4.1.10
I think the version of "Baby It's Cold Outside" by Zoey Deschanel and Will Ferrell in Elf might be the best version of that song ever made, but I can't stand her singing in any other context. I don't know what it is——in her work with M. Ward in She & Him and in that terrible cotton television commercial, her voice sounds simultaneously too hollow and too rich, and there seems to be a touch of pitchiness that I can't quite ignore. She'd be great as a harmonizer, but she can't carry the solo lead.

4.2.10
I've listened to Broken Bells, the collaboration between the Shins' James Mercer and producer/collaborator extraordinaire Danger Mouse a few times, and I just haven't been able to get into it. But a fellow Shins fan told me she initially had the same reaction, and around listen six or seven it just clicked, and it's been on repeat since then.

So I'm going to give it a few more shots and hope the same thing happens for me; on paper, this is a dream project, and I'd really like it if it turned out that way in reality too.

4.5.10
Yeah, I was going to start posting my top 50 singles of the last decade this week, but I don't think that's going to happen after all. The list is pretty much done, but the formatting, the comments, etc., is turning this into a bigger project than I thought. Next week. Maybe.

4.6.10
Every month, Amazon has 100 albums that you can download for $5. April's selections have some real gems, first and foremost of which is of Montreal's Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? (there are singles on this album that are worth $5 by themselves).

Other discs that are bargains at $5 include the Shins' Oh, Inverted World, Surfer Blood's Astro Coast, Ted Leo's Hearts of Oak, and Los Campesinos' We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed. Depending on your tastes, you might also want to pick up Camper Van Beethoven's Key Lime Pie, Iron and Wine's Our Endless Numbered Days, and Ra Ra Riot's The Rhumb Line.

4.7.10
Man, making my top 50 songs of the last decade would have been a lot more difficult if 1999 had been included. There were ten or so bands that released the best songs (and albums) of their careers that year, and I think I would have used at least 10 slots (or 1/5 of the top 50) for that year alone, and it's possible I would have used up to 15 of the 50 slots for that year.

4.8.10
Ted Leo's latest, Brutalist Bricks, is definitely better than his previous effort, 2007's Living With the Living, which felt labored, watered-down, and tired. I've always admired his desire to follow in the tradition of punk pioneers like the Clash and engage in social commentary while making great music, but Living With the Living felt like preaching without any great songs to back it up or at least even it out. The music seemed secondary, and it seemed like he was putting out the record because, well, he's a musician and that's what you're supposed to do; it didn't feel like he actually had anything interesting that he needed to say.

His political barbs are less plentiful and less pointed on Brutalist Bricks, and although he probably could have cut the album by a couple of mediocre tracks, it's overall a very solid effort. For non-fans, Hearts of Oak and Shake the Sheets are still the best places to start, but this record shows he's still got some gas left in the tank.

4.9.10
Hmmm...a double album concept record about Imelda Marcos by David Byrne, Fatboy Slim, and truckloads of guest vocalists including Steve Earle, Cyndi Lauper, Santigold (formerly Santogold), St. Vincent, Natalie Merchant, and Nellie McKay. You have to believe this is either going to be a disaster of epic proportions or album of the year.

4.12.10
Still not able to get into Broken Bells. I really, really want to like this record, but it's just not happening.

4.13.10
Liars' Sisterworld has some compelling moments, but it's still only the third best of the three albums I own by them. 2007's self-titled effort is probably their career-defining record, although I'm also a big fan of their debut, They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top, which a lot of their current fanbase dismisses as misguided juvenalia because it's more dancepunk than art rock.

I missed the two albums where they morphed from their early sound into what they are now, and I'm just not sure I have the stomach to work my way through them for the sake of completeness——I know 30 second song samples don't tell you the whole story of a song, especially with a band like Liars, but I can't even get through the preview samples on these records, and I've tried many times. Drum's Not Dead would probably do more for me than They Were Wrong So We Drowned, but I still don't know if there would be a genuine payoff in getting to know that record any better than I do already.

4.14.10
I loved Beulah. The Coast Is Never Clear was one of my favorite releases of the last decade, and it's predecessor, When Your Heartstings Break, is almost as good. Their other two releases, their debut Handsome Western States and their swan song Yoko, show a band getting it's footing and running out of ideas respectively, but they're both solid efforts that would have been the highlights of a lesser band's career.

So I was really looking forward to the solo debut from frontman Miles Kurowsky, The Desert of Shallow Effects. It's been seven years since Beulah's final record, and in that time Kurowsky has suffered medical setbacks (including shoulder surgeries that prevented him from playing guitar for a couple of years) that repeatedly delayed the recording process.

And while the record's not bad, it's not as good as I had hoped, especially given that there should be seven years of ideas in there. There's nothing on the album that's an embarrasment when compared to his work with Beulah, but there's nothing that stands shoulder to shoulder with their best work, either. Beulah fans should pick this up, because this is likely the closest we're ever going to come to getting another Beulah record, but those unfamiliar with their work should give Heartstrings or Coast a try first.

4.15.10
I've been listening to Drive-By Truckers since their seminal 2001 double album, Southern Rock Opera, but I'm now realizing it's been a pretty long time since I've really enjoyed a complete record from them the way I enjoyed Opera. Decoration Day, the 2003 follow up to Opera, is probably the last effort I could appreciate as a complete album; while there are certainly songs on almost every release that are noteworthy, the records feel more and more watered down and bloated as the years go by.

It's certainly not the only (or even the main) reason for the decline, but the quality of Mike Cooley's songs have really gone downhill since Opera. On that record, he was responsible for two of my favorite tracks (both on that album and in their entire catalog, "72 (This Highway's Mean)" and "Zip City". On their most recent record, the just-released The Big To-Do, he contributes three tracks: the average rocker "Birthday Boy", the below average ballad "Eyes Like Glue", and "Get Downtown", which is in competition for the worst track on the record.

All in all, The Big To-Do is a decent record, but like most of their releases since Opera, it could have been cut by several tracks and likely come out a stronger effort. Having so many songwriters in the band is, to borrow one of their earlier album titles, a blessing and a curse, and perhaps it's time to stop being so democratic about allowing everyone to get at least a couple of tracks on a record and cut their full-length releases down to the 10-12 strongest songs, regardless of who might not get a track on the album or whether the songwriting credits tilt too far in favor of a particular songwriter.

Their only release that has clocked in anywhere near that number is, coincidentally, A Blessing and a Curse (although that one did include a bonus disc with four additional tracks); the other albums clock in at (starting with Opera), 20 songs, 15 songs, 14 songs, 19 songs, and 13 songs, and Opera is the only one that can come close to justifing the excess of tracks.

Not to be mean, but the easiest place to start cutting would be bassist Shona Tucker's songs. After that, cut two-thirds of Cooley's tracks and one quarter of Hood's, and then we might be getting in the neighborhood of a solid, economical set of songs. Put out lots of b-sides or rarities collections for the hardcore fans to dispose of the rest if you must, but wading through so many songs to find that only 8-10 are worthwhile (and usually only 3-4 are really outstanding) on each release is getting tedious.

4.16.10
I kind of liked Frightened Rabbit's last record, Midnight Organ Fight, and that's pretty much how I feel about their latest, The Winter of Mixed Drinks. It's the kind of music I can listen to and enjoy, but sometimes the songs aren't distinct enough from one another.

I guess I like their overall sound without being blown away by individual tracks. But when my listening habits increasingly consist of random mixes of tracks rated four or five stars (out of five), and most of their tracks come in at a solid three, that means I'm probably not going to hear very much of their music after the initial few listens to a new release.

4.19.10
I didn't think it was possible for me to like contemporary gospel music more than I already did, but that was before my wife's parents' neighbor started blasting it at 6:30 a.m.

On a Saturday morning.

And singing along at the top of her lungs.

4.23.10
I only own three Pearl Jam albums, and I've never been a huge fan, but I've really gotten into them again over the past few days for reasons I can't begin to fathom. I'm actually interested in them enough as a band again that I'm seriously considering picking up the rest of their records, although at this point I'd likely have to pay closer to full price for them after passing over most of them numerous times for next to nothing in the used CD bins years ago.

For the record, Vs. is a better record than Ten, and no, I don't have some irrational hatred of Ten because it was so outlandishly popular——"Jeremy" is still the best song they've ever recorded, and I'm the kind of sucker that falls for stuff like "Alive" and "Evenflow". But the songwriting on Vs. is more confident and more consistent, and from a technical perspective, the recordings are simultaneously more polished and more muscular.

4.26.10
I've got another batch of CDs on order from Amazon. This week I should get Robyn Hitchcock's Propeller Time, MGMT's Congratulations, Love Is All's Two Thousand and Ten Injuries, Sigur Ros member Jonsi's solo effort Go, Fang Island's Fang Island, Morning Benders' Big Echo, and Caribou's Swim.

Also preordered but not due to arrive until after the offical release in May are the National's High Violet, LCD Soundsystem's This Is Happening, the Black Keys' Brothers, the Hold Steady's Heaven is Whenever, New Pornographers' Together, and Broken Social Scene's Forgiveness Rock Record. I'm more excited about the May releases, especially the National and LCD Soundsystem, but the April batch has a few bands I haven't heard before, so I'm excited about some new blood.

4.27.10
Nice surprise in the mail yesterday: all seven of the April releases I ordered from Amazon last week arrived. I'm still skimming my way through them, and so far it sounds like Morning Benders' Big Echo might be the gem in this set.

4.28.10
I can't figure out if I'm going to like Fang Island or not, and it's likely going to take a few listens for me to know for sure. When I like them, they remind me of Marnie Stern and Battles, but there are times when they seem too hyperkinetic (which is saying something if you're familiar with the two artists I compared them to).

There are also weird moments when I catch myself picturing the guys from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure playing the music, and that throws me off——there's a cheese factor to some of the guitar effects that I'm either going to get used to and ignore or which I'm going to grow more and more irritated by until it's not fun to listen to these songs anymore.

4.29.10
I think I might like Jonsi's solo album, Go, more than anything by his main gig, Sigur Ros. Don't get me wrong, Sigur Ros is great, but I have to be in a certain kind of mood to listen to them. There are, of course, elements of Sigur Ros' signature sound on this record (most notably in tracks like "Tornado" and ""), but most of it is much more fast-paced and upbeat, and reminds me of the opening track on Sigur Ros' last record, "Gobbledigook".

4.30.10
The new MGMT isn't as good as their debut, which you doubtless know is the almost-universal critical opinion if you read reviews at all. But it's not as bad as the naysayers would have you believe.