So, that was Lost.

I am still processing Sunday night’s extraordinary, moving finale to one of the best television shows of my lifetime, but I can say already that it has stayed with me, made me think, and made me cry. I plan on re-watching the series in the coming months, so I’ll reserve judgment on whether it caps off the six-year journey as well as I think it does. But for now, I can say I liked it a lot, and felt it, on a deep and powerful level.

I’m working on writing up my thoughts on the final episode, and the series as a whole. I hope to have this ready for next week, but with my schedule lately, you never know. Still, I’m going to have to fill it with spoilers, so it’s probably best that I wait a week, and put it behind a separate link, once it’s ready. If you have reactions to the Lost finale in the meantime, I’d love to read them.

Meanwhile, this week, I’ve tackled three new albums that many people (many, many people) have asked me for my thoughts on. Well, wonder no more. Reviews start now.

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The new Black Keys album, Brothers, sports my favorite album cover of the year so far.

It’s white letters on a black background, and they read, “This is an album by the Black Keys. The name of this album is Brothers.” Flip it over, and you’ll see similar headlines: “These are the names of the songs on this album,” and “These are the guys in the band.” The accompanying poster is even emblazoned with the helpful words “This is a Black Keys poster.” It’s simple, straightforward, what-you-see-is-what-you-get design.

Given that, you may expect that this record heralds a return of the Keys’ down and dirty blues style. You’d be partly right. The Keys have had an interesting few years, first working with Danger Mouse on 2008’s Attack and Release, and then collaborating with various rappers on the Blakroc project. The clean tones and funky beats of these records are a far cry from the days when guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney jammed minimalist riffs in their basement.

And it’s hard to scrub all that studio gloss off. Brothers certainly sees Auerbach and Carney returning to their roots, but there’s a polish to what they do now that wasn’t there before. Danger Mouse stuck around for one track, “Tighten Up,” with its layered guitar and organ lines and trippy beat, but the rest were produced by the band themselves. Given that, I’m surprised how clean much of Brothers sounds.

I’m also surprised by how diverse it is. Songs like “Next Girl” are pure Black Keys, bluesy riffs supporting Auerbach’s earthy wail. But then there’s “Howlin’ for You,” with its Gary Glitter beat and chanted chorus. There’s “Black Mud,” a grimy instrumental that sounds like it was cut live. (That’s a good thing.) “Too Afraid to Love You” is a dark and spectral bass-and-harpsichord lament, and “I’m Not the One” is an absolutely wonderful electric piano minor-key crawl. They even include what I believe is the first reverse-Rickroll: they cover “Never Gonna Give You Up,” but it’s not that “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

With all the different styles on display, you can expect a couple of groaners. “The Only One,” for example, is a two-chord soul dirge, and Auerbach’s fine falsetto is the only thing recommending it. But the good news is that there are 15 short songs on Brothers, and if you don’t like one, another will be along in a minute to do something different. When the Keys are at full power, as on the stunning murder ballad “Ten Cent Pistol,” they’re typically splendid, and by the end of the album, the good far outweighs the mediocre.

Still, I can’t help hoping for a bit more dirt in the gears next time. The Black Keys are definitely expanding their horizons, and so much of Brothers works so well that it would be churlish to suggest otherwise. But I liked ‘em sounding like they’d just crawled up out of the swamp. This album is a return to basics in style and songwriting, but not in attitude, and when these guys crank it up, attitude is often the key ingredient.

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Here’s a quick guide to simulating the Band of Horses experience at Lollapalooza 2009.

First, buy one of their albums. Pick a specific time to start listening to it – say, 7:30 p.m. Then, at exactly that time, start listening to 20 minutes of screeching feedback, just like Lou Reed provided as he ran long on the opposite stage. At about 7:50, hit play on your Band of Horses CD, and relax while taking in their unassuming, pretty guitar rock.

But wait! When your Horses CD is four songs from the end, grab another stereo system and start blasting Nothing’s Shocking by Jane’s Addiction at the same time, to simulate the moment when the headliners took the opposite stage, and the two bands played over each other. Do that for 20 more minutes. If you really want to be authentic, close all your windows and doors, turn the heat up to 200 degrees, and buy a few sunlamps to add to the discomfort. There! That’s what it was like to listen to Band of Horses at last summer’s festival.

Basically, the Horses got hosed, first by an arrogant and inconsiderate Lou Reed, and then by Perry Farrell, who firmly stuck to the schedule Reed had obliterated. Because of the gracious way they handled it, Ben Bridwell and his group earned my respect. And now, with their charming third album Infinite Arms, they’ve earned it even more.

I’ve always liked Band of Horses. They’re the dictionary definition of unassuming. They play sweet and simple guitar-based rock, steeped in the ‘70s, and they’ve never pretended to do anything else. You won’t find any 10-minute jams or noise experiments or conceptual suites on their records. I like all that stuff, of course, but I can’t help admiring a band like this, who just wants to play nice, melodic music as well as they can. Some have dismissed them as polite, but there are worse things to be. True, delightful little songs like “Blue Beard,” with its lush harmonies, ask for your attention instead of demanding it. But it’s hard not to be swept away by them anyway.

The downside is, there isn’t a lot to say about what they do. Infinite Arms is another 12 pretty, sweet Band of Horses songs. If you’ve ever liked them, you’ll like this. The title track is acoustic, Bridwell’s high and lonesome voice soaring over it, his band harmonizing around him. “Laredo” has a fine melody, and some swirling guitar work. You may be put off by the synthesizers on “Dilly,” but give it a second, and the harmonies will take you somewhere else. Closer “Neighbor” is a wispy campfire song, voices chiming over low organ notes, Bridwell referencing Bartles and Jaymes wine coolers in a plea for togetherness. (Trust me, it works.) The song fires up by the end, and leaves you wanting more.

These tunes are slightly more quiet, slightly more contented, but no less melodic and bright. Nothing here has burrowed its way into my head like “No One’s Gonna Love You,” my favorite BoH song, but the album floats in like a soft breeze, makes you smile for 45 minutes, and floats out again. These are modest ambitions from a modest band, and the result is a simple little album that’s disarmingly easy to like. Infinite Arms may get lost among the sturm und drang of this year’s hectic release schedule, but that would be a shame. It’s a fine little record from a fine little band.

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I’ve never been James Murphy’s biggest fan.

Granted, I was a late boarder on the LCD Soundsystem train. I missed all the singles and the self-titled debut, finally catching up with Sound of Silver in 2007. Murphy’s one-man dance-pop project has made me laugh (“Losing My Edge,” “Sound of Silver”), and made me nearly nod off (“All My Friends,” “On Repeat”). Inconsistency appears to be the order of the day, despite some nice beats and a winning ironic edge to many of Murphy’s lyrics. I just can’t fully commit to Murphy’s thing.

I nearly didn’t even buy This is Happening, his third (and reportedly last) LCD Soundsystem record. The reason was “Drunk Girls,” the absolutely vomit-inducing first single. It sounds very much like something the intoxicated denizens of my freshman dorm would sing along with at three in the morning, a slab of boneheaded obnoxiousness so toxic it ought to come with a surgeon general’s warning. It’s fair to say that I hate this song, and once I put this review to bed, I’ll likely never play it again.

The sad irony, though, is that “Drunk Girls” aside, This is Happening is Murphy’s best record. The remainder of the 65-minute running time is given over to epics, running six to nine minutes in length, almost all sprawling dance tracks. Murphy lets his David Bowie influence come to the fore here, particularly taking from the Brian Eno years, but he brings out some previously-hidden David Byrne worship as well. The combination works, especially on the marvelous closer “Home.”

But the first track is my favorite. “Dance Yrself Clean” starts out whispering its intentions in your ear, Murphy lightly singing over nearly inaudible drums and synth notes. The mayhem doesn’t really start until the three-minute mark, when the criss-crossing keyboard barrages begin, and though it is samey-sounding from there until its ending five minutes later, it’s dark and captivating. “One Touch” continues in the same vein, spiraling synths toppling over an insistent beat while a children’s chorus (really) shouts out the title phrase.

“You Wanted a Hit” is another standout, an eight-minute ‘80s-pop-inflected diatribe against… well, I imagine, the people who don’t want Murphy to make eight-minute diatribes. The venom in this song is somewhat undercut by “Drunk Girls,” which is most definitely the hit, but the slowly-unfolding menace and melody here both work. I’m also a big fan of “Pow Pow,” a Prince-tastic dancehall stomp with Murphy’s patented detached rambling on top of it. This one’s truly funny. (Unlike “Drunk Girls.” All right, I’m done.)

Long story short, if Murphy truly is bringing LCD Soundsystem to a halt, he’s going out with his best foot forward. I still can’t say he’s made music I love, but on This is Happening, he finds a groove and makes it work for him. After this, I may even check out whatever Murphy does next.

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Next week, I will reveal my pick for the best album of the 2000s. Longtime readers probably have figured it out by now, but I’m going to drag out the non-suspense anyway so I can list a few honorable mentions. These are records that missed the list by fractions of a degree, but are still among the very best the decade had to offer. I’m probably still missing a few – it was a good decade – but here are the ones I nearly slotted into the list. In chronological order:

The Cure, Bloodflowers (2000). The graceful end to the trilogy begun with Pornography and Disintegration. Bloodflowers is all about resignation, about accepting the finality of death and the uselessness of life. Cheery stuff all around, but I always like Robert Smith more when he goes off his meds and gives us something dark, something that echoes around the skull for a while. Most of Bloodflowers accomplishes this with ease, and even if it’s not as good as the other two chapters, it’s still wonderful.

Ani Difranco, Revelling/Reckoning (2001). Two hours of one of our most challenging and remarkable songwriters at the top of her game. This was recorded at the height of Difranco’s immersion in jazz chords and horn charts, and the first disc is a rollicking ride. The second, though, contains the album’s heart, a slow and glorious suite of emotional songs full of surprising beauty. Difranco made a lot of records over the last 10 years, but this is my hands-down favorite.

Beck, Sea Change (2002). I think Beck is best when he’s emulating Nick Drake instead of Prince. Sea Change is a grand and gorgeous breakup album, all gauzy acoustics and sad, sweet melodies. It was the first time Beck truly made an emotional statement, and as much as I like when his pop culture blender is on puree, I wish he’d make another one.

Pain of Salvation, BE (2004). Here’s one that started out as a blip on my radar, but slowly grew into one of the most fascinating albums I’ve ever heard. Sweden’s Pain of Salvation tackled nothing short of the nature of God and man on this piece, and while it may seem daunting, particularly with all the song titles in a made-up pseudo-Latin language, it’s a remarkably easy and affecting listen. “Vocari Dei,” in particular, stands out as a jaw-dropper, but the whole album will move you while it makes you think.

The Shins, Wincing the Night Away (2007). The Shins’ best record is pure pop goodness, with melodies Brian Wilson could be proud of, and an appealingly bright sound that mixes in some newfound colors. I hope James Mercer writes another record soon, because the world is a colder place without this splendid band.

The Feeling, Join With Us (2008). These winsome Brits are too often written off as soft-rock, and nothing could be further from the truth. They combine elements of 50 years of British pop in a sound so pristine, so joyous, so bursting with life that it brings a smile to my face whenever I play it. I honestly haven’t heard a pop album this sonically dense and multi-colored since Jellyfish’s Spilt Milk, back in 1994. This album is a forgotten gem.

Green Day, 21st Century Breakdown (2009). I know, you think I’m kidding. But this phenomenal rock opera from the former Dookie boys is truly amazing stuff. It’s a massive and complex work, light years beyond what you’d expect even from American Idiot, its closest ancestor. There have been a lot of rock operas in recent years, but I never thought Green Day would write one this cohesive, this well-planned, and this flat-out good.

Quiet Company, Everyone You Love Will be Happy Soon (2009). And finally, the little band from Texas that introduced songwriter Taylor Muse to the world. This album is his opus, an hour-long examination of faith, love and family, all wrapped up in some of the most memorable and singable melodies you’ll hear anywhere. The 2000s gave us Quiet Company, but the 2010s will make them famous, mark my words. Go here.

Of course, I need to add Brian Wilson’s SMiLE to the list, even though I disqualified it. It’s simply one of the best pieces of pop music I’ve ever heard, full stop.

Next week, the big number one, plus some new music. Don’t know what yet, but I will definitely talk about some new music. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I live about an hour away from the starting point of Route 66.

I can pick up the famous Mother Road a lot closer, but if I want to start at the beginning, I only need to drive into Chicago, something I do all the time. Then, if I so choose, I can follow the road west like so many migrants during the Dust Bowl era, traveling all the way to California. The western end point is a little farther south these days – the Santa Monica pier – and the route is a series of different highways now, since Route 66 was discontinued in 1985. But the journey itself is remarkably similar.

Route 66 is almost a cliché at this point, a symbol of old America and a metaphor for any pilgrimage you want to illustrate. But there’s still gold in them there hills, and decades of mining hasn’t diminished the simple power of the image. I’ve never seen a band commit to it quite like the Lost Dogs did in 2008: they decided to make the trip themselves, climbing into an old van in Chicago and driving it out to California. Along the way, they played shows, visited landmarks, met people, and wrote songs.

It was certainly a move loaded with symbolism. The Dogs are all middle-aged men now, and their journey hasn’t been what any one of them would have expected. Who could have known that this good-time Americana side project would turn into such a long-running partnership? Who could have foreseen the death of one of their own, the late great Gene Eugene, 10 years ago? Who could have guessed the Dogs would continue, but that it would be a decade before they completed their long, slow climb back?

Terry Taylor, Derri Daugherty and Mike Roe have been through a lot together. They’ve all still got their own projects – Daugherty’s, the Choir, has a new album set for next month, in fact – but they’re devoted to each other, and the Lost Dogs. After Eugene’s death in 2000, they persevered, and they’ve made good-to-great albums since then. They added Choir drummer Steve Hindalong four years ago for the best of the bunch, The Lost Cabin and the Mystery Trees. It was the start of a rebirth, the best thing they’d done since they became a three-legged dog. And now, that rebirth is complete.

The Dogs’ journey across Route 66 has not only strengthened their bond, it has gifted them with what might be the best album they’ve ever made. It’s called Old Angel, and it’s the longest, most varied, most confident, and most complete Lost Dogs album in 10 years. It’s a record about setting out to find God and America, and ending up finding yourself. It is funny without being goofy, and at times heart-stoppingly beautiful. It is full of prayers and travelogues and glorious songs of wonder and joy.

It is an earthy album, built largely on acoustic guitars, but it is also a remarkably full, lush work. Opener “Israelites and Okies,” a hymn wishing pilgrims safe travels, is a pulsing, mellow introduction, Taylor’s voice joining with Daugherty’s and Roe’s in lovely harmony. It’s a whispered beckon to join them on their travels, and it sounds both like a dirt road and a spectral, golden path. The tone remains the same throughout – these are mostly simple, folksy songs, but the production is rich and bountiful. There are banjos and accordions and fiddles and pedal steel guitars and mandolins and all manner of percussion from Hindalong’s bag of tricks, and every element works.

Old Angel is also the most democratic Lost Dogs album since Eugene’s death. Half of the new songs are Taylor’s, the rest co-written by the Dogs in numerous combinations. The band also puts its own spin on a song from Taylor’s old band, Daniel Amos – “The Glory Road” stands as something of a mission statement, both a look back and a starting line. This version is better and brighter, but retains all of the original’s quirkiness.

But it’s the new songs that shine. Amidst the acoustic prayers, like the pretty “Traveling Mercies,” and the thunderous rockers like “Wicked Guns” (all about Wild Bill Hickock, if you can imagine), are songs unlike any the Lost Dogs have ever done. “America’s Main Street” is a blues-on-fire spoken word piece, Taylor nearly cracking himself up by the end. “Pearl Moon” is one of the most affecting, a dark piece about the inhabitants of a Depression-era slum, and its ghostly melodies will stay with you. “The World is Against Us” is a despairing a cappella piece, the Dogs’ voices entwining on the final verse to amazing effect.

This album is wonderful all the way through, but near the end, it truly takes flight. “Desert Flowers” was written after a visit to Red Sands Mission School, on an Arizona Navajo reservation, and it’s unforgettable. “In defiance of scorching suns and prophets of doom, desert flowers still bloom,” Daugherty sings, before the band launches into a refrain sung in Navajo, and complete with Native American drumming. After that, you need a break, and “Dead End Diner” obliges – the funniest and best of the “rest stop songs” here, this one allows bass god Tim Chandler a chance to do his molten lava thing under a bed of ringing guitars. As the backing vocalists note that “Obama’s on the radio,” Taylor sings to his waitress, “Keep the change, honey.”

But it is “Carry Me” where the album reveals its heart. A simple acoustic ballad, this song takes on grand proportions in Mike Roe’s hands – he sings it like an angel, feeling every note. “Carry me, I’m too proud to crawl, carry me, I’m too tired to run, carry me over Mojave, under the Navajo sun…” It is an acknowledgement that we cannot make the journey alone. We need each other, and we need something greater.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Old Angel, but this album has left me in awe. There have been times over the last 10 years when I’ve stuck with the Lost Dogs simply because I love these guys, but with this record, they’ve completed their long, strange trip home. It may be their best ever. It may even be one of the best of the year. It is, most certainly, a wonderful set of songs by a band that’s done finding its way, and is ready for whatever’s next. I’ve loved every Lost Dogs album, but I don’t think I’ve ever loved one as much as this.

Try it here. But it here. Now, if the Choir album is this good, I’ll be a happy music fan.

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I have never been able to properly describe Hammock.

I think they’re the greatest shoegazer band in the world, but that means nothing to anyone not familiar with the term. And it doesn’t quite capture them, either, since shoegaze music is often characterized by a huge wall of distorted sound (see My Bloody Valentine, the Jesus and Mary Chain), and you’ll never hear that from Hammock. What they do is more like what former Cocteau Twin Robin Guthrie does, but bigger and thicker and more melodic. Their sound is guitar-based, but the guitars sound like wisps of clouds, and the whole thing has an unearthly quality beyond words.

Yeah, it drives me somewhat mad that I can’t adequately tell you what Hammock sounds like. But then I put on one of their records, and I’m overcome, stunned speechless by the infinite beauty of the music. And that’s all it will take for you, too. You don’t need me on this one. So all I’m going to do is talk a little about how great the new Hammock album, Chasing After Shadows… Living With the Ghosts is, and suggest you purchase it. If you want to save some time, seriously, just scroll down to the link at the end of this review.

The basics: Hammock is Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson. Byrd plays impossibly gorgeous guitar that rarely sounds like a guitar. Thompson plays electronics that rarely sound like electronics. This new album is 72 minutes of the greatest ambient instrumental wonderamas they’ve ever made. Some of these songs have drums (by the great Steve Hindalong, among others), some of them don’t. Many of them are augmented with delicately arranged strings. (“The Whole Catastrophe” makes stunning use of them.) Vocals, when there are vocals, are usually wordless, and sometimes sung by Byrd’s angel-voiced wife Christine Glass Byrd.

Much of this album was mixed by Tim Powles of the Church. The songs that weren’t were mixed by Derri Daugherty of the Choir. If you know these names, you know they’re marks of quality. These 12 songs all have a cascading, washing-over-you feeling to them, especially “Andalusia” and the amazing nine-minute “You Lost the Starlight in Your Eyes,” the one song with lyrics. If you need more incentive to buy, the limited edition of Chasing After Ghosts comes with a hardbound photo book by Thomas Petillo, and a four-song EP of even more otherworldly goodness.

Blah blah blah. Hammock doesn’t need me to describe them for you either. This is music that’s meant to be experienced, loudly in a darkened room. It is transporting in the best sense of the word. I can do nothing for this record that one listen through couldn’t do a million times better. So what are you waiting for? Go here.

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Sticking with the mellow theme, then:

Of all the bands championed by the indie press, I don’t think I’ve heard a more depressingly average one than the National. I’d love to be on board with this band, since on paper, they sound like one I would like. A Brooklyn quintet based around two pairs of brothers and a singer with a distinctive baritone, the National writes slow songs built on atmosphere. True, they used to rock a bit more, but with 2007’s The Boxer, they settled into a hushed, reserved groove. Everyone and their brothers went nuts over The Boxer, but I thought it nudged perilously close to boring more often than not.

The National’s new album is called High Violet, and while it’s fuller and richer, it’s not any louder, or any more memorable. I would like to like this thing, but I can’t find very much to hang my ear on. The songs are just as skeletal as those on The Boxer, only here they’re covered in strings and percussion and various effects. I like the ones with a pulse, like “Afraid of Everyone” and “Bloodbuzz Ohio,” but I can’t remember them, and ditties like “Lemonworld” pass by without leaving a mark. I’ve heard High Violet three times now, and I couldn’t hum most of the songs if I had to.

Perhaps that’s not the point. Maybe they’re aiming for the same space as Hammock, and the mood is what’s important here. But if so, I don’t think they’ve done that very well either. The album is full to bursting with sound, but it all collapses into sonic mud. Matt Berninger’s voice is arresting when it sits atop stark backdrops, but here, it just fills in the bass register a little more without standing out. Dynamically speaking, this is flat and boring – it’s thick and massive, but it just lies there, not moving.

Good songs can survive overeager production, but these are not very good songs. My favorite is “England,” and even that is repetitive and melodically nonexistent. In the end, these songs aren’t atmospheric enough to be the out-of-body experience they want, and they’re not well-written enough to demand my attention. They just spill out of the speakers and collapse in front of you. I’ve said this before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again, but for the life of me, I just don’t understand the acclaim this band gets. There’s just nothing here I respond to.

Faring much better is Mark Eitzel, the sad-sack leader of American Music Club. It’s been five years since Eitzel graced us with a solo album, and his last one was the bizarre, half-instrumental Candy Ass. While American Music Club has essentially plied the same trade for its entire career, Eitzel’s solo output has been widely varied, jumping from jazz-pop to electronica to stark folk to covers of his own songs with traditional Greek musicians.

His new one, Klamath, is no exception. This one seems to combine many of Eitzel’s fascinations – it’s dark and dreary, based around acoustic guitars and thumping bass, but sprinkled with electronic atmospheres, and propelled by subtle drum machines. The songs are mostly laments, delightfully depressing slices of melancholy, and the tempo rarely rises above a watery calm. Eitzel’s voice, as always, can make anything feel like a soundtrack to slitting your wrists, and it’s well-suited to this material.

And these are strong songs, the strongest to appear on an Eitzel album since The Invisible Man, back in 2001. “The Blood on My Hands” will stay with you, its pitch-dark gracefulness accented by bell-like piano notes. “There’s Someone Waiting” is built on an electronic vibraphone pattern and a monotone verse, but the harmonies on the chorus are splendid. The strummed “What Do You Got for Me” is the album’s high point, its relatively upbeat melody positively drowned in keyboard drones and crashing piano runs. (Trust me, it works.)

Klamath is, in fact, Eitzel’s strongest solo effort in almost a decade. That’s why it’s such a shame that no U.S. label would release it. Eitzel’s been forced to press this record up himself, and package it in a minimalist sleeve. It won’t be sold in stores, or on iTunes, he says, but only at his website. I nearly missed this album – it came out in late 2009 – and I bet I’m not alone. The fact that only a handful of very attentive people will get to hear this album is a crying shame, because it’s further proof that there’s only one Mark Eitzel, and he’s pretty great.

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We’re careening full speed toward the end of my list of the top 20 records of the 2000s. In fact, after I reveal #2, there’s no way most of you won’t guess the top pick. But hell, I’m committed. Here we go.

#2. Rufus Wainwright, Want (2003/2004).

I’ve been having an argument with a colleague about Rufus Wainwright lately. Specifically, about Wainwright’s new album All Days are Nights: Songs for Lulu, on which he pays tribute to his departed mother by singing some very sad songs alone at a piano. I think it’s beautiful stuff, while my friend says it barely even meets the definition of art. It’s a risky record, and a divisive one, and while I love it, I can see why others are turned off.

I can’t imagine having the same discussion about Want, Wainwright’s finest hour. (Well, closer to two hours, really.) Want is a double album released in halves over two years, but it’s meant to be heard together (and was packaged that way in a reissue). This is everything you need to know about the finest songwriter to emerge in the last 15 years, an almost overwhelming tour de force that plays like a variety show. On this album, Wainwright can do no wrong, and on these two discs, you will find the best pop songs (and songs of many other stripes) of the decade.

Want is sort of like Rufus Wainwright’s White Album, on which he tries everything and anything. Its sprawl is a big part of its charm – Wainwright’s persona has always been one of excess, of a showman trying hard not to let his mask slip. Ironically, he has always used this masquerade game to write intensely personal songs, and then dress them up in lavish arrangements and take them out to dance. Here, he sings about his own narcissism, his addictive personality, and his aching desire to connect with people, but he does so with beautiful, singable explosions of multicolor sound.

Though it is one complete album, Wainwright put the more accessible material on disc one, and the more esoteric on disc two. That makes Want One the better of them, for me, since it’s a non-stop carnival ride of wondrous melodies. Just “I Don’t Know What it Is,” by itself, would sell me on this record, but we also have the ever-building drama of “Go or Go Ahead,” the infinite sadness of “Pretty Things,” the kitschy fun of “Vibrate,” and the inescapable joy of “Beautiful Child.” Even the often-overlooked ones are masterpieces – Paul McCartney could not have written a more lovely song of friendship than “Natasha,” for instance.

Above all this is Wainwright’s voice, once a thin buzz but now a golden instrument. He puts those unique pipes through their paces here, and the results are wonderful. The melodies are even more complex on Want Two, but given time, they resonate with greater depth. Who else would start the second disc with a six-minute spectral lament sung entirely in Latin? Who else would give us the prim and proper “The Art Teacher” next to the unrepentantly silly “Hometown Waltz,” and who else could deliver a one-two punch of glorious sadness like “Memphis Skyline” and “Waiting for a Dream”? And then there is the magnificently filthy “Gay Messiah,” Wainwright’s most confident step into camp territory.

Everything here is given exactly the right amount of too much by Wainwright and producer Marius de Vries. Horns blare, strings soothe, pianos pound, choirs sing (most strikingly on “14th Street”), and oceans of backing vocals take the songs to new heights. But when needed, everything drops away – “Pretty Things” is an oasis of calm in the middle of the mayhem, and the quieter moments on Want Two are the album’s most heartbreaking. It is one of the most perfectly-made records I own, juggling huge waves of sound and never losing the emotional soul of the songs.

The picture that emerges is of a brilliant songwriter finding his voice. There is nothing here that doesn’t work – even the nine-minute orchestral-prog closer “Old Whore’s Diet,” a duet with Antony Hegarty, ends up as sublime fun. I mentioned earlier that this is Wainwright’s White Album, and I know I’ve placed it on this list ahead of a number of Sgt. Peppers. But I feel very strongly about Want. No other artist’s work fills me with such absolute joy. This is delirious, ambitious, utterly fantastic (in every sense of the word) music, and it makes my heart sing. No other record I heard last decade made me quite as happy to be alive as this one.

But it’s not number one. Next week, some honorable mentions, and on June 2, my choice for the best album of the 2000s.

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Next week, more and more again, with the Black Keys, Band of Horses, LCD Soundsystem, Stone Temple Pilots, Michael Roe, and anything else that comes my way. Also, I will probably have something to say about the end of Lost. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

The standard compact disc can hold about 80 minutes of music.

In the days of vinyl (by which I mean the days when no other technology was available), the average album was between 40 and 45 minutes long. Now, the average is closer to an hour, and many artists feel like they aren’t serving the audience if they don’t fill up the CD. Some songwriters can sustain quality over 75 minutes, but most can’t.

And yet, the format dictates how much material we expect. Look at Blu-Ray discs. We can fit so much more extra material on a Blu-Ray, so if producers don’t – if they just don’t have 10 new documentaries to slot alongside their movie – the audience feels cheated. I sometimes feel the same way about albums, but I’m trying to let that go. I truly support an artist’s right to say just how long, or how short, their record should be.

Still, I think 30 minutes is about the minimum I’d expect from a full-length album. If you’re going to charge me 10 or 12 bucks, you should give me half an hour’s enjoyment. When good bands restrict themselves to 30 minutes, I usually find myself aching for more. Case in point: every Starflyer 59 album for the last decade has clocked in at around half an hour, and every one has left me wishing Jason Martin had just dug in and written a few more awesome songs. (Particularly since he regularly releases EPs, each one around 15 or 20 minutes long.)

But in some cases, like the three records I have on tap this week, 30 minutes is just fine. I found all three of these just long enough – I wasn’t crying for more at the end, and I never got bored as they were unspooling. Sometimes, a short record is exactly the right length.

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Keane, at least, has the courtesy to call their 30-minute marvel, Night Train, an EP, and price it accordingly. I’m grateful, but as this is no less satisfying than their longer works, I would have bought it no matter what they were asking.

Night Train was written and recorded while the band was on tour for 2008’s wonderful Perfect Symmetry. In some ways, it’s the Zooropa to that record’s Achtung Baby, a hodgepodge of experiments that hangs together remarkably well, and points to half a dozen new directions. Symmetry found the band hopping into the Delorean, hitting 88 miles per hour and winding up in the ‘80s, and it wasn’t received nearly as well as the stately piano-pop of their first two albums. But rather than retreat, Keane has boldly gone even weirder, even further from the sound that made them famous.

What I like best about this effort is its fearlessness. The band has torn open its signature sound, but retained its soul – none of this album sounds like Keane, and yet, it all sounds like Keane, in a way. They’re a quartet now – guitarist Jesse Quin is officially part of the band – and you’d think that a more traditional lineup would lead them down more typical paths. If that’s what you’re expecting, Night Train is gonna knock you out.

Take the first single, “Stop For a Minute.” It’s got a trippy mid-tempo beat, a pounding piano and a soaring chorus, but it’s also a collaboration with Somalian rapper-singer K’Naan, who throws down rhymes over the bridge and takes half the lead vocals on the verses. And it works. “Back in Time” sounds like Joy Electric in places, its swooping synthesizers surrounding Tom Chaplin’s high, clear voice. (Chaplin’s one of the best singers working today, and he sounds typically excellent here.) And “Clear Skies” is all acoustic guitars, handclaps and vibraphones, a barreling ride through a dark tunnel. “Clear skies gonna fall on you…”

But wait, they’re not done. “Your Love” is the type of song that could have found its way onto 120 Minutes in 1985, and marks the singing debut of keyboard genius Tim Rice-Oxley. (He sounds like Chaplin, but not as strong.) “Looking Back” brings K’Naan back into the mix, but also incorporates a full horn section, for a brassy stomp that sounds nothing like anything else in the band’s catalog. (Think the theme from Rocky, only great.)

The only experiment that doesn’t work is a throbbing cover of Japanese electro-pop band Yellow Magic Orchestra’s 1983 song “Ishin Denshin (You’ve Got to Help Yourself),” featuring vocals from Baile Funk star Tigarah. It’s fine, just a little too Live Aid in its execution. But with so many strange detours on display, it’s kind of amazing that this is the only one that leads nowhere.

Night Train ends with longtime live favorite “My Shadow,” and I’m glad they waited until Quin joined the band to record it – it benefits greatly from the crashing guitars in its second half. Perhaps the most Keane-like song here, “My Shadow” begins delicately, but builds into an anthem. “We won’t be leaving by the same road that we came by,” Chaplin sings, his voice yearning for connection atop his band’s beautiful noise. I’ve heard this song live a couple of times, and this studio rendition absolutely does it justice.

I’ve said this before, but it still stands: one day Keane will write a song I don’t like. That day has yet to arrive. With Night Train, they continue a hot streak, and even better, they sound liberated, like they’re free to try anything. If you thought Keane was ridiculous before, nothing here will change your mind. But if you love the sound of great musicians breaking new ground for themselves, and having a hell of a great time doing it, check this out.

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I’ll cop to initially being disappointed in Richard Julian’s new record, Girls Need Attention.

Julian’s been a favorite of mine for more than 10 years. He’s snarky and sharp-witted, no doubt, but he’s consistently able to give his listeners a look past the thorny exterior to the warm heart beneath. Julian has a great way with a melody, and an even better way with a phrase. Unfortunately, he’s just one of those casualties of the music biz – a genuinely talented guy who can’t catch a break, and has never found the audience he richly deserves. (He doesn’t even have his own Wikipedia page. His name redirects to an entry on animated series Chris Colorado.)

And so, after two solid records on EMI, Julian’s signed with folk/bluegrass label Compass Records for his sixth effort. Girls Need Attention is his simplest and sparsest album, comprising nine originals and a cover, and running about 35 minutes. Couple that with the fact that these new songs are his most serious – you won’t hear much of the smirking humor or clever storytelling that has so far defined him – and you can probably see how this record might not leave its mark at first.

But stay with it, and Girls reveals hidden pleasures. For one thing, it is perhaps Julian’s most diverse work – it zips through stark acoustic folk, muddy blues, jangly pop and stomping rock, just in the first four songs. Those four also feature Wilco guitarist Nels Cline lending a hand, and Julian puts him through his paces, particularly on the dark and dirty “Words.” “Lost in Your Light” is simple enough that Julian probably wrote it in 20 minutes, but it’s sweet and sunny, and the title track is the only song here that will make you laugh. (The chorus is “Get your drunk ass up, don’t you know girls need attention.”)

Throughout this record, Julian only uses the instruments he needs. Only four of these 10 songs have drums, and there are moments here where the music all but disappears. “Georgie” definitely sounds like a song Compass Records would release: it’s all banjo, tuba and clarinets, and very traditional-sounding pop-jazz. Julian mines several American musical forms for this album – check out the ukulele dance-along “Sweet Little Sway” – but he does them all well. And the sparse cover of Randy Newman’s “Wedding in Cherokee County” sends this album away with a smirk.

I do find myself missing Julian’s trademark humor, and his often more robust production. But as an earthy side trip, Girls Need Attention works well. This isn’t the album to find Julian a wider audience, but it sounds like he had fun making it, and it feels like he’s in a good place. That’s really all I can hope for my favorite artists – that they find a corner of the world, live in it, love it, and let me in every once in a while. Hear Julian at his site.

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Both the Keane and Julian records are sweet little affairs. But if you want something that will barge in, smack you with a barstool, flip over tables, set the place on fire and saunter out 35 minutes later, you can’t go wrong with Sea of Cowards, the second album by the Dead Weather.

Now, I’m not your typical Jack White fan. I like the White Stripes well enough, I dig the Raconteurs, and White’s work as a producer makes me smile. But I absolutely love the Dead Weather, White’s third and best band. It’s a supergroup of sorts, featuring White on drums, his Raconteurs bandmate Jack Lawrence on bass, Queens of the Stone Age madman Dean Feritia on guitar and organ, and the Kills’ Alison Mosshart on vocals. But rather than try for a mix of their sounds, the Dead Weather has gone for a scummy, dirty blues vibe, and on Sea of Cowards, they’ve perfected it.

Everything on this record sounds like shit, in the best way. Everything is louder than everything else, the tones all bleed into one another, and the whole thing feels like it was recorded in a garage. (Don’t get me wrong – it’s meticulously crafted to sound that way.) While the first Dead Weather album indulged in slower blues every once in a while, Sea of Cowards rocks like Ben Grimm all the way through. Songs segue into one another, and the whole thing feels like a live show, played in the corner of a dingy basement while drunken bikers beat the crap out of each other with pool cues.

Most of these songs are built around a single riff, bludgeoned over and over with kickass precision. Mosshart is superb here, screeching like a woman possessed on “Hustle and Cuss” and exploding all over “I’m Mad.” Fertita makes more use of his organ here – some songs sound like they don’t have guitars at all, in fact. On every track, White proves he’s a better drummer than his fellow Stripe, Meg White. This record, even more than the first, is about the feeling. It would be hard for me to call “I Can’t Hear You” a good song, for instance, but it rocks like you wouldn’t believe, and in context (between fiery singles “Die By the Drop” and “Gasoline”), it smokes.

And in this case, 35 minutes is exactly right. Once the sinister tones of “Old Mary” fade, you’ll be exhausted and sweaty and ready to collapse. This thing rocks that hard. Much as I like Jack White’s other endeavors, this is the one I hope he sticks with for as long as he can. Sea of Cowards is sleazy, scuzzy fun, and it’ll leave you needing a shower, but fully entertained.

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Here’s a strange irony for you. I’m about to cap off a column about short records with an essay on a long one. In fact, if you play all three of the albums above back to back, you’ll still come up shorter than my choice for the third-best album of the 2000s:

#3. Marillion, Marbles (2004).

The best thing about Marbles is that it shouldn’t exist.

Marillion has been around since 1981. They had their day in the sun in the late ‘80s (at least in Britain), with a singer named Fish and a song named “Kayleigh.” Fish left, the band replaced him, their popularity waned in the ‘90s, and they got dropped from their label. And for most bands, that’s where the story would have ended. But those looking for Marillion on an episode of Where Are They Now will be sorely disappointed.

Marillion spent the years following their exit from EMI getting better and better, building a fanbase online, and developing a model for their continued survival. Marbles was the album that proved it could work. In a remarkable leap of faith, more than 13,000 fans (including yours truly) ponied up about 50 bucks each to finance the recording, release and promotion of Marbles, a year or so before we actually heard a note of it. The fans came through for the band, and the band did the same for the fans, taking their time to craft a masterpiece, free of record company interference, and then getting it directly into the hands of the people who made it happen.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Lots of bands do it this way now. But this was 2003, and an online-only campaign of this magnitude was still a rarity. I can tell you, as a participant, that I felt a part of Marbles’ creation in a way I’ve never really experienced before. The reward was magnificent, however: Marbles is the sound of a brilliant band given total artistic freedom, and coming up with the record of their lives. It is everything I love about Marillion, a band that plays equally to my head and my heart, and every note and every line of this thing is etched onto my life.

At first glance, this record is daunting. It is three epics and two suites, connected by the four-movement title track. Its opening song is more than 13 minutes long. This thing is a commitment, but it doesn’t feel like one as it’s playing. Through sheer depth of sound and songwriting, it carries you from one end to the other, and when it’s over, you’ll feel like you’ve been somewhere and back again. This is music to get lost in.

Marbles is an album about overcoming. Opener “The Invisible Man” begins with a sinister techno pulse, but soon is rushing like a river all around singer Steve Hogarth, who makes you feel the title character’s anguish as his life evaporates in front of him. Hogarth, who jokingly likes to refer to himself as the band’s “new lead singer since 1989,” has one of the most expressive and expansive voices in music today. He has a flawless falsetto, and can do soaring like few others, but he’s equally good at whispering those emotions, and making you feel them even more.

Throughout Marbles, Hogarth’s lyrics pit darkness against light. “Genie” and “The Damage” are about self-destruction, both sharing couplets to drive the theme home. “The Only Unforgivable Thing,” a seven-minute lament with gorgeous guitar from Steve Rothery, is about how difficult it is to let go and live. And in the astounding 12-minute closer “Neverland,” Hogarth hits upon a line that is both self-loathing and inspirational: “I want to be someone someone would want to be.” I cannot explain to you the joy of listening to the ecstatic eight-minute widescreen playout that ends the record.

And then there is “Ocean Cloud,” perhaps my favorite Marillion song. It is about Donald Allum, who rowed across the Atlantic in 1987, and nearly died in the process. The song is just about 18 minutes long, but you’ll never notice. Between Hogarth’s impassioned delivery, the abundance of brilliant melodies, and the uncannily watery music that ebbs and flows through it, this piece will knock you flat. Better than that, though, it will fill you with terror and joy and wonder, and make you feel something new every few seconds.

That’s Marillion at their best, when they’re creating technically advanced, powerful music that cuts right to the emotional center. It’s head music you feel. They’re equally adept at the extended epic and the five-minute pop song – see “You’re Gone,” which landed in the British top 10 through sheer fan willpower. Whatever they’re doing, Marillion is always trying to move you. The best music always is, of course, but so few bands manage it as often as this one does.

The best thing about Marbles is that it shouldn’t exist, and in many ways, that’s the best thing about Marillion, too. The world just isn’t set up to support a band like this one, which is why they now rely on the people who love them, the people who have been touched by their music, and would do anything to hear more. That’s a level of loyalty very few bands enjoy, which ought to tell you something, and one listen to Marbles will tell you why. It’s one of the very best from a band I love deeply. It’s the kind of record that will change your life.

Go here. You won’t regret it.

* * * * *

Next week, hopefully the Lost Dogs, but also the Black Keys, Hammock, the National and LCD Soundsystem. Or some variation thereof. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Strap yourselves in, folks, it’s gonna be a long one.

I usually like to give myself at least a week with any new release before I write about it. I think it’s much easier to properly assess music, and one’s own reaction to it, given time and repeated listens. But we’ve just started what promises to be the most expensive, relentless couple of new release months in a long, long time. I want to get to as many of these as I can, and that means, in order to keep my head above water, I’m going to have to form my opinions and get them out there faster than I’d normally like.

Still, I did form pretty strong impressions of all of these records the first time through, so I’m comfortable with what you’re about to read. If I do happen to change my mind in the coming weeks about any of them, I’ll be sure to let you know. For now, here’s a quick roundup of some new things I’ve bought recently. Please keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle. We’re off.

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I’m still not sure what to make of the Hold Steady.

I first heard them four years ago, when I picked up Boys and Girls in America on a recommendation. I enjoyed their Springsteen-but-louder sound – I actually found myself pumping my fist in the air a couple of times – but I figured they probably couldn’t keep that style going for too long. Springsteen ran out of ideas more than a decade ago, and no matter how much I liked their imitation once, if this band repeats it too often they run the risk of becoming the alt-rock Bon Jovi.

Apparently, Craig Finn and his merry band agree with me, because over their subsequent two efforts, they’ve clearly been going somewhere else. The problem is, they’re not quite there yet. Stay Postitve cranked up the amps and emphasized the band’s punk roots, and now the new Heaven is Whenever goes the opposite direction, slowing things down and veering away from their stock-in-trade anthems.

And the lack of soaring choruses simply doesn’t work. This album is front-loaded with its most obvious, insipid rockers. “The Sweet Part of the City” is (dare I say it) boring, and “Soft in the Center” isn’t much better. These are basic, three-chords-and-a-thesaurus tunes, and while Finn still has a way with a description and a turn of phrase, the music puts me to sleep. Things improve slightly with the more mellow “The Weekenders” and the down-and-dirty “The Smidge,” but this album doesn’t really get going until track five, “Rock Problems.”

It’s here that the Hold Steady brings back the old anthemic sound, and it’s still stirring. “I just can’t sympathize with your rock and roll problems,” Finn spits, then replies to himself, “Isn’t this what we wanted? Some major rock and roll problems?” Then the guitar solo (in harmony!) comes in, and all is right in the Hold Steady world. Now, I’m certainly not advocating a full-time return to their Boys and Girls sound, but here, after four fair-to-middling meanders, it works.

And somehow, it makes the following experiments more palatable. “We Can Get Together” is the album’s slowest and most sincere, and its wonderful coda gives the album its title: “Heaven is whenever we can get together, sit down on your floor and listen to your records.” There’s no chorus, but this will do. “Hurricane J” rocks like a house on fire, complete with “woah-oh” backing vocals, and “Barely Breathing” takes on a bit of a jazzy rhythm that works well. There are horns and clarinets on this one, and they slot right into the sound. But those are the good ones, all lumped together.

The album ends with a massive orchestrated epic called “A Slight Discomfort,” and it’s everything that’s good and bad about the new directions taken here. It’s like no Hold Steady song ever written, starting off drowned in reverb and ending with a wall of sound, and it’s clearly meant to be the last song to end all last songs. But for most of its 7:14, it’s pretty boring – its chorus is not sufficiently different from its verses, its connective tissue is paper-thin, and its two-chords-repeated-forever second half had me reaching for the stop button.

Finn and company are clearly trying not to be “that anthem band” any more, setting out for undiscovered countries. But if Heaven is Whenever is any indication, the big working-class singalong is what they do best. When they try other things, the results are, let’s say, less than spectacular. This album is obviously a transitional effort – you can all but see the cocoon being spun – but until they get where they’re going, I’m not convinced they’re going to make an album as good as Boys and Girls in America. I want them to change and grow, but I want them to get better at the same time, and as of this record, they’re not.

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I really like the idea of the New Pornographers.

They’re a collective of like-minded musicians, each with their own well-regarded projects, who come together once every couple of years, totally without ego, to collaborate on sweet pop songs. Neko Case has her own successful solo career going, as does Carl Newman (on a smaller scale), and Dan Bejar has both Destroyer and Swan Lake on his docket. And yet, when they join forces, they’re like a family. Well, like a family that likes each other. No one hogs the spotlight, no one saves the good songs for their own records, everyone works together in perfect harmony.

That ideal carries me through even their weaker efforts, and 2007’s Challengers was certainly weak. Slow, sluggish, nearly devoid of interesting melodies, it was a disappointing follow-up to the Pornographers’ masterpiece, Twin Cinema. Thankfully, the ship seems righted with the just-released Together, and I have to think the album title was chosen to emphasize the members’ revitalized commitment to this band. When they’re on, the Pornographers are awesome.

They’re frequently on here. The first few tracks are wonderful, especially “Crash Years,” with its smack-you-if-you’re-not-ready strings, and “Your Hands,” a pulse-pounder with a great rhythm. By this point in the record, you’ll notice that the Pornographers share vocals a lot more on this album than in the past, harmonizing with each other and even trading off lines mid-song. It’s indicative of the bond that this album celebrates.

Still and all, I don’t think this record quite rises to the level of the first three. None of these songs are lousy, or forgettable, but none of them stand up and force me to notice them either. “Up in the Dark” is probably my favorite, mainly for its killer acoustic riffing and Case’s delightful vocals on the chorus – it’s like something Yes might have once written. “Valkyrie in the Roller Disco” is the prettiest New Porn song in some time (Case really shines on this one), and closer “We End Up Together” finishes things on a joyous round robin. But I don’t remember much about songs like “A Bite Out of My Bed” or “Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk.”

Together is a solid little pop album, crafted with love, and sweetened with strong vocals from our three stars. (Yes, there are five other Pornographers, but come on. We’re here for Case, Newman and Bejar.) There’s nothing wrong with it at all, but now that the bond between them is strengthened, I expect great things in the future.

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I know this is cause to take away my indie cred card (once again), but I’m digging Hanson’s new single, “Thinkin’ Bout Somethin’.” It’s the first single from their fifth album, Shout it Out, and it has an appealing Jackson 5 vibe to it. The horns are all kinds of sweet, too.

I’ve liked Hanson for a while, and been impressed with their transformation into genuine soul-rock songwriters. But every time I bring them up, someone asks me about “MMM-Bop,” as if the Hanson siblings are all still pre-teens. They’re dealing with it better than I am, honestly – they seem to have embraced their tween-pop past, while at the same time remaining cooly confident in their new material. That’s a healthy attitude, but I bet they’re sick of hearing about “MMM-Bop” too.

I told you that story to tell you this one: I bet New York trio Nada Surf is just as sick of hearing about “Popular.” It must be galling that this half-spoken novelty song is still the only hit Nada Surf has ever scored, despite going on to make one excellent album after another over the last 15 years. Lucky for us, they keep soldiering on, delivering sweet guitar-pop wonders and ignoring the critics who want to drag them back into the ‘90s.

Their sixth album is another winner. Its title is a palindrome – If I Had a Hi-Fi – and it contains 12 superb covers, from sources well-known and obscure. In fact, I only knew a couple of these songs, so as far as I’m concerned, this may as well be a new album of Nada Surf tunes. That’s not to say they don’t mine some famous catalogs. The band puts a joyous spin on Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence,” and cranks out a rip-snorting version of the Moody Blues’ “Question.” I’m also fond of their take on Spoon’s “The Agony of Lafitte.” And most surprisingly, they do Kate Bush’s great “Love and Anger” as jangle-pop, wonderfully.

But I’d never heard the rest of these tunes, and considering the amount of work it would take to track the originals down, these versions may well be the only ones I ever experience. That’s just fine by me, because they all make wonderful Nada Surf numbers. Bill Fox’s “Electrocution” starts things off with a lovely melody – it’s kind of amazing what a good singer Matthew Caws has turned out to be – and the Dwight Twilley Band’s “You Were So Warm” could fit on any one of Nada Surf’s last three albums.

Caws sings in French for Coralie Clement’s “Bye Bye Beaute,” and in Spanish for Mercromina’s “Evolucion.” The band gets precious on instrumental closer “I Remembered What I was Going to Say,” by Caws’ sister’s band, the Silly Pillows. Throughout this record, bassist Daniel Lorca and drummer Ira Elliot are rock-solid. (Elliot’s percussion work on “Agony of Lafitte” is a fine tribute to Spoon’s original.)

I know I’ve merely described this record instead of really digging in, but there isn’t much to say. Nada Surf plays simple and simply appealing rock, and they’ve made each of these songs their own. This is another fine record from these guys, and if you haven’t caught up with them since their flannel days, you definitely should.

* * * * *

And speaking of covers, we have this: a full-album run-through of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon by Oklahoma’s favorite sons, the Flaming Lips.

Actually, the full title of this thing is The Flaming Lips & Stardeath and White Dwarfs With Henry Rollins and Peaches Doing The Dark Side of the Moon, which is quite the mouthful, but tells you all you need to know. Stardeath and White Dwarfs is led by Dennis Coyne, brother of Lips main man Wayne Coyne, and they’re cut from the same cloth. What we have here is two of the weirdest bands of our time paying tribute to one of the weirdest records ever to top the Billboard charts, by one of the weirdest bands of their time. It all fits.

I’m just not sure why it exists, and it’s up to the album itself to convince me it should. I’ve heard The Dark Side of the Moon probably 400 times, and I’ve become rather sick of catching songs from it on classic rock radio through the years. Even so, the original record is an absolute masterpiece, a perfect mix of studio craft, songwork and theme. It’s awesome as it is, so why would we need another version?

Granted, this is very different. There’s an appealing looseness to this take, where the original Dark Side was almost clinically precise. The Lips do their blatty-drum psych-rock thing all over “Breathe,” slicing up those watery slide guitar lines with jagged, noisy screeches. “On the Run” is completely rewritten as a guitar piece with occasional splashes of synth color. Peaches sings the wordless vocal lines of “The Great Gig in the Sky” admirably, while the Lips play a crazy-ass loudloudLOUD groove behind her. Henry Rollins is here to speak all the background mutterings, including the closing “matter of fact it’s all dark.”

While “Money” and “Us and Them,” perhaps the most recognizable of these songs, remain largely unchanged, the bizarre instrumentation (and Wayne Coyne’s vocal distortion) add a new twist. “Us and Them,” in particular, works well here, but it’s hard to mess up that song. It’s just lovely, no matter how you do it. And Stardeath essentially recites “Brain Damage” and “Eclipse” (albeit quite a bit louder), ending this album much like Floyd ended theirs.

In the end, then, this doesn’t quite justify its own existence. It’s a fun little exercise, a slightly weirder spin on an already weird piece of music, but nothing essential. That doesn’t stop it from being fun, of course, but I’d like to hear the Lips take on something that isn’t quite as well-known, and bring a lot more of their own oddness to it. When I feel like hearing The Dark Side of the Moon, I’m probably not going to reach for this version too often.

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We are rushing headlong toward the end of my Top 20 of the 2000s list. Are you excited? Settle down, soldier, here’s the next installment.

#4. Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002).

It’s tempting to think of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot as overrated. It got an initial burst of critical acclaim when Warner Bros. refused to release it, finally shuffling it off to subsidiary Nonesuch. Many folks, myself included, gave it that little extra bit of cachet for sticking it to the man – for an album Warner didn’t like much, they certainly spent a lot of money on it, even paying for it twice. That’s a great rock and roll story.

Another is the feud (and eventual split) between Wilco leaders Jeff Tweedy and Jay Bennett, which came to a head while creating Yankee. If you’re interested in that, it’s documented in wince-inducing detail in the terrific film I Am Trying to Break Your Heart. But neither of these stories are about the music on the disc, and some have suggested that the legend of this record gets more attention than its content. Let’s rectify that right now, shall we?

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is an album unlike any other I own. Without question, its troubled creation contributed to its haunted tone, but even if I’d never seen the movie or heard the stories, this album would still freak me out. It was recorded before September 11, 2001, but no other piece of music so effectively captures what it was like to live in a post-9/11 world, where the ground could disappear from under your feet at any second, and you were hurtling along toward an uncertain future at speeds you couldn’t control.

The Wilco boys had already established themselves as traditionalists on their dynamite first two albums, and they took aim at that notion on their third, the sloppy-yet-satisfying Summerteeth. But nothing could have prepared their audience for Yankee, the album on which they shot for the stratosphere. Remarkably, they did so without abandoning their American rock and pop roots – it’s the production, the sense in every note of something hovering over the proceedings, waiting to strike, that makes this record what it is. Songs like “War on War” are fairly straightforward, but the chiming alien piano, chilling bursts of noise, and random reverbed banjo layered on top take it somewhere else. It’s like the world is the same, but it has also changed irrevocably.

That’s not to say the songs are weak. On the contrary, melodic wonders like “Jesus Etc.” are Tweedy and Bennett at their best. But had they simply recorded these songs as a live band, this would have been merely the best Wilco album. Instead, they did everything they could to make this album sound… well, off. In places, it feels like it’s falling apart as you listen to it. Even breezy rocker “I’m the Man Who Loves You” leaves you with a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. It’s beautifully made, and beautifully unnerving.

At moments here, Tweedy references events he could not have seen coming, like the bit in “Jesus Etc.” about tall buildings shaking and sad voices escaping. It’s an eerily prescient record, which only adds to its spookiness. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot leaves you with an unnamable, inexplicable dread, as if the band knows something of the future, and isn’t telling. It is one of the most perfectly-crafted works of the decade, a series of disconnected songs that sound like a single thought. This album ends with its sweetest and most unsettling song, “Reservations,” on which Tweedy sings about how nothing in the world makes sense, but he has one thing to cling to. It is perhaps Wilco’s most resonant moment.

It’s become clear in the ensuing years that Yankee is also the Last Great Wilco Album. After Bennett’s departure, Tweedy grew lazy, and started throwing in the weirdness just for the sake of it. On Yankee, every freaked-out moment makes sense in context, but nothing can explain or justify the 12 minutes of white noise that marred follow-up A Ghost is Born, or the total lack of compelling songwriting on Wilco’s later records. They’re still a fine band, but they’ll never again truly mean something, like they did in 2002. And Bennett’s death last year was like sealing that fate, once and for all.

It’s almost like this is the album Tweedy and company were born to make. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot sounds like 2002 to me, while seeming timeless. More than any other album I heard, it encapsulates the wonder and dread of the first half of the 2000s – it is immediately familiar, and yet alien. It’s a world we’ve all lived in, but it’s never looked like this before. It is uncertain, unpredictable, like the moment just before the roller coaster begins its sickening descent. None of us were sure what the next day would bring, and everything we thought we knew seemed strange and distant.

That Wilco captured this unintentionally, before the world changed, is somehow miraculous. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is an album unlike any other, and even its creators had no idea what it would mean. That’s the best kind of magic – the accidental kind. In some ways, it’s the only kind there is, and as we rise from our beds each morning, stepping out into the unknown, all we can do is hope for it.

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Next week, even more! Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.