CLERK
OK, let’s take a look. (pause) Um, is this gentleman with you?
ELEANOR
My brother Matt had my shoes in the cab of his blue truck
He drove out to the bad side of the bluffs with Tony, just my luck
I used the old Fiesta from the parade float to track him down
But some pirates stole the gas [...]

What of this much buzzed-about cover of Radiohead’s “Just” (mp3) by current DJ of the moment Mark Ronson? What about it has inspired it’s everywhere-ness all of a sudden? Is it the fact that it comes from a hip NY DJ? Or that it attempts to wildly reinterpret a song by a band widely regarded [...]

Last year, the Fiery Furnaces covered “Norwegian Wood” (mp3) for the Rubber Soul tribute compilation, and were summarily lambasted across the music-crit sphere, both pro and amateur, online and off. How, in the name of everything holy, they wrote, could a band with only a few years of existence have the chutzpah to radically re-interpret [...]

Two things I really like about the end of the year–making comprehensive mixes of the music of the last 12 months, and giving cheap presents. This is a way for me to do both. Well, here they are–the first two products of about two weeks (off and on, mind you) of narrowing my year-end favorites [...]

I should be upgrading the site in a day or so, thus I’ve decided to try my hand at podcasting. No RSS feeds or anything (yet), just a radio mix this time of some of the best and most recent from this year–a lot of stuff I’ve already hosted here, and a good chunk of [...]

After a week-long respite in the Florida sun, I’m back, with a list inspired by my pal Irving of the 10 best singles so far this year. As I compiled it, I noticed that my ideal top ten is replete with up-tempo, danceable numbers–my ideal, parallel-universe Billboard chart.
1. The Decemberists “16 Military Wives“–At a typically [...]

At the halfway point (or a little after), I thought I’d issue my halftime top ten (then I saw the stalwart largeheartedboy’s own version–I swear I had this almost done last week). Anyhoo, here goes:

Spoon Gimme Fiction–A remarkable work from the most iconoclastic songwriter around today. A longer piece on this album will come [...]