1. Golem! - Still listening to Fresh off the Boat a lot. Still rocks (in its manic, klezmer way).
2. Beat Happening - Still working through the six-month echo of my complete retrospective of the Beat Happening catalog. The only album of theirs I do not have in iTunes is their final one, You Turn me On (1992), which is sitting in vinyl purgatory. If I had to pick only one to have, though, it would be Jamboree (1988), nearly every song of which belongs on my imaginary Beat Happening Greatest Hits list, and one of which, "The This Many Boyfriends Club," has earned one of my very rare 5-star ratings. This last is Beat Happening distilled down to their "twee as fuck" essence: out of tune singing accompanied by nothing but meandering feedback and what sounds like distant screams, willfully childish lyrics suffused by anger and desire, all alchemically combined into something miraculous, so that when Calvin delivers the final line—the banal "And there's one thing, I forgot: / I love Lori... a lot!"—you believe this is one of the most romantic songs ever written.
3. Tom Zé - Apparently a legend of the Brazilian music scene, I'd never heard of Tom Zé until noticing that Robert Christgau had given Brazil Classics 4: The Best of Tom Zé (1990) one of his coveted A+ grades. Even then, I did nothing with that knowledge until last July when I found that album on eMusic and downloaded it. I'm not sure I agree with Christgau on the A+ part, but the mixing of traditional Latin flavors with an avant-garde sensibility was intriguing enough for me to include the much newer Danç-Êh-Sá (2006) among my October eMusic downloads, which is how he appears on this list. Danç-Êh-Sá takes the experimentalism considerably further than his earlier work. I like it well enough, but it hasn't made me passionate yet.
4. Sonic Youth - As with last week's appearance, this is an echo effect from bingeing on Sonic Youth this summer. This week was heavy on Daydream Nation (1988), which many consider to be their masterwork. I've always been more partial to its predecessor, Sister (1987), and successor and major-label debut, Goo (1990), but I've slowly come around to considering Daydream Nation the equal of those two. Certainly, considered as a 1-2-3 punch, I'd put them up with just about any other set of consecutive albums, except maybe Al Green's triumvirate of Call Me (1973), Livin' for You (1973), and Al Green Explores Your Mind (1974).
5. Louis Armstrong - As previously reported, I downloaded the massive Hot Fives and Sevens compilation after a sudden windfall of eMusic bonus downloads last fall. That sudden injection of Satchmo has not distributed itself through my musical library, so I keep hitting patches where he seems to be the only thing in my playlists. Which is fine because he is, of course, a genius, but I don't think I could be blamed for saying that it all tends to be one big, jazzy blur to me.
6. Yo La Tengo - I've said it before and I'll say it again: my favorite band ever. This week was dominated by Genius + Love = Yo La Tengo (1996), a compilation of out-takes and obscurities that is really only for the dedicated fan. I like it, of course, and I find even their failed experiments interesting, but this is not really the place to start for newcomers.
7. Parliament - It took me years to really appreciate the brilliance of Funkentelechy vs. The Placebo Syndrome (1977), but it now functions for me as the standard by which all funk before and after should be judged ("Flashlight" is a perfect song, and "Bop Gun" is not far behind it). Both that album and Live: P-Funk Earth Tour (also 1977), which is far more uneven but has several highpoints ("Do That Stuff," "Children of Production," and the "Tear the Roof Off the Sucker Medley" would be my top cuts), got a good listen this week. I don't honestly remember why, but does one really need a reason?
8. Ornette Coleman - Still working my way through the Beauty Is a Rare Thing box. Still enjoying the Coleman retrospective.
9. Funkadelic - Maggot Brain (1971). My appreciation of Parliament has led me to explore other sectors of the George Clinton/P-funk universe, hence the appearance of Maggot Brain, which I downloaded from eMusic a bit over a year ago and which is making its third tour through the rotation. This album is fine, but nowhere near the class of Funkentelechy. I'm not sure if the world need two versions of the 10-minute title track (though I prefer the "alt mix" to the album-opener). I'd also recommend "Can You Get to That" and "Hit It and Quit It."
10. Van Morrison - Still listening to Van. He's still The Man.

1. Art Brut - Their Bang Bang Rock & Roll (2005) was one of my October eMusic downloads. It was pretty much a blind purchase in that I had nothing more than the band's appearance in some "find similar artists" result and a Robert Christgau A- to recommend them to me, but I've been very happy with this album. A little hard to categorize: the sound is garage-punk, but with a heavy dose of lyrical irony (notwithstanding Eddie Argos's declaration—in the album's opener, "Formed a Band"—that "yes, this is my singing voice. / It's not irony"). "Emily Kane"—a declaration of devotion to the singer's teenage sweetheart—is probably the album's most fully realized song, but if I had to pick my favorite, I'd go for "Good Weekend," with it's creepy-romantic opening salvo—"First time I saw her / I wanted more than just to hold her / I wanted to bend her and fold her / So I went over and I told her"—and triumphantly inept cri de cœur—"I've seen her naked... twice!"). I can see others finding this stuff to be too smart for its own good, but it's got me hooked.
2. The Mekons - Another October eMusic acquisition was the Mekons' The Edge Of the World (1986). I only really became aware of the Mekons about six years ago—by way of a friend's copy of Rock 'n' Roll (1989)—and I've been assembling their catalog in piecemeal fashion ever since (their most recent—Natural—was one of my September downloads). They are an example of a band that I appreciate more on the basis of total output than for particular songs, and Edge of the World is typical in this regard. I like it top to bottom, but outside of the rousing "Big Zombie" (I'm just not human tonight!") I can't really point to any especially great or memorable songs on it.
3. Van Morrison - This seems to be a case of my having gone on a big Van Morrison kick about six months ago, creating a cluster of his songs traveling together through my iTunes library rotation system and popping up as group now. I only have Moondance and His Band and His Street Choir (both 1970) in iTunes (a couple others on vinyl and a few that never made it past homemade cassette tape). These albums have a tendency to get played during dinner parties as they are both fundamentally excellent and palatable to a wide audience.
4. Beat Happening - Another case of music that was in heavy rotation six months ago and has only now made it through the system again, but in this case, I remember why. Last spring, I was reading Michael Azerrad's chronicle of 80s independent bands, Our Band Could Be Your Life, which featured a chapter on Beat Happening, and as I did with other bands covered in the book, I re-listened to much of the Beat Happening catalog as well as downloading the compilation Music to Climb the Apple Tree To (2003) from eMusic. They were a a fairly critical part of my introduction to the indie world, and I continue to have a soft spot for their defiantly lo-fi, competence-optional, "twee as fuck" approach to music.
5. Golem! - This is a new acquisition. I'd had my eye on Fresh Off the Boat (2006) since seeing Christgau's favorable review on MSN Music last April, but I held off for a bit out of concern that I was overdoing the whole Gypsy-Klezmer fusion thing in my enthusiasm for Gogol Bordello. I probably shouldn't have waited, as this is wonderfully inventive and explosive music, more akin to the aforementioned Gogol Bordello's "gypsy punk" than to more traditionalist Klezmer (which I also like, though I am far from well-listened in the genre).
6. Sonic Youth - Also featured in Our Band Could Be Your Life, also a critical part of my personal initiation into indie, Sonic Youth got on this list much the same way Beat Happening did, by my doing a heavy-listening session back in the spring, and the magic of smart playlists reprising it half a year later. Sonic Youth are especially interesting because they are about the only band from Azerrad's book to survive the era he chronicles intact, to say nothing of remaining vital and relevant two decades later.
7. Bob Dorough - Unsuspecting visitors to my Last.fm profile may be befuddled by the fact that although my "top Artists" list is populated by the likes of Yo la tengo and Sonic Youth, my "Top Tracks" list is dominated by songs from the Schoolhouse Rock series of educational cartoons from the 1970s (they currently hold the top 13 slots in said list). For Americans of my generation, however, Schoolhouse Rock is a cultural touchstone, and I'll freely admit to still being a fan of the series. While there were a few real clunkers, especiallly in the latter days of the series (don't get me started on "Scooter Computer and Mister Chips"), several of the songs are works of genius, and in most cases the genius at work was Bob Dorough, who wrote and sang many of the most memorable of the songs. The real reason these songs rank so highly, however, is because I have successfully conditioned the children to request them pretty much in preference to any other music.
8. Tapes 'n Tapes - The Loon (2005) was a fine album that I didn't stumble across until last fall. It seems to be on its second rotation as a block through the library system.
9. Ornette Coleman - Mostly a product of the addition of jazz titles to my Mix-o-matic smart playlists. I have a big backload of unrated Coleman tracks from the imposing Beauty is a Rare Thing box set (2005). Compared to other jazz greats, Coleman is something of an acquired taste, but he has a sound that is uniquely his and which is well-represented on this box.
10. Jack Sheldon - Another Schoolhouse Rock luminary. Sheldon was the singer for several of my all-time favorite Schoolhouse Rock songs: "I'm Just a Bill" (recollection of which saved my hide during a pop quiz in AP US History in ninth grade), "Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla," and "Conjunction Junction." I only today noticed that the latter had been misattributed to Dorough (who did write it) in my iTunes library, so I've been shortchanging Sheldon in my scrobbling for some time now. Sorry, Jack!

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