Album Of The Year...

I've heard some decent CDs over the last year (Muse, TV On The Radio, Darkel), but the hands down winner for my record of the year goes to:

MEW - And The Glass Handed Kites

A real mashup of everything from Dinosaur Jr. to Lush to My Bloody Valentine, Danish Space-rockers Mew really hit a home run with this, their second album. With songs that bleed into each other and usually have incredibly brave, over-the-top payoffs, I absolutely cannot stop listening to this. Thieve this off the internets at once, or if you're one of those old school types, go into a record store and buy it.

Speaking of which, I checked out Tower Records' Going out of business sale last weekend, and all I can say is 'Good riddance'. 20% off sounds great until you walk into the store and realize that every single CD they sell is marked at $18.99. Really? In this day and age when you can buy spindles of 100 blank CDs for the price of a vente Frappuccino, you're gonna charge nearly 20 bucks for one with the new My Chemical Romance on it? Hopefully Tower is just the first in a long list of asshole corporations that have been raping music consumers for the last 30 years.

And finally, most disappointing album of the year; BECK - THE INFORMATION. I think my wife put it best during Beck's recent performance on Saturday Night Live, "Where's the joy?". Sure, he's still doing wacky-ass shit like performing with puppets and having his band play dinnerware, but Beck himself constantly looks like he no longer cares about what he's doing. The new album, despite having been billed as an eagerly-awaited return to Odelay/Midnite Vultures style party music, is really uninspired and boring. What the hell ever happened to the guy who wrote classics like 'Beercan' and 'No money no honey'? Oh yeah, scientology...

You're next, Sam Goody!!!