Buy new or used through Amazon Bruce Springsteen – ‘Magic’ – Every single word rings true.     Buy new or used through Amazon Wilco – ‘Sky Blue Sky’ – My favorite Wilco since ‘Being There’. Nels Cline gets MVP of the year for his amazing guitar work especially on ‘Impossible Germany’.     Buy new or used through Amazon Levon Helm – ‘Dirt Farmer’ – “ And some stayed on to finish what they started, they never parted, they’re just built that way”.     Buy new or used through Amazon Bruce Springsteen with The Sessions Band –…

Mission Improbable “Good Morning, Agent PoOp’007 – It has come to PoOp Central’s attention that several Pop Stars have gone missing and have been replaced by suspicious soundalikes and look-alikes. Your mission, Jim, should you decide to accept it, is to evaluate the replacements and report back with your Top 10…” The first suspicious singer we come upon is named Amy Winehouse. At first we suspected that she was Mary Coughlan in disguise, and indeed the Winehouse songs about love’s trials and tribulations could have been secretly written by Coughlan, but, we decided that Winehouse’s soul vocals and ska covers…

THE MANY MOODS OF 2007 I have been thinking a lot lately about Happiness. I recently found out that the derivative of the word itself, hap, means random, or by chance. Like happenstance. My first assessment of my personal happiness resulted in the realization that I just happen to be an extremely moody person. (By the way, my wife was on to this years ago.) All too often we all leave happiness to chance. Well, time to take things back into our control. Own your feelings. Create a path for yourself. Turn a negative into a positive. So, personally, my…

  Yawn   The only one syllable word fit enough to describe the musical dust bowl of 2007. Underwhelming releases from some acts that blew our hair back in previous years and no band that mightily earned the "new black" status on merit alone. Nonetheless, there were some decent releases that deserve recognition. So without further ado, I poop. Long, but not nearly as satisfying as previous years’ movements;     Buy new or used through Amazon 1) Neil Young – Live at Massey Hall: 1971 I always thought it a cop out when people would make reissues and/or live…

  Favorite 20 Albums of 2007: Buy new or used through Amazon 1. “Magic” – Bruce Springsteen Buy new or used through Amazon 2. “A Singsong and a Scrap” – Chumbawamba Buy new or used through Amazon 3. “Workingman’s Cafe” – Ray Davies Buy new or used through Amazon 4. “The Scene of the Crime” – Bettye LaVette Buy new or used through Amazon 5. “100 Days 100 Nights” – Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings Buy new or used through Amazon 6. “Don’t Tell Columbus” – Graham Parker Buy new or used through Amazon 7. “Sweet Warrior” – Richard Thompson…

DeLaire Minneapolis, Minnesota It Be POOP 2008 Oh man I really enjoy just saying pompous and opinionated let alone writing it. Let’s see I’ve been segregating 2007 releases all year and before me are on my a list too long to mention . So I start with the one’s who never seem to leave the tray in the car ,in the bedroom ,all my replay devices.   Buy new or used through Amazon 1) Jeff Beck – Official Bootleg USA This is recorded live in 2006 but I procured it 2007. The man ,the true rock n roll growl, the…

  Buy new or used through Amazon JOHN BUTLER TRIO – Grand National Something for everybody – superb playing, politics and ass kicking grooves. The CD that I played most often last year.     Buy new or used through Amazon LUCINDA WILLIAMS – West Not much going right with her life these days but it’s her best since “Car Wheels”.     Buy new or used through Amazon KATE RUSBY – Awkward Annie Her cover of the Kinks’ “Village Green Preservation Society” says it all: it’s a seamless mix of traditional and new songs.     Buy new or…

A few albums that didn’t make it to the top of my list but are still noteworthy: The A-Sides – Silver Storms Air – Pocket Symphony Dntel – Dumb Luck The Good, the Bad, and the Queen Gogol Bordello – Super Taranta!   Disappointments of the Year: Against Me! – New Wave Grizzly Bear – Friend EP Minus the Bear – Planet of Ice Okkervil River – The Stage Names Rilo Kiley – Under the Blacklight

POOPIN’ FOR THE YEAR 2007 In no particular order:   Off The Hip Records HELLBOUND HONEYS Vol. 1 (Off the Hip): This is an excellent comp of girl garage bands from Europe, Australia, US, and Argentina. Plenty of fuzz guitar, Farfisa organ and simple beats. There’s two songs from each of the seven bands on the disc. Las Curvettes are the stand-out band but there’s no stinkers in the bunch. Hopefully, there will be a second volume in the near future.   Buy from Goner HEAD – HEIL HEAD (Evil Clown): This is a collection of all of their material…

2007: Best Music   1.Spoon/Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (another edgy rock masterpiece from these indie veterans, this one’s near-perfect)   1a. Neil Young/Live at Massey Hall 1971 (“these are a few new songs I’ve been working on…”: mind-boggling acoustic soundboard set)   2.Beirut/The Flying Club Cup (mournfully joyous orchestral pop, unique and moving; a quantum leap forward)   3.Radiohead/In Rainbows (stripped-down and organic yet still complex – a beautiful, satisfying rock album)   4.Ted Leo and the Pharmacists/Living With The Living (surprisingly melodic punk record fueled by anti-war anger and the need to rock, hard)   5.Menomena/Friend and Foe…

Electric Eighteen   Buy new or used through Amazon Amp Fiddler – Afro Strut (U.S. Version). A slice of early seventies soul made new with splashes of New Orleans funk and Fats Waller from Joseph “Amp” Fiddler who has produced and played keyboard for Prince and George Clinton.     Buy new or used through Amazon Idan Raichel Project – The Idan Raichel Project. You take Israeli pop songs and mix in an eclectic group of musicians from Ethiopia and other African Jewish traditions to shake things up. If you liked the French rap song from the last episode of…

  Buy new or used through Amazon 1. Of Montreal – Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer (PolyVinyl) It’s hard to comprehend, but 10 years have passed since their debut album first appeared. Truth be told, I hadn’t been following their releases in at least half of those years, as I’d pretty much figured out where they were going, which seemed pretty predictable. Well Kevin Barnes must have realized that he’s gone as far as he could with his shtick and decided to throw himself headlong into a nervous breakdown by moving to Norway with his wife in the dead…