Sorry, Raekwon. There’s only one Cuban Linx in my life.
Mystikal - Bouncin’ Back (Bumpin’ Me Against The Wall) (via MystikalVEVO)
Remember this?
First song I danced to in the new decade.
Favorite Albums
1. CVA - Paint It Black
2. Idle Will Kill - Osker
3. The Moon And Antarctica - Modest Mouse
4. Hidden World - Fucked Up 
5. Art Offensive - Black Cross
6. Orphans - Tom Waits
7. The New Danger - Mos Def
8. Over The Counter Culture - Tim Fite
9. Leviathan - Mastodon
10. Too Close - Bishop Perry Tillis
More (rough order):
Change Is A Sound - Strike Anywhere
Symptoms Of A Leveling Spirit - Good Riddance
Deltron 3030 - Deltron 3030
File Under Black - None More Black
The Role Of Smith - Tabula Rasa
Paradise - Paint It Black
Oh! Inverted World - The Shins
In An Aeroplane Over The Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel
Fishscale - Ghostface Killah
Shake The Sheets - Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
Neon Golden - The Notwist
Milk-Eyed Mender - Joanna Newsom
A Celebration Of Guilt - Arsis
Stankonia - OutKast
Saul Williams - Saul Williams
Smile - Brian Wilson
Mama’s Gun - Erykah Badu
Present Tense - James Carter
Waiting To Wash Up - Pink Razors
Lifetime - Lifetime
It had to come from Costello and Colbert, but it did it for me. A Christmas song with substance. Imagine that.
‘There Are Much Worse Things to Believe In’ by Stephen Colbert & Elvis Costello
a hopeful and surprisingly sincere duet, from Colbert’s Christmas special last year.
Come Together - Ike and Tina Turner and the Ikettes
This was the record I couldn’t stop listening to this year. I bought it for $2 at a yard sale in Jamaica Plain. You don’t know shit about this amazing duo until you’ve heard Come Together. If you still define Tina by “What’s Love Got to Do With It?”—a great song—see what depth “Too Much Woman” and “Unlucky Creature” add to your impression of her character. Then in the same swoop listen to her and Ike blow Lennon and McCartney out of the water with their version of the title track. It’ll leave you sweating. Loud, rocking, emotional, SULTRY. Not for headphones. Hits: “It Ain’t Right,” “Too Much Woman,” “Contact High.”
Marty’s Garage - Cecil Taylor, Archie Shepp et al. 
Actually recorded in a garage outside Chicago in the late 60s, early 70s. Nothing short of free/minimalist jazz, which I like, but some of the solos are bluesy as hell, which I like more.
Eddie Fisher and the Next One Hundred Years
Long a sideman, this woefully unappreciated and little-known guitarist recorded his own album in 1970. Funk vamping and jazz soloing mix, and his use of the wah-wah is one-of-a-kind. Bad ass.
Three Things at Once - Deep Sleep
Riffy, old school punk from Baltimore. Lazy critics might call it “Black Flag Revival.” Lots of themes repeat, but these songs stay in my head for days at a time. Hits: “On a Slab,” “Textbook Timebomb.”
Natural Boogie - Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers
The Ramones of Chicago blues. Need I say more?
The Seeds - The Seeds
Never actually owned this garage rock essential until this fall. Contains “Pushin’ Too Hard,” the song they’re best known for, but there’s better stuff on here: “Can’t Seem to Make You Mine,” “Nobody Spoil My Fun.”
Promised Heights - Cymande
Eclectic funk from the early-mid 70s. Musicians hailed from Guyana and Jamaica, and the band formed in London. Some songs aren’t far off from Sly and the Family Stone’s darker stuff, others are infused with African and calypso rhythms. Basslines are as catchy as they come.
New Directions - Eric Dolphy Quintet
Dolphy’s first album as a band leader. Definitely “outward,” but a stark contrast to Coleman’s “Free Jazz,” which came out the same year.
New Original Sonic Sound - New Original Sonic Sound
Members of Mudhoney cover 16 Sonics songs. Rad.
When Life Gives You Lemons… - Atmosphere
This one slipped under my radar last year and I’m the less fortunate for it. What I love about this album is what bothered most Atmosphere fans: it showcases Slug’s storytelling more than his anger and socio-political messages. Hits: “Puppets,” “Painting,” “Wild, Wild Horses.”
Who Was Mac Rebbenack - Dr. John
Dr. John before he was Dr. John. Mostly rock n roll, early R&B. Someone reached deep into the crates to find these cuts. Quirky, lots of fun.
1. The Ecstatic - Mos Def
Cerebral enough to ward off some of its audience, eccentric and self-referential enough to escape the lame “conscious” moniker, this album does what albums with real staying power must: it challenges. Nobody should feel at ease listening to The Ecstatic, even passively, and that’s what makes it great. Every song contains rhymes, hooks, samples and changes you’ll be itching to replay halfway through your first listen—and by the same token, there’s a lyric or verse in every song that will probably alienate you. (One key moment for me comes in “Twilite Speedball”: “The city breathing all down your neck/Bad news and good dope, special effects/And reality’s teeth/Bright, black, sinking in deep/Who ain’t shy of the pain? Who ain’t shy of the pleasure just the same?”) Consider also that a lot of these tracks don’t top two and a half minutes. What you get is an album that never settles anywhere, almost to the point of being unfulfilling, leaving you disarmed but craving more. It’s got the same punch as 2004’s The New Danger and it’s barely two-thirds as long.
Like all Mos Def’s work, The Ecstatic is part autobiography. Allusions to Bed-Stuy crop up throughout, peaking with the single “Life in Marvelous Times,” when we get this gem: “More of less than ever before/It’s just too much more for your mind to absorb/It’s scary like hell, but there’s no doubt/We can’t be alive in no time but now.” “Pistola” and “History” are also delve into the personal. But by and large The Ecstatic is marked by a worldliness that’s not present on Mos Def’s other albums. The bulk of it is in the samples, which flow seamlessly from Afro-beat to Middle Eastern to West Indian to soul. It’s in the verbal content, too, though to a lesser degree. A call to action from Malcolm X—”I don’t care what color you are, as long as you want to change this miserable condition that exists on this earth”—introduces the explosive first track; “Auditorium” (featuring Slick Rick) brings us to the streets of Baghdad; “The Embassy” cleverly takes on internationalist prestige; and Mos Def sings “No Hay Nada Mas” in Spanish.
The complexity of The Ecstatic has kept me listening to it straight through for a couple months now. My reaction’s different every time, a new song sticking with me, a new insight giving me pause. “Casa Bey” drifts to a close and I’m never satisfied, always want to start it over. And that’s more than I can say about most albums that have come out in the past ten years.
2. Amnesia, Surrender EPs - Paint It Black
Serious experimentation by a group that’s turned into an institution. Seven years of bellowing, cramming 20 songs into 25 minutes, touring extensively and Den Yemin hasn’t lost an ounce of energy or originality. See my best of the decade list for more. Hits: “Salem,” “Bliss,” “Cipher.”
3. Tell ‘Em What Your Name Is - Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears
Unembellished funk-soul throwback that transcends mimicry but has yet to reach full maturity. My worry is they’re too genuine to catch on with the under-25 crowd, which could mean they’ll disband before they get there. Still, the charm of this album is that they play with one foot in the garage. Hits: “Gunpowder,” “Sugarfoot,” “Get Yo Shit.”
4. Farm - Dinosaur Jr. 
J Mascis has experienced heartbreak, and he reminds us of it across a dozen tracks like he’s the first artist to have tapped into the subject. He doesn’t write about it particularly well. His thoughts are underdeveloped and his analogies are pretty low-hanging (“I’ve been out lookin’ for somewhere to hide/There’s been a mix up somewhere deep inside/I feel the ocean inside of your heart/Just takes a doubt to come smash it apart”). But you know what? I could give a fuck on this album. Mascis’s guitar playing on Farm is as inventive as it’s ever been without losing that fuzzy wall-of-sound trademark, and Farm’s true emotion is in the songs themselves, not the lyrics. Far from perfect, but it’s been enough to make me a Dinosaur Jr. fan again.
5. Lost Art - Cloak/Dagger
Wait, you mean fun/dangerous things are happening in punk rock besides Paint It Black, even though Fucked Up didn’t put out a full-length this year? I didn’t think so either, until Lost Art came out last month. All you nonbelievers go give this raucous piece of work a listen. Especially: “Dead Idols,” “Don’t Need A,” “Dead Town Beat.”
Honorable mentions:
Bitte Orca - Dirty Projectors
Groovy. See dishonorable mentions for more.
Now We Can See - The Thermals
Not as raw musically as their last, somewhat deeper lyrically: “We were born in the desert/we were reared in a cave/We conquered in the sun/but we lived in the shade/Yeah baby we were savage/we existed to kill/Our history is damaged/at least it was a thrill.”
Deflorate - Black Dahlia Murder
Rather than overshooting, BDM has decided to let ferocious-meets-catchy age. It’s working. But whatever’s next will have to bring something new to the table or I’m gonna lose interest.
They Came From the Shadows - Teenage Bottlerocket
Takes some risks as a pop punk album, and those are the better tracks. The rest is run-of-the-mill. The ones I don’t skip over I play at full volume. Hits: “Don’t Want to Go,” “Forbidden Planet,” “Fatso Goes Nutzoid.” Duds: “Bigger Than Kiss,” “Not OK.”
Endgame – Megadeth
Twenty years ago would anyone have said Dave Mustaine would still be alive by 2009, let alone putting out albums that make Metallica sound like a bunch of old men? Hits: “This Day We Fight,” “Head Crusher.” Duds: everything else.
Vecketamist - Grizzly Bear
I can’t call Veckatimest uninspired—that misses the mark—and I can’t say it’s unsophisticated, because that would be plain wrong. It’s sophisticated, all right—sophisticated like a master’s degree in contemporary poetry and about as useful. Inspired, too. It’s got that Paul Simon air of pop ambition mixed with a Green Day sense of self worth. The dudes are talented, each of the four in a way that’s differentiable from the rest. And they’ve labored to put their skills—from Daniel Rossen’s vibrato to Chris Taylor’s production chops—on almost constant display. Without a doubt, they obsessed over every second of this 52-minute snooze-fest. But the obsession is so transparent, every hook and harmony so overwrought (to say nothing of Rossen’s pointedly vague lyrics) that the record lacks any emotional or aesthetic core. In every song they find one thing that seems to work and do it over and over. The level of “craftsmanship,” if that’s what you want to call it, makes me wonder who they think their true audience is, the young devotees of indiedom or the staff at Pitchfork. Put simply, it sounds like they’re just out to impress us, or someone. Put simpler, it’s got no soul. Put simplest, it doesn’t sound like they’re having any fun.
That might not be an issue for rock critics who need a new Radiohead to gush about or hipsters who want to feel smart when their iPod shuffles to a song like “Dory.” By all means, guys, gloat away. After a few serious listens I can’t find anything exciting about Veckatimest. It’s like they took OK Computer, cut “Paranoid Android” and “Electioneering,” loaded up on Adderall and adapted what was left to 2009 tastes. Half the originality, double the boredom. For all the talk of experimentation, the only thing it seems to experiment with is how many boys choirs you can put on a record and still call it “pop.” Beyond that, it’s the opposite of experimental—it’s dense, calculated and compulsively self-aware.
For a bigger picture compare it to Bitte Orca, the Dirty Projectors album released two weeks after Veckatimest. These were the summer’s indie blockbusters, and while we could argue apples and oranges about sub-genre (I’ve seen at least two writers call Bitte Orca “art-pop”), their reception was similar, with accolades from the usual suspects. Oh, and lest we forget, Chris Taylor produced DP’s Rise Above in 2007…
Listening to the albums side by side, it’s clear both bands had the same not-so-humble vision: to push the envelope as frontrunners of indie rock. Both succeeded in doing that much; it’s in their delivery that they differ. Bitte Orca is as playful and goofy as its title suggests—there are hooks and anti-hooks, melodies and warbles, steady grooves and erratic time signature changes, great riffs and straight noise. The end result sounds like hard work with generous room for whimsy and improvisation, whereas Veckatimest just sounds like toil. And it has nothing to do with tone. Bitte Orca isn’t more freewheeling than Veckatimest because the songs are more energetic and upbeat, nor is the tedium of Veckatimest the result of its being slower and more somber. Grizzly Bear’s pleasure for making music simply isn’t there, and it matters. Perfect, in the unfortunate case of Veckatimest, killed enjoyable.
Other dishonorables:
Merriweather Post Pavilion - Animal Collective
While I was mostly bored to death with Grizzly Bear, I found Animal Collective abrasive. All the noisy hyperactivity on this record just stresses me out. Hippie prog folk.
The Fame - Lady Gaga
What can I say? I gave it a shot. Worthless.
Crack the Skye - Mastodon
Betrayed by one of my favorite metal bands. Watered down and overproduced.
Iron Front - Strike Anywhere
Coaster - NOFX
Collapser - Banner Pilot
These last three were all the rave for my fellow punkers this year. Wow. Iron Front, is beyond disappointing—the worst I’ve heard from Strike Anywhere, the punk band five years ago I predicted would be The One That Really Mattered. At least NOFX’s latest failure matches the quality curve of their past four albums. As for Banner Pilot, I saw a group of 17-year-olds at the bar down the street playing the same recycled Dillinger Four drivel with twice the energy. And they’ll probably grow out of it.
