I look around the room for inspiration. It used to be that the music was enough. Didn’t matter whether it was good or bad; just mattered that it was new and I had something to say about it. Not this year. Not sure why. Personally, it’s been a year of wonderful triumphs. My wife and I had a beautiful baby boy. I was able to get back to NYC full-time with a job I really enjoy. I still have Rhapsody to turn to for musical inspiration. Still, nothing moved me. Have I reached the bottom of the writing well? Maybe…

Time seems to be at a premium this year so this is going to have to be an abridged version of the POOP list. It was a good, not great, year for music. No single work towered over everything else. The list is headed up by the first decent folk-rock band to come out of England in a long time. Politics made a welcome and needed comeback ranging from explicit self-righteousness (Neil Young)to party while you protest (Michael Franti) to the more sublime but equally as effective (Springsteen who put more energy and enthusiasm into revisiting old folk songs than…

chavez= better days will haunt you (boxset). Band of horses= everything all the time. Built to spill= you in reverse. 5ive= versus. Soul position= things go better with rj and al. cut chemist= the audience’s listening. Don caballero= world class listening problem. Earth= hex, or printing in the infernal method. Richard buckner= meadow. Tortoise= a lazarus taxon. The sword= age of winters. Spoon= soft effects ep/ telefono (reissue). Mission of burma= the obliterate. Mark fosson = the lost takoma sessions. Isis= in the absence of truth isis and aerogramme= in the fishtank vol 14. Boxhead ensemble= nocturnes. Comets on fire…

  Buy new or used through Amazon Bob Dylan – ‘Modern Times’ – How does someone who has never had to get up in the morning and go to work, write the painfully accurate and beautiful ‘Workin’ Man’s Blues # 2’? Pure genius. Record of the decade.     Buy new or used through Amazon Bruce Springsteen – ‘We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Session – The American Land Edition’ – ‘How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live’ is all anyone needs to know about Bush’s presidency. Folk music hasn’t rocked this hard since Dylan and The Hawks….

Webster defined best as, “excelling all others”. That’s why I have such a hard time writing these supposed “best of” lists, as I am under no illusion that I have the “best” taste in anything, let alone music. My choices in pop culture have been called into question so often over the past year that I wonder why I even bother. That being said, Antony & the Johnsons suck. A lot. And so it goes…       Buy new or used through Amazon 1. Alkaline Trio – “Crimson” The power trio at its finest. A little Misfits meets a…

Buy new or used through Amazon AKRON FAMILY – Angels Of Light   Buy new or used through Amazon AKRON FAMILY – self-titled   Buy new or used through Amazon BRIGHT EYES – I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning   Buy new or used through Amazon NICK CAVE – B-sides   Buy new or used through Amazon DIRTBOMBS – If You Don’t Already Have A Look   Buy new or used through Amazon THE DRONES – Wait Long By The River And The Bodies Of Your Enemies Will Float By   Buy new or used through Amazon ONEIDA – The Wedding…

  Buy new or used through Amazon Bruce Springsteen –Devils & Dust – Great songwriting will never go out of style. The title song ‘Devils & Dust’, ‘Jesus Was An Only Son’ and ‘The Hitter’ are as good as anything Springsteen has ever written. This record has been compared to Tom Joad but it’s far more musically rewarding. The love songs, ‘Leah’, ‘Maria’s Bed’ and “Think About You’ have an irresistible up tempo groove. Soozie Tyrell takes every song she plays on to another level. Best sounding record I’ve heard all year.    Buy from Mindy Jostyn site Mindy Jostyn…

Well my ultimate PoOP list is here and I didn’t even write it! Simon Reynolds book Rip It Up and Start Again – Postpunk 1978-1984 was my favorite musical experience of the year. Not the book alone – I DJ’d my reading experience with the records listed or mentioned in the text, and the soundtrack on my stereo(s) was better by far than anything else that made it to my turntables or CD players. And what a selection: Slits meets Pop Group meets Gang of Four meets Mutant Disco meets 99 meets On-U meets PiL meets YMG meets Joly [!]…

Greetings and welcome to another journey through my discovery of this year’s music trials, tribulations, struggles, and triumphs. I hope the pleasure you received from new music this year was more enjoyable that years gone by. Finding new music has become a full time job. And finding free time has been almost as challenging as finding good new music. The more music I heard that I liked; the more I realized that there were actually identifiable pockets where great music is being made. I guess it reminded me of a time when you knew a band was good based on…

Sorry, Sufjan… 40) Foo Fighters – In Your Honor 39) High On Fire – Blessed Black Wings 38) Wilderness – s/t 37) CocoRosie – Noah’s Ark 36) M83 – Before The Dawn Heals Us All 35) Seemless – s/t 34) Bear vs. Shark – Terrorhawk 33) Jesu – s/t 32) John Vanderslice – Pixel Revolt 31) Serena Maneesh – s/t 30) Fiona Apple – Extraordinary Machine 29) Spoon – Gimmie Fiction 28) Broken Social Scene – s/t 27) …Trail Of Dead – Worlds Apart 26) Aesop Rock – Fast Cars, Danger, Fire… 25) Blood On The Wall – Awesomer 24)…

Hey ! All the young dudes and those fine ladies also partaking in the 2005 Poop effort. Well there goes another year and the music press is filled with stories about file sharing The big boys are litigating. You don’t litigate Rock “N’ Roll. Try sending me a subpoena. Now on to the real opinionated privileged stuff I got last year.      Buy new or used through Amazon 1) Petra Hayden — “The Who Sell Out” I think the album is older than her, no deterent to vocally reproducing the Who’s masterpiece done honestly and faithfully to the original…

30 records of two.thousand.five that inspired me to write a list. + 26 more that I liked but didn’t feel like numbering & a couple of movies. -scott dell’amore [redsupergiant AT gmail DOT com]     Buy new or used through Amazon Orthrelm – Ov [Ipecac]    Buy new or used through Amazon Sunn O))) – Black One [Southern Lord]    Buy new or used through Amazon Pelican – The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw [Hydra Head]     Buy new or used through Amazon Kinski – Alpine Static [Sub Pop] Buy new or used through Amazon…

  Buy new or used through Amazon 1.RYAN ADAMS – Cold Roses Hyperactivity is not necessarily a bad thing. Channel-ing the Dead’s American Beauty gave him his strongest album in a short but very busy career. 29 and Jacksonville City Nights were almost as good.    Buy new or used through Amazon 2.THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS – Twin Cinema More hooks per song than some bands manage in an entire career.    Buy new or used through Amazon 3.YOUNG DUBLINERS – Real World They have come of age in the last two albums. Like other Irish bands of note, now living…

Sweet Sixteen   Buy new or used through Amazon Blue Highway, – Marbletown Not only do these guys play great bluegrass, but they write songs that match the real stuff on Brother Where Art Thou. You know, songs that tell stories about death, Lazarus, dark clouds and lighting.   Buy new or used through Amazon Wide Right – Sleeping on the Couch A very unglamorous foursome performs searing songs about rockers struggling with day jobs and lost dreams as they drift into middle life. Singer Leah Archibald has a great rock voice. When she sings about marital woes and taking…

I’ve never been the type to get a jump-start on an assignment. So naturally I find myself in cram-mode, even with something I normally find great pleasure in – pontificating about music I love. Therefore, I’d like to request a pardon this year from the PoOp overlords from my usual diatribe. Being a relatively newly minted dad (Samuel Harrison born 3/25/05) has thrown me for a loop and to be frank, I just can’t get my act together. It was year of full of major changes and adjustment; a wonderful baby boy and a drab new job and career as…

Buy from amazon Shitmat – Full English Breakfest I’m fond of saying that this sounds like a couple of 7-year olds off their Ritalin, saying “what can we fuck with next?”. But it’s more than that. The CD is wall-to-wall noise with barely room to breathe, each track propelling the next. Yes, this can seem wearing; indeed, I’d say it’s not easy to listen to (a good thing), but with not an iota of wasted sound, it’s a rarity for me today: a novelty album which gets deeper with every listen. Contents: Noise, turntables, samples, grooves, psychosis, ADHD, curiosity. Diplo…

  Buy from amazon 1. Modest Mouse – Good News For People Who Like Bad News How much do I love this album? A lot.   Buy from amazon 2. Wilco – A Ghost is Born I was a tittle put off by endless media barrage around this album and its universal coronation as a “quiet masterpiece.” But after listening to this over and over, I have to admit it’s one of my favorites this year. I like to start on “The Muzzle of Bees” and go straight through to “Theologians”, my favorite track. “Theologians, they don’t know nothing. About…

John J Stewart Jr. Favourite Albums, Singles and Things of the year for the Annual Poop List for 2004 Favourite Albums (No Particular Order other then my favourite album of the year) This was a tough 15. I had at least 40 that stood out and these are the final choices. Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand (Favourite Album) The Scissor Sisters – The Scissor Sisters Modest Mouse – Good News For People Who Love Bad News The Hives – Tyrannosaurus Hives PJ Harvey – Uh Huh Her Sonic Youth – Sonic Nurse Gomez – Split The Difference U2 – How…

Back in Ye Old year of 2004, there once lived a young lad, who told of such a fruitful and compelling yet bludgeoning story of the poop unto all poops in the land. Yet it could only be told by one certified, and thoroughly masterful poopologist from the far away land of Poopville. Alas, I digress. Hence a mere mortal with the utmost pickiest of picky ears and musical tastes, his name, none other than JEFF SCHWARTZ who resides in the enchanting Township, or Hamlet if you will of Green Brook, NJ. Let’s begin. Commonly referred to as a “TOP…