Radiohead
Kid A
How is it that Kid A's opening track, laden with an electronic vocal stuttering "bleh, bluh-bleh bleh bluh" is the most fascinating statement made in rock & roll this year? Because somehow, even when Radiohead blathers and blips nonsense, it's profound. The band's future-perfect musical grammar may be hard to decipher, and the melody is even more subliminal, but the journey traveled with Radiohead reveals them to be not only rock music's greatest adventurers in 2000, but teachers as well. --Beth Massa [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Radiohead
In Rainbows
On the deliriously satisfying In Rainbows, Radiohead returns to a more straight-ahead (though subdued) rock sound. Much hubbub has been made about this record's innovative release. Radiohead allowed fans to pay what they wished to download fairly low-resolution tracks from the band's own website. Like so many innovations, it already seems funny both that it was such big news and that som... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Radiohead
OK Computer
Radiohead's third album got compared to Pink Floyd a lot when it came out, and its slow drama and conceptual sweep certainly put it in that category. OK Computer, though, is a complicated and difficult record: an album about the way machines dehumanize people that's almost entirely un-electronic; an album by a British "new wave of new wave" band that rejects speed and hooks in favor of l... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Sonic Youth
Dirty
A must-buy for any teen or twentysomething who considers themselves the least bit cool. With Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore swopping leads, it's a beautifully paced disc exploding with beatific beats, white-noise assaults and great, grungy pop ("Sugar Kane," "Chapel Hill"). --Jeff Bateman [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Sonic Youth
Goo
After spending the 1980s terrorizing the underground alternative scene with their oddly tuned guitars and inventive song structure, this New York City art-punk band started the next decade with a major label deal and a determination to make rock loud and sexy for all concerned. The single "Kool Thing," which features a cameo from Public Enemy's Chuck D, immediately proved they had both the dyna... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Sonic Youth
Daydream Nation
The essential New York rock band of the post-punk era, Sonic Youth care as much about the quasi-symphonic, microtonal art-guitar music of composers like Rhys Chatham and Glenn Branca as they do about the rock-song form, and with Daydream Nation, they struck their greatest balance between the two. The songs hover gorgeously for extended lengths, letting guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee R... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Richard Ashcroft
Alone with Everybody
The bad news: Alone with Everybody, the first solo venture by the Verve's ex-lead singer Richard Ashcroft, is not as good as the Verve's pinnacle departure album, Urban Hymns. The good news: it's really, really close. Urban Hymns's elongated, psychedelic space jams and reflective, occasionally plaintive themes seeped osmotically into the listener's every cell, becoming glor... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Radiohead
In Rainbows
On the deliriously satisfying In Rainbows, Radiohead returns to a more straight-ahead (though subdued) rock sound. Much hubbub has been made about this record's innovative release. Radiohead allowed fans to pay what they wished to download fairly low-resolution tracks from the band's own website. Like so many innovations, it already seems funny both that it was such big news and that som... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Bright Eyes
Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground
Nebraskan wunderkind Conor Oberst writes songs so naked and heartfelt they make you feel like a voyeur just listening to them. This precocious singer-songwriter croons with the astonished intensity of a homeless Robert Smith singing for his supper. And his band's fourth album is every bit as lyrical, sprawling, and pretentious as its title. The production is notably brighter and crisper tha... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
The Beatles
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Before Sgt. Pepper, no one seriously thought of rock music as actual art. That all changed in 1967, though, when John, Paul, George and Ringo (with "A Little Help" from their friend, producer George Martin) created an undeniable work of art which remains, after 30-plus years, one of the most influential albums of all time. From Lennon's evocative word/sound pictures (the trippy "Lucy in ... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Jeff Buckley
Grace
Here's what they say about Jeff Buckley: "He died too young." Here's why they say it: Grace is simply one of the most amazing things you can do with your ears and a little digitally-encoded disc. He inherited the voice of his father, the legendary Tim Buckley--seven octaves, each of them only just enough to cram his big feverish dreams into--but his music was all his own. Think Van Morri... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Austerity Program
Black Madonna
By day, Thad Calabrese and Justin Foley are mild-mannered, bespectacled working stiffs in New York, toiling away on PowerPoint presentations and diaper changes. One trip inside the telephone booth, though, and this unassuming duo transforms into one of the most impressive rising metal acts of the year. Formed in 1997, the Austerity Program have taken 10 years to spawn their full-length debut, a... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
José González
In Our Nature
Names like Elliott Smith, Nick Drake, and Tim Buckley are often used together, not necessarily to describe one exact sonic style of singer, but more as incredibly passionate verbs, to identify the strong emotions evoked when listening to these late legends' sparse melodies. Swedish-based Argentinian musician José González is likely to hear those classic names a lot in his future. Gonz&#... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Andrew Bird
Armchair Apocrypha
Strip away the music of an Andrew Bird song, and you're left with brilliant prose ("across the great chasms and schisms and the sudden aneurysms"), vignettes about mentally fending off plane crashes, infiltrating characters like the kings of Macedonia and Lou Dobbs, and titles such as "Yawny at the Apocalyspe." It's hard to believe that, really, his music reigns, but when Bird adds understated ... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Smashing Pumpkins
Zeitgeist
Inside the buzzing hive of Smashing Pumpkins' guitars is clearly where bandleader Billy Corgan feels most comfortable. So, after a seven-year hiatus for the short-lived group Zwan and his surprisingly sunny 2005 solo album, Corgan has revived the Pumpkins in all the six-string-spattered shades of emotional gray that made them one of the greatest bands of the alt-rock era. Longtime drummer Jimmy... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Between the Buried and Me
Colors
You will be hard-pressed to find a band that brings to mind artists such as The Beatles, Radiohead, King Crimson and Sepultura as you listen to their record. The transitions, the textures, the almost exhausting task of following the notes in each song makes you wonder what kind of band can bring to life such a recording. Raleigh, N.C.-based Between the Buried and Me (BTBAM) are such a band a... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Radiohead
Kid A
How is it that Kid A's opening track, laden with an electronic vocal stuttering "bleh, bluh-bleh bleh bluh" is the most fascinating statement made in rock & roll this year? Because somehow, even when Radiohead blathers and blips nonsense, it's profound. The band's future-perfect musical grammar may be hard to decipher, and the melody is even more subliminal, but the journey traveled with... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Mark Kozelek
Little Drummer Boy Live
On his first-ever live album, singer-songwriter Mark Kozelek pulls everything together. Limited to 10,000 budget-priced copies, with two unreleased tunes on board, it's obviously targeted to fans, though it's a judicious, career-spanning effort that careens through the debauched sometime-genius's work with the Red House Painters, Sun Kil Moon, and on his own. This record's so darn good it might... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Josh Rouse
Subtitulo
Josh Rouse is about as consistent an artist as they come. After 2003's apt-sounding 1972 and 2005's equally sepia-tinted Nashville, the risk was that Rouse would abandon his stonewashed sound and aim for something artificially on the ball and of the moment. Hasn't happened. Subtítulo, so named because the artist has curled himself up in the culture of his adopted count... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Califone
Roots & Crowns
The fifth proper album by the Chicago-based roots-loving group is their slowest, weirdest, and best. Some of these hazy songs are pretty little pop jams, while others are more experimental things stitched together haphazardly, all the wires showing. If you want to hear a group that "pushes the envelope" while never forgoing the pleasure principle, Califone is exactly that. It's so nice to hear ... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
M. Ward
Transistor Radio
Transistor Radio may be bookmarked by instrumentals, but M. Ward’s cracked, jazzy croon is the true star of all his work. The sixteen tunes here all sound like sketches that became songs on the spot, and we all know the well-crafted illusion of spontaneity is a very difficult thing to pull off repeatedly. His most consistently enjoyable album to date, Transistor offers breezy... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Bob Marley & the Wailers
Legend (New Packaging)
Even as greatest hits packages go, this is an utter gem. Every song is inspired, in a class of its own, whether the real version of "I Shot the Sheriff," the hymnlike "No Woman, No Cry," or the sheer joy of "Jamming." Even allowing that Marley never wrote any bad material, then Legend is still the crème de la crème, the heart and soul of the Jamaican people packed into one ... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Bob Dylan
Modern Times
At a time when the majority of those his age are drifting into retirement, 65-year-old Bob Dylan has put the capper on a three-record run that ranks with the best in his storied, 44-album career. Like Time Out of Mind and Love and Theft before it, Modern Times is a rootsy, blues-soaked pool of the purest form of Americana--skipping the progressive bells or whistles for an u... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Desaparecidos
Read Music/Speak Spanish
Like their labelmates Cursive, Desaparecidos are an Omaha act with a taste for shaking up indie rock with volatile mood swings and jagged guitar rhythms. But while Cursive's songs are often deeply--sometimes painfully--personal, Desaparecidos strike out at modern complacency more than they vent personal vendettas. Led by Bright Eyes mastermind Conor Oberst, Desaparecidos use Read Music/Speak... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Carole King
Tapestry
Carole King was famous as a writer of girl-group hits in the '60s. In 1971, she became more famous. That's the year Tapestry became one of the biggest-selling LPs of all time. It's easy to hear why--the music is loose, earthy, L.A. session-pop. King is casual, intimate, and tough; she covers all the emotional ground of the post-liberated woman with ease. She brings adult nuance to "W... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Bright Eyes
Cassadaga
This album sounds like a major label debut. I mean, all those strings and choruses, the overarranged tracks, the clean production... I'm Wide Awake was a wonderful album because of its roughness, those minutes of nothing but Oberst's voice and his guitar ("Landlocked Blues", anyone?), its simplicity, its romantic anguish. Not to name the previous records, with (wonderful) songs that sounde... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
James Taylor
James Taylor: Greatest Hits
James Taylor's mid-'70s departure from Warner Bros. may be one of the best things that ever happened to the label; otherwise, it might not have been in such a rush to compile his Greatest Hits, one of the company's biggest sellers ever at 11 million and counting. Taylor's style, which all but defines the word diffident, has more backbone than it's often given credit for. Here, as surpris... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
The Flaming Lips
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
As these dimpled moptops from Oklahoma grow pepper-bearded and transform into wizened elder statesmen of sonic adventuring, the heartfelt candy of their loving bubblegum stretches ever longer into echoing soundscapes. If Radiohead are halfway to becoming U2, the Flaming Lips are nine-tenths of the way to pop nirvana. Hardly a song on Yoshimi isn't resonated, echoed, and reverberated--floating t... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Mark Kozelek
Little Drummer Boy Live
On his first-ever live album, singer-songwriter Mark Kozelek pulls everything together. Limited to 10,000 budget-priced copies, with two unreleased tunes on board, it's obviously targeted to fans, though it's a judicious, career-spanning effort that careens through the debauched sometime-genius's work with the Red House Painters, Sun Kil Moon, and on his own. This record's so darn good it might... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
The Decemberists
Her Majesty
Failing students have had such an influential role in shaping rock & roll that it's easy to give the bookworm segment short shrift. Witness the vital contributions from the likes of Ray Davies, the Zombies, and Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Magnum--the kind of smartypants songwriters with whom the Decemberists' Colin Meloy is often compared. The second full-length CD from Portland, Oregon's Decembe... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Deerhunter
Cryptograms
Cryptograms is the second full-length offering from Deerhunter. The album took almost two years to finish and was the product of emotional, physical, and financial strain on the group. Cryptograms is the resulting effort, a twelve track release that veers back and forth like a series of wild mood swings, morphing from billowy clouds of ambience to noise-damaged rock tracks and a second half th... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Al Green
Call Me
Call Me is the masterpiece from America's last great soul singer, a vulnerable, sensual, spiritual, and sexy album. Sent soaring by the bluesy accents of the Memphis Horns and held to Earth by the rock-solid, wide-open groove of drummer Al Jackson, the subject here is nothing less than Green's soul, a battle expressed beautifully in his otherworldly voice--crying and praying on the title... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Pink Floyd
Dark Side Of The Moon
Dark Side of the Moon, originally released in 1973, is one of those albums that is discovered anew by each generation of rock listeners. This complex, often psychedelic music works very well because Pink Floyd doesn't rush anything; the songs are mainly slow to mid-tempo, with attention paid throughout to musical texture and mood. The sound effects on songs like "On the Run," "Time" and ... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Cap'n Jazz
Analphabetapolothology
Cap’n Jazz need no introduction for most people on this site, however for the less informed they are a seminal emo/noise band that combines elements of pretty much every wave of emo music from Rights of Spring to Sunny Day Real Estate to The Get up Kids. Members of this band, most notably brothers Tim and Mike Kinsella, have gone on to form Make Believe, The Promise Ring, American Football, Owl... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
The Twilight Singers
Powder Burns
Recorded in New Orleans a few months after Katrina devastated it, generators at the ready to supply electricity when the power failed, Powder Burns is former Afghan Whigs frontdude Greg Dulli's finest work in a decade. It's widely and wisely been hailed as the most solid Twilight Singers release to date, as it combines the sultry and hazy lounge air of the first three Singers records with the s... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
El-P
I'll Sleep When You're Dead
After producing Cannibal Ox’s indie hip-hop classic The Cold Vein, Definitive Jux head El-P outdid himself with his own 2002 solo debut, Fantastic Damage. With its densely layered, atmospheric production and lyrics to match, El-Producto revealed himself as a mad genius perhaps too well-read on Philip K. Dick—anger, paranoia, and impending doom emanated throughout the album. After the experim... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Menomena
Friend and Foe
On their third album, Portland, Oregon's Menomena (remember Sesame Street and the Piero Umaliani song, "Mah Na Mah Na"?) sound like Spoon on the brink of outer space with Mercury Rev riding in their rocketship. They write collectively, using software they scripted to assemble songs from their own click-tracks and melody snippets--and then re-learn as new, full-bodied entities. The cumulative ef... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Modest Mouse
We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
Wrapping a wordy, darkly whimsical title around a bunch of songs many will find catchy and none will find pretty, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank takes after Modest Mouse's other four albums, even with guitarist Johnny Marr added to the equation. Like everything the band has released since signing with Epic in the teeth of a millennial panic, it's louder and somewhat less twisty than the... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Bright Eyes
Four Winds
This ep from the prolific, megatalented Conor Oberst is the kind of thing you suspect he could turn out every month or so: one hot single and five relatively good B sides, all from the same sessions that birthed Bright Eyes' forthcoming LP. Soundwise, it's no great departure from his earlier work. Oberst lays his typically solid melodies and heartfelt croak over both lovely acoustic stuff and r... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
The Shins
Wincing the Night Away
"Wincing the Night Away" is abosolutely fantastic! If you're a Shins fan, I think you'll definitely enjoy their new album. However, it is different compared to "Oh, Inverted World" and "Chutes too Narrow." My favorite song will probably have to be "Sleeping Lessons" which starts off this incredible album. It begins with a captivating echo of sweet tunes and James Mercer's voice, and ends wit... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Lady and Bird
Lady and Bird
When you're on a first-name basis with the international hipster scene, it doesn't seem to matter what you're up to artistically, because people will buy it. In the case of Keren Ann, the Parisian songstress who graced lower Manhattan with her presence for her fourth solo effort (Nolita, released in December 2004), a side project can be little more than a fun romp in the studio with an equally ... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Bright Eyes
Fevers and Mirrors
Judging by the reviews on Amazon for Connor's latest releases, there has been an incredible amount of backlash against Bright Eyes. Yes, the Jay Leno performance and the whole Winona thing were a bit much. And yes, it is insulting to Bob Dylan to be compared to Connor Oberst or anyone other than Bob Dylan, but come on. If Connor is now considered mainstream, then I am hard-pressed to find a... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Azure Ray
Hold On Love
Everyone always talks about these ‘roads’ we find in life where we have to choose one way or another. Well, I’m certain I have encountered some a time or so, but sometimes your wheels just pan off the road without you even really knowing and then you end up somewhere completely off your road and new and you may like it, or just the curiosity, or you’ll hate it and find your way back to the road... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
M.Ward
Transistor Radio
Matt Ward's luminous new CD is a faded message from a beautiful dream that begins to dissipate in our memory the moment we awake. A postcard sent from the age of innocence that reminds us of how uncorrupted we once were. Deja vu for the jaded generation living in the age of corruption, lies and Bushspeak. "Transistor Radio" is the appropriate title because it evokes the age of poplar music, whe... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Tilly and the Wall
Wild Like Children
If adolescence had an accompanying soundtrack, it would sound like Wild Like Children, the new full-length by Omaha, Neb., quintet Tilly and the Wall.
Remember high school? Do you really remember it — beyond the bullshit, clichéd misery and alienation? Tilly and the Wall's five friends (all in their mid-20s) do. And in these 10 disarmingly natural, mostly perfect songs, they'll take ... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Bright Eyes
Letting off The Happiness
Letting Off the Happiness, the sophomore album from Bright Eyes, cuts its predecessor in half -- both in number of tracks and length of album -- but almost doubles its quality, both in songwriting and production. That's not to say that this album doesn't have its fair share of stinkers; the first half dozen tracks on the album is almost completely forgettable. That is, it would be, if it were n... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Bright Eyes
Lifted
Conor Oberst, the guiding light and sole constant member of the fluid Bright Eyes, is a nine-year veteran of the music business at the ripe old age of 22. Yes, that's right: the Omaha, Nebraska native has been recording since the age of 13, and not, fortunately, because of any musical family legacy of the kind that thrust an obviously unprepared Michael Jackson into the spotlight as a pre-adole... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Sun Kil Moon
Ghosts of the Great Highway
No longer worried about What's Next to the Moon?, ex-Red House Painters troubadour Mark Kozelek returns to the dusty earth with an album of exquisite plainsongs for the debut under his new moniker, Sun Kil Moon. A thinly disguised solo set, Ghosts of the Great Highway finds Kozelek settling into a porch rocking chair and delivering ten songs that provide slight updates to his tried and true sty... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
Sun Kil Moon
Tiny Cities
At the risk of being excoriated repeatedly by The Modest Mouse Club, I must first admit that the only record I own of theirs is Good News for People Who Love Bad News, perhaps the most displeasing entry in the band’s catalogue for fans, and I haven’t listened to that for, like, three months. I know, I know. It’s criminal that I would dare examine Sun Kil Moon’s Tiny Cities without first underst... [read more] buy via AmpCamp
