12.1.14
Lots more albums than usual as part of Amazon's $5 MP3 album deals this month, so let's get started.

Must-haves: Arctic Monkeys' Favourite Worst Nightmare, Nick Drake's Pink Moon, the Cure's Disintegration, Spoon's Kill the Moonlightand Girls Can Tell, the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street, the Cars' The Cars, Nine Inch Nails' Broken(although this isn't really a supergood deal because this is just an EP), R.E.M.'s Automatic for the People, Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet, Drive-By Truckers' Southern Rock Opera, the Police's Zenyatta Mondatta, Reggatta de Blanc, and Outlandos d'Amour, Cut Copy's In Ghost Colours, the Velvet Underground's Nico and the Velvet Underground, Jay-Z and Kanye West's Watch the Throne, Modest Mouse's The Moon and Antarctica, Morrissey's Viva Hate, Duran Duran's Rio, the soundtrack to Rushmore, John Mellancamp's Scarecrow, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Show Your Bones.

Recommended: the Decemberists' The King Is Dead, Gorillaz' Plastic Beach, Radiohead's The Bends, Spoon's Gimme Fictionand Transference, TV on the Radio's Return to Cookie Mountain, Tom Waits' Rain Dogs, Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Fever to Tell, Elvis Costello's This Year's Model and My Aim Is True, Ryan Adams' Gold, Elliott Smith's Figure 8 and XO, Soundgarden's Louder Than Love, Beck's Guero, Sting's ...Nothing Like the Sun, Sigur Ros' Untitled, Divine Fits' A Thing Called Divine Fits, Thao's We the Common, Tom Petty's Damn the Torpedos, Sonic Youth's Goo, Animal Collective's Centipede Hz, and Dirty Projectors' Bitte Orca.

I might buy: Spoon's A Series of Sneaks, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart's Days of Abandon, Jenny Lewis' Acid Tongue, Cibo Matto's Hotel Valentine, Bishop Allen's Lights Out, the Beach Boys' Endless Summer, Lucinda Williams' West, Franz Ferdinand's Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action, Tom Waits' Nighthawks at the Diner, Spider Bags' Frozen Letter, Bright Eyes' A Christmas Album, and the Hoodoo Gurus' Stoneage Romeos.

12.2.14
The Decemberists have shared a second song from their upcoming album, What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World, called "Lake Song":

Despite being a huge fan of this band and desperately missing new music and tours from them over the last few years, I was not a huge fan of the first song they shared from this record, and I'm not really digging this one, either. There are moments when the syncopated drumming and the stilted delivery of the lyrics combine in a pretty magical way, but the song is way too long and way too boring; there just aren't enough ideas here to fill up nearly six mintues.

I've already got my tickets for the two shows they're going to play in Atlanta in April, and there's almost no way I'm not going to buy this album, but both of the tracks they've shared so far sound like they should have been b-sides, not the songs they would lead with when returning to their audience after the longest break between albums in their history.

12.3.14
And the Decemberists' Portland neighbors, Sleater-Kinney, have also shared an upcoming song from their new album, their first in an even longer time than the Decemberists took off between records. The album is called No Cities to Love, and the song is "Surface Envy":

As with the Decemberists first shared track, I was somewhat lukewarm about the track they shared previously, "Bury Our Friends" (although relistening to it now, I like it a lot better than I remember), but this one sounds more like what I was hoping for. It doesn't sound like you could randomly place it on one of Sleater-Kinney's older albums, but it does sound like what the band might have evolved into by now if they hadn't declared an indefinite hiatus and taken nearly a decade off.

That's probably because the band members didn't walk away from music altogether——each of them were involved with at least one other band during their time away from each other, and that seems to have given them license to explore some new ideas through those collaborations that are now working their way back into the Sleater-Kinney style with these songs.

I've never seen Sleater-Kinney live, so I was almost more excited for the tour to supoort this record as I was the record itself, but so far, the closest announced date to my city is a full day's drive away. I'm hoping that the spring and summer will bring the announcement of a more extensive tour that will make a stop in my town, or at least one that's only a half a day's drive away.

12.4.14
I'm really loving Nico's Chelsea Girl, and I was probably on my second or third listen when I asked myself the question, "How is it possible that one of these songs has not been featured in a Wes Anderson film?"

And of course, that's because it wasn't possible: "These Days" (which might be my favorite track) was used in The Royal Tennenbaums back in 2001.

12.5.14
Favorite line so far from Stars' No One Is Lost (aside from the title itself, which ends up in three or four of the tracks): "You always sucked at your goodbyes", from "This Is the Last Time".

I don't know why I like that line so much, but I like it enough that it rescues the whole rest of the song for me.

12.8.14
Pitchfork giving Smashing Pumpkins' new album, Monuments to an Elegy, a 6 and declaring it not terrible might as well be declaring it album of the year considering how much they have (rightfully) lambasted Billy Corgan's output since he reformed the band in 2007.

I was already strongly considering purchasing this one based on the songs that were previewed before it was released; this sort of review from Pitchfork almost makes it impossible for me not to buy it now. Because look: Corgan could make the album of the year, and at this point he'd get no more than a 6 from Pitchfork. So using that logic, a 6 is pretty equivalent to a 10, because it's the best rating they could ever conceivably give him at this point in his career and still be able to look themselves in their hipster mirrors in the morning.

12.9.14
of Montreal announced a new album, Aureate Gloom, and shared a track titled "Bassem Sabry":

I'm not sure I really love this track, but I instantly love it more than anything off their last album, Lousy With Sylvanbriar. And even if I didn't like this track, I still would have preordered the record, because this band built up so much goodwill with me for that stretch of records between The Sunlandic Twins and Skeletal Lamping that they're going to have to put out three or four genuinely awful records in a row for me to not get incredibly excited about a new release.

Still, I'm getting the feeling that Kevin Barnes' best songwriting days are behind him, and I can't help but wonder if he might make a course correction by going back to his old method of recording everything himself and only involving the band for tours, instead of playing the basic tracks live to tape in the studio with them as he's done on the past couple of records. It's the little embellishments and flourishments that come from his studio isolation that take his songs to another level, and a lot of that stuff never gets put in when the focus is on recording a band instead of crafting a piece of recorded music.

12.10.14
I've bought a lot of new music recently, but I don't have much to write about because I spend most of my time listening to Nico's Chelsea Girl, the National's eponymous record, and Stars' No One Is Lost. Which is an odd assemblage of albums, I'll grant you, but they're all captivating to me for different reasons right now.

12.11.14
Alright, here's the stuff I've actually purchased recently: all of the singles in Kim Deal's solo series (which essentially comprise a 10 song album at this point), Bright Eyes' A Christmas Album, Cibo Matto's Hotel Valentine and Viva! La Woman, Hoodoo Gurus' Stoneage Romeos, the So So Glos' Blowout, Spoon's A Series of Sneaks, and The The's Soul Mining.

I've haven't actually had a chance to listen to all of these yet, but so far the So So Glos are standing out as sort of a Titus Andronicus in training (and I mean that as a compliment), while Cibo Matto's most recent, Hotel Valentine (their first record in 15 years, which is hard for me to believe as I'm typing it), has some bright spots but is overall not worth the wait.

12.12.14
I haven't really put a lot of serious thought into my annual best-of music lists for singles and albums, but here's something that I find telling: one of the records I've listened to the most this year is the National's debut album, which I didn't own until late August and which was originally released in 2001.

I've gotten the vague feeling that this year was one of the least compelling for new music in a long time, and the fact that I'd rather listen to a record that's more than a decade old than something just released is a more concrete sign that my intuition is correct. We'll see when I actually get down to an analysis of the stuff I've been listening to over the past year, but I don't even know if there will be enough good stuff to constitute a full-blown top 10 list.

12.15.14
Spoon's A Series of Sneaks isn't as good as I had hoped it would be, but I'm still glad I got it, especially since I only had to spend $5. There are all the elements of what would eventually become the classic Spoon, but it just doesn't gel the way it does on later efforts. Girls Can Tell remains their earliest great record, and the first one with an unbeatable song ("The Fitted Shirt"), but Sneaks is worth owning if you're into the band enough to want to understand their development.

12.16.14
Modest Mouse are coming back! They announced a new album due in March of next year, Strangers to Ourselves, and shared a track called "Lampshades on Fire":

This is their first album since 2007's We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, which is shocking considering the band's output between 1996-2000: three offical studio albums, several EPs, and two album-length compilations of rarities, b-sides, etc., that were much better than the throwaways that bands usually include on those.

I'm not sure Modest Mouse will ever make an album that I completely love ever again, but this track is certainly a good start——I immediately like it better than almost anything on their last album, and although it reminds me more of the material from Isaac Brock's solo Ugly Cassanova project, I take that as a good sign, because it's quirky and offbeat in a way that the blander songs they made after acheiving mainstream success are not.

Because if they were to make another album that I could get obsessed with, it would have to be one that is willing to be less safe. Even when they were producing their least compelling work, they were still very distinguishable from other indie guitar bands that made it big, but they seemed to be acutely aware of their success and the expectations that were placed on them as a result of their newfound popularity, and it stifled their creativity in ways that are hard to define but which are obvious to anyone who knows their earlier output. Maybe the long absence has reduced their suffocating self-awareness, maybe the record label isn't counting on them to prodcue another hit, and maybe this will free them up to make music that is as unfettered as the stuff that I fell in love with.

Again, I'm not counting on this outcome, but this song is a positive sign that they could move in that direction, along with the album's artwork, which is very evocative of the art from The Lonesome Crowded West.

12.17.14
The Decemberists have shared another track from their forthcoming album What A Terrible World, What A Beautiful World, this one titled "The Wrong Year":

I like this more than "Make You Better", but as with the other track, take away Colin Meloy's voice and you're left with very little that sounds like the Decemberists. Not a good sign that I've gotten this impression from two tracks in a row, especially after such a long hiatus, but I'm still hopeful that the overall album will be good.

I'll be going to see them live regardless: they're playing two shows in Atlanta in April, and we've already got tickets to both of them.

12.18.14
I keep meaning to sort through all the Christmas music from indie artists that I've accumulated over the years and create a custom playlist, but I think I've missed the window again this year. However, I'm going to keep this page of the best tracks from Sufjan Stevens' prodigious holiday output (100 songs from ten albums) bookmarked for next year——I know that he's going to have to have a place on such a playlist, but I was dreading having to listen to all 100 tracks to find the ones that were best suited to what I wanted to do (which could probably be described as quirky traditional).

12.19.14
Okay. So Amazon has done their fortnightly refresh of MP3 albums for $5, and the list is HUGE. I'm guessing this has something to do with the Christmas sales, but the list is a little overwhelming. Here we go:

Must-haves: Nirvana's Nevermind, the O Brother, Where Art Thou?soundtrack, the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street, artist title, Michael Jackson's Thriller, Kendrick Lamar's good kid, m.A.A.d. city, Chvrches' The Bones of What You Believe, Pearl Jam's Ten, Frank Ocean's Channel Orange, Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral, Kanye West's Late Registration, The College Dropout, and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Phoenix's Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, the Police's Synchronicity, and Ghost in the Machine, Drive-By Truckers' Southern Rock Opera, Paul Simon's Graceland, Modest Mouse's The Moon and Antarctica, Tom Waits' Swordfishtrombones, Rage Against the Machine's The Battle of Los Angeles, Lou Reed's Transformer, the Strokes' Is This It, Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, Steve Earle's Copperhead Road, LCD Soundsystem's LCD Soundsystem, the Stone Roses' The Stone Roses, Helmet's Meantime, Peter Bjorn and John's Writer's Block, the Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground and V.U., Cowboy Junkies' The Trinity Session, Yeah Yeah Yeahs' It's Blitz!, Waxahatchee's Cerulean Salt, and John Mellencamp's Uh-Huh.

Recommended: Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run and Nebraska, Soundgarden's Superunknown, Badmotorfinger, Lounder Than Love, and Down on the Upside, Rage Against the Machine's Evil Empire, Nine Inch Nails' With Teeth, Childish Gambino's Camp, the Shins' Port of Morrow, MGMT's Oracular Spectacular, Passion Pit's Gossamer, Tom Waits' Bad As Me, Tennis' Ritual in Repeat, Fiona Apple's Tidal and Extraordinary Machine, Pearl Jam's Vs, Sleigh Bells' Treats, Modest Mouse's No One's First and You're Next, the Sundays' Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, Elvis Costello's Armed Forces, Waxahatchee's American Weekend, the Housemartins' London 0 Hull 4, Kid Cudi's Man on the Moon, and Sonic Youth's Dirty.

I might buy: Lucinda Williams' Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone, Social Distortion's Social Distortion, Grimes' Geidi Primes and Halfaxa, Jeff Buckley's Grace, the Stooges' Funhouse, Band of Horses' Infinite Arms, the Muffs' Whoop Dee Doo, Common's Be, M.I.A.'s Kala, Daniel Lanois' Belladonna, and Ryan Adams' Demolition.