18-15

#18 The Killers- Hot Fuss
There was a time when I thought the Killers were cool. Before Sam's Town and their ode to Joy Division (whom 90% of people have never heard of). Back before guitar hero and rock band. Back before the Killers were popular they seemed a whole lot cooler. Still though this is a great album. The first song that brought me to the Killers was All These Things I've Done. The music video where Brandon Flowers ends up face down in the mud with I've got got soul but I'm not a solider blaring in the background. That is why I like this album.


#17 Matt and Kim- Grand
This is possibly one of the most upbeat albums created to date. I saw Matt and Kim at outside lands over the summer and that may have swayed my viewpoint on the album. They were great live, they played the final countdown. There is no song on this album that I don't like. "Me and Kim, instead of getting health insurance this year, decided to get a T-shirt gun." (crowd go crazy)





#16 Iron and Wine- The Shepherds Dog
I remember I first heard about Iron and Wine when I googled good music to fall asleep to. And that is exactly what this is. Perfect music to take a nap to. In most cases I prefer lo-fi to high production albums, but I think lots of production actually worked well with Sam Beam. He keeps the earthy quality that is what I like most about him. I picked this Iron and Wine album specifically because I feel that it is his most diverse and ambitious album. "White tooth" is reminiscent of George Harrison's Within You, Without You and Tomorrow Never Knows. "House by the Sea" feels nautical and reminds me of something that would be on We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank.

#15 Wolfmother- Wolfmother
This album is the most classic rock album since classic rock. Wolfmother may be overused in video games, but it is still fine by me. Andrew Stockdale has a voice that rivals Robert Plant's. I watched 500 days of summer yesterday and I was pleased to hear Vagabond in the soundtrack. Pitchfork wrote "The obnoxious three-and-a-half-minute garage-punk blast "Apple Tree" features the album's most uninspired songwriting and laziest delivery." I happen to really like Apple Tree, and if you are able to tell so well what is inspired and uninspired maybe you should be doing something besides writing music reviews. kthx. I don't like pitchfork, but I like this album.

So I felt like making a list...

So it's new years and lately I've been reading a lot of pitchfork and rolling stones lists of the greatest albums of the decade. I do hate the entire idea of juxtaposing music and comparing and saying which one is "best", but luckily no one reads my blog so I can do that and not feel like a hypocrite. So this is Drue's 20 Best Albums of the Decade

First off notable mentions--

Sondre Lerche - Dan In Real Life Soundtrack
I wouldn't feel right putting this in the Top 20 list seeing that it is made for a movie music. It still is great though. Great acoustic singer songwriter stuff in this album. Nothing really can beat Norwegian pop music. Honestly, its great.







Radiohead- Kid A
Okay sure send the hate mail. Kid A was the #1 album for both Pitchfork and Rolling Stone. Radiohead is alright and all but lets get a little more creative. I feel weird using this reference (i think it applies for most of my audience though), but Picking Kid A as your #1 album is like playing magic with a horsemanship deck. Sure you may win, but do you really feel good about yourself. The answer should be no.




Peter, Bjorn and John- Writer's Block
There is no disqualifying type reason why this didn't make the top 20. Really the only reason is that I thought of 20 albums that I like more than this. So I deem this album #21 on my top 20 list. Peter, Bjorn and John is pretty good music, and boy howdy do I love to whistle along to Young Folks.






#20 The Bravery- The Sun and the Moon
This album is very cool. I'm not sure where I read it, but I heard that they use an organ in this album that predates electricity. Crazy. The singles, Believe, and Time Won't Let Me Go are on this album. Another thing I really like is that when I bought this album (one of the few I actually own) it came with 2 disc with 2 versions of each song. Some of the 2nd versions are cool, but most of them are just worse versions.




#19 Gorillaz- Demon Days
Many will probably disagree with me, but this is my favorite Gorillaz album. I am a sucker for concept albums and I like to think that this loosely follows the concept album format. This is one of the few bands that I listened to in middle school that I look back at fondly. Sure D-sides was absolutely horrible and I haven't heard anything about the Gorillaz in 2 years, but come on lets all go back to a time when it was all good and fun to listen to them.

So my work study job is to review cd's. I'm pretty sure no one in the radio station reads the reviews so I'm going to start posting them here too. RIYL means similar bands and I don't know how to do a fancy 5 star rating system so im going to use ***** 10 stars being the highest.

Blood and Sunshine

EP (self-released)

Blood and Sunshine is a San Francisco native band that relies on creating interesting beats using a mass amount of different instruments and sounds. This is a moody electro sounding album that is extremely dark. The

RIYL: Moby, Orbital

***3/10

Zee Avi

EP (Bushfire Records)

Izyan Allrahman, also known as Zee Avi is a signer/songwriter from Borneo that landed her first record deal when Raconteurs drummer Patrick Keeler discovered her youtube channel. Keeler showed the videos to Monotone Record’s Ian Montone. Zee Avi creates pleasant acoustic guitar based songs with Zooey Deschanel-esque singing.

RIYL: Sondre Lerche, Jack Johnson

********8/10

Iron and Wine

Around the Well (Subpop)

Sam Beam is an Austin native that creates acoustic driven “sleepy” folk songs. Sam’s whispery instantly puts me to a calmer state of mind. This album is a collection of songs and performances from the past few years.

RIYL: The Mountain Goats, Nick Drake, Noah and the Whale

*********9/10

The Everday Visuals

The Everday Visuals (self-released)

The Everyday Visuals have a good a variety of up-beat songs along with mellower ones as well. The beats and guitar riffs are really catchy but the lyrics sometimes feel awkward and not really sing-a-long-able. The album seems really

lo-fi at certain parts but in a good way.

RIYL: Sea Wolf, The Shins

******6/10

Walking on the grass

Favorites of the week

My favorite fruit


My favorite Picture


My favorite song

Naked As We Came

How do the people get better?

Try to listen to this song and not feel good.




There is this guy and his name is Darren Waterston. He makes the most amazing watercolors and paintings and I am insanely jealous. How does he do this?