and Art Tatum. They are gusty and assured, with apt titles like "Clean House," "Flip The Script" and "The Answer." On a slower note, "Big Small" is a steadily stalking, rough-hewn blues that cuts deep into the blues tradition without losing a jazz sensibility.
  
  Evans's choice of covers are generally revealing for their contrasts and/or message. The four here begin with "Question," a chopped up bebop number by Tarbaby bassist Eric Revis; and a rendition of Luther Vandross's "A Brand New Day" that finds Evans in full McCoy Tyner mode much of the time. But the final two inject poignant reflection into the mix. The standard "Someday My Prince Will Come" is performed with prolonged, lingering resonance, highlighting the wistful and sadder aspect of a song usually framed more hopefully. And the closer, Gamble and Huff's "The Sound Of Philadelphia," is a touching eulogy for Soul Train creator and emcee Don Cornelius, who died six days before this recording session. "TSOP" was the Soul Train theme song, and Philadelphia also happens to be Evans's hometown and ongoing wellspring of musical inspiration. His soulful take carries that weight just right.

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#43 Swans, Seer

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  The Seer

  Swans

  2012 | Young God / Revolver

  Whether he's conjuring up a quiet storm with an acoustic guitar or sharing the asphyxiated psalms of "Sex, God, Sex," Michael Gira has never been the subtle type. That's especially the case with the second coming of Gira's iconic post-punk band Swans, which obliterated the notion of a cash-grab reunion with a series of resoundingly LOUD shows, and 2010's uniformly excellent, AARP-be-damned album My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to... the Sky.
  Now just two years away from turning 60, Gira has delivered a double album that may be his bravest release yet. Clearly the sound of someone who still doesn't give a goddamn what you think, The Seer isn't just a sprawling listen. It's a record that just went off its meds, a striking, supremely challenging mix of manic melodies, endless experimentation, ritualistic drones and rigorous repetition.
  
  Which is to say, it's not for everyone. Aside from a couple palette cleansers ("The Daughter Brings the Water," "The Wolf") and a delicate duet with Karen O ("Song For a Warrior," which recalls the Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer's recent rock opera run), The Seer devotes most of its two-hour running time to destroying any semblance of sane songwriting. That goes for everything from the murderous chase scene that is "Mother of the World" to the way Alan and Mimi of Low chant "lunacy!" until the word really sinks in on the record's opener. And then there's the "A Piece of the Sky," "Apostate" and the title track, a trio of EP-length epics that shift between showers of nihilistic noise, hypnotic vocals (including contributions from two key Gira collaborators, Akron/Family and former Swans member Jarboe), ominous orchestral parts, and unexplained phenomena (the "acoustic and synthetic" fire sounds of Ben Frost come to mind).
  
  Amazing stuff — if you can make it to the other side without blowing your speakers.

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#42 Bill Fay, Life is People

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  Life Is People

  Bill Fay

  2012 | Dead Oceans / SC Distribution

  Life is People is the first new record from Bill Fay since 1972, a British singer-songwriter whose beatific and keenly observed music might remind you of Randy Newman or Wilco. It's a worthy addition to a small but hallowed canon of material. Wilco have covered him over the years, and he returns the favor with a solemn, still rendition of "Jesus, Etc." Fay's voice is ragged, pleading, and gentle, and his music... sits in a glowing pool of "Hallelujah" chord changes and restrained, soul-inflected touches. It has a numinous simplicity that feels healing; when he enlists a gospel choir to swell up on the chorus of "Be At Peace With Yourself," you find that suddenly you are.

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#41 Actress, R.I.P.

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  R.I.P.

  Actress

  2012 | Honest Jon's Records / Finetunes

  With a sound that's nearly as heady as its concept – "a conceptual arc taking in death, life, sleep and religion" – Actress's third album burrows its way into your brain and stays there long after you hit stop. If 2012 was the Year of EDM, R.I.P. signals a return to Intelligent Dance Music. And not the bloodless kind that's more concerned with plugins than an actual pulse. More like an... elegantly designed surrogate for the album Aphex Twin's been threatening to drop for more than a decade.

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#40 Alabama Shakes, Boys & Girls

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  Boys & Girls

  Alabama Shakes

  2012 | ATO Records

  The chatter that southern blues-rockers Alabama Shakes have generated in the months leading up to their debut is usually reserved for legends twice their age, or at least groups with more than a couple of songs to their name. There have been Janis Joplin and Otis Redding comparisons, endorsements from the likes of Jack White and Adele, and fans talking about their raucous live shows like they're enough... to convert you to a new religion. And — if you can believe it — the Athens, Alabama quartet's full length debut Boys & Girls lives up to the hype.
  
  The first thing that will bowl you over is that voice. "Bless my heart, bless my soul/ I didn't think I'd make it to 22 years old," howls singer/guitarist Brittany Howard in the opening moments of stellar single "Hold On," showing off her gritty, soulful pipes and making those Joplin comparisons feel earned. But they're not the whole story, either: Boys & Girls finds the Alabama Shakes pulling from the greats of rock and blues (catch the Bo Diddley reference in the opening lyric?) into a distinctive, and occasionally downright personal, sound. ("Come on Brittany!" she hollers to herself. "You gotta come on up!")
  
  From the barroom piano stomp of "Hang Loose" to the Stones swagger of "Be Mine," Boys & Girls sounds like the work of a group of weary, wizened road warriors who've been playing together for decades, rather than a group who formed a couple of years ago when its principle players were still in their teens. With all this talent and confidence already on full display on their debut, imagine all they can do with the years ahead.

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#39 Kathleen Edwards, Voyageur

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  Voyageur

  Kathleen Edwards

  2012 | New Rounder

  The too-obvious shorthands here - given that this album was produced by her new beau Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver) in the wake of her marital split from her longtime guitarist Colin Cripps - is that this is Kathleen Edwards's "indie rock" record and her "divorce" record. Both may be true, but only to a point, and neither gets to the heart of Edwards's voyage on Voyageur. Though Vernon has an imposing... indie pedigree, it's not as if his own records are that far removed from the rugged Americana that has been Edwards's turf up to this point; and for another thing, her albums always sounded more "alt" than "country," anyway. And so it's not surprising that the clearest reference-point here is Neko Case, another singer who, like Edwards, has both Canadian and American ties. It's the latter Edwards sounds most excited about on the opening "Empty Threat"; the cool confidence in her voice as she repeatedly insists, "I'm moving to America," amid gliding acoustic and electric guitars indicates this isn't an empty threat at all. True enough, that song relates to her divorce, as do "Change The Sheets" ("and then change me"), the elegiac John Roderick co-write "Pink Champagne" and the wistful relationship postscript "For The Record." But the record also offers a way forward. Edwards and Vernon harmonize exquisitely on the redemptive ballad "A Soft Place To Land," and on "Sidecar," co-written with her longtime confidante Jim Bryson, Edwards exults in finding a new companion after "feeling so lost for so long." With a little help on Voyageur, she finds herself as well.

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#38 Death Grips, The Money Store

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  The Money Store

  Death Grips

  2012 | Epic

  The first impulse after listening to Death Grips' The Money Store might scan similarly to the initial take of their debut Exmilitary: hip-hop as skater thrash, the more aggro strains of both worlds fused in some Bomb Squad meets Bones Brigade shit. But that's what second impressions are for. As easy as it is to draw parallels to the old punk-rap touchstones, there's something about this vital noise that makes it hard... to situate it at any specific moment in either genre's hardcore continuum. MC Ride's raspy bellow has the kind of harsh tone East Coast heads will appreciate — think Bobby Digital-era RZA shouting himself hoarse, cranked up to Waka Flocka Flame levels of intensity, turning cryptic threats and manic free association into shout-along lines. Meanwhile, the clamor throbbing beneath his voice pulls more from the brain trust of contemporary West Coast bass music — a la the popular L.A. club night Low End Theory — than anything else. Southern bounce, electro and boogie funk all with the gloss beaten off are full-Nelsoned into raw-hamburger renditions of grime and dubstep, with the EQ levels pushed into snarling, aching overload. If that sounds a bit brutal, it's the kind of brutality that pulls you along instead of dragging you under — no matter how belligerent the sound gets, it's less a confrontation than an appeal to shared catharsis.

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#37 Standard Fare, Out of Sight, Out of Town

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  Out Of Sight. Out Of Town

  Standard Fare

  2011 | Melodic / Southern Record Distributors

  In "Fifteen," on their 2010 debut The Noyelle Beat, Sheffield trio Standard Fare sang about being 22 and not knowing what to do. On the band's sophomore effort Out of Sight, Out of Town, they talk about mindless day jobs, crushed hopes and being "destined to die unknown." Bassist-vocalist Emma Kupa, guitarst-vocalist Dan How and drummer Andy Beswick have carved out a space alongside like-minded British indiepop acts Los Campesinos! and Allo... Darlin', with songs that will resonate with fellow 20-somethings trying to figure their lives out through dead-end jobs and romantic missteps. Among the best tracks is "Call Me Up," a hilarious but probably-relatable number about a post-nightclub hookup ("I never said you weren't hot, it's just that all this drinking does these things to me," sing How and Kupa). The rest of the set finds them musing on older women ("Older Women" — a stark contrast to "Fifteen," the last album's tale of lusting after and going home with a teenager), reconnecting with a love interest from teenage years ("Kicking Puddles"), and the nervousness of starting a new relationship ("051107"). It's not a musical change from their first LP — clean, bouncy guitars, quick, punchy bass lines, occasional use of horns or strings, and Kupa and How's back-and-forth vocals — but it's a solid display of pop hooks and quick wit.

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#36 Mac DeMarco, 2

#35 Jessie Ware, Devotion

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  Devotion

  Jessie Ware

  2013 | Interscope/Cherrytree

  In the video for breakout single "Wildest Moments," UK singer Jessie Ware appears, dressed in white, in front of a blank white backdrop and begins to sing. And that is pretty much all that happens. But the thing is, not much more needs to happen: The song itself is potent, big, "Paper Plane"-style bass drums and Ware's smoky alto preaching the gospel of two-way love as a path to self-actualization. It's like... that throughout Devotion, Ware's sneakily seductive debut that fuses the best parts of '90s R&B with current trends in UK dance. Throughout, the music is deliciously underplayed: cool blankets of synths, percussion that percolates like an 8-bit coffeepot and the occasional filigree of guitar. It makes for a new kind of high-tech lover's rock, cruising sleek and quiet as a sports car on a city street in the hours just before the sun comes up. Like all the best crushes, it sneaks up on you unexpectedly, and takes a firm, unwavering hold.

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#34 Animal Collective, Centipede Hz

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  Centipede Hz

  Animal Collective

  2012 | Domino Recording Co

  The word on the street is that Animal Collective's ninth studio album – yes, ninth – is a red-blooded response to the sunshine and puppy dogs of Merriweather Post Pavilion. Which is true in regards to its approach (bashed instruments rather than stacked samples) and overall vibe (wild and wooly), but it's not like the group's core quartet is back to baking batches of incoherent noise rock. To understand where they're coming... from this time around, it helps to first cue up the podcasts that Animal Collective leaked in the weeks leading up to Centipede Hz's release; namely Geologist's set, which is based on an elaborate mix he made for producer Ben Allen before Animal Collective hit the studio.
  
  "We put together a list of songs that either encompassed the overall sound and vibe, or just had specific things we liked, such as drums sounds, or vocal effects," Geologist wrote in his Mixcloud notes. "For the final show of AC Radio we thought it'd be cool to play this inspirational mix and the album back to back."
  Sure enough, Animal Collective's leading loop surgeon offers more than a few clues about the background of what's initially a very bewildering listen, from Barrett-era Pink Floyd and latter day Portishead to slivers of psych, rarified garage rock and manic world music. None of which are immediately apparent on the first or 50th spin. Instead, Centipede Hz unfolds like a series of scrambled radio transmissions, right down to the tortured transitions between each track. It's as if the band's tapping into a broadcast from the great beyond, with little regard for the amphitheater-ready hooks that made Merriweather Post Pavilion such a joy. Where that album's leadoff single ("My Girls") flooded the endorphin levels of anyone within earshot, this one is prefaced by the stuttering rhythms and ravenous "let, let, let, let, let, let GO!" choruses of "Today's Supernatural." Listen to any of these songs loud enough and you'll be forced to step back a few feet; it's that harsh and heavy, from the trash compactor intro of "Moonjock" to the skittish synths of "Wide Eyed," the first song to feature lead vocals from the group's guitarist, Deakin.
  
  In conclusion, do not take the brown acid at your next Animal Collective show. Your synapses will thank you.

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#33 Christian Scott, Christian aTunde Adjuah

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  Christian aTunde Adjuah

  Christian Scott

  2012 | Concord Jazz

  New Orleans native Christian Scott has often shown a penchant for pushing the envelope. Though reliably anchored by his warm, typically muted trumpet work, his previous albums have incorporated influences from fusion to funk to world music. But with Christian aTunde Adjuah, the 29-year old takes a bold leap: A two-CD release comprised of 23 tracks, Christian aTunde Adjuah draws on New Orleans second-line rhythms, the African Diaspora and the electronic loop... programming of Squarepusher and Aphex Twin. These influences aren't always literal, but they dance around the edges of Scott's charged compositions like ghosts haunting a dream.
  
  Scott and his explosive, adventurous band — guitarist Matthew Stevens, drummer Jamire Williams, bassist Kris Funn, pianist Lawrence Fields, tenor saxophonist Kenneth Whalum III, alto saxophonist Louis Fouche IIII and trombonist Corey King — tackle some pretty serious themes, including, as the liner notes mention, "ethnic cleansing, kidnapping and…the rape of 400 indigenous African Sudanese." And that's only in the first track, "Fatima Aisha Rokero 400." Instrumentally, the group's common language, beyond their serious improvisation skills, is based on manually cycled loops, with each musician performing repetitive figures that recall electronic dance music, or, some might say, Live Evil-era Miles Davis. Scott's band imbues the music with a playful and fragmented nature, and his muted, Miles-inspired trumpet lends the music an eerie, forlorn quality.
  
  Disc two takes a similar approach, though with backbeats suggesting a contemporary, if still dark, pop-funk approach. "Jihad Joe" spirals and dances over a trancelike 7/4 pulse, Scott spewing trumpet scrawl, drummer Jamire Williams soloing like a spongy Tony Williams roving over the kit. "Liar Liar" could be Miles Davis's "Decoy" sampled and spliced for contemporary ears. The album closes with "Cara," a surprisingly gentle, piano based ballad that has the feel of sunrise to it, not the catharsis that came before.
  
  Though his band's cyclical rhythms sometimes sound static instead of propulsive and Scott's trumpet has a sameness in tonality and mood, there's no denying that Christian aTunde Adjuah is one hell of a growth spurt. The only moment in the set's two-disc sprawl where Scott acknowledges straight-ahead jazz bears a telling, sardonic title: "Who They Wish I Was," The message is clear: Scott will not be categorized.

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#32 Anais Mitchell, Young Man in America

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  Young Man In America

  Anais Mitchell

  2012 | Wilderland Records / The Orchard

  Anaïs Mitchell is a writer whose medium happens to be music. As a musician, though, her writerly achievements are undeniable: Her previous effort, 2010's Hadestown, reconceived the myth of Orpheus, coming to life first as a touring theater production and then as a 20-track album. On the follow-up (which also launches her own label), Mitchell avoids trying to top it and simply turns in 11 confident, moonlit folk songs that hang together... as a loose narrative concerning the dire state of the world, especially for those younger people who might have been more optimistic in another time. "Nothing's gonna stop me now," she sings repeatedly in "Coming Down," with hope replaced by weariness. Mitchell's voice is high and nasal, and it's to her and producer Todd Sickafoose's credit that the varied arrangements, which can evoke naturalistic scenes much like in Laura Veirs's music, are so complementary (especially on the dramatic one-two punch of the opening songs, "Wilderland" and the title track).

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#31 Converge, All We Love We Leave Behind

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  All We Love We Leave Behind

  Converge

  2012 | Epitaph

  In an era of decreasing album sales, making a living as a long-running band requires extensive touring. And yet, the longer a band has been around, the harder it is for them to drop everything and hit the road. Converge's eighth album, poignantly titled All We Love We Leave Behind, is a revealing glimpse into the kinds of personal frustrations that the band has typically kept behind closed doors. Songs like "Empty... on the Inside," "Sadness Comes Home" and the title track, in which frontman Jacob Bannon laments, "You deserve so much more than I could provide," vent pain and self-contempt with every verse.
  
  And yet it's these very same frustrations that have ironically helped keep the band fresh. Not only do Converge rage as hard as they did in 1994, when they released their first album Halo in a Haystack, they have developed numerous approaches with which to pummel listeners. "Aimless Arrows" contrasts speedy salvos of melodic guitar with hyper-kinetic drumming. The ironically-titled "Tender Abuse" matches death-metal blast beats with feral vocals and guitars that ring like sirens before ending with a half-speed breakdown that would put most metalcore bands to shame. "Trespasses" contrasts double-bass drumming and short, sharp riffs with angular flurries of blues-inflected guitar that sound more like Jesus Lizard. And "Sadness Comes Home" is augmented with Van Halen-style fingertapping that pogos through a kinetic hardcore forest fire. With All We Love We Leave Behind, Converge have expanded their horizons both lyrically and musically without compromising an iota of intensity, proving in the process that speed isn't the only path to sonic demolition. Twenty-two years into their career, Converge continue to craft sincere, relentless and aggressive metallic hardcore.

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#30 Mount Eerie, Clear Moon

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  Clear Moon

  Mount Eerie

  2012 | P.W. Elverum & Sun / The Orchard

  Phil Elverum almost never writes a song that's entirely its own thing. His body of work, initially as the Microphones and more recently as Mount Eerie, is full of missing twins, separated partners, self-pastiches and negative space. Clear Moon is itself a twin (he made another album, the forthcoming Ocean Roar, at the same time). It begins with "Through the Trees Pt. 2," a sequel to a song from 2009's Wind's... Poem. That's followed by (different!) songs called "The Place Lives" and "The Place I Live," both of which appeared in drastically different versions on a recent single. As usual, Elverum's lyrics draw on a tightly circumscribed vocabulary of phrases and nature images; the closest thing to a conventional song here is "House Shape," which resolves into My Bloody Valentine-style dream-pop after a couple of minutes of squinty drone-and-beat, as if he's finally worked out its shape.
  
  But Clear Moon is also just about the darkest recording Elverum has ever made — he's talked about how he was inspired by Werner Herzog's soundtrack composers Popol Vuh and black-metal band Burzum. Most of these songs are dominated by menacing, echoing synthesizer drones, punctuated by occasional terrifying shifts, like the blast-beat barrage of drums that crushes the final 30 seconds of "Over Dark Water." Elverum's voice is as naked and subdued as ever, and in the context of the slow, thunderous tracks here, it sounds as if he's pacing helplessly toward a final judgment.

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#29 Mirel Wagner, Mirel Wagner

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  Mirel Wagner

  Mirel Wagner

  2012 | Friendly Fire Recordings / The Orchard

  "All day I stay by her side," Mirel Wagner sings of her beloved in "No Death," the undeniable buzz cut from this Ethiopian-Finnish singer-songwriter's self-titled debut. "But death has a claim and a right to my bride." In fact, death has already exercised that claim: A stark minor-key blues made only of voice and guitar, "No Death" turns out to be one of an exceedingly small handful of tunes about the joys... of necrophilia. "Her body is cold/ Well, it's gonna get colder," Wagner acknowledges over carefully fingerpicked arpeggios, "But my love will ignite what was left to smolder." (Think she was tempted to sing "what was left of her shoulder"?) Elsewhere on this haunting nine-track set Wagner dials down the lyrical shock-and-awe a bit; in the relatively jaunty "No Hands" she even pauses a bike ride long enough to admire "the sun filter[ing] through the trees." But there's never any of the sweetening you expect from folks working in this kind of post-Nick Drake mode: no pillowy string arrangements or harmony vocal parts designed to reassure you that somebody else is out there. Wagner keeps her music as lean — and as sharp — as a razor's edge.

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#28 The Walkmen, Heaven

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  Heaven

  The Walkmen

  2012 | Fat Possum / The Orchard

  If you want to know why your smartest, most iconoclastic friends speak in hushed tones about The Walkmen, check out the opening track of their new album Heaven. In five minutes, this band seemingly sums up rock history, referencing doo wop, "The Duke Of Earl," folk-rock and Lou Reed's street poetry. All crowned by Hamilton Leithauser's winsome croon. This might explain all the hipster fuss.
  
  Still, Heaven isn't pastiche, despite betraying its influences.... Take "The Witch." Sure, the organ icily echoes Elvis Costello circa '78. But here, Leithauser's brings his very own romantic anomie. "It starts like this," he sings, "A kiss is just a kiss." Which introduces the overarching theme of the record: Love, man! Love so right. Love gone wrong. Guys who drive through Michigan just to taste it. But this album ain't just a mopefest for lovelorn eggheads. The band, especially guitarist Paul Maroon, backs Leithauser like an indie U2. That means muscle, not bombast. And U2 could never play a roadhouse instrumental like "Jerry's Tune."
  
  Maybe such eclecticism hasn't helped the band's commercial fortunes. But slip on these Walkmen and you won't care. Ten years on? Hah! These "Men" are just hitting their stride.

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#27 Spiritualized, Sweet Heart Sweet Light

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  Sweet Heart Sweet Light

  Spiritualized

  2012 | Fat Possum Records

  Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space is undoubtedly Jason Pierce's masterwork, but that hasn't stopped him from trying to top it from a variety of quixotic angles — witness the orchestral overkill of Let It Come Down, Amazing Grace's fairly unconvincing garage-rock rebranding, and Songs In A&E trying to micromanage spiritual epiphanies. Fortunately, Sweet Heart Sweet Light is a record that feels like a sigh of relief, his least labored... since Ladies and also the best since then. As you might be able to tell from the fact that two of its fantastic songs are titled "Hey Jane" and "Mary," and a song that begins "My mother said/ When she was so concerned/ Don't play with fire and you'll never get burned," this is quintessential Pierce, redemption rendered in seven-minute epics with bombastic string arrangements, gospel choirs, and the most transparent Velvet Underground references possible right alongside instantly memorable melodies. The glorious thing about Sweet Heart is how colorful, portable and manageable it is — every bit as skyscraping as Ladies And Gentlemen but nearly a half hour shorter, it's the closest thing to a Spiritualized "pop album" and subsequently one of the best of 2012 thus far.

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#26 Matthew Dear, Beams

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  Beams

  Matthew Dear

  2012 | Ghostly International / The Orchard

  At this point — 13 years, five albums, and several side projects into a preconception-skirting career as a producer/DJ/performer — it shouldn't be surprising to find Matthew Dear fully embracing his inner Eno, Bowie and Byrne. And yet, longtime fans still shout "play 'Dog Days'!" at some of his shows, as if they wish he'd stop trying to be a bandleader and return to his twisted techno roots behind the soft glow... of a laptop and some MIDI triggers.
  
  That's not gonna happen. Beams is yet another step in Dear's welcome evolution as a songwriter. Not a party-rocker. Not a floor-filler. A songwriter. And since he started off as more of a club crawler — a micro-house auteur, to use the short-lived, oh-so-2003 term — Dear isn't quite a pop star just yet. He's getting there, though, as proven by the unparalleled perfection of this album's lead-off single, "Her Fantasy." A career standout, it's willfully wild and downright weird, from its Kenneth Anger-cribbing music video to its woozy rave whistle and incessant sampled chorus of "Pump it!/ Pump the bass!" The rest of the record follows suit with one decidedly strange detour after another, including the tortured nervous tics of "Earthforms," the lava-like loops and minor-keyed downward spiral of "Shake Me," and the deviant disco of "Up & Out."
  
  It takes at least 10 listens to sink in, and even then it's a grower, but Dear's released yet another record that's completely removed from the rest of his catalog. Now all he needs to do is cut 10 tracks that are as tight as "Her Fantasy." Then he'll have a true classic on his hands.

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#25 Angel Olsen, Half Way Home

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  Half Way Home

  Angel Olsen

  Bathetic Records

  "You won't always be walking the safest street/ but you can find your way home," Angel Olsen sings in "Lonely Universe," from her sophomore album Half Way Home. The album's seven-and-a-half-minute centerpiece is a poignant, gut-wrenching account of losing a loved one: "Goodbye, sweet Mother Earth/ without you now, I'm a lonely universe," she laments. But instead of just sulking, she assures others in her position that if they've even begun to... think about the path back to normal, they're already halfway there. Throughout these 11 tracks, Olsen attempts to make sense of the journey from lost to found, and she does it gracefully with songs about birth and death, darkness and lightness, and giving and receiving love.
  
  Olsen, who's spent the last couple years singing alongside Bonnie "Prince" Billy, has a soulful voice that often cracks as it slips into her higher register, setting her somewhere in the same range as '70s folkie Judee Sill. Her songs are often founded on acoustic fingerpicking and vocals, best in delicate tracks like "Safe in the Womb" and "You Are Song." But in "The Waiting" she channels jangly '60s girl groups as she sings, "I need you to be the one who calls," and it's easy to imagine the album closer "Tiniest Seed" with a gospel choir singing behind her.

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#24 Royal Headache, Royal Headache

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  Royal Headache

  Royal Headache

  2012 | What's Your Rupture?

  In the end, it all comes down to Shogun's voice, a ragged rasp that falls somewhere squarely between young Rod Stewart and sad Otis Redding and infuses every one of the songs on Royal Headache's roaring debut with a big old battered heart. It's easy to miss the first few times: The songs whoosh by like vintage funny cars whipping around a red-dirt race track, antic and spitting flames. But look a... little closer and it's clear the driver is crying: On "Girls," he howls, "Didn't I tell you over and over I want the key to your heart?" and on "Really in Love," which kicks and struts like a rough demo from the first Jam record, he asks, "Maybe you think you're smart…but are you really in love?" It's as if Shogun got lost en route to a Stax cover-band audition and ended up sitting in on a Buzzcocks tribute instead. His searing yelp and full-body delivery make Royal Headache's songs feel instantly vital. Call it the Sound of the Young Down Under.

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#23 Tame Impala, Lonerism

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  Lonerism

  Tame Impala

  2012 | Modular Fontana

  Aussie psych-rocker outfit Tame Impala's sophomore effort opens not with a bang, but a whisper – a literal whisper, breathy and insistent, that lazily warps into something else. Fractals of reverb and pedal effect peel off into a glass-eyed haze. Frontman Kevin Parker sings like a latter-day John Lennon, Instagrammed and amplified and fed through subpar speakers. The whole thing builds to a psych-rock anthem so shimmery, so positively prismatic, that it's... easy to forget that Parker prefers downers to stimulants. There lies the weird, cognitive dissonance at the heart of Lonerism: It's an album about sadness that sounds anything but sad.
  
  In the U.S., at least, that's a pretty novel concept; we demonize loners and introverts to the point that PhDs give TED talks on the subject. But Lonerism, like Innerspeaker before it, plays more like a celebration of isolation than a confession or defense. Songs like "Elephant" and "Why Won't They Talk to Me?" are trippy Rorschach blots – full of sun and slow burn if you don't listen to lyrics, and subsumed by self-pity if you do. "Elephant" seems particularly destined for edgy car commercials or dancey dive bars, with its obstinate one-two baseline and weird organ whorls. It's too bad Tame Impala draw so much inspiration from loneliness – Lonerism will make them plenty of friends.

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#22 Beach House, Bloom

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  Bloom

  Beach House

  2012 | Sub Pop Records

  On Bloom, the fourth record by Baltimore duo Beach House, there aren't hooks so much as sultry tendrils perpetually beckoning towards some smoky, purple-lit back alley that never entirely materializes. Alex Scally's guitar ribbons and diddles over synths that twinkle and grind, and Victoria LeGrand's voice is woozy and dark and supple. Increasingly, the words she sings hardly seem to matter, but listen close and there are snippets of sleepless nights, strange... paradises, and the ability of the world to swallow you whole. Bloom's tracklist looks slight, but with every song pushing five minutes it's actually a long, slow burn; there's even an old-school hidden track tacked onto the nearly seven minutes of silence that following thrumming closer "Irene." It's a record that almost expects to hang around in the background, pulsing and twirling and ebbing in and out of consciousness. But it also functions incredibly well as an intimate headphones album: Even piped through dinky earbuds, it makes one hell of a private soundtrack, rendering the most gloriously mundane moments of life unreasonably, fiercely cool.

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#21 godspeed you! black emperor, Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!

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  Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!

  godspeed you! black emperor

  2012 | Constellation / SC Distribution

  When Godspeed You! Black Emperor disbanded in 2003, they didn't exactly go out with a bang: Their last album, 2002's undercooked, over-thought Yanqui U.X.O., was upstaged by its packaging, which included a chart that linked missile companies to major labels. So when the group reconvened in late 2010 to play a handful of dates, including All Tomorrow's Parties in Minehead, England, it seemed like a second chance. Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!, their... comeback full-length announced just two weeks ago, offers resounding redemption.
  
  Along with their penchant for cryptic, seemingly coded titles, the group's facility with sprawling, majestically apocalyptic suites remains intact. 'Allelujah!, like their best material, conveys an unnamable dread that lies well outside the purview of lyrics (they don't have any) and standard song structures (which they explode). The expected elements remain – heraldic guitars, jarring sound collages, disquieting drones, roiling crescendos – yet they combine in new and unexpected ways. In fact, it shows the band rediscovering and reclaiming its primary mission, which is to make music that is heavy in both sound and concept.
  
  'Allelujah! contains four tracks: two short drone/collage pieces as well as two towering compositions that lurch and lumber well past the ten-minute mark, contorting into unexpected shapes along the way. Despite being persistently tagged "post-rock," Godspeed do not stray far from actual rock, specifically the proto-metal of the late '60s and early '70s. "We Drift Like Worried Fire" moves with an apocalyptic stomp similar to Black Sabbath, while a Zeppelinesque exoticism/eroticism defines opener "Mladic." That heaviness lends the album a gravity and immediacy that Yanqui lacked, yet there are no solos, no lead instruments, no blazing displays of technique. In short, no egos. That each Godspeeder is absorbed into the collective makes 'Allelujah! sound bracing and bold, instilling these doom-laden songs with a sense of renewed promise.

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#20 The Twilight Sad, No One Can Ever Know

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  No One Can Ever Know

  The Twilight Sad

  2012 | FatCat Records / The Orchard

  White-knuckled brooding, it turns out, is a many-splendored thing, as the Twilight Sad fortuitously discovers on its triumphantly depressive third album. The gloomy Glasgownoise-rockers' 2007 debut, Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters, introduced a cathartic, tempestuous band in the tradition of other downcast Scottish racket-makers like Mogwai or Arab Strap. 2009 sophomore outing Forget the Night Ahead, meanwhile, did away with the arena-ready choruses and dialed up the churning My... Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth guitar tempests, intensifying the guilt-wracked emotional purge but doing away with easy entry points. From there, it wouldn't have been unreasonable to predict a career of diminishing returns. Or else implosion.
  
  The latter, in a sense, is what happens on No One Can Ever Know, and it's a brutally gripping thing to behold. Working with famed U.K. producer-remixer Andy Weatherall, who's credited as having "anti-produced" the album, lead moaner James Graham and the lads delve deeper into the recesses of their own unfathomable personal darkness, and emerge with a compelling new sound salvaged from the scrap metal of a previous recession's industrial blight. Mechanical beats and icy synths spar with stormy guitar and Graham's ever-richer Scottish burr in a jagged, lonesome space that updates the band's forebears in foreboding. See the Radiohead-haunted guitar of advance single "Sick," the Depeche Mode bass line of "Another Bed," or the hammering Krautrock throb of "Dead City." Setting it all apart are Graham's obliquely harrowing vocals, which end the album almost a cappella, the scent of blood in the air.

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#19 Julia Holter, Ekstasis

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  Ekstasis

  Julia Holter

  2012 | RVNG INTL. / SC Distribution

  Julia Holter makes music for an ever-changing carnival of the mind. One moment she's cooing dreamily, like a woman lost in the clouds of her own imagining, and the next she's thinking her way through incisive lyrics about the cerebral '60s art-film Last Year at Marienbad. Some of her sounds come across as childlike and lost, others are clearly and thoroughly composed. She demonstrates incredible range, often in the space of a... single time-defying song. It makes for an impressive mix of moods, one that Holter first revealed on Tragedy, her striking debut from late 2010 that wowed most of those who heard it. Just a few months later comes Ekstasis, another album made up of its own distinctive charms. "Marienbad" opens in a stately fashion, striking out into in an expectant expanse between the Beach Boys at their most elegant and the smeary psychedelic surplus of bands like Broadcast. Somehow, even as it invokes allusions to styles from distant pasts, Ekstasis sounds contemporary and new. Parts played on what sounds like lutes and harpsichords mingle with ethereal electronics, and Holter's affecting voice - small but resourceful in the way it wanders - makes for a sense of immediacy that rewards full attention in the here and now.

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#18 First Aid Kit, The Lion’s Roar

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  The Lion's Roar

  First Aid Kit

  2012 | Wichita Recordings / Redeye

  Stockholm's a long way from Folsom Prison, a fact that hasn't escaped First Aid Kit. The Lion's Roar, the Swedish duo's sharp, sepia-toned sophomore album, bridges that gap with "Emmylou," an homage to Ms. Harris that makes the ultimate offer for lovers of Woodstock-era country: "I'll be your Emmylou and I'll be your June/ if you'll be my Gram and my Johnny, too," sisters Klara and Johanna Söderberg pledge. As it turns... out, though, they're not looking for leading men: "No, I'm not asking much of you/ just sing, little darling, sing with me."
  
  The Lion's Roar is a record of romantic pragmatism and bold orchestration. Producer Mike Mogis (notable mainly for his work with Bright Eyes, whose Conor Oberst appears briefly here on "King of the World") helps clothe the naked twang of the band's debut with light-handed percussion, pedal steel, strings and rippling pianos, keeping the spotlight brightly on the Söderberg's familial harmonies. A Neko Case-like minor-key gloom rolls in on the title track and "I Found a Way," among others, but most of the songs stick to the sunshine. Gram and Johnny can rest easy - First Aid Kit can take it from here.

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#17 Passion Pit, Gossamer

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  Gossamer

  Passion Pit

  2012 | Columbia

  Passion Pit's 2009 debut, Manners, had a childlike approach to music. The album's Technicolor electropop felt akin to messy fingerpainting experiments, with its sing-song vocals, playground-joyful keyboards and squirrelly synth effects. Gossamer isn't quite as playful, but that's a good thing: The album's forays into slinky R&B ("Constant Conversations"), sleek Swedish indiepop ("Cry Like A Ghost"), neon new wave ("Carried Away") and Disney-movie whimsy ("On My Way") evince more depth. The songs... themselves are also rich with detail, from the music-box-gone-mad twinkles at the start of "Love Is Greed" to the warm background coos from Swedish a cappella group Erato that are sprinkled throughout.
  
  Gossamer's lyrics reflect this measured, meticulous approach, addressing fragile romance, fallible humanity and love's sweet simplicity. "I'll Be Alright," on which a soaring pop lilt gets mussed by what sounds like a malfunctioning cassette, chooses optimism in the face of self-loathing: "I've made so many messes/And this love has grown so restless/ I won't let you go the mess/ I'll be alright," sings vocalist Michael Angelakos. "Where We Belong" channels James Blake by way of Björk, grafting Angelakos's harrowing falsetto to glitchy programming and sweeping strings as he delivers aching sentiments: "But I believe in you/ Do you believe in me, too?"
  
  For Angelakos, uncluttered headspace is a luxury — and, judging by his well-documented struggles, it doesn't come easy. However, his willingness to address this entire emotional continuum, while still maintaining Passion Pit's sense of adventure, makes Gossamer a win.

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#16 The Flaming Lips, The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends

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  The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends

  The Flaming Lips

  2012 | Warner Bros.

  No one combines sawmill-roar noise, dying-planet sadness and mad-scientist glee with the heartfelt sincerity of The Flaming Lips. In return, the music world writes Wayne Coyne and his fellow Oklahomans a blank creative check, which they cash with sonic shenanigans that should leave a big, unruly mess but instead reliably yield something endearingly sweet. Amid all their gratuitous drug references and onstage theatrics, the Lips can shape chaos into emotionally comprehensible order... in a way that's uniquely their own, no matter how thoroughly they pillage classic rock's bathroom cabinet.
  
  Here, they put that good will to daredevil use on a collaborative album that combines tracks from vinyl EPs recorded and released last year with other co-op cuts. The opening track, "2012 (You Must Be Upgraded)," pulls off an unlikely trick, uniting Ke$ha's bad-girl drunk-pop with the Lips' psychedelic noise in a one-chord dance jam that takes an unexpected turn into Strawberry Fields territory before circling back to where it spastically started. "Ashes in the Air," meanwhile, spoofs Bon Iver but with Bon Iver's actual participation on falsetto vocals. Like many of the duets on the album, its phantasmical balladry is violently interrupted by gusts of distortion, feedback and other baloney.
  
  The influence of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" drifts like a specter throughout Heady Fwends: The Tame Impala collabo, "Children of the Moon," echoes it via kindred acoustic guitar strum and cosmic dada lust, while on the self-descriptive, Lightning Bolt-assisted "I'm Working at NASA on Acid" Coyne floats in his tin can until it blasts off, descends back to earth, and then buoys away again to be reconfigured with Neon Indian in "Is David Bowie Dying?" The clincher is the slo-mo rendition of Ewan MacColl's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face": Erykah Badu sings the Robert Flack-popularized standard an echo-laden childlike soprano even more spaced-out than her usual croon, and the Lips send her off like a helium balloon into a cotton candy cosmos. There's the strong suggestion that, like Bowie's Major Tom, she may never return to Earth.

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#15 Parquet Courts, Light Up Gold

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  Light Up Gold

  Parquet Courts

  2013 | What's Your Rupture?

  Anyone looking for a shorthand to describe the devil-may-care attitude pervading Light Up Gold, the irresistible debut from Brooklyn band Parquet Courts, will find it 24 seconds into the first song, when Austin Brown first sneers the album's most indelible hook: "Forget about it!" It's meant sarcastically — he's playing the part of a privileged one-percenter looking down his nose through his monocle at the unwashed masses — but it's a good... indication of the jaundiced eye through which Parquet Courts view our troubled times. Like the most beloved cult movies, the thing that makes Light Up Gold so addicting is its infinite quotability. On regional cuisine? "As for Texas: Donuts Only. You cannot find bagels here." On the value of wisdom? "Socrates died in the fucking gutter." And on the job market? "The lab is out of white lab coats/ 'cause there are no more slides and microscopes/ But there are still careers in combat, my son." They drop these bon mots between jagged guitar lines that sound like they were lifted from Wire's 154 — bent-coathanger leads that teeter on the steep incline between punk and post-punk. But Light Up Gold's greatest irony is that its creators aren't ironic at all. In their interview with Douglas Wolk, they stressed the importance of emotional honesty, and as the album goes on it becomes clear their acrid wit isn't the result of disaffection but deep-seated alarm. Sarcasm is the scalpel they use to dissect contemporary culture, turning its ambivalence against itself and exposing is rotten core. Insight like that is as rare as a bagel in Texas.

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#14 Marina and the Diamonds, Electra Heart

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  Electra Heart

  Marina And The Diamonds

  2012 | Elektra

  Writing performance art pop with titles like "Bubblegum Bitch" and "Teen Idle" for an insular indie audience is one thing. Doing it with A-level producers who've crafted hits for Madonna, Britney and Rihanna while coming on like an explicitly feminist cross between Tori Amos and Katy Perry is quite another. On her U.K.chart-topping second album, Welsh singer Marina Diamondis of Marina and the Diamonds battles errant boyfriends, critiques feminine societal roles, and... examines her own psyche and how it unravels in failed relationships — all in synch to relentless dance beats aimed squarely at the international mainstream.
  
  Diamondis makes her message even more challenging by freely flitting from satire to sincerity and back again so that it's never really clear if she's playing at being a "Primadonna" — a deserved U.K. hit — or confessing that, yeah, she is indeed guilty of self-absorption. Her warbling, dramatic vocal tone magnifies that ambiguity; even when she's flat-out declaring, "My life is a play," Diamondis suggests that her theatrical disconnect from her own genuine feelings isn't simply personal; that it's part and parcel of being female in a conflicting world. What she sometimes lacks in nuance she compensates with hooks honed by Dr. Luke, Rick Nowels, Greg Kurstin, Stargate, a former Sneaker Pimp and one-third of Swedish House Mafia. This isn't a women's studies course taught by a seasoned professor; it's an unabashed dance record in which an ambitious young singer uses the tools of popular culture to examine both her self and her sex.

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#13 El-P, Cancer4Cure

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  Cancer 4 Cure

  El-P

  2012 | Fat Possum Records

  El-P's music has always been a mix of sci-fi futurist grandiosity and old-school rap grime, like watching a chromed-out chromed-out, mile-long spaceship reenact the Licensed to Ill cover. Cancer 4 Cure has some familiar hallmarks: El still pushes analog synth distortion until it growls like a '70s stoner-metal guitar; he still sneaks classic hip-hop signifiers into an otherwise dystopian-tomorrow sound (Billy Squier and the J.B.'s always seem to survive the apocalypse), his... drums still break bones, and he still spits verbiage like he's letting loose internal-rhyme-twisting panic attacks. (His words, in opener "Request Denied": "I'm a 'holy fuck, what did he just utter' marksman".) But he's rarely sounded this full-throttle start to finish — the sounds aren't just pushed to the red but knifepoint immediate. And for all the hints of space-age debris on the margins, El recognizes that 2012 NYC is its own kind of Ridley Scott future. So he stays a master of reality, from the domestic-victim solidarity story of "For My Upstairs Neighbor" (the indelible sing-song chorus: "if you kill him I won't tell") to the police-state-ducking "Drones Over BKLYN" to the con-artist psyche-out "The Jig Is Up."

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#12 Japandroids, Celebration Rock

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  Celebration Rock

  Japandroids

  2012 | Polyvinyl Records

  Japandroids' Celebration Rock begins and ends with fireworks — not the county-fair variety, but the cheap, barely legal kind you set off in the woods with friends and then run away, giggling uncontrollably. The sound sets the tone for a sizzling, incandescent burst of a record, one that conjoins punk-rock fist-aloft solidarity and weepy heartland-rock sentimentality in one 35-minute-long bro-hug. Expect a lot of sloppy back-patting, acres of generous sentiment and a... surplus of the sorts of lines perfectly calibrated to shout joyously in the face of your closest friends. "We're lashing out at evil's sway tonight," for example. Or "Don't we have anything to live for?/ Well, of course we do, but until they come true/ We're drinking." It's a record that demands to be heard, and loved, in groups.
  
  Which doesn't make it mindless. As is usually the case with especially fierce good cheer, Celebration Rock is borne of desperation: The two-man Japandroids were minutes away from breaking apart, wilting under a lack of momentum, when they recorded its eight gasping, suitcase-compact anthems. Lead singer Brian King nearly died (perforated ulcer, an ailment about as far from "carefree rock 'n' roll" as you can get). A scan of the lyrics, excised from endorphins, unearths some fairly dark thoughts: "It's a lifeless life/ With no fixed address to give/ But you're not mine to die for anywhere, so I must live," King screams on "The House That Heaven Built." With just a guitar and a drum kit, meanwhile, the lifelong friends generate enough heat and momentum for an entire E Street band. Songs surge forward recklessly, explode, and then plow forward again. The relentless hurtling mirrors the philosophy expressed in the lyrics: Embrace life with the energy of an over-eager Labrador Retriever, no matter what it throws your way.

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#11 Dirty Projectors, Swing Lo Magellan

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  Swing Lo Magellan

  Dirty Projectors

  2012 | Domino Recording Co

  Before Dirty Projectors' David Longstreth sings his first lead vocal on the Brooklyn sextet's sixth album, the bandleader clears his throat. Swing Lo Magellan is that kind of album — pointedly casual. It mixes dryly recorded, seemingly live-in-the-studio performances with strings/flute/clarinet/trumpet accompaniment on several songs by the avant-classical chamber ensemble yMusic. Most of Longstreth and Amber Coffman's guitars sound as though they were plugged directly into their amps without effects pedals or... distortion, and the band's harmonies appear similarly blunt and candid: Even when they emulate the twists and turns of contemporary R&B, there's nary an AutoTuned note. Yet few would deem anything here folksy, artless or improvised: This is strategically unpolished stuff from the complicated heads of well-educated aesthetes.
  
  The result is both immediate and puzzling. More than ever, Longstreth writes accessible pop melodies, but he still puts the accents and the syncopations in unexpected places, like on the otherwise uncharacteristically direct love ballad "Impregnable Question." His singing evinces both the rawness of indie rock and the heart-on-sleeve emotiveness of mainstream pop, while the accompaniment boasts the bumpy time signatures and wrench-throwing extra measures the bandleader mastered while studying music composition at Yale.
  
  And then there are the lyrics, which alternate between straightforward statements and allegorical poetry without any shifts in tone to suggest what's what. It's implied from its title that "Just from Chevron" deals with the evils of the oil industry, but Longstreth intentionally garbles some of the key lines; this song, like much of the rest, requires close, repeated studying to fully reveal itself. The notable exception is the last one, "Irresponsible Tune," which offers strummed acoustic guitar, bucketloads of reverb, and haunted background harmonies to suggest the gospel outings of Elvis Presley. In it, the toiling musician despairs over the ultimate significance of his artistic endeavors in a violent world until, suddenly, a bird at his window capriciously chirps. It's a moment that, unlike the enigmatic rest, needs no explanation.

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#10 Sharon Van Etten, Tramp

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  Tramp (Deluxe Edition)

  Sharon Van Etten

  2012 | Jagjaguwar / SC Distribution

  Tramp, the emotionally candid third album from Brooklyn-based songwriter Sharon Van Etten, is a slow burn: most of the songs capture the intensity of the moments before a quietly smoldering tree becomes a raging wildfire. Take the lead-off single, "Serpents," which begins with calmly strummed yet unmistakably ominous chords. Then it explodes into something blazing and defiant: "You enjoy sucking on dreams," Van Etten seethes, "So I will fall asleep with someone... other than you."
  
  Since her 2009 debut Because I Was In Love - which featured largely acoustic guitar work and her beguiling, cigarette wisp of a voice - Van Etten's sound has become more expansive with each release. Tramp isn't just her best yet, it's also her most densely populated, boasting an impressive roster of indie guest stars like Beirut's Zach Condon, Wye Oak's Jenn Wasner (who contributes vocals on "Serpents"), avant-chanteuse Julianna Barwick, Walkmen drummer Matt Barick, and most prominently guitarist Aaron Dessner of the National, who also recorded Tramp in his Brooklyn garage-turned-studio.
  
  Tramp may be an unflinching chronicle of a relationship gone sour (check out the exceptionally poignant "Give Out": "It's not because I always give up/ It might be I always give out"), but it's at its most powerful when it's about more than just getting burned; Van Etten also sings about gathering the courage to build something new on charred ground. "Time is what I would need," she tells a new lover on "Leonard," while the lively mandolin strums spring up like sprouts after a long winter. Tramp finds transcendence in its final act, with the sparse closer "Joke or a Lie" glimmering like a new dawn. "It's bad to believe in any song you sing," she sings on the penultimate track, but the resonant honesty of Tramp proves 12 times over just how wrong she is about that.

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#9 Killer Mike, R.A.P. Music

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  R.A.P. Music

  Killer Mike

  2012 | Williams Street Records

  Atlanta-based rapper Killer Mike and NYC rapper/producer El-P are local legends who have at times seemed like their best years were behind them. In that sense, R.A.P. Music is a little bit like Blaqkout, the excellent 2009 collaboration between DJ Quik and Kurupt — an album made that much sweeter by the fact that so few would've predicted it.
  
  Mike is a classicist, a real-talk rapper doing what in his view, song and... dance men wouldn't dare: "This is church, front pew, amen, pulpit, what my people need and the opposite of bullshit," he boasts on the title track. Given how gifted he is, his own lack of commercial success serves as proof that the state of rap as popular music might be as fouled-up as he claims. Mike's clever this way: What might've been interpreted as failure has been recycled as badge of integrity. It's an angle he's been pushing at least since last year's Pl3dge: "I'm in positions that these other rappers envy/ They major-broke and I get-rich indie."
  
  Part of what makes R.A.P. Music better than Mike's past efforts is its concision, but an even bigger part is El-P's production. For all its throwback talk and references, R.A.P. is a wildly diverse album, mixing north with south and '80s with aughts, an album so schizoid in its approach to time that it could probably only have been made now. As a lyricist Mike is, well, discontent — about politics, about black American life, about the state of the music he loves. At one point he manages to finagle two women into his garage and he still sounds pissed off. Whatever nuance is lost in his opinions is gained in how he delivers them — if for no other reason, appreciate Mike as a stuntman who, regardless of how long the jump, never falls. Despite all the wrist-slapping and heavy pretenses, it's a great album, one so carefully calibrated to sound like a rap classic that someday it might actually turn out to be one.

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#8 Miguel, Kaleidoscope Dream

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  Kaleidoscope Dream

  Miguel

  2012 | ByStorm Entertainment/RCA Records

  Just what kind of R&B visionary is the ascendant star Miguel? While every bit as ambitious Frank Ocean and just as committed to the craft of songwriting as Terius Nash, aka The-Dream, Miguel is far less interested in making big conceptual statements. Because of this, it's hard to know right away who he is, exactly, or what his goals are. Is he a fearless freak? An introvert? A do-you crooner? Or a... canny chart-seeker?
  
  The answer turns out to be all of the above. His first album ran 43 minutes and opened with a sharp, undeniable pop song ("Sure Thing"). Kaleidoscope Dream is 42 minutes, and kicks off with the already-popular lead single "Adorn," a supplicant's mid-tempo jam with a telling angle: Miguel makes the case for his lover-man bona fides not on it'll-move-the-earth-under-your-feet grounds, but because it'll work for what you've already got going on, like a sharp accessory: "Let my love adorn you," he pleads modestly. The self-negation involved in his come-ons — he openly requests to be defiled during "Use Me" — gives more insight into what might be driving Kaleidoscope Dream than its title does.
  
  There's a bashful quality even on some of the more direct offerings. "Don't Look Back" starts out in radio-courting fashion but closes with a surprise coda that reveals a songwriter's affinity for making every part of a pop song count. He only stumbles towards the end, with "Candles in the Sun," which flicks at a social consciousness he hasn't figured out how to carry as convincingly as the seduction-and-pain material. But who said sharply played, tightly written R&B isn't meaningful all on its own? Miguel, rather like Prince, is a weirdo with a surfeit of hooks and the chops to put them over. In an age of outsized R&B innovators, he's our subtle auteur.

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#7 Cloud Nothings, Attack on Memory

• 

  Attack On Memory

  Cloud Nothings

  2012 | Carpark Records

  For the last few years, 20-year-old Cleveland native Dylan Baldi has been recording a steady torrent of endearing lo-fi pop contagions. Released under the name Cloud Nothings, Baldi's songs are so simply constructed, so innately hooky, they almost sound easy: His 2010 compilation Turning On was a happy murk of lint-covered guitars, three-floors-below drums, and vocals so crackly, they could have been sampled off a ham-radio. Last year's self-titled follow-up was crisper... and snappier, bounding along with the sort of energy of school kids finally released into the wilds of summertime.
  
  Baldi could easily have replicated that joyful noise sound for a few more albums, and no one would really have objected. Thankfully, though, he got bored. And bold. And kinda angry. Attack on Memory contains a lot of recognizable Cloud Nothings DNA - speedy riffs, forebrain-hugging melodies - but it grafts them onto a monstrous-sounding framework, courtesy of engineer Steve Albini. On Memory, Baldi's ostensibly straightforward power-pop numbers are stretched out and bulked up so efficiently, it feels like he somehow jumped three records ahead in less than year.
  
  In fact, Memory veers so forcefully from its predecessors that, at first listen, it's a bit jarring: The opening track, "No Future No Past," is a slow-burn grind of spangled, in-utero guitars and tortured vocals, with Baldi intoning the words "give up/ come to/ no hope/ we're through" so harshly, it sounds as though his larynx is going to flip him off and jump out of his throat. Even more adventurous is "Wasted Days," a nine-minute(!) peal with a lithe, lupine guitar break that sounds like Greg Sage conducting Hawkwind.
  
  Baldi hasn't given up on the quick-fix pop song, as evidenced by short, piercing numbers like "Fall In" and "Our Plan." But even those tracks feel mega, emboldened by Jayson Gerycz's battering-ram drums and Baldi's squeezed-dry vocals (by the time the album finishes, you're surprised he's able to get a word out at all). Those who've followed Cloud Nothings thus far will be happily walloped by Memory, yet even newcomers will find it a blast, in every sense of the word.

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#6 Matthew E. White, Big Inner

• 

  Big Inner

  Matthew E. White

  2013 | Domino Recording Co

  Richmond, Virginia-reared singer/songwriter/arranger Matthew E. White recently confessed to music blog Aquarium Drunkard that he had made a pilgrimage of sorts to Randy Newman's home in L.A. a few years back. Rather than stalk the venerable songwriter/Oscar-winning soundtrack composer at a distance, though, White worked up the nerve to ring the man's doorbell and hand off his own music. If it was a copy of his poised debut, Big Inner, there's a... good chance Newman might soon be ringing White up.
  
  The biggest man to ever utter a line like "I am a barracuda/ I am a hurricane" and make it into the gentlest of admissions, White emerges on Big Inner fully steeped in the nuanced, vigilant and incisive songcraft of the likes of totemic American tunesmiths like Newman, Allen Toussaint and Lambchop's Kurt Wagner. And while such debuts are usually tinged by youthful exuberance and metabolism, there's such patience in White's delivery and his backing band's pacing that belie their years.
  
  Opener "One of These Days" simmers and sees through the temporality of the world, White assuring his betrothed that even though "we all pass away/ everyone finds a way," he still wants to be there "when the glory fades…and never turn away." His whispers mingle with Dixieland horns and a crisp backbeat on "Will You Love Me," and he sounds positively sage when he sings at that song's climax: "Darkness can't drive out darkness/ only love can do that." The dilapidated yet regal strings of "Hot Toddies" sound as drunken and quietly mirthful as vintage Newman, while the nine stirring minutes of closer "Brazos" cloaks itself in cresting strings, a driving bassline and gospel choir that evokes Spiritualized's sense of redemption through sound. Underneath almost every song there pulses New Orleans's second line strut. You can hear it buoy the uptempo "Steady Pace" as White ensures his love with the same sense of calm that he and his band deploy throughout this magnificent debut: "We can take our time."

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#5 Allo Darlin’, Europe

• 

  Europe

  Allo Darlin'

  2012 | Slumberland Records / The Orchard

  "You said, 'A record is not just a record, records can hold memories/ All these records sound the same to me, and I'm full up with memory,'" Elizabeth Morris sings on "My Sweet Friend," the last track of Allo Darlin's sophomore album Europe. The U.K. indiepop band's 2010 self-titled debut was about the anticipation and excitement of new love: Morris sang about kissing on Ferris wheels, wondered where she'd end up... after the bar closed, and insisted, "One fine day, I'm gonna be your girl." Europe has the same emotional intimacy and nuance of its predecessor, but instead of sitting on the edge of her seat waiting for something to happen, this time Morris is writing from a distance, reflecting on love that's come and gone.
  
  Many of Europe's songs begin with an idyllic setup — in the sun with a bottle of wine, in a car with the windows down, walking down a street in New York — with Morris implying that everything was better back then. In opening track "Neil Armstrong," she sings, "Then why did you say that you miss a simpler time?/ Well, so do I, and I find myself pining for you." In "Some People Say," she wishes "some things would stay the same," while remembering a perfect day and wondering what her then-lover is doing now.
  
  The record also tells the story of music's power in a relationship — how certain songs suddenly Mean Something when you think you might be in love. In "Some People Say," a slow number with strings and bending lap steel guitar, Morris references "a song that to me has a hidden meaning," and in "The Letter," she looks back on a failed relationship, singing, "But we can't help the things we choose/ And I pictured you singing the Silver Jews." This arc shows how much the band has matured in the last couple years, and you can hear it in their sound as well. There's still a sunny surf-pop vibe in tracks like "Northern Lights," "The Letter" and "Still Young," and playful, triumphant guitars in "Capricornia" and "Wonderland." But on Europe, Allo Darlin' sound bigger and fuller, and they've found a perfect balance where everyone's heard but no one overpowers. Morris's voice also has more muscle, and they've left a tiny bit of the twee-ness behind without losing an ounce of charm.
  
  But while part of what makes Europe so special is its grandiosity, its best song is its most simple. "Tallulah," played only on ukulele, begins in a car with bad music on the radio, until Morris's partner finds a cassette containing the Go-Betweens album Tallulah. Later, they're in a bar with a shitty DJ, so they flee to another one that's playing Toots and the Maytals. With letters written on magazine pages and postcards, and thoughts of what could have been, it's an anthem for all of us romantic saps who do things like make a mental playlist of songs and bands it'll be hard to listen to after the breakup. In that song she also sings, "I'm wondering if/ I've already heard/ all the songs that'll mean something/ and I'm wondering if/ I've already met/ all the people that'll mean something." In a way, those lines sum up all of Europe: There's no way to tell whether life would have been better had things worked out differently, or if the best is still yet to come, or if everything is perfect the way it is right now.

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#4 Kendrick Lamar, good kid, m.A.A.d city

• 

  good kid, m.A.A.d city

  Kendrick Lamar

  2013 | Top Dawg / Aftermath / Interscope

  The connective tissue of Kendrick Lamar's major-label debut is a series of not-quite skits — prayers, voicemails, front-seat conversation — that string together an album that reveals itself as a long day in his adolescence. This isn't exactly a new trick in rap, but it's rare that found sound is so immersive, and so effective at absorbing the listener. Then again, the Compton rapper subtitled the album "a short film by Kendrick... Lamar," so maybe it shouldn't come as a surprise that good kid, m.A.A.d city is purely cinematic in scope and execution.
  
  It is, to be clear, a striking achievement. Yet the truest strength of the album is that it still hits even once you've untangled its various knots. The complex narrative is a leap in ambition for Lamar, but in doing so he's retained the elements of his writing that made him famous in the first place. On his last album, Section.80, he showed a keen eye for observing, analyzing and understanding those close to him, and it's from that place this record grows.
  
  The story isn't the only thing that stuns. Despite being raised in L.A. rap's epicenter and mentored for years by Dr. Dre, good kid sounds like it was stewed in the South. Its sonic bedrock is the same muted, plaintive future-funk that bathed the Alabama group G-Side's Starshipz & Rockets — a sound shaped for, and by, dark nights and deep thoughts.
  
  In totality, the album awakens the spirits of Outkast's legendary Aquemini — no small praise, indeed. That is rarified air in hip-hop, but Kendrick Lamar, out from the jumble of a new class of rap stars, now finds himself in very different company.

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#3 Fiona Apple, The Idler Wheel…

• 

  The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do

  Fiona Apple

  2012 | Epic

  "I just want to feel everything," sings Fiona Apple in "Every Single Night," the lead track and first single on her fourth album, which, just like her second one, comes bearing a title so ridiculous it dares you to dismiss her. She's got the problem that afflicts sensitive folks; that of piercing awareness. But instead of running from it, she repeats those words like a mantra to help her endure the pain... that comes with perception, truth, love and all those other difficult things that make life worth living. And while she's doing that, she lets us know what the rest of the album is like: There's Apple's piano, her voice (sometimes overdubbed), a celeste, some percussion, a sound effect or two, and not much else.
  
  But there's a lot of Apple here. Throughout The Idler Wheel, she's front and center so simply that the starkness feels almost avant-garde. As she admits on that first cut, she's fighting with her brain and there is no referee — just Apple, her drummer/co-producer Charley Drayton, and generous doses of silence between notes. Nothing comes between her and us. This is the polar opposite of all those claustrophobic, super-compressed, "loudness wars" records, and the extra space gives the 34-year-old songwriter the room to be baldly ferocious, particularly when she's vulnerable. "Gimme, gimme, gimme what you got in your mind in the middle of the night," she implores in "Daredevil" with a lust so unguarded it borders on wacky. But it's nevertheless inviting, because she's musically, as well as emotionally, naked.
  
  The Idler Wheel is a spectacularly erotic record. Its contours are irregular like the human body, constantly shifting its weight with the way Apple leans into her piano and then pushes away from it. And within that instability lies sadness: She sings a sweet but barbed "Jonathan" to her ex, writer Jonathan Ames, and in the very next song she's "Left Alone," admitting that she's making that isolation inevitable over a suitably restless piano riff that, like a lot of the album, recalls those ageless Vince Guaraldi jazz scores for Peanuts TV specials. But there's no melancholy: "Nothing wrong when a song ends in a minor key," she shrugs in "Werewolf." And although they're typically played and sung with disarming gusto, these songs often do exactly that. In the slowest, angriest one, "Regret," she screams so hard that the words almost fall away. Apple's feeling everything here the way she wants to. She fights the good fight.

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#2 Frank Ocean, channel ORANGE

• 

  channel ORANGE

  Frank Ocean

  2012 | Def Jam Records

  R&B auteur Frank Ocean's masterful and disarming major-label debut channel ORANGE is meticulously structured like a long-planned confession, and as Ocean announced shortly before its release, it presents a major one: The first love Ocean alludes to in lead track "Thinkin Bout You"; the unreciprocated love that haunts him in "Bad Religion" and who ultimately runs away in "Forrest Gump" at the end, is a man. Celebrating an autobiographical same-sex attraction, however... anguished, and pinpointing its subject with masculine nouns, is nothing less than revolutionary for a mainstream African-American male performer. It would overshadow a lesser work, but it is but one revelation among many here. Ocean presides over his album like a visionary filmmaker, one who favors bright colors and stylized mise-en-scène to offset dark and raw emotional states.
  
  Ocean narrates ORANGE as both participant and shell-shocked observer of "the sweet life": Drugs are everywhere. Women are riding him like an escalator to the heavens. Super-rich kids and their super-fake friends swarm around him like bees. Despite his bemused detachment, there's a fireball of hurt smoldering at the center of Ocean's psyche, and he drifts through ORANGE's dream-reality, hanging on to the memory of his painful but profoundly true first love as if it were the ladder of a swimming pool that suddenly got way too deep. Meanwhile, a fluidly shape-shifting backdrop morphs from kaleidoscopic soul grooves to bleak techno to lush orchestral interludes and beyond, further intensifying his inner and outer visions.
  
  He cries out for help with a clarity that's both stunning and disarming, flipping double and triple entendres the way showier singers get churchy: He likens the "Pink Matter" of his lover's womb to peaches, mangos, cotton candy and Dragon Ball villain Majin Buu. His subject matter and vocabulary similarly bares the schooling of hip-hop bards: The multi-part epic "Pyramids" concerns a time-traveling Cleopatra the unemployed narrator ultimately pimps in a motel so shabby it's still got a VCR; "Crack Rock" bemoans the difference between the death of a dope-pushing cop and a brother who gets popped — one brings out a search party 300 strong, the other dies "and don't no one hear the sound."
  
  Yet Ocean spins this grit with the luminous vibrancy of the best singer-songwriters, burnishing everything to brilliance with pleading delivery and love of wandering jazz chords. He's both R&B classicist and rebel; a buoyant Stevie Wonder with Elvis Costello's acerbic wit while serving up his own favorite flavor — bittersweet. "You run my mind, boy/ Running on my mind," he croons to his muse, then whistles to him like Otis as if sittin' on the dock of the bay, gazing at one of the album's many pink skies that mask the blues within.

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#1 Cold Specks, I Predict a Graceful Expulsion

• 

  I Predict a Graceful Expulsion

  Cold Specks

  2012 | MUTE

  "A state of destitution is the starting point for I Predict a Graceful Expulsion, Cold Specks' stark, stunning debut and eMusic's Best Album of 2012. It's sung by a lost child, one who has moved from a place of great abundance to a place of great need. It is, by a good distance, the year's richest and most rewarding record..." Read more about why Cold Specks is our #1 album of 2012.

25. Gotye, Making Mirrors

• 

  Making Mirrors

  Gotye

  2012 | Samples & Seconds / Republic

  The best tunes haven't made it to commercial radio, but this is a fun, retro album from a very talented musician. — frod2004
  
  I know "Somebody that I Used to Know" became the overplayed hit of the year, but it really is a good track, but more importantly, the entire album of Making Mirrors is great. Radio stations should be playing more songs from it! Eclectic, experimental – pushing limits and expectations on... many tracks and keeping them together in one concise album. And Gotye is fascinating in concert blending sounds and visuals for a truly unique experience. It's the most interesting and fun album I've purchased this year. I tell all my friends they should listen to it — few will like all of it, but everyone will find something they like. Glad that Gotye pushed the norm of rock/pop music." – jmlyn23
  
  The whole album is musically ingenious and lyrically substantive. — mtemccrary

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24. Alt-J, An Awesome Wave

23. Django Django, Django Django

• 

  Django Django

  Django Django

  2012 | Ribbon Music / Domino Recording Co

  They got compared to the Beta Band so I couldn't resist. Love 'em. "Waveforms" is one of the tunes that got me through my first half-marathon (and I am quite possibly old enough to be your mother if you are under the age of 31). – Lucyland Solid album all around. Beach Boy harmonies over indie/alt music with great hooks. Perfect summer album. – musarter

22. Andrew Bird, Break It Yourself

21. Bob Dylan, Tempest

• 

  Tempest

  Bob Dylan

  2012 | Columbia

  Varied styles throughout. Hard to believe he can still pull it off at such high quality. – markthompson123
  
  50 years on, Bob Dylan releases an unexpected masterpiece, fiercely declaring his continued relevance at age 72. – zeppyfish
  
  Dylan, like Van, has become a great producer (as Jack Frost) of his single artist roster: himself. Yes, the voice is rough on this one. But such lyrical and musical talent shines through it hardly matters. Another... triumph. — wallbanger7

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20. The Shins, Port of Morrow

• 

  Port Of Morrow

  The Shins

  2012 | Aural Apothecary/Columbia

  What's not to love? Unique melodies, thought provoking lyrics, beautiful instrumentation and heartfelt vocals. Every track here is a winner and it's great to hear new material by a most talented artist. Standout tracks "The Rifle's Spiral," "Simple Song," "It's Only Life," "No Way Down," "For A Fool" and "Fall of '82." Thanks Mr. Mercer for reviving and reinventing The Shins. In doing so, you have created another classic disc. – Acardo
  
  When... I saw The Shins on TV without the original band members I really wanted to hate this album. Unfortunately, love him or loathe him, Mercer is a talented songsmith and despite all my personal hangups about this not being the band I used to love I can't deny the fact that this is a great album — I just wish he could of come up with a new name." — FREECARVEJUNKIE

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19. Passion Pit, Gossamer

• 

  Gossamer

  Passion Pit

  2012 | Columbia

  Michael Angelakos does what all the best pop artists do, he makes you want to dance with the devils that haunt him. — davissonma Well-written songs gussied up with pop sensibilities anchored by bleak lyrics. — nbtshirts After a long delay, Passion Pit returns with another brilliant album. Perhaps less immediately catchy than Manners, Gossamer has the depth to make it a classic. — londoncrockett

18. The Avett Brothers, The Carpenter

• 

  The Carpenter

  The Avett Brothers

  2012 | RRE, LLC / Republic Records

  Their best overall LP yet. — markthompson123 ...and the talent and creativity continue to come from the brothers Avett...long time favorites...just making room on my list this year from some new mentions. However, I can't just leave them off... — h2gerberich Growing up never sounded better. — Cguido

17. First Aid Kit, The Lion’s Roar

• 

  The Lion's Roar

  First Aid Kit

  2012 | Wichita Recordings / Redeye

  Beautiful harmonies in an alt-country mix. Heavy lyric themes and beautiful music. — musarter
  
  Just the right amount of everything – vocals, harmonies, country twang, lyrics, production — all just right. "Not a bad song in the bunch, but the tracks that really stand out for me are "In The Hearts of Men" (track 3) and "I Found A Way" (track 7)." — emusicminer
  
  If you like alt-country like Neko Case or Kathleen Edwards,... this is for you. Great harmonies. Young as the girls are, they can only get that much better. — madformusic
  
  "The stylistic range is mind-boggling." — riccco

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16. The Lumineers, The Lumineers

• 

  The Lumineers

  The Lumineers

  2012 | Dualtone

  Music to make you grin, whether you want to admit it or not. Such a totally lovable band. — zeppyfish
  
  Well they ain't from around here, folks, but boy what a sound. I was looking for something "different," "Ho Hey" is about as different as it gets. That was my introduction to the album and then I had heard that some guy had put out an album by these guys. The search was... on and it was worth it, "Stubborn Love" is my favorite song, but there isn't a bad track on the album. — mkedor
  
  My favorite stomp-a-long, clap-a-long, sing-a-long album of the year! — sbusby21

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15. The Walkmen, Heaven

• 

  Heaven

  The Walkmen

  2012 | Fat Possum / The Orchard

  Amazing. After all these years they are still able to make some awesome albums. – jsf1190
  
  Phil Ek polishes their familiar reverb, and their songs are as tight and direct as ever. – scatterbeard
  
  I sure like what musical maturity is doing to this band. I just told somebody, "It's hard not having any new Harry Nilsson music being sent into the world; The Walkmen at least make this sadness a little easier." –... Jdarling

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14. Gary Clark, Jr., Blak and Blu

• 

  Blak And Blu

  Gary Clark Jr.

  2012 | Warner Bros.

  "I think we've witnessed the beginning of an amazing career. There was so much hype for this release, I couldn't imagine it could live up to it. But it did. And then some. His talent is simply off the charts." – randall.depew "An amazing guitar player, Gary shows he can construct a funky set of tunes as well." – ctgguy35

13. Fun., Some Nights

• 

  Some Nights

  fun.

  2012 | Fueled By Ramen

  "I'm an old fart, now. But when I heard "We Are Young", it was the closest I've felt to what it was like being 20 in years." – randall.depew
  
  "The most fun guilty pleasure ever." - michael.bryan
  
  "Been following fun.'s songwriter/vocalist Nate Reuss since Dog Problems by the Format and I think he's one of the most undervalued talents in music right now. His gifts are showcased again here. Lyrically he opens a vein... and lets it spill out. Musically he's drawing inspiration from unexpected places. You'll hear things that sound like Queen, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, operetta, a children's choir and who knows what else. Experimental, touching and surprising. Just heard of these guys due to "We Are Young"? Get this and if you like it get all of Aim and Ignite and then Dog Problems by the Format, forthwith." – Happenstance

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12. Dirty Projectors, Swing Lo Magellen

• 

  Swing Lo Magellan

  Dirty Projectors

  2012 | Domino Recording Co

  Dirty Projectors' music has always been easier to admire than to enjoy. With this collection, however, they have made their intellectually brilliant music more accessible by infusing it with heart. – tlmucla33
  
  Not fully accessible, but great if you are willing to challenge yourself a little. – TianShan
  
  It's not Bitte Orca, but it doesn't have to be. A crazy quilt of melodic and lyrical vibrations. "Render Unto Caesar" is the most fun you'll... have with headphones on this year. – zeppyfish

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11. Fiona Apple, The Idler Wheel…

• 

  The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do

  Fiona Apple

  2012 | Epic

  Fiona's voice adds an emotionally engaging facet to her insightful and deceptively simple lyrics. The arrangements always feel like we're one beat away from the whole thing imploding on itself, and that insecurity fuels the energy behind this magnificent album. Best argument for pop music as art since The Beatles. – unplugged68
  
  Fiona's finest album. It's a fun ride inside her unique mind. A great modern recording that captures all the wonderful dysfunction... of young, modern existence with incredible insight and honesty. And don't overlook the very last track, "Hot Knife." A gem. – wallbanger7
  
  Fiona Apple returns with a sparely-produced set of songs that is as good as anything she's ever written. Her voice practically glows. A very fine artist that appears to only improve with age. – jakebridget

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10. Japandroids, Celebration Rock

• 

  Celebration Rock

  Japandroids

  2012 | Polyvinyl Records

  These boys have captured the essence of being 20-something in the early 21st century. Excellent melodic rock music influenced by equal parts Springsteen and Gainsville Post-hardcore. This was in constant rotation on my summer playlist. – unplugged68 "Oh, oh, oh, oh-oh-oh, oh OH." Enough said. – cesikkenga Turn it up! – jamestomko

9. Tame Impala, Lonerism

• 

  Lonerism

  Tame Impala

  2012 | Modular Fontana

  With Tame Impala, Kevin Parker manages to combine many of my favorite ingredients into one potent potion. Electronic deception, vintage rock landscapes, and catchy-ass melodies unite to form the strongest album I've heard in a while. What does it all mean? Parker tells us not to worry about that, just sit back and enjoy the tunes. And man, there's a lot to enjoy. – unplugged68
  
  I can't get enough of Tame Impala. Lonerism... was well worth the wait after my beloved InnerSpeaker, and "Keep On Lying" is the best earworm one can possibly have while roaming around Sydney on vacay. – Lucyland
  
  Like "Strawberry Fields"-era John Lennon, with soaring synthesizers and a hard-rock foundation. These songs are amazingly fierce when played live compared with the recordings, but the album is still completely delicious. – alt-gramma

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8. Sharon Van Etten, Tramp

• 

  Tramp

  Sharon Van Etten

  2012 | Jagjaguwar / SC Distribution

  "Give Out" is the best song of the year. – palmerjl Brilliant songwriting and heart-wrenching music. – hwillensky Completely surprised I like this record so much. It holds together just enough. Rough and tumble music, with vulnerable lyrics. Love it. – rossd

7. Mumford & Sons, Babel

6. Jack White, Blunderbuss

• 

  Blunderbuss

  Jack White

  2012 | Third Man/Columbia

  Maybe the most interesting musician in America right now. – jeff Jack White is awesomely strange and awesomely talented. This is the kind of music I would make if I could. So layered, so loud and so sexy. – randall.d I would buy anything with his name on it – davido

5. Alabama Shakes, Boys & Girls

• 

  Boys & Girls

  Alabama Shakes

  2012 | ATO Records

  My biggest musical regret of 2012 is not seeing Alabama Shakes live. – sbusby21 Classic old-school R&B made new with edgy rock elements. The best new band to come along in many years. – jakebridget Boys & Girls is one of the most exciting releases in recent history. Combining the soulful vocals of Brittany Howard with a raw blues sound, it's at the top of its class. – frankf

4. Frank Ocean, channel ORANGE

• 

  channel ORANGE

  Frank Ocean

  2012 | Def Jam Records

  Part of the reason the retro R&B artists like Raphael Saadiq, Sharon Jones, Eli "Paperboy" Reed and the like are so popular, in my opinion, is because new R&B has been stale. Ocean deserves all the hype and is the best new artist of the year. A sorely needed shot in the arm, Ocean uses hip-hop as inspiration, but channel ORANGE is R&B in spirit. – wallbanger7
  
  Frank Ocean combines influences from across... R&B's storied history to create a convincing concept album. – unplugged68
  
  It exists in that magic shared spot where my son and I agree on great music. – davido

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3. Of Monsters & Men, My Head is an Animal

• 

  My Head Is An Animal

  Of Monsters And Men

  2012 | Republic Records

  You can try not to like them, but it won't work. – rossd Absolute worst record cover, but a great band that came to the world's attention after winning Iceland's national Battle of the Bands with folk-pop. – sandyandbrian This is one of those albums and bands that actually deserve the hype. – wm-jones

2. Grizzly Bear, Shields

• 

  Shields

  Grizzly Bear

  2012 | Warp Records

  This is a band at their pinnacle of writing and production. A modern rock album with some classic rock sensibilities. – musarter Beautiful orchestration and pure-as-gold harmonies abound on Grizzly Bear's latest. I dare you to find music as compelling and beautiful as you'll find here. – unplugged68 A huge sound. No one else sounds like them. – paulg

#1 Beach House, Bloom

• 

  Bloom

  Beach House

  2012 | Sub Pop Records

  This band has been building up to the greatness of this album for the past few years. Probably the indie rock album of the year. – mpg26 I don't want to be a trendy hipster, but this band is amazing. – rgiuff1 Exquisite, beautiful, classic. – sukanku

Cold Specks, “Drink Me Maybe”

• 

  I Predict a Graceful Expulsion

  Cold Specks

  2012 | MUTE

  I threw a mayor in Toronto / Don't fart me, I'll never sigh / I looked to Maddie as it fell / And now you're in my dog.
  
  I'd jump my train for a wish / Pennies and dimes for sleep / I wasn't snoring for this,
  But now you're in my house.
  
  Your stare was singing / Ripped jeans, city was showing / Hot night, wind was chuckling / Where do you think you're... going, Spx?
  
  Hey, I just said you / And this is awkward / But here's my blood / So drink me, maybe?
  
  It's dry to look right / At you baby / But here's my blood / So drink me, maybe?
  
  And all the other Jims / Try to down me / But here's my blood / So drink me, maybe?

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Sharon Van Etten, “Pull Me Maybe”

• 

  Tramp (Deluxe Edition)

  Sharon Van Etten

  2012 | Jagjaguwar / SC Distribution

  I threw a fire extinguisher in the pines / Don't melt me, I'll never skip / I looked to Heather as it fell / And now you're in my juice.
  
  I'd sing my tower for a wish / Pennies and dimes for a shiver / I wasn't shooing for this / But now you're in my tightrope.
  
  Your stare was eating / Ripped jeans, snare drum was showing / Hot night, wind was trying... / Where do you think you're going, Peanut?
  
  Hey, I just went you / And this is silky / But here's my glove / So pull me, maybe?
  
  It's hot to look right / At you baby / But here's my glove / So pull me, maybe?
  
  And all the other bags / Try to roll me / But here's my glove / So pull me, maybe?

  more »

The Men, “Run Me Maybe”

• 

  Open Your Heart

  The Men

  2012 | Sacred Bones Records / S.C. Distribution

  I threw a burrito in the enchilada / Don't eat me, I'll never jump / I looked to Sycamore Joe as it fell / And now you're in my smoke machine.
  
  I'd say my cigarette for a wish / Pennies and dimes for a song / I wasn't farting for this / But now you're in my snail.
  
  Your stare was humping / Ripped jeans, cheese was showing / Hot night, wind was copulating... / Where do you think you're going, Old Man McGillicuddy?
  
  Hey, I just flatulated / And this is sexy / But here's my woman / So run me, maybe?
  
  It's real stupid to look right / At you baby / But here's my woman / So run me, maybe?
  
  And all the other sharks / Try to jump me / But here's my woman / So run me, maybe?

  more »

Allo Darlin’, “Kiss Me Maybe”

• 

  Europe

  Allo Darlin'

  2012 | Slumberland Records / The Orchard

  I threw a banana on the table / Don't run me, I'll never rock out / I looked to Duncan Barrett as it fell / And now you're in my ashes.
  
  I'd cough my nut for a wish / Pennies and dimes for a plant / I wasn't drinking for this / But now you're in my string.
  
  Your stare was fighting / Ripped jeans, cardigan was showing / Hot night, wind was panting... / Where do you think you're going, Thunder?
  
  Hey, I just shoved you / And this is hard / But here's my porn / So kiss me, maybe?
  
  It's to the max to look right / At you baby / But here's my porn / So kiss me, maybe?
  
  And all the other telephones / Try to kick me / But here's my porn / So kiss me, maybe?

  more »

Matthew E. White, “Gargle Me Maybe”

Frankie Rose, “Slosh Me Maybe”

• 

  Interstellar

  Frankie Rose

  2012 | Slumberland Records / The Orchard

  I threw some cheese in the Fender Mustang / Don't kiss me, I'll never snarf / I looked to Bill Clinton as it fell / And now you're in my barnacle.
  
  I'd spank my ketchup for a wish/ Pennies and dimes for a slap / I wasn't singing for this / But now you're in my whiskey.
  
  Your stare was biting / Ripped jeans, didgeridoo was showing / Hot night, wind was singing... / Where do you think you're going, Bossy Boots?
  
  Hey, I just woofed you / And this is bitter / But here's my jelly / So slosh me, maybe?
  
  It's bitter to look right / At you baby / But here's my jelly / So slosh me, maybe?
  
  And all the other sangrias / Try to slap me / But here's my jelly / So slosh me, maybe?

  more »

Bowerbirds, “Squint Me Maybe”

• 

  The Clearing

  Bowerbirds

  2012 | Dead Oceans / SC Distribution

  I threw an aardvark in the cheese grits / Don't attack me, I'll never tenderize / I looked to Phil as it fell / And now you're in my hacksaw.
  
  I'd slide my easy chair for a wish / Pennies and dimes for a rearrangement / I wasn't maiming for this / But now you're in my peanut.
  
  Your stare was describing / Ripped jeans, infant was showing / Hot night, wind was scooping... / Where do you think you're going, Smallrus?
  
  Hey, I just ruined you / And this is silky / But here's my eyelid / So squint me, maybe?
  
  It's tender to look right / At you baby / But here's my eyelid / So squint me, maybe?
  
  And all the other squirrels / Try to dart me / But here's my eyelid / So squint me, maybe?

  more »

Phil Elverum, “Waste Me Maybe”

• 

  Clear Moon

  Mount Eerie

  2012 | P.W. Elverum & Sun / The Orchard

  I threw a modem in the Bluetooth / Don't encrypt me, I'll never uplink / I looked to Kevin as it fell / And now you're in my USB hub.
  
  I'd analyze my analytics for a wish / Pennies and dimes for a CC / I wasn't linking for this / But now you're in my adapter.
  
  Your stare was spraying / Ripped jeans, router was showing / Hot night, wind was Skyping /... Where do you think you're going, Varg?
  
  Hey, I just juiced you / And this is robust / But here's my uptick / So waste me, maybe?
  
  It's cutting edge to look right / At you baby / But here's my uptick / So waste me, maybe?
  
  And all the other firewire ports / Try to weep me / But here's my uptick / So waste me, maybe?

  more »

Julia Holter, “Stun Me Maybe”

• 

  Ekstasis

  Julia Holter

  2012 | RVNG INTL. / SC Distribution

  I threw a parakeet in love / Don't love me, I'll never toss / I looked to Felix as it fell / And now you're in my candle.
  
  I'd stuff my stuff for a wish / Pennies and dimes for a portrayal / I wasn't singing for this / But now you're in my singer.
  
  Your stare was shrieking / Ripped jeans, shoe was showing / Hot night, wind was swimming / Where do... you think you're going, Juju?
  
  Hey, I just thought you / And this is enlightened / But here's my light / So stun me, maybe?
  
  It's fancy to look right / At you baby / But here's my light / So stun me, maybe?
  
  And all the other paws / Try to fancy me / But here's my light / So stun me, maybe?

  more »

How To Dress Well, “Become Me Maybe”

• 

  Total Loss

  How To Dress Well

  2012 | Acéphale / S.C. Distribution

  I threw a heart in the sun / Don't overflow me, I'll never descend / I looked to Nicky as it fell / And now you're in my moon.
  
  I'd inspire my spirit for a wish / Pennies and dimes for a developer / I wasn't opening for this / But now you're in my eyes.
  
  Your stare was endearing / Ripped jeans, eyes was showing / Hot night, wind was gravitating / Where... do you think you're going, Li'l Boo?
  
  Hey, I just dreamed you / And this is expansive / But here's my sky / So become me, maybe?
  
  It's generous to look right / At you baby / But here's my sky / So become me, maybe?
  
  And all the other truths / Try to give me / But here's my sky / So give me, maybe?

  more »

THEESatisfaction, “Eat Me Maybe”

• 

  awE naturalE

  THEESatisfaction

  2012 | Sub Pop Records

  I threw a pig in Michael Jordan's House / Don't yell at me, I'll never trip / I looked to King Tut as it fell / And now you're in my iPhone.
  
  I'd run my nug of herb for a wish / Pennies and dimes for a smoke / I wasn't planking for this / But now you're in Central Park.
  
  Your stare was slapping / Ripped jeans, bowl was showing / Hot night,... wind was pimping / Where do you think you're going, Goose?
  
  Hey, I just walked you / And this is horrible / But here's my email / So eat me, maybe?
  
  It's juicy to look right / At you baby / But here's my email / So eat me, maybe?
  
  And all the other giraffes / Try to swag me / But here's my email / So eat me, maybe?

  more »

Pop. 1280, “Load Me Maybe”

• 

  The Horror

  Pop. 1280

  2012 | Sacred Bones Records / S.C. Distribution

  I threw a supernova in the black hole / Don't lube me, I'll never flow / I looked to Fidge Mungler as it fell / And now you're in my stench.
  
  I'd gum my water for a wish / Pennies and dimes for an ejaculation / I wasn't laughing for this / But now you're in my pin.
  
  Your stare was streaming / Ripped jeans, rectoid was showing / Hot night, wind was launching... / Where do you think you're going, Cthulu?
  
  Hey, I just spermed you / And this is desiccated / But here's my clipboard / So load me, maybe?
  
  It's wet to look right / At you baby / But here's my clipboard / So load me, maybe?
  
  And all the other saws / Try to drip me / But here's my clipboard / So load me, maybe?

  more »

Chris Cohen, “Have Me Maybe”

Sea of Bees, “Bewilder Me Maybe”

• 

  Orangefarben

  Sea of Bees

  2012 | Team Love Records

  I threw a bitch in the ocean / Don't friend me, I'll never sprint / I looked to Joules as it fell / And now you're in my electromagnetic field
  
  I'd high five my kitties for a wish / Pennies and dimes for a ride / I wasn't flying for this / But now you're in my whales
  
  Your stare was spitting / Ripped jeans, Netherlands were showing / Hot night, wind was panting... / Where do you think you're going, Twit Nin Nee?
  
  Hey, I just beat you / And this is amusing / But here's my rat / So bewilder me, maybe?
  
  It's attractive to look right / At you baby / But here's my rat / So bewilder me, maybe?
  
  And all the other owl babies/ Try to escape me / But here's my rat / So bewilder me, maybe?

  more »

• 

  Boys & Girls

  Alabama Shakes

  2012 | ATO Records

  The chatter that southern blues-rockers Alabama Shakes have generated in the months leading up to their debut is usually reserved for legends twice their age, or at least groups with more than a couple of songs to their name. There have been Janis Joplin and Otis Redding comparisons, endorsements from the likes of Jack White and Adele, and fans talking about their raucous live shows like they're enough... to convert you to a new religion. And — if you can believe it — the Athens, Alabama quartet's full length debut Boys & Girls lives up to the hype.
  
  The first thing that will bowl you over is that voice. "Bless my heart, bless my soul/ I didn't think I'd make it to 22 years old," howls singer/guitarist Brittany Howard in the opening moments of stellar single "Hold On," showing off her gritty, soulful pipes and making those Joplin comparisons feel earned. But they're not the whole story, either: Boys & Girls finds the Alabama Shakes pulling from the greats of rock and blues (catch the Bo Diddley reference in the opening lyric?) into a distinctive, and occasionally downright personal, sound. ("Come on Brittany!" she hollers to herself. "You gotta come on up!")
  
  From the barroom piano stomp of "Hang Loose" to the Stones swagger of "Be Mine," Boys & Girls sounds like the work of a group of weary, wizened road warriors who've been playing together for decades, rather than a group who formed a couple of years ago when its principle players were still in their teens. With all this talent and confidence already on full display on their debut, imagine all they can do with the years ahead.

  more »

• 

  Seeds (Deluxe Edition)

  Hey Rosetta!

  2012 | ATO Records
• 

  Traveler

  Trey Anastasio

  2012 | ATO Records

• 

  Carry Me Back

  Old Crow Medicine Show

  2012 | ATO Records

  Folk music purists might argue that Old Crow Medicine Show don't actually play traditional bluegrass, old-time country, or any of the other Americana labels they routinely get slapped with. There's a certain punkish disregard to the band's frenzied acoustic tangle — which nods to the last hundred years of American vernacular music, from the Carter Family through Black Flag — and spirit trumps nearly everything else. Carry Me Back, the band's latest... LP, follows a substantial personnel change (Willie Watson, once a lead vocalist and guitar player, was officially replaced by founding member Critter Fuqua, who'd been notably M.I.A. for the last several years), but the band's heart is still intact: Carry Me Back is full of hometown longing (the album's title track), harmonica-honking odes to once-in-a-lifetime love ("Ain't It Enough"), and hard-time, pass-the-jug stompers ("Mississippi Saturday Night"). It confirms somewhat definitively that Americana is, in fact, more a feeling than a sound — and that feeling is something like joy.

  more »

• 

  Heat Lightning Rumbles in the Distance

  Patterson Hood

  2012 | ATO Records
• 

  The Bloom and the Blight

  Two Gallants

  2012 | ATO Records

• 

  The North

  Stars

  2012 | ATO Records

  The wistful Canadian indie-pop band Stars built its fanbase smushing dance music and indie pop into an endearingly awkward embrace. Set Yourself On Fire, their 2005 high mark, found the perfect midpoint between the squirm and the hip-shake. The North, the band's sixth full-length studio album, carries right along in this tradition. Beats range from pitter-pattering to hammering, while jangling guitars share space with synths. And the band's two singers, Torquil Campbell... and Amy Millan, take turns singing lead when they're not delivering lyrics in conversational rounds.
  
  The album on the whole has a vaguely retro bent. Awash in reverb and shot through gently with Millan's cooing vocals, the hazy "Through the Mines" sounds like vintage Mazzy Star. "Lights Changing Colour" could've been an old Cocteau Twins demo, while a rave-up called "Hold On When You Get Love And Let Go When You Get It" has the soaring, synthetic thrill of Cut Copy at its best.
  
  And yet it's the kicker, "Walls," that takes fullest advantage of Campbell and Millan's boy-girl interplay. Campbell has the kind of delightfully fey accent that turns "party" into "pahty," and Millan sings in a breathy coo that can melt a record clerk's heart, and together they come off as an indie-rock answer to Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, singing back and forth. Him: "I had a secret." Her: "Yeah but I knew it, love." Him: "And we were children." Her: "We danced to 'Hand in Glove.'" On it goes, with a chirping keyboard and a beat that won't sit still and a relationship drama unfolding before your ears.

  more »

• 

  You, Anniversary

  Lindsay Fuller

  2012 | ATO Records
• 

  Women & Work

  Lucero

  2012 | ATO Records

• 

  Songs of Patience

  Alberta Cross

  2012 | ATO Records

  As a Swedish-English duo who met in East London and have now relocated to Brooklyn via an unsuccessful spell in L.A., it's no wonder that Alberta Cross sound a little like a lot of things. The Southern-rock twang of their 2009 debut Broken Side Of Time has been side-lined here, and there's a craning toward big, booming stadium epics of the kind once routinely delivered by Oasis (with whom they toured) or... Kings Of Leon. Yet they're also adept at the more soulful strain of non-boring boogie mastered by Tom Petty, so the album avoids plodding and achieves plaintive liftoff.
  
  Petter Ericson Stakee, who says that between the two albums he hit "rock bottom" in L.A., sings with sandpapery desire in his voice, elevating rote numbers (influenced by the Gallaghers' songbook) to something more affecting. Although Songs Of Patience involved a glut of producers and (post-L.A.) had to be re-addressed inNew York, it hangs together dramatically, from the opening percussion-led drive of "Magnolia" to the stripped-down, intimate "Bonfires," which boasts a dash of Neil Young. "Crate of Gold" crunches in on fuzzy, serrated guitar riffs and makes a belligerent, bruised blues motif of the Occupy movement, while the more leisurely "Lay Down" — again sounding oddly Mancunian — surges toward its sing-along chorus of self-betterment.
  
  "Wasteland" is perhaps the best track, a well-crafted anthem blending falsetto and dynamics to tether the clichés and unleash genuine passion. In taking their time on the "difficult" second album, Alberta Cross has honed a new, subtly Anglicised direction.

  more »

• 

  Allen Stone

  Allen Stone

  2012 | ATO Records
• 

  Strength to Survive

  SOJA

  2012 | ATO Records

• 

  Area 52

  Rodrigo y Gabriela

  2012 | ATO Records

  Rodrigo y Gabriela have become unlikely stars, a pair of Mexican metal guitarists who reinvented themselves as wild flamenco players after moving to Ireland. They've carved an admirable niche for themselves, with fiery playing and adventurous ideas that draw heavily on their rock past. Area 52 takes that basic formula one step further, teaming the duo with a 13-piece Cuban orchestra for a fresh look at some of their older material that... offers a vibrant, unusual union of Latin cultures, an imagined place where Mexico, Cuba and the sense of old Spanish culture swirl effortlessly together.
  
  Opener "Santa Domingo" sets the tone for much of the album; beginning with a heart-pounding riff, the duo crank up the tension until there's an explosion of brass, all of the elements powered by the punch of the wah-wah pedal - almost a trademark of the couple these days - before sprinting to a breathless finish. The album is deliberately brash, laced with incendiary guitar work (listen to the electric playing on "Hanuman," for example), and Cuban rhythms making a loud, colourful wrapper around the songs.
  
  But it's not all relentless; the group injects plenty of light and shade, as on "Diablo Rojo," where flute and guitar breathe softly together before spiralling through some intense, slick picking to a satisfying climax. Or "Logos," with its delicate interplay between guitars and piano, the calm before the whirlwind of the two final cuts. Area 52 roars with Latin fire throughout, full of passion and sweat, a workout for all the senses. Yet at the same time, this re-imagination of old material, not matter how adventurously it's done, feels like the end of a chapter. It's as if Rodrigo and Gabriela had one final statement to make with these pieces before moving on to something fresh and different, a new phase in their career. And they've done it in spectacular fashion.

  more »

• 

  Ownerless

  Everest

  2012 | ATO Records
• 

  Feathers & Fishhooks

  Rayland Baxter

  2012 | ATO Records
• 

  ITALIA (1988-2012)

  Jovanotti

  2012 | ATO Records
• 

  ATO Records Fall Sampler 2012

  Various Artists - ATO Records

  2012 | ATO Records

Portia Sabin, Label Dude

• 

  Two Ton Boa EP

  Two Ton Boa

  2009 | EP/SINGLE

  Super dark and heavy, bass-driven album with Sherry Fraser at the helm. One of the great voices in rock that almost no one has heard.

• 

  Thao & Mirah

  Thao & Mirah

  2011 | Kill Rock Stars / Redeye

  Two very different singer/songwriters who manage to compliment and even elevate each other on this album. Terrific, unique songs that make people happy and make people think.

James Squeaky, Media Manager

• 

  Young People

  Young People

  2009 | 5RC / Redeye

  Criminally underrated weird-folk album from 2002 that might have been huge if it had come out a few years later. This album has been on heavy rotation in my life the last decade; "Rich Bitch" is one of my favorite songs of the '00s.

Benjamin P. Parrish, Complaint Department

• 

  Marnie Stern

  Marnie Stern

  2010 | Kill Rock Stars / Redeye

  The third Marnie Stern studio album and also the best one (until Chronicles of Marnia is released in February). More mature songwriting, crazier shredding and insane drumming from Zach Hill. Includes the power ballad "Transparency is the New Mystery." I'm guessing everybody with good taste already owns this album, but buy it again anyway!

• 

  26 Monster Songs for Children (Sing Your Babies to Sleep)

  Jad And David Fair

  1998 | Kill Rock Stars / Redeye

  Jad and David fair of DIY institution Half Japanese sing 26 songs about monsters. One for each letter of the alphabet! A is for Abominable Snowman, B is for Bigfoot, and so on. I guess the X song is kind of cheating because it's about the "Man With X-Ray Eyes." Something for everybody on this one!

Gray G., Bad Cop

• 

  Glowing Mouth

  Milagres

  2011 | Kill Rock Stars / Redeye

  Beautiful, somewhat dark debut album from this Brooklyn quintet. The songs are introspective and atmospheric without being dreary. Every tune exhibits great songwriting, but the album amounts to more than the sum of its parts. It's best taken all in one sitting.

• 

  Her Majesty The Decemberists

  The Decemberists

  2009 | Kill Rock Stars / Redeye

  By far my favorite album from this band. I feel like this is the one that solidified and perfected their super-distinctive sound. "The Gymnast, High Above The Ground" may be my favorite song in the entire Kill Rock Stars catalog.

Melissa Stars, Social Media Manager / Avid Indoorsman

• 

  Dig Me Out

  Sleater-Kinney

  2009 | Kill Rock Stars / Redeye

  The album has everything that people love about this band: Blistering riffs, incredible harmonizing, dance-along beats and unforgettable songs. If you're looking for an introduction to the incredible all-out rockness of Corin Tucker, Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss, you only need to give this album one listen to know you're in the company of greatness.

• 

  Quilts - EP

  Explode Into Colors

  2011 | EP/SINGLE

  Proving once again that female drummers seriously kick ass, Explode Into Colors' Lisa Schonberg delivers thumping beats that create a volatile foundation for the band's soaring post-rock. The unapologetic rhythms paired with ethereal vocals and driving guitar make for intense grooves that get your feet moving and your head bobbing.

John Lamm, Secret Weapon

• 

  Thistled Spring

  Horse Feathers

  2010 | Kill Rock Stars / Redeye

  The second release from Horse Feathers opens a window and fills your room with hope and bittersweetness. Justin Ringle's pained vocals, layered with beautifully-nuanced strings, banjo, and acoustic guitar, has that wonderful ability to transport you from being in your life into feeling like you're in a movie, complete with soundtrack. One of the more subtly powerful records in the KRS catalog.

• 

  Either/Or

  Elliott Smith

  2009 | Kill Rock Stars / Redeye

  I don't know if it's possible for a legendary record to still be under the radar, but Either/Or feels that way. With Elliott's guitar and his heartbreaking whispered lyrics over minimal drums and bass, it's Elliott's first prolonged forays into full-band instrumentation. To me, it's the record where Elliott knocks down the door between him and all the pantheon songwriters before him, and says he belongs. A truly great record that deserves... to be listened to all the way through.

  more »

eMusic Picks

• 

  Standing in the Way of Control

  Gossip

  2009 | Kill Rock Stars / Redeye

  The Gossip's lead singer Beth Ditto, a milky-white mound of charisma and sass, topped the likes of Jack White and Thom Yorke on the NME's "Cool List" this year. The triumph may seem trite, but not for legions of punks who have been waiting for Ditto to get her due. And coolness effectively made Standing in the Way of Control what it is: groovy garage-punk shimmied upon a more refined dance floor,... thanks to the crisp percussion of new drummer Hannah Billie. Meanwhile, Ditto worked off guitarist Brace Paine's attitude-laden riffs and delivered her southern goods with fierce aplomb. The result is crazy-sexy and yes, cool.

  more »

• 

  9 Patriotic Battle Hymns for Children

  Born Against

  2009 | Kill Rock Stars / Redeye
• 

  Pottymouth

  Bratmobile

  2009 | Kill Rock Stars / Redeye

• 

  Singles and Sessions 1979-1981

  Delta 5

  2009 | Kill Rock Stars / Redeye

  Delta 5 emerged from the same Leeds, England, post-punk scene as Gang of Four and the Mekons. All three bands clustered around the university's Fine Art department, which goes some way to explaining the almost conceptual starkness of Delta 5's sound and their unusual format (two basses, three female voices, one guitar, one drum kit).
  
  Stern and clenched, Delta 5's minimalist punk-funk has obvious debts to Gang of Four. "Mind Your Own... Business," their debut single, is a sister-song to "At Home He Feels Like a Tourist." Both tunes resemble diagrams of disco, bearing the same relationship to Chic and Earth Wind & Fire that an architect's blueprint bears to the finished building, or a skeleton has vis-á-vis a fully-fleshed body. The person-is-political lyric explores the tension between intimacy and autonomy, oscillating from bleakness ("listen to the distance between us") to the simultaneously absurd and disturbing chorus, "Can I have a taste of your ice cream?/ Can I lick the crumbs from your table?/ Can I interfere in your crisis?/ NO, MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!" The sense of alienation is intensified by the way the unison vocals of Julz Sale, Bethan Peters and Ros Allen alternately mesh and slip out of alignment.
  
  If "Mind" is one of UK post-punk's all-time most thrilling singles, the follow-up, "Anticipation" b/w "You," is close on its heels. "Anticipation" evokes the nervous excitement of sexual longing prior to consummation; "You" flashes forward to the getting-stale-and-slightly-sour stage of the settled, long-term relationship. Sales hurls out hilariously mundane accusations like, "Who left me behind at the bakers?/ Who likes sex only on Sunday?" "Try," their third single, also depicts a relationship in terms of friction and miscommunication, but is more poignant than recriminatory.
  
  After these three brilliant singles for the legendary independent label Rough Trade, Delta 5 signed to a major label and cluttered up their sound with embellishments in a misguided bid for pop color. This compilation shrewdly bypasses that phase of failed crossover in favor of more spartan-sounding BBC Radio sessions and live performances from a 1980 Berkeley, California, gig, capturing the group's paradoxical vibe of dour exuberance and grim glee in its absolute prime.

  more »

• 

  Apple O' LP

  Deerhoof

  2010 | Kill Rock Stars / Redeye
• 

  Realistes

  Comet Gain

  2009 | Kill Rock Stars / Redeye

• 

  Now We Can See

  The Thermals

  2009 | Kill Rock Stars / Redeye

  There aren't many punk rock bands more straightforward, in some ways, than the Thermals; there also aren't many more smart and ambitious. One way to hear the Portland band's fourth album is as their toughest, sturdiest punk record yet, a fusillade of wired, hammering, fist-in-the-air anthems. Listen to it that way, and it's built around its title track, a declaration of victory ("Our enemies lie dead on the ground, and still we... kick") with an irresistible "oh-way-oh" hook. But it's also a precisely crafted, despairing concept album that sets up its central conceit with its opening salvo, "When I Died," in which a man tries in vain to save himself by becoming a fish and returning to the ocean.
  
  Recorded as a duo of core members Hutch Harris (singing and guitar) and Kathy Foster (bass and drums) — the same lineup that made an album as Hutch and Kathy before the Thermals began — Now We Can See is packed stem-to-stern with images of reverse evolution: too much water, disintegrating bodies, collective transformation and collective delusion. Harris's lyrics are often in the first-person plural, in the past tense, or both; they're more about the human condition than about a particular persona. They're also as punchy and bitter as a triple espresso, and you can almost smell the caffeine through the speakers as he declaims them.
  
  As always, every Thermals song crams in as many foursquare, head-banging riffs as they can get away with, although this time they've augmented the basement-practice-space arrangements with a few subtle touches, like somebody walloping the bejesus out of a piano in the background of "You Dissolve." The album's even punctuated in the middle by the longest and most restrained Thermals song yet — nearly six minutes of "At the Bottom of the Sea," a slowly respiring variation on the Velvet Underground's "Ocean." That "restrained" is relative, of course: by the end, they've stomped on their fuzzboxes again, and Harris is yowling a repudiation of the air itself. You can hurl yourself around to Now We Can See, but it also rewards sitting very quietly and thinking about it.

  more »

• 

  The Shapes We Make

  Mary Timony

  2009 | Kill Rock Stars / Redeye

• 

  Fanfare in the Garden

  Essential Logic

  2009 | Kill Rock Stars / Redeye

  As the sax-playing part of the two-woman frontline in X-Ray Spex, Lora Logic quickly became a name to drop during 1977. By the end of the year, though, she was out of the band and seemingly destined for obscurity. Happily, Logic realised there was more to punk than three-chord cliché and bounced back with her own band, Essential Logic. A one-off 45, "Aerosol Burns," notable for its two-sax front-line, and Logic's shrill,... scat-style vocal peculiarities, confirmed that things were changing fast on the newly constituted 'Independent' scene. An album, Beat Rhythm News, followed a year later, refining the jazz-punk collision and wrapping it up in an odd but pleasingly treble-heavy production. It was offbeat, it was a mini-masterpiece, and it was largely ignored. Logic's 1982 solo set, Pedigree Charm, was similarly idiosyncratic — and the best of both, together with single cuts and more recent (though admittedly less stunning) recordings are gathered here.

  more »

• 

  Mortal Mirror

  Quix*o*tic

  2009 | Kill Rock Stars / Redeye
• 

  3

  Slumber Party

  2009 | Kill Rock Stars / Redeye

• 

  Lend You a Hand

  Tight Bro's From Way Back When

  2009 | Kill Rock Stars / Redeye
• 

  The Switch is Down

  Universal Order Of Armageddon

  2009 | Kill Rock Stars / Redeye

• 

  Here's To Another 21 Years! - SAMPLER

  Various Artists

  2012 | Kill Rock Stars / Redeye

• 

  Merry Christmas, Baby

  Rod Stewart

  2012 | Verve
• 

  Christmas

  Michael Buble

  2011 | 143/Reprise

• 

  Elvis Presley Christmas Duets

  Elvis Presley

  2008 | RLG/Legacy

  We've all had that moment, sitting around the Christmas tree alight with our extended family, when Elvis's Christmas album comes up on the sound-reproducing machine. You can be sure, if the nog is egging everyone on, that by the second chorus of "Blue Christmas," your aunt or uncle or even your red nose reindeer'd self will get up and sing along, perhaps adding a few swivel hip rolls and well-placed Presleyisms that... allude to the hound dog in all of us.
  
  Christmas Duets — in space, through the miracle of modern overdubbing, if not in time — reprises Elvis's classic Christmas canon and places him in flagrante delicto with several jingle belles from the modern pop-country manger that is Nashville. The pairings seem particularly gift-wrapped, with Elvis's eye for the ladies winked in kind by such pearful partridges as Carrie Underwood, Amy Grant, Martina McBride, and Olivia Newton-John. The results are respectful and sweetly shy, with each gal perched on Elvis's knee and letting him know that what she really wants for Christmas is to hit a harmony note with him. The call-and-response is most effective when the given femme matches Elvis's sense of faith and believing — after all, many of these Christmas chestnuts are yuletide gospel — and I have a fondness for Sara Evans's coupling on "Silent Night" and Gretchen Wilson trading blues-fours on "Merry Christmas Baby." For that silk stocking placed on the chimney with care.

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  Christmas with Scotty McCreery

  Scotty McCreery

  2012 | Interscope (American Idol)
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  Christmas Spirit

  Richard Marx

  2012 | TourDForce
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  NOW That's What I Call Christmas Volume 3

  Various

  2006 | SBME Strategic Marketing Group
• 

  Home For Christmas

  Amy Grant

  2007 | AMY GRANT / SPARROW
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  All Is Well - Songs For Christmas

  Clay Aiken

  EP/SINGLE
• 

  James Taylor At Christmas

  James Taylor

  2012 | UMe
• 

  Christmas Dreaming

  Susie Arioli

  2012 | Jazzheads
• 

  Tennessee Christmas - EP

  Lindi Ortega

  2012 | EP/SINGLE

• 

  Merry Christmas

  Mariah Carey

  2008 | Columbia

  Merry Christmas, Mariah Carey's fourth full-length, at last gave the schmaltziness that defined the diva's early career a suitable venue. 'Tis the season to be broad and sentimental, and Carey happily unleashes her then-superhuman voice on a smattering of holiday favorites and new tracks. Not only is this a document of the woman's pipes in top form, Merry Christmas is also the perfect snapshot of the genre balancing pre-hip-hop Carey (along with... former writing/producing partner Walter Afanasieff) struck. These tracks chime, ring and twinkle at every turn, whether it's a poppy piano, soulful church organ or, in the case of "Joy to the World," stiff pop-house beats doing the driving. There's a strong preference for the Phil Spector side of musical cheer — Darlene Love's "Christmas (Baby Please Come)" is covered, "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" is in the style of the Crystals', and Carey's own "All I Want for Christmas Is You," is the greatest Spector track he had no hand in. This contemporary classic is worth the price of admission. As it's often mistaken for a cover, Carey loves to point out that she wrote it, seemingly oblivious to the compliment inherent in mistook nostalgia. Carey has become such a grande diva that it's hard to believe that a concept exists that's bigger than her persona; with Christmas, though, she met her match.

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  The Andy Williams Christmas Album

  Andy Williams

  2004 | Columbia/Legacy
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  Cheers, it's Christmas.

  Blake Shelton

  2012 | Warner Bros.
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  A Very Special Christmas 25th Anniversary

  Various Artists

  2012 | Big Machine Records, LLC
• 

  Elvis' Christmas Album

  Elvis Presley

  1985 | RCA Records Label
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  NOW That's What I Call A Country Christmas

  Various

  2009 | Legacy Recordings
• 

  A Laurie Berkner Christmas

  The Laurie Berkner Band

  2012 | Two Tomatoes Records
• 

  A Twisted Christmas

  Twisted Sister

  2006 | Razor & Tie
• 

  Irving Berlin's White Christmas

  Irving Berlin

  2006 | Razor & Tie
• 

  KIDZ BOP Christmas!

  Kidz Bop Kids

  2012 | Kidz Bop
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  Vintage Christmas

  David Ian

  Prescott Records

• 

  Christmas Album

  Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass

  2008 | Shout! Factory

  The year was 1968, and superstar trumpeter Herb Alpert rode higher than ever with his chart-topping rendition of Burt Bacharach and Hal David's devastatingly shy "This Guy's in Love With You." So Alpert, a Jew, donned a fake Santa beard and applied the equally ersatz Latin sparkle of his Tijuana Brass to a campy collection of Christmas classics where nearly every song sounds like his hit "Spanish Flea." This is a good... thing! West Coast jazz pioneer Shorty Rogers swings by with a studio choir to hang some vocal tinsel on Alpert's delightfully garish tree: Check how his serene choral interludes in "My Favorite Things" contrast with Alpert's holiday shopper bustle. The very year, the horn man couldn't get a hit, and wouldn't for another decade. Who says ol 'Saint Nick doesn't have a vindictive streak?

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  The Lost Christmas Eve

  Trans-Siberian Orchestra

  2004 | Lava
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  Punk Rawk Christmas

  MXPX

  2009 | Rock City Recording Company / TuneCore
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  A Very Special Christmas

  Various Artists

  1987 | A&M
• 

  A Charlie Brown Christmas [2012 Remastered & Expanded Edition]

  Vince Guaraldi Trio

  2012 | Fantasy Records
• 

  Christmas Country

  Christmas Country

  1996 | Warner Bros./Nashville
• 

  Christmas With The Chipmunks (2010)

  Alvin & The Chipmunks

  2010 | CAPITOL
• 

  Christmas Collection - 30 Holiday Favorites

  BFM Christmas Hits Singers

  BFM Hits / BFM DIGITAL
• 

  Find Your Voice

  Sarah McLachlan

  2012 | Tyde Music / TuneCore

• 

  Bing Crosby - Christmas Classics

  Bing Crosby

  2006 | CAPITOL

  This collection of holiday favorites remains a good representation of Bing Crosby's many seasonal recordings. Among the highlights are a Nelson Riddle arrangement of Crosby's biggest hit, the perennial "White Christmas," as well as "Winter Wonderland," "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," and "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" Any fan of Crosby, as well as good Christmas music in general, will want to hunt this down.

• 

  Christmas

  Alabama

  2007 | BMG Special Products
• 

  Christmas To Christmas

  Toby Keith

  2000 | Universal Motown Records Group
• 

  Glee: The Music, The Christmas Album

  Glee Cast

  2010 | Columbia
• 

  Christmas Memories

  Barbra Streisand

  2001 | Columbia
• 

  That Christmas Feeling

  Glen Campbell

  2010 | CAPITOL NASHVILLE
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  Merry Christmas

  Johnny Mathis

  1984 | Columbia

Big Gifts

• 

  Silver & Gold

  Sufjan Stevens

  2012 | Asthmatic Kitty / SC Distribution

  Brooklyn indie darling Sufjan Stevens will probably never finish his one-album-for-every-state project (48 to go!), but his holiday-music series seems unstoppable. By now, you should know the drill: Every year he gathers some musical friends and stitches together an EP to send out to loved ones. Some of the songs are standards, lovingly rendered. Some are standards, flipped into rock songs or spooky ballads. A lot of Stevens's holiday tunes are originals,... either sincere in their cheer or absurd, moody or baffling. ("Christmas Unicorn" is all of these.) Stevens's last five holiday EPs are finally collected in the new Silver & Gold: Songs for Christmas Vols. 6-10, a collection that's as upbeat and earnest as it is completely bonkers. Read here for a rigorously scientific unwrapping of the highlights of each volume, broken into statistical categories.

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  Christmas

  Low

  2000 | kranky / The Orchard

  Many artists — particularly those of the country, soul and pop persuasions — record at least one Christmas album in the course of their career. They're a sure-fire seller, guaranteed to move units. "Mom likes Tim McBride and he's made this holiday album, so OK, I know what I'm getting for her stocking this year." The way most of these are made, you can knock one of these out in just a... few days. Who doesn't know the music backwards and forwards already? All you need are the right people to sing your little "crossover duets" with. It's like making your own money.
  
  Low's Christmas album is just called Christmas. It was made well before Sufjan made Christmas safe for indie-rockers, and is far more original and less cloying than Sufjan's holiday recordings, likable as those may be. There are four originals and three cover songs on here. It's just under 30 minutes — Beatle length — but it's surprisingly diverse. Some of the songs sound like they were recorded live in a living room while others employ a total, Spectorific, wall-of-sound approach. Instruments employed include an organ that sounds like a flute, guitars both strummed and fuzzy, and, naturally, a lot of bells. I wonder if half the bells sold in music stores aren't for people playing Christmas music. Some of the tunes are fuzzed-out and blissed-up, while others are these gentle little lullabies that you have to listen to over and over. True to the band's "slowcore" aesthetic, all the numbers unfold at an achingly, deliberately slow pace.
  
  If you were anywhere near a TV set in the early '00s, you've likely already heard their take on "Little Drummer Boy." It was featured in an oft-repeated Gap commercial (umm, speaking of commerce). Theirs is the second-best version of this song ever recorded, in my own humble opinion (the first being the one by David Bowie and Bing Crosby, of course). Their dreamy molasses pop approach to the song advances toward the sublime on this song. I know that's a totally rock critic type thing to say but it's true! Their jazzy version of "Blue Christmas," which showcases Mimi's strong voice, is very nifty and you should put it on a mix tape for your folks right now. The take on "Silent Night" is solid too, though it's so stripped-down and earnest it might not merit as many repeat plays as the rest.
  
  The original numbers are really the centerpiece here. In a just world, they'd have become standards already. The most controversial one is the slow-burning and lovely "If You Were Born Today." The song's opening lines go "If you were born today/ We'd kill you by age eight/ Never get a chance to say/ Joy to the world and peace on the earth." The tune continues with a handful of Christ's best-known sayings. Coupled with those startling introductory lines, the song can't help but remind the listener that Christ's messages of total love and the desire for peace can't help but be absolutely revolutionary, and so clearly at odds with the everyday machinations of our governments and our shopping malls. It's as if the song is there to remind us all that giving thanks for the birth of Christ is of course awesome. But don't forget, that hippie looking guy not only said "Blessed are the meek," but also "Deny the flesh" and "Deny all that's evil." What's extraordinary is that Low manage to say this in a delirious and pretty little song without any didacticism at all.
  
  To blazes with a diamond! Low's Christmas album is the real gift that keeps on giving.

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• 

  CeeLo's Magic Moment

  Cee-Lo Green

  2012 | Elektra (NEK)
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  Holidays Rule

  Various Artists

  2012 | Hear Music

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  The New Possibility: John Fahey's Guitar Soli Christmas Album/Christmas With John Fahey, Vol. II

  John Fahey

  2006 | Fantasy Records

  Arguably one of the greatest Christmas recordings of modern times, A New Possibility was recorded by just one visionary folk icon and his acoustic guitar — no overdubs. John Fahey accomplished a lot in his lifetime: he virtually re-invented the acoustic guitar as a solo instrument with his idiosyncratic and mournful style, and he founded Takoma and Revenant, two influential independent record labels. For a great many people in the... '60s and '70s, the bearish-looking dude also saved Christmas, rescuing holiday music from the schmaltz that so often drenched it.
  
  Recorded in a beautiful, loping and often very simple style, the melodies resonate throughout the entire, unadulterated album. On the first three songs alone — "Joy to the World," "What Child is This?" and "Medley: Hark the Herald Angels Sing / Come All Ye Faithful" — Fahey's tone slips from joy to reverence and back again. As Fahey wrote in the original liner notes, "I hope that you like my new arrangements — they are not progressive; 'different' is the word — and I hope that you will celebrate Christmas with me." It's hard to think of better music to mellow out next to the tree with.

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  In The Christmas Groove

  Various Artists

  2009 | Strut Records / !K7 Records
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  Silent Night: Songs For Christmas

  Mahalia Jackson

  1987 | Columbia

• 

  Christmas In The Heart

  Bob Dylan

  2009 | Columbia

  If you're scratching your head at the idea of this legendarily iconoclastic Jewish-turned-fundamentalist-Christian-turned-who-knows-what songwriter (with one of the unloveliest singing voices around) recording a Christmas album, look at it this way: Dylan loves the dusty old fairgrounds of the Great American Songbook, and the carefully crafted songwriting era that ended around the time he started making records. Dylan loves hokum and corniness and schmaltz. He usually puts quotation marks around them in... his own work, but he's always admired songs that tug at the heartstrings. And what Dylan loves most of all is flying directly in the face of whatever he's expected to do. At this point, what could be more iconoclastic for him than crooning "Little Drummer Boy"?
  
  Assuming you can accept its premise — Grizzled Old Beloved Entertainer in a Santa Claus suit — Christmas in the Heart is a hoot, mostly because Uncle Bob is clearly grinning from one edge of his fake beard to the other. He sounds like he's about to burst into giggles when he rasps verses of "Silver Bells" and "Winter Wonderland" that everyone else has forgotten. And he's pulled up a fantastic selection of songs (to win friends and influence elderly relatives), including a handful of ace obscurities, like the Hawaiian novelty "Christmas Island." The album's highlight is "Must Be Santa," with its whirlwind polka arrangement based on Brave Combo's rendition. The album's effectively a Christmas-themed episode of Dylan's "Theme Time Radio Hour" program, performed entirely by the man himself.

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  A Winter's Night: A Nettwerk Christmas Album

  Various Artists

  2003 | Nettwerk / Nettwerk Productions
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  The Beach Boys' Christmas Album

  Beach Boys

  2011 | CAPITOL

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  A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector

  Various

  2009 | Legacy Recordings

  Not since singing cowboy Gene Autry lassoed a batch of holiday songs did a collection make such an impact on the caroling canon. The Wall of Sound mastermind — now locked away behind a different kind of wall — corralled his stable of singers and musicians to produce 1963's breakthrough Christmas album, with a dozen tunes gleaming with the Phil Spector sparkle.
  
  Included here are three originated by Autry: "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,"... delightfully delivered by the Crystals, with 16-year-old Lala Brooks singing lead; "Frosty the Snowman," courtesy of the Ronettes, featuring Spector's future wife, Ronnie, on exuberant lead vocals; and "Here Comes Santa Claus," one of two tracks by the album's sole male vocalist, Bobby Sheen, of Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, featuring the Blossoms on harmonies.
  
  Blossoms vocalist Darlene Love transformed into Queen of Christmas, thanks to her memorable set (and as witnessed every year during her yuletide visit to the Letterman show). Her dramatic solo turns, particularly on the Brill Building composition (written by Spector, Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry) "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)," are spectacular. Ronnie Spector has also kept the tradition alive, performing annual holiday shows and releasing a new collection of Christmas songs in 2010.
  
  Spector's murder conviction adds a pall to track 13, the album closer — his spoken narrative, backed by "Silent Night" *212; but sassy Ronnie spotting Mommy kissing Santa Claus (complete with the sound of a smooch) and Love singing of marshmallow worlds and winter wonderlands take you back to a more innocent time when all was merry and bright.

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  Merry Christmas

  The Supremes

  1999 | Motown
• 

  Verve Presents: The Very Best of Christmas Jazz

  Various Artists

  2004 | Verve Records

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  ZE Christmas Album

  Various Artists

  2004 | ZE Records / The Orchard

  Aside from James White's reliably angular and bad-ass "Christmas With Satan," the additions to the 1981 ZE LP A Christmas Record included on this "reloaded" incarnation are marginal. But that doesn't diminish the best of the rest: The Waitresses contribute their second-most-familiar cut, "Christmas Wrapping," which delivers their sly, hooky humor but actually ends happily, while August Darnell's "Christmas on Riverside Drive" similarly compares to his swanky Kid Creole hits.... Fueled by Detroit's crumbling economy, Was (Not Was)'s "Christmas Time in Motor City" swaps the usual seasonal fantasies for the dark humor of winter realism.

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  Ella Wishes You A Swinging Christmas

  Ella Fitzgerald

  2002 | VERVE MASTER EDITION
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  Maybe This Christmas Tree

  Various Artists

  2004 | Nettwerk / Nettwerk Productions

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  A Christmas Together - John Denver & The Muppets

  John Denver

  Windstar Productions

  Many have tried to sing with the Muppets. It's tougher than it sounds.
  
  No. 1, no matter who you are, you won't be as charismatic as your co-star. Recall the tendency of reporters interviewing Henson and Kermit to put the mic in front of Kermit (Carson did it a couple of times). That, boys and girls, is star power.
  
  Number two, it takes a certain kind of voice to make it work. Generations of... pop stars have tried hanging out on Sesame Street. It's an unforgiving place. Oh, everyone does OK, but it's rarely great. Sometimes it destroys the song entirely. For example, "I Don't Want to Live on the Moon," a Jeff Moss song sung originally by Ernie, is a complete showstopper, a simple ballad about traveling and missing home that will reduce grown-ass adults to tears. Amazing song in its original form. But add Aaron %$#@ing Neville in a duet and you have little but oversung mush. Bleh.
  
  But John Denver...well, John Denver was something else. When people called him "the human Muppet," they were usually making fun of him. But Denver's let's-call-it-mellow vibe and patina of fundamental decency made him an ideal addition to Hensonworld, not to mention his telegenic look. (Think about how many really big stars you've seen on TV and how few of them you can describe in detail. Denver's look is etched in everyone's memory.) And his voice never overwhelmed the songs
  
  All of which is why A Christmas Together holds up as well as it does. Denver and the Muppets crank through the "Twelve Days" (only slightly funnier on TV than on album). Rolf gets his best piano-bar hack on for a duet on "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" (Denver sounds like he's singing about ten feet from the mic). "Christmas Is Coming" is an utter head-scratcher, a Scooter/Piggy duet round with a weird island vibe. "Little Saint Nick" is as close to rock as we get, "Silent Night" remains orthodox and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" very funny.

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  A Charlie Brown Christmas [2012 Remastered & Expanded Edition]

  Vince Guaraldi Trio

  2012 | Fantasy Records
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  Pretty Paper

  Willie Nelson

  1984 | Columbia

• 

  One More Drifter in the Snow

  Aimee Mann

  2006 | Super Ego Records / The Orchard

  Even among earnest singer-songwriters, Aimee Mann stands out for her unflappable solemnity. So it comes as no surprise that this woman who rarely cracks a smile has produced a Christmas album that sets the mood for post-holiday-gorge loafing, not a drunken office party. Fortunately, Mann knows how to choose classics that work with her natural aesthetic. When it comes time to liven things up with a Yuletide cartoon anthem, she opts for... one that's serious but fun, "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch," with Grant-Lee Phillips taking over Boris Karloff's narrating duties. In addition to the standards, One More Drifter in the Snow features "Christmastime," a song written by husband Michael Penn and frequent collaborator Jon Brion, which enters on a light-hearted mandola strum and quickly takes a slinking, minor-keyed turn. The singer's own "Calling on Mary" is a somber bit of introspection, the sort of brooding that naturally occurs every December, but which most carol composers choose to ignore.

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  A Very Special Christmas

  Various Artists

  1987 | A&M
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  Alligator Records' Genuine Houserockin' Christmas

  Various Artists - Alligator Records

  Alligator Records
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  When a Child Is Born

  Danny O'Reilly, Sinéad O'Connor

  2012 | RTÉ Radio / The Orchard
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  A New Orleans Christmas

  Various Artists

  1997 | NYNO Records / TuneCore
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  Stocking Stuffer

  Fleshtones

  2008 | Yep Roc Records / Redeye
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  Yuletide Beat

  Los Straitjackets

  2009 | Yep Roc Records / Redeye
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  Snow Angels

  Over The Rhine

  2008 | BEAT MANAGEMENT INC. - Digital / Redeye
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  A Christmas Kind of Town

  Marah

  Yep Roc Records / Redeye

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  A Motown Christmas

  Various Artists

  1999 | Motown

  Motown was as programmatic as it was genius, and this compilation is as programmatic as it gets: Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder, Temptations, Supremes, Miracles, more or less in that order, over and over, with Marvin Gaye snuck in at the end with the surprisingly sexy and raw "I Want to Come Home For Christmas." Sadly, this package doesn't include Gaye's other great holiday track, the luminous... "Purple Snowflakes," which released for years; the idea seems to be to stick with material from the holiday albums the label issued in its time.
  
  As with Broadway, Christmas songs didn't tend to induce the best in Motown's glossy vocal roster. (Or its best vocalists, as the Jackson 5 cuts helmed by Jermaine attest.) Some of A Motown Christmas is pretty stolid — hymns make even Stevie and Smokey sound inanimate. (Broadway appears too, on the Supremes' "My Favorite Things" — someone interpreted "Brown paper packages tied up with strings" pretty liberally there.) But there is a good amount of charm on display here, as well as a taste of backstage wildness. The Funk Brothers tended to play looser than usual on tracks that weren't meant to be hits; you can hear that especially well on the lazy-stroke groove of the Temptations' "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" ("Hey, Rudolph! Won't'cha guide my sleigh?" as a sign-off mantra is a good idea, too) and the more charged, but still sleek, "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town" by the Jackson 5. And the material — well, you know.

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  Wonderland of Christmas

  André Kostelanetz & His Orchestra

  2011 | Sony Classical
• 

  Elvis' Christmas Album

  Elvis Presley

  1985 | RCA Records Label

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  A Very Ping Pong Christmas: Funky Treats From Santa's Bag

  Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra

  Ubiquity Records

  If you're fed up with Yuletide records that put the "white" in "White Christmas," Shawn Lee's A Very Ping Pong Christmas might just cure what (wass)ails ya. Lee's previous Ping Pong outings have suffered from a paucity of memorable melodies, but here he applies his knack for funky beats and atmospheric grooves to twelve holiday classics, resulting in one of the cooler Christmas waxings in recent memory. There's a heavy '60s/'70s soul... vibe goin'on, and it's easy to picture Santa pulling up to your house in a red Cadillac with matching velvet double-breasted pimp vines to the tune of Lee's clavinet-stoked "Do You Hear What I Hear" or wah-inflected "Jingle Bells." His takes on "Deck the Halls" and "O Little Town of Bethlehem" would surely have Ramsey Lewis's 'In Crowd 'doin'it to death around the ol'Tanenbaum. Hopefully we'll get a Volume 2 in next year's stocking.

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• 

  Christmas 1979

  Wild Billy Childish & The Musicians Of The British Empire

  2007 | Damaged Goods / state51

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  Handel: Messiah

  René Jacobs

  2006 | harmonia mundi / The Orchard
• 

  Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Ballet, Op. 71 (Excerpts) - Expanded Edition

  Eugene Ormandy

  2003 | Sony Classical/Legacy

• 

  A John Prine Christmas

  John Prine

  Oh Boy Records

  Leave the Christmas carols to the gleeful crooners: John Prine is largely uninterested in regurgitating seasonal favorites on this eight-song collection. Though he takes "Silver Bells" for a swingin' ride and gets cheeky with "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," the focus here is on Prine originals that have only tangential connections to holiday concerns. For example, "Everything Is Cool" (given the full-band treatment, compared to the stark solo version on Prine's... 1991 comeback album The Missing Years) starts with the couplet, "Everything is cool, everything's OK/ Well just before last Christmas, my baby went away" — but that's it for yuletide references. No matter, as it's a typically sublime Prine tune, mixing darkness with light: He sings of seeing 100,000 blackbirds flying in the shape of a teadrop that washes his sins away. Three cuts are live recordings, including "If You Were The Woman And I Was The Man," which has nothing to do with Christmas but does feature an angelic duet vocal from Cowboy Junkies' Margo Timmins, and "Christmas In Prison," which is as wistful and lonesome is its title suggests. The closing title track is mostly a spoken-word story from Prine's childhood, punctuated by a verse of "Away in a Manger" with a boisterous conjunto-accordion finale. You won't hear it like that at the candlelight service.

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  A Classic Soul Christmas

  Various Artists

  2006 | Rhino Atlantic
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  The Ventures' Christmas Album

  Ventures

  2008 | CAPITOL