Other faves of the year:
– American Music Club, The Golden Age
– Sons & Daughters, This Gift — somewhat like an English version of early X
– Nick Cave
– French Kicks, Swimming — a band so slight they’re almost subliminal, but after the fourth listen you never want to hear another band again
– Gaslight Anthem, The ‘59 Sound — reminds me of an American version of Idlewild; not much in terms of originality but they borrow so much from so many sources I like (Clash/Social D/Springsteen) and bring so much energy that you can’t help but be swept away. Incredibly earnest
– Bloc Party, Intimacy — strong rebound from the patchy second album; gets a bit carried away with the electro-clash elements at times but also crafts some great grooves and moments of quiet beauty that we really haven’t heard from these guys before

If I was Sabean, I would be trying to deal Cain, Bumgarner or Alderson to the Dodgers for Kemp, since Coletti appears to have taken the small success of the Manny deal and their playoff appearance as a mandate to completely destroy his team (I mean, I know I would rather have any one of those pitchers than the overrated Cano and Melky “Career 4th/5th OF” Cabrera). Kemp is the friggin’ Eric Davis of his generation, only healthy! God I wish Doug Melvin would get in on this madness. Use the supposed Sabathia money to sign some big bats, maybe Furcal and Adam Dunn, hell, maybe they could even compete in that shitty division.

Love, love, LOVE M83. Gorgeous music, lush and melodic, and it really blooms under repeated listening. Very much in the shoegaze tradition (e.g. Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Ride, etc.) as far as the 4AD-style opiate-like atmospheric sheen, only imbued with some of the better recent French electro-pop sensibilities, such as the creative sample recycling and rehabilitation, a la Air or Daft Punk. But for a band which such obvious influences, and being so rooted in the 80s, they (or really, just “he” now, since it’s just Gonzalez at this point) make very distinctive and uniquely beautiful music. I would highly recommend any of their three proper albums.

Anyway, overall it was a pretty shitty year for tunes by my reckoning–most of the good albums were the latest releases by long established bands/artists, there weren’t a lot of new faces, which is kind of depressing, but I guess more of the same good stuff is still good stuff. Apart from the new TVOTR and M83 records, I suppose my other favorites were:

Wolf Parade – ‘At Mount Zoomer’. Comes with the caveat that Spencer Krug’s voice simply does not work for some listeners, and I understand. I can live with it, and the music itself is goofily, gleefully awesome.

The New Year – ‘The New Year’. Hey, it’s the Kadane brothers, masters of the billowing multi-guitar attack. These guys fronted (if you can call it that, they’re pretty publicity shy) Bedhead, probably the single most criminally unknown/unappreciated great band of the 1990s (just listen to “Haywire” or their narcotic, ramshackle cover of Joy Division’s “Disorder”). This is as close to their absolute zenith as they’ve been as a unit since ‘Beheaded’.

Ruby Suns – ‘Sea Lion’. Pretty difficult to describe, weird as hell and all over the map, and perhaps just a tad too precocious for its own good, but plenty of bright spots. I’m not even going to bother trying to describe, the listener just has to form their own reaction. I definitely liked it.

Spiritualized – ‘Songs in A&E’. There’s no point denying that I’m a massive Jason Pierce fan and would praise pretty much anything he did, but this really was something of a bounceback record, it’s way better than ‘Amazing Grace’ and likely the best overall Spiritualized record since the immortal ‘LAGWAFIS’ way back in ‘97. It’s still not quite on par with the first three Spiritualized records or a lot of what Spacemen 3 did, but that was a long time ago now, those days are probably over now, and if this is what’s left, I’m still pretty thrilled.

The Walkmen – ‘You & Me’. Straightforward but intelligent and pretty indie rock.

Sigur Rós – ‘Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust’. I imagine anyone with any interest at all in indie music has at least heard Sigur Rós by this point. Interesting album b/c it exists on a somewhat smaller scale than their usual continental-sized epics. Not their best by any means, but quite good.

Mogwai – ‘The Hawk is Howling’. Good record, great live show. Not for background/idle listening.

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – ‘Lie Down In the Light’. Oldham’s annual Appalachian gothic masterpiece. He makes great records, but is as terrible in concert as Mogwai is great.

You liked RTCM more eh? Wolf Like Me was my favorite song of 2006. I haven’t heard M83, but I will now. What are your other suggestions for albums that came out this year?

I doubt CC ends up in SF.

I agree about Palmer being done as a top-5 fantasy QB.

‘Dear Science’ is great, although I liked ‘RTCM’ a bit better, actually. Regardless, it’s probably the best record of the year, yes, although I don’t think it’s the slam-dunk you have it down as, because M83’s ‘Saturdays = Youth’ is right there too IMO.

I cannot even begin to imagine Sabathia going to SF. They already have a gigantic albatross of a starting pitcher contract that is going to foul up their lineup for another 4 or 5 years. If I was Sabathia, I wouldn’t be all hot about the notion of struggling to win 15 a year for a team that is going to be hard-pressed to eclipse 70 a season for the foreseeable future. It’s the prime of his career, he’s going to be making more money than he, his kids and his grandkids could spend in their lifetimes short of a spectacular PCP habit, so why not go somewhere you can win? I get that SF has a nice climate and is a pretty city and all that, but baseball is a summer game, all North American cities have decent summer weather, and with his scratch, he could ditch Milwaukee or New York for Cape Town, Melbourne or Buenos Aires every autumn if he wanted. Besides, beyond Lincecum/Cain, aren’t Bumgarner and Alderson both supposed to be up in the next year or so? It just seems like they could make a lot better use of that money than adding yet more starting pitching.

The Palmer thing is far beyond me. I told my cousin, who owned him in my home league this year, that a visit to Birmingham was in the offing back in like September, just because all of the symptoms he was experiencing at the time seemed like such a dead ringer for what’s happened to some of my young pitchers over the years, but he held off on acquiring Garrard from me (or any other QB help) and went to his doom at a horrific 2-11. It’s been obvious all along that TJ was in the cards. Now they’ve blown 3-4 months of prime recovery time and probably cost his ‘09 season in its entirety as well. Incredibly awful decision-making, both by Palmer and by the team. Longer term, I think he’s completely finished as a top-5 QB and may be lucky to get another 15-20 wins in his career.