ADDS

3. WATSON TWINS Talking To You, Talking To Me
4. SPOON Transference
5. RETRIBUTION GOSPEL CHOIR 2
6. TOM WAITS Glitter And Doom Live
7. THEM CROOKED VULTURES Them Crooked Vultures
8. JEFF THE BROTHERHOOD Heavy Days
9. TEGAN AND SARA Sainthood
10. EELS End Times
11. GOV’T MULE By A Thread
12. OH NO ONO Eggs
13. AVETT BROTHERS I And Love And You
14. BEACH HOUSE Teen Dream
15. OK GO Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky
16. ALBUM LEAF A Chorus Of Storytellers
17. R.E.M. Live At The Olympia
18. RAVEONETTES In And Out Of Control
19. SURFER BLOOD Astro Coast
20. NORAH JONES The Fall
21. SCRUFFS Conquest
22. DAWN LANDES Sweet Heart Rodeo
23. WHITE FANG Whatever
24. HELIGOATS Goodness Gracious
25. SOFT PACK The Soft Pack
26. FLAMING LIPS Embryonic
27. HEADLIGHTS Wildlife
28. LOS CAMPESINOS! Romance Is Boring
29. MIDLAKE Oak And Julian
30. FILMS Oh, Scorpio

ADDS

1. CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG Irm
2. HOT CHIP One Life Stand
3.  YEASAYER Odd Blood
4. SWAMP CABBAGE Squeal
5. YUKON BLONDE Yukon Blonde

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Owen Pallett (Final Fantasy) — Heartland

OK Go — Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky

Vampire Weekend — Contra

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Eels — End Times

Spoon — Transference

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Beach House — Teen Dream

Los Campesinos! — Romance is Boring

Three 6 Mafia — Laws of Power

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Groove Armada — Black Light

Monday, February 8, 2010

Yeasayer — Odd Blood

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Hot Chip — One Left Stand

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Field Music — (Measure)

Tuesday February 23, 2010

Erykah Badu — New Amerykah, Part II: Return Of The Ankh

Xiu Xiu — Dear God, I Hate Myself

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

The Whigs – In the Dark

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

The White Stripes — Under Great White Northern Lights (Live)

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Jonsi — Go

- – -

There are also a number of great albums slated to be released without specific release dates yet:

Dr. Dre — Detox

Wyclef Jean — wyclefjean

Lil Wayne — Rebirth

Lupe Fiasco — Lasers

Seabear – We Built a Fire

-Doug Ray

Doug Ray is the co-host of Saltimbocca & Escargot, Sundays at 8-10 PM Eastern Time on WRBC.

With the impending end of the first decade of the century looming in the distance, all one can do is take a look back at the last 10 years in music and create another list, this one ranking the best 30 albums of the last decade (With a sentence of explanation for each).

1. The Arcade Fire – Funeral

This album made baroque pop cool again, something that seemed unachievable after the Beach Boys fell apart.

2. Ryan Adams – Gold

Gold is alternative country at its very best, chocked full of sublime instrumentation and sentimental lyrics.

3. Bruce Springsteen – We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions

The Boss sings Pete Seeger and brilliance results; there is something fantastic about the combination of Springsteen’s voice and Seeger’s lyrics.

4. Yeasayer – All Hours Cymbals

All Hours Cymbals is an album for the decade lyrically, thematically, and instrumentally.

5. Jonsi and Alex – Riceboy Sleeps

Jonsi and Alex’s post-rock/ambient masterpiece is an album to listen to all the way through (8+ times) to really catch it’s flavor.

6. Radiohead – In Rainbows

Radiohead offered this album to the public using a “Pay what you want” system; this album is by far the most cost-effective offering of the last decade.

7. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Indie pop with depth and from France? Sounds like a winner to me.

8. David Sanford & The Pittsburgh Collective – Live at the Knitting Factory, NYC

A Jazz album of famous classical songs, it is bizarre at first but develops into hands down the best live album I heard over the past 10 years.

9. Seabear – The Ghost that Carried Us Away

Simple melodies and thoughtful lyrics make this an album to listen to again and again and again.

10. DJ Danger Mouse – The Grey Album

The Grey Album brought the Mash-Up genre to forefront and paved the way for many other artists, such as Girl Talk and Super Mash Brothers, to craft what might amount to the music of the decade.

11. Lil Wayne – Tha Carter III

Tha Carter III is a Hip Hop opus. It’s really everything I look for on a rap album.

12. Bjork – Vespertine

Since the breakup of the Sugarcubes, Bjork has morphed her music into a alt-dance-pop genre that is all her own, this album is a true testament to that.

13. Jens Lekman – Night Falls over Kortedala

Soft and low-fi, Jens Lekman’s awkward lyrics, high tenor vocals, and orchestral instrumentation are a beautiful combination on this album.

14. Sigur Ros – Takk….

The name of the album means “Thank You.” Indeed this album is worthy of thanks from all of mankind.

15. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion

This is dream-Pop’s finest offering – ever.

16. Amadou & Mariam – Welcome to Mali

Afro-Pop, a product of the 1990s, was thriving this past decade and Amadou & Mariam’s Welcome to Mali is an excellent example of this genre’s potential to reach across cultural boundaries.

17. Gui Boratto – Chromophobia

This Brazilian electro album makes one both dance and contemplate.

18. Sufjan Stevens – Come on Feel the Illinoise

Stevens covers a lot of ground in this album dedicated to the Land of Lincoln.

19. The Hold Steady – Stay Positive

Stay Positive takes elements of grunge, indie, and alternative to craft a sound that is all their own.

20. The Shins – Wincing the Night Away

It’s surf rock with a modern sensibility, for fans of hi-fi rock, there is nothing better.

21. M83 – Saturdays = Youth

Anthony Gonzalez’s slow motion electro album is surprisingly capable as party music, it’s magic.

22. Brian Wilson – Smile

This actually happened.

23. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago

Low-fi, depressing, but filled with emotion that makes For Emma, Forever Ago a really special album.

24. TV on the Radio – Dear Science

An opus for everyone, you can dance, you can listen, you can feel the rhythm; it’s indie, but there is much more there.

25. Spoon – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

Austin’s music scene and SXSW are still a force to be reckoned with.

26. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes

Start to finish one of the most sublime albums of the decade.

27. Yelle – Pop Up

Feminist themed French pop with a universality that resonates from Reykjavik to Rennes.

28. Gregory and the Hawk – Moenie and Kitchi

An organic and pared down album full of emotion.

29. Sin Fang Bous – Clangour

This part folk, part electro, part alt rock, and part ambient album is all Icelandic.

30. Noah and the Whale – The First Days of Spring

The First Days of Spring is a concept album for a new generation.

Honorable Mention:
Beach House – Devotion; Death Cab for Cutie – Transatlanticism; Familjen – Det Snurrar I Min Skalle; Feist – The Reminder; Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova – Once; Justice – Cross; Karen O and the Kids – Where the Wild Things Are; MGMT – Oracular Spectacular; Okkervil River – The Stand Ins; Ray LaMontagne – Gossip in the Grain; Tokyo Police Club – Elephant Shell; Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend; Wolf Parade – At Mount Zoomer

-Doug Ray

Doug Ray is the co-host of Saltimbocca & Escargot, Sundays at 8-10 PM Eastern Time on WRBC.

Usually when you are awakened three hours before the alarm goes off, it’s a sign that you might be having a bad day. However, when I received such a call one morning in October while on a trip in San Francisco, the opposite was true.

The call alerted me to the lineup of the annual Miracle on Tremont Street sponsored by Boston’s WFNX, which featured three of my favorite indie rock acts, in concert order, Passion Pit, Phoenix and Spoon, and the concert was to be held in Boston’s historic Orpheum Theater.

With some luck my friends and I were able to procure some tickets to this explosion of semi-independent musicians. After several months of anticipation, December 4 finally arrived and down to Boston we went.

PASSION PIT (♥♥♥)

We arrived just as local favorites Passion Pit were taking the stage. To be honest, I was expecting much more from the Cambridge natives. Their set seemed marred by the fact that they were out of practice in being an opening act. That being said, it was a good set and got the crowd warmed up for the night. Although the Orpheum is a seated venue, everyone in attendance was on their feet and trying as best they can to get a bit of dancing in, which was a bit complicated.

Their set took the basic form of their 2009 release Manners, and I kind of felt like they could have plugged in an iPod with their album and played it really loudly to get the same basic effect.

Here is a section of when they played their popular single “Sleepyhead”

PHOENIX (♥♥♥♥♥)

I have been fortunate to have seen many epic shows in my life, but Phoenix’s performance at The Miracle on Tremont Street was about as close to a perfect concert experience as I could possibly imagine. The French band began with the single of their most recent release Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, “Lisztomania” and followed it up with hit after hit from the breadth of their discography. The crowd was, in my opinion, there to see Phoenix and the mood was jubilant and celebratory. Every song built off of the momentum of the last and the interplay between performer and audience member was unparalleled. They closed with an absolutely epic version of “1901,” which bled into a pseudo-encore with an additional three or so minutes tacked on to what was already a really original reworking of the track.

If you can see Phoenix now, do it. You will not be disappointed. In the meantime, enjoy this video of them playing “Lasso” at the Miracle on Tremont Street

SPOON (♥♥♥♥)

At long last, Spoon took the stage and played a set that was decidedly different from the previous two bands. They opted to play a show that I thought was geared more towards their most devout fans than just the errant listener that thought Ga Ga Ga Ga was a fun album to listen to once or twice a month. Their set featured a lot of slow tempo deep album cuts, and the audience, who had been going wild for Phoenix only moments earlier was much more subdued, not really sure how to react to the music in front of them.

That being said, as a pretty big fan of Spoon when I was a Senior in high school, I thought their set was a good sampling of the variety of Spoons repertoire and a good concert over all. However, if I had been the concert’s promoter, I would have probably not even booked Spoon, it seemed extraneous and the juxtaposition between the sets of Passion Pit and Phoenix to that of Spoon was just too great.It was not until their last song of their encore, the ever-popular “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb,” that the audience really got into their set, which was unfortunate considering the quality of the performance overall.

Here is a section of “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb:”

-Doug Ray

Doug Ray is the co-host of Saltimbocca & Escargot, Sundays at 8-10 PM Eastern Time on WRBC.