ALBUMS (descending points)
1. Parts & Labor - Mapmaker
2. M.I.A. - Kala
3. The Field - From Here We Go Sublime
4. Raccoo-oo-oon - Behold Secret Kingdom
5. Stars of the Lid - Stars of the Lid and Their Refinement of the Decline
6. Ricardo Lemvo & Makina Loca - Isabela
7. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
8. Ne-Yo - Because of You
9. John Vanderslice - Emerald City
10. Les Savy Fav - Let's Stay Friends

TRACKS
1. Gui Boratto - Beautiful Life
2. Parts & Labor - The Gold We're Digging
3. Rihanna ft. Jay-Z - Umbrella
4. M.I.A. - Bird Flu
5. Ulrich Schnauss - Medusa
6. Kalabrese ft. Guillermo Soraya - Hide
7. Mari Boine - Vuoi Vuoi Me (Henri Schwarz Remix)
8. New Ruins - Book Lung
9. Dude 'N Nem - Watch My Feet
10. Celine Dion - Taking Chances

REISSUES
1. v/a - I Don't Believe in Beatles Mix
2. Miles Davis - The Complete On The Corner Sessions
3. v/a - Shootin' Blanks Mix
4. Lee "Scratch" Perry - The Upsetter Selection: A Lee Perry Jukebox
5. v/a - Saigon Shuffle Mix

ARTISTS
1. Tim Harrington
2. Christopher R. Weingarten
3. Scroobius Pip
4. Josh Homme
5. Bob Mould

COMMENTS
As I start to write this, thanks to what apparently is some kind of oil leak related to the boiler my apartment sits above, I have to stay holed up in my bathroom, door shut, fan on, comforter and pillows in the bathtub, laptop on the knees—and if I step outside, what awaits me are fucking awful headaches, blooshot eyes, a general malaise both spiritual and physical. Like the dingleberry that tops an unsanitary dish of fertilizer-flavored ice cream, more shittiness in a year of utter shit. I don't want to really detail what's happened to me because I am tired of even THINKING ABOUT this, my mind gets stuck in endless knots that exhaust me, but OK, my main anxiety this year was hearing problems (mainly hyperacusis), brought on by a Optimo DJ set, minor enough to be inaudible the vast majority of the time, but just major enough to set my hypochondriac self reeling seemingly ALL the time. I will stop bugging out over this, I will survive, but listen up, kids: Wear ear-plugs and stop using headphones or one day you will whine like I whine.

When it came to seeking out new music, I was the laziest I've been since joining the internet. I was generally so depressed that all I could bother doing was download all the big hyped items sound unheard—couldn't be bothered to do research or shit like that, that meant *thinking* and I just wanted to put the brain on cruise control for a while. This is bad, and this is not like me, and here's hoping in the new year I surrender to new schemes of musical discovery. So, anyway, I fell back on old stuff and new old stuff. I confirmed to myself that, yes, *69 Love Songs* really is one of the great ones. I got deeper into reggae than I ever have in my entire life (though the deeper I got, the deeper the bottom seemed to be). Not music, but...Rykodisk's super-classy Atmosphere Collection got lots of spins too, birds and insects and rain sounds to get lost in and feel guilty about. I even started listening to classical music as I went to bed, and I haven't done that since I was a teen.

The music that's made me the most consistently happy this year are a whole bunch of mixes made by ilxors Scott Seward and/or Maria Danielson. I love them so much I think I've listened to them even more than their creators by now. The why is obscure to me, though. The bestest one, I Don't Believe in Beatles is nearly two hours of obscure 45s from the fifties/sixties, primarily post-Elvis pop whose Weltanschauung is strictly pre-Elvis, plus real actual R&B, soul, country, even garage rock. There's a few things I'd defend as forgotten classics (The Dells' "Bossa Nova Bird" and the Syndicate of Sound's "Reverb Beat"), far more Bobby Rydell calculation, but all united in an lost empire of schmaltz. I have over two decades of rock & roll edumacation under my belt and yet felt underprepared to understand this music: who listened to this stuff? Who bought this stuff? Who made this stuff? These people must've been something like me, because as easy it is to belittle this dezinens of this island of misfit songs, they all work—the hooks hook and the choruses are catchy—despite the fact that I can see right through them all.

Also: On the Corner. It's easy to read Miles' stance on this album (and many, many others) as one of defiance, but instead, what I wanted to hear in it this depressing year was stoicism (or "cool")—a defiance against oneself, one's limitations, one's burning core of anger.

Also: Mapmaker. The only album album on my list than I love love. Do you feel tainted by what I'll loosely call your mindwork—your music, your writing, your art? Do you feel like you're not creating but merely uncovering at best, shuffling around pre-givens at worst? Does the weight of the past oppress you? Do you carry on anyway? Parts & Labor do: this is unexhausted music about exhaustion in an exhausted age. The way the band harmonizes towards the end of "The Gold We're Digging": brave male-bonding buddy-power against history's kryptonite.

Also: "Beautiful Life." I wish I could fully inhabit this song's world. Music in awe of its own beauty, in awe at the ecstasy of being alive.

Since I don't have any meaningful grasp of the year—I NEVER have any meaningful grasp of ANY YEAR anymore—I gave up and made my Top 5 Artists list a Top 5 Indie Rock Dream Dates list.

I wish I had more to say.