I know I promised you some thoughts on Lost’s season premiere last week. And I should have seen this coming, but I don’t have much to say about it that wouldn’t be an enormous spoiler. Considering the new revelations, the twists and turns, and the oh-my-freaking-god moments this episode delivered in spades, I don’t want to do that.

So let me just say this: Lost is the best show on television. Full stop. Three years ago, as the third season slowly unwound, I was all but ready to give up on it. My biggest fear has always been that the writers and producers don’t know where they’re going with all this, and the formless, wandering nature of much of the third season fed those fears. And then they negotiated their ending with ABC – six seasons, done and out. And this, miraculously, freed them.

As we start the sixth and final season, I am absolutely convinced that the writers not only know where their labyrinthine plot is headed, but exactly how to get there, down to what information to parcel out in which of the final 18 episodes. But more than that, they know exactly who all their characters are, and how and why they’ve ended up in these squares on the big chessboard. For all its sky-high mythology and insanely complex plotting, Lost has always been about its characters, and after five years, they’re real – they live and breathe, and the toll the story has taken on them is truly painful. It’s a huge show, but its most important moments are almost imperceptibly small.

Lots of similar-sounding shows have come and gone in Lost’s wake, and none of them remembered to humanize their grand ideas the way the Lost team has. The Grand Idea at the start of the sixth season essentially turns the format of the show into a metatextual metaphor for its central question: can we change our own destinies? But beyond all of the wizardry on display, it’s the way this Grand Idea affects our characters, the subtle changes in them that longtime viewers can easily see, that counts.

I have no idea how many of Lost’s secrets and myths will be explained in this final season. And you know what? In some ways, it doesn’t matter to me. What matters is how this show leaves our characters, and which ones end up believing that their lives are in their own hands. We’re racing headlong towards what will no doubt be a mind-bending conclusion, and I’ll most likely have my head spun around a few more times before we get there. But I’ll really be watching for the little moments, the ways the characters change and grow, before the end. And I know now that those moments are at least as important to the Lost team (if not more important) as the hydra-headed plot.

Of course, my bet with Mike Ferrier still stands. If the writers don’t explain why Hurley’s numbers worked their way into our characters’ lives so often, then the sixth season DVD set will be mine, all mine, for free. I’ll keep you posted.

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Before we get to this week’s musical cornucopia, I have a couple of reactions to the Oscar nominations.

The Academy’s insistence that opening the Best Picture category up to 10 nominees would give voters a more varied slate certainly seems to have paid off. Most gratifyingly, the geniuses at Pixar finally got their first Best Picture nomination for Up, their saddest, most human, and most triumphant work. It has no chance of taking home the prize, particularly since it’s also nominated for Best Animated Film, an award it is sure to win. But it’s nice to see it sitting up there with the big boys.

Of course, it’s a cartoon that will take the top prize. Last month, I would have laughed at anyone who predicted James Cameron’s Avatar for Best Picture, but with its Golden Globe win, and its stunning box office, it’s practically a lock. And that’s a shame, because I like just about every other nominee more. (District 9 was a disappointment, and I refuse to see The Blind Side. But the other seven? Hell yes.) If I had to pick from these 10, I would probably go with The Hurt Locker, one of the most riveting war movies I have ever seen. Either that or the whimsical and emotional Up in the Air.

As usual, though, there are a couple of striking omissions, most gratingly the complete shut-out for my favorite movie of 2009, Away We Go. It’s a gorgeous, funny, moving film, and it showcases a revelatory performance by Saturday Night Live alum Maya Rudolph. And yet? Nothing. I also would have given some love to (500) Days of Summer and The Hangover, simply the funniest movie I saw last year.

But we can’t expect perfection. I love that Jeremy Renner is up for Best Actor, and Kathryn Bigelow for Best Director (only the fourth woman to be nominated in that category). I love that Christoph Waltz was an unknown just one year ago, and now he’s all but guaranteed the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. I love that Mo’Nique will likely win Best Supporting Actress for her amazing, heart-rending turn in Precious. (Where the hell has she been hiding this extraordinary talent?) And I love, love, love that Carey Mulligan, who dazzled as Sally Sparrow on Doctor Who two years ago, is nominated for her glorious work in An Education. A star is born, and the Who team was there first! How wonderful.

The Oscars will be given out on March 7. I know, it’s a silly awards show, and it means nothing. But it’s fun. And I really want Avatar to win every technical award, and lose the big prize – I’ve really come to see it as a battle for the future of moviemaking. As impressive as Avatar is, I’m hoping the Academy chooses to honor something smaller and more human. We shall see.

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I’ve written a lot in this space about expectations, and the toll they can sometimes take on first impressions of new music. Well, this week I’ve got the perfect example of that point. I have an album I’ve been anticipating for months, to the point where the record in my head was totally different from the record I eventually heard. And I have an album I picked up on a whim, with no expectations whatsoever, that utterly floored me.

The spanner in the works is that both of these records are very good. And yet, it took me some time to come to grips with the first one, whereas the second knocked me out immediately and has only grown in stature since. None of this means anything to you, of course – you just want to know how the records sound. But for me, it’s taken a little while to get where I am with them.

The first is These Hopeful Machines, by BT. Start with this: Brian Transeau is a genius. I’m honestly not sure why he is not more acclaimed than he is. His first few albums are fine examples of epic trance music, all beats and bliss, but starting with 2003’s Emotional Technology, he began exploring this entirely new territory. He’s somehow found a way to write and perform moving, melodic pop songs without losing his glitchy electronic roots. And I don’t mean this in a Moby kind of way – BT albums are all the evidence I need that Moby should just hang it up.

No, I mean Transeau has perfected this synthesis between warm pop and cold dance music, and he’s used it to create sprawling, progressive masterpieces that are at once remarkably complex and wholly human. Emotional Technology is still unlike anything I’ve heard, particularly on melancholy epics like “The Force of Gravity” and “The Great Escape.” He flipped this new sound on its ear with the follow-up, the amazing This Binary Universe, which removed the vocals and unfurled his songs out past the 10-minute mark. It remains one of the best instrumental albums I own.

And I guess I was expecting Transeau to completely reinvent himself each time out, which is why These Hopeful Machines initially disappointed me. Of course, my expectations were ridiculously high – Machines is a two-disc excursion, six songs spanning 112 minutes, and I was hoping to hear sounds from BT that I’d never heard before. In fact, what he’s done here is build on his last two records, bringing them together in ways I didn’t understand my first time through. He’s also, somewhat perversely, stuck to clichéd pop song lyrics throughout, despite the extended running times and progressive detours of these songs, and that decision initially put me off as well. It’s like an even mix of the innovative and the insipid.

But give Machines time, and it will take its place as BT’s most expansive and brilliant work. Let’s first start by saying Transeau is one of the best producers walking the earth – his work is detailed to an almost ludicrous degree, each song probably requiring hundreds of tracks and millions of little edits. You can listen to a BT album 20 times and still not hear everything buried in it, and These Hopeful Machines may be his most intricate yet.

Its songs, however, are at heart little things, and that’s its secret. Opener “Suddenly” has a very simple, very effective chorus, and would be a fine three-minute pop song. Here, of course, it is an eight-minute glitch-pop masterwork, a grand statement of purpose. It’s eclipsed by track two, “The Emergency,” which starts with a ghostly piano part and builds into a 10-minute wonderama. But it pinions around a small flower of a chorus, a simple “I love you.” It’s the perfect realization of Transeau’s thesis this time out – a massive mechanical whirlygig surrounding a tiny, beating human heart.

So goes much of the rest of These Hopeful Machines, but there are some surprises along the way. Frequent BT collaborator Jes takes lead vocal duties on two tracks on disc one, and while “Every Other Way” seems to drift, the punchy “The Light in Things” is her showcase here. Transeau’s also turned in two instrumental pieces, “Rose of Jericho” and “Le Nocturne de Lumiere,” that would act as interludes if they weren’t so fully realized. And he brings a live band feel to “Love Can Kill You,” and to his closing cover of the Psychedelic Furs’ “The Ghost in You.” (Recorded on analog tape, believe it or not.)

I have saved the best for last, however. Transeau has also enlisted Rob Dickinson, the singer and songwriter of Catherine Wheel, to grace two songs. “Always” is a nice number, sounding like a remix of something that could have fit on Happy Days or Wishville. But the 10-minute “The Unbreakable” is the best thing here, a sustained joyous shout over blipping synths and delirious sounds, Dickinson bringing the whole thing home. It’s an absolute wonder of a track, and sequenced 11th out of 12, it serves as the natural climax of the record.

These Hopeful Machines is the biggest and boldest statement Transeau has made. The trite lyrics and pure pop choruses will turn off electronic music purists, while the elongated song lengths and stuttering production will try the patience of pop fans. This album is for neither. It’s for people who are willing to follow Transeau down this new path, towards this exciting synthesis he’s aiming for. Machines is a stunning web of sound, mixing the mechanical and the organic with remarkable clarity. It is, in nearly every way, BT’s masterpiece.

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The other album is Corinne Bailey Rae’s The Sea. Rae is one of those artists whose work was just kind of there for me. It exists, it blends in with the background noise, and I barely even notice it. “Put Your Records On” is a nice song, and Rae has a great jazzy voice. But I didn’t expect great things, and I probably wouldn’t have even bought The Sea if not for a raving write-up I saw online.

But damn, I’m glad I did.

The Sea is Rae’s first album since losing her husband, Jason, who died of a suspected drug overdose nearly two years ago. Some say that the best art comes from tragedy, and I believe them. I would never want anyone to go through what Rae has in the last two years, but out of her pain, she has crafted a gorgeous record of deep folk-soul, a moving and surprisingly fun album that should plant her firmly amongst the best purveyors of this sound.

But it’s more than that. The Sea is an emotional gut-punch, a bottomless well of despair and hope in equal measure. Opener “Are You Here” brings it right up front – a collection of memories, of love in days gone by, her voice floating over acoustic guitars and horns. “I’d Do It All Again” and the striking “Feels Like the First Time” are more experiments in time travel, Rae using memory to heal, and by the end of the third song, she’s singing her little heart out over rat-a-tat drums and jazzy piano. It’s an opening trilogy that holds together like a single piece.

On half of this record, Rae indulges her rock side more than ever. “The Blackest Lily” just… well, it rocks, all bass and kickass organ. Both “Paris Nights/New York Mornings” and “Paper Doll” should put paid to any notions that Rae has made a depressing record here. “Closer” is the hit, slinky and horn-driven, like the best of Billie Holliday. Those scouring the lyrics of these songs for hints to Rae’s mental state will probably come away disappointed – they are pure pop wonders, and Rae sings the living hell out of them.

But the album’s other half is its heart. “Love’s On the Way” finds Rae contemplating just how to use her pain and love to improve the world, and contains the album’s most indelible, wonderful chorus. (And some of its most elastic bass playing.) “I Would Like to Call It Beauty” takes her tragedy head-on, opening with the line “So young for death” and exploring just how difficult it’s been for her to find her joy again. “Strained as love’s become, it still amazes me,” she sings, over strummed acoustics and lovely strings.

On “Diving for Hearts,” Rae questions just how deep she has to go to heal. And the closing title track finds her surfacing again, and contemplating how easily everything washes away – even crushing pain. “The sea, the majestic sea, breaks everything, crushes everything, cleans everything, takes everything away from me,” she sings, in what is the record’s most sad and gorgeous moment.

Needless to say, Corinne Bailey Rae’s music is far more than just background to me now. The Sea is a wonderful album, one that hurts in all the best ways. It’s the kind of soulful dive into truth that you just don’t hear much anymore. In a pop music landscape littered with singers with less than half of Rae’s skill, she could simply coast on her pipes and make a mint. That she’s chosen to write songs of such power and grace speaks volumes about her as an artist. The Sea is a remarkable work, an honest and clear statement from a singer-songwriter swimming through pain, striding onto the shore, and coming into her own.

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And now, the next installment in my Top 20 Albums of the Decade. This one might surprise you.

#16. Aqualung, Memory Man (2007).

It would be easy to lump Matt Hales’ Aqualung project in with all the other shaky-voiced piano-driven Brit-pop that has cropped up in Coldplay’s wake. Unfortunately, I think that’s what American audiences have done, since Hales hasn’t had the same level of success as some of his contemporaries. Part of it might be that he’s chosen an awful, awful name for his project, one that brings Jethro Tull to mind more often than not. Part of it might be that he hasn’t enjoyed a strong push from his label.

None of it, however, is the music. Matt Hales is an extraordinary songwriter, but he’s also an equally gifted record-maker. Memory Man was our first taste of that side of his talents here in America – its predecessor, Strange and Beautiful, was a compilation of tracks from his first two U.K. albums. Turns out, a full Aqualung album is an amazing thing. This is Hales’ attempt to make a big-budget spectacular, a finely-detailed widescreen pop record, and he approached it as a unified whole. Memory Man carries you through from one end to the other.

But it’s the songs – oh man, these songs. Opener “Cinderella” is astonishing, beginning with a plinking piano before exploding with Radiohead-like drums and guitars, and a full horn section. The whole song starts and stops like this, sometimes including nothing but drums and Hales’ voice, sometimes containing so much sound it feels like the world will burst. One section floats on nothing but a mournful French horn and a couple of soaring, operatic female voices. Through it all, the melody remains impeccable.

Over the next 10 songs, whether Hales is pleading to the heavens on the pounding “Something to Believe In,” channeling Motown on “Rolls So Deep,” or watching the sun rise on “Glimmer,” he never falters. “Pressure Suit” should have been a hit – its grand sci-fi lyrical conceit is set to a glittering pop gem of a melody. On the other end of the spectrum, there is “The Lake,” a haunting and spare shiver of a song. It starts with simple piano and voice, and as Hales adds dozens of flittering distractions around it, including a bass part that will rattle your walls, that basic through line remains. Hales’ voice is a quiet whimper, building to a storm.

Memory Man is an album about trying to find meaning. Its most important line comes in “Black Hole,” one of the album’s more rhythmic tracks: “If love is not the answer, maybe I misunderstood the question.” Throughout this album’s remarkably quick 50 minutes, Hales turns over every rock he can find, looking for hope and purpose. His lyrics easily support the grandiose music he has composed for them. Where his previous (and, to be honest, subsequent) works have merely been pretty, Memory Man digs deep, and gets loud when necessary – the coda of “Black Hole,” leading into the bright blur of “Outside,” is one of the most surprising moments here.

He saves his best, most poignant songs for last. “Garden of Love” is a tender epic, Hales inviting Paul Buchanan of the Blue Nile (a clear influence) to sing the second half. It’s a song with peaks and valleys, effortlessly tugging at the heartstrings.

But it’s the closer, “Broken Bones,” that takes the prize. Here Hales uses the very sound of his recording for emotional effect – he plays the song on an out-of-tune piano, and records half of it through a broken CB radio. The song is about watching one’s world disintegrate – “The world is burning and I’m terrified, I just need a little more time with you” – and the effect is unspeakably moving. Hales has found his purpose, his reason, as all else fades away.

It’s probably obvious at this point, but I think Memory Man should be hailed as one of the finest British pop albums of the modern era. That it has been largely ignored over here is… well, criminal. I’ve heard hundreds of albums from quivering British piano-poppers over the last 10 years, and none of them have stuck with me quite like this one has. It’s beautifully written, perfectly realized, and packs an unexpected emotional punch.

Of course, the very next year, Hales would go on to write his prettiest-ever song, “Arrivals,” so I expect he’ll only get better. (Aqualung’s new album, Magnetic North, is set for release in March.) How he’ll get better than this, though, is beyond me. Memory Man is that good.

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Man, that’s a lot of words. Tune in next week for reviews of a whole bunch of things, including Spoon, Midlake, Beach House, Fair, and maybe a couple of others. 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’d like to begin this week with a quick post-mortem for Dollhouse, what will likely be Joss Whedon’s last network television show.

I’ve long been of the opinion that Whedon is just too good for television. He belongs on HBO, or Showtime, or at the very least FX. Cable networks that can support his talent for lengthy serial narratives that slowly and completely explore difficult themes behind the veneer of genre shows. Network television just isn’t set up for that. What the networks want is predictable, easy-to-understand concepts that find their footing early and take no chances.

Whedon just doesn’t work like that. Of his four shows, only Firefly was on full power right out of the gate. The rest built their epic storylines slowly, holding their ideas under as many different lights as possible. Early Buffy the Vampire Slayer is perfectly fine, fun television, but it’s hard to sit through, knowing how extraordinary the show becomes later. The first season of Angel is a slow-moving nightmare, but from there, it unfolds brilliantly into a blood-soaked meditation on redemption.

In many ways, Dollhouse is Whedon’s most complex show, and in the end, it only got 26 episodes to prove its worth. The premise is bursting with possibility – the Dollhouse is an organization that finds people, wipes their memories and personalities, then imprints them with the memories and personalities of others. They then hire out these “dolls” to people who can pay for them (and not just for sex), and when their missions are over, they return to their childlike, mind-wiped state.

Of course, the central question of the show is, “Who are we?” Are we the sum of our memories, or do our essential beings run deeper? To his credit, Whedon never shied away from the grisly moral implications of the Dollhouse, and presented us with a thorny, tangled web of dark themes. The concept, and Whedon’s treatment of it, were never the problem. But Dollhouse suffered and eventually succumbed to a failure of execution, brought on mainly by the network that aired it, good old Fox.

Now, I recently re-watched those first five episodes, and they’re not as bad as I remembered. (Okay, “Stage Fright” is pretty damn bad.) But they certainly didn’t kick-start the story in any meaningful way. It’s common knowledge that the done-in-one format of the first five episodes was imposed upon Whedon by Fox, and that’s five fewer episodes he and his team had to tell the real story. And it’s a fantastic story, spinning the idea of the Dollhouse out to a global scale.

Naturally, with only 13 episodes to spin what should have been five full seasons of plotline, the second season feels rushed. The amazing thing is that for the vast majority of its running time, the quicker pace actually helps the show immeasurably. We get one slam-bang revelation after another in season two, and watching it all in a row will probably be like riding a particularly bendy roller coaster. But then, two episodes from the end, the writers piled up one twist too many without enough time to explain or explore it, and the show kind of deraied.

Not entirely, mind you. But the last two episodes of Dollhouse feel like three years of story compressed to 90 minutes. Thankfully, the final episode (which aired Friday) works pretty well, and the show goes out on a hopeful note, but the last few hours of Dollhouse are messy, unkempt things that race headlong to a conclusion, rather than telling a thoroughly satisfying tale. What’s there is full of potential, and makes the best of a lousy situation, but I can only imagine just how good a five-season Dollhouse might have been.

I can’t blame Fox entirely. They did renew the show for a second season, after the first pulled in dismal ratings. But I honestly can’t imagine Whedon going back to them, or any network, with another idea – particularly an idea as complex as Dollhouse. I hope the next time we see him, Whedon will be helming a show on HBO, or even online, Dr. Horrible style. As for Dollhouse, it’s very much worth seeing, if only to further demonstrate just how talented and imaginative its creator is.

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Two years ago last month, Stephin Merritt and his Magnetic Fields made the first great album of 2008 with Distortion. They’re a couple weeks late for that this year – OK Go stole the crown – but their new album Realism is another early favorite in a first quarter chock full of them.

I mention both records because they’re fraternal twins, a matched set. Distortion’s cover is the “gentlemen” lavatory symbol, while Realism’s is the “ladies” icon. The designs are identical, down to the smallest detail. And the albums are mirror images of each other – where Distortion is loud and sloppy and electronic-sounding, Realism is hushed and graceful and performed entirely on acoustic instruments. But other than that, it’s exactly the same – another collection of 13 wonderful Stephin Merritt songs.

Granted, the tone of Realism takes some getting used to. It’s closer to some of Merritt’s older work than Distortion was, but it’s still an album without drums, one which takes some florid and baroque detours. It’s acoustic, but it’s never strummed singer-songwriter stuff. The album is packed with sonic colors, including flugelhorn, tuba, cello, accordion, banjo, hammered dulcimer, zither and sitar. The vocals are often in three-part harmony, like an old-time campfire singing group, but the sound of the album is clean and modern.

But just like Distortion took a few listens to hear past the sheets of noise, Realism takes flight with repeated plays. The key, of course, is Merritt’s fantastic songs, each one a quirky gem. The record opens with its catchiest, “You Must Be Out of Your Mind,” a delightful kiss-off to an old flame looking to light the match again. “You can’t just go ‘round saying stuff because it’s pretty,” Merritt and his cohorts sing. “And I’m no longer drunk enough to think you’re witty…”

The album immediately gets darker and deeper from there. The whispered ballet “Interlude” would sound at home on Merritt’s Showtunes collection, singer Claudia Gonson lamenting a poor lovestruck fool. “I Don’t Know What to Say” finds Merritt running through the possible one-liners that could make the love of his life stick around, over a tune straight out of the sadder moments on Pet Sounds. And “Walk a Lonely Road” winds its melancholy melody around the tale of two loners finding one another: “Walk a lonely road with me, I will walk with you, half as lonely we will be when we walk as two…”

Of course, then there is “We Are Having a Hootenanny,” a hayseed hoo-rah on which the Fields offer you a personality quiz before encouraging you to “do-si-do down to our hoedown.” “Everything is One Big Christmas Tree” is a galloping delight, with two laugh-out-loud lines (one: “If they don’t like you, screw them, don’t leave your fortune to them”), and a verse in German. And “The Dada Polka” does what it says on the tin – its jaunty refrain is “Do something, anything, do something please.”

All of this and more in 33 minutes. One thing stays consistent – whether Merritt is telling sad stories or spinning delirious dance numbers, he never skimps on the melody. These are meticulously crafted, beautiful songs, and the acoustic instrumentation makes them sound like they’re being sculpted out of the air. He even makes “Seduced and Abandoned,” a story of a new mother left on her wedding day, into something that will get stuck in your head. Particularly the laughing-gasping final lines, “I think I might drink a few, and maybe the baby will too…”

Beyond all of its sonic exploration, Realism is just 13 more reasons to love Stephin Merritt. He’s a classic songwriter, one with wit and verve and unfailing sense of melody. You could perform the Distortion songs acoustically and cover the Realism songs in squalling feedback, and the core would remain the same. It’s all about these songs, and on Realism, they’re as good as they’ve ever been.

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And now, the fourth in a series of the Top 20 Albums of the 2000s.

#17. The Choir, O How the Mighty Have Fallen (2005).

It’s no secret that the Choir is pretty much my favorite band in the world. I’ve heard better bands, technically, but none that make my spirit soar the way the Choir does. I’ve been into them since 1990, when I bought their masterpiece, Circle Slide, based solely on the cover art. It was one of the best decisions, musically speaking, I’ve ever made. The Choir is a spiritual band, but their songs are full of doubts and fears, and the music is what I want all dream-pop to sound like: floating three feet off the ground, but still melodic and powerful.

So yeah, they’re my favorite band. But I can still admit when they fall down. Their post-Circle Slide output has been decent, from the amps-on-11 rock of Speckled Bird to the odd sonic experiments of Free Flying Soul, but in 2000, they released Flap Your Wings, a half-hearted collection that has been gathering dust since I bought it. It was the first new Choir album I’d struggled with, and I finally realized I just didn’t like it very much. When your favorite band makes a bad album, it’s difficult enough, but when they only release a new one every four years, on average, it hurts.

When 2005 rolled around, and word of a new Choir album started to trickle out, I didn’t know how to feel. For the first time, I approached the news with some worry. A healthy measure of excitement, sure, but a fair amount of trepidation as well. The title didn’t help me much. O How the Mighty Have Fallen. That’s a self-fulfilling prophecy if I ever heard one.

Oh me of little faith. One listen through and I was grinning. Two and I was giddy.

Mighty is a classic Choir album, a late-career renaissance. This is the one on which they found the perfect balance between their atmospheric swirly-guitar past and the driving rock they’d been doing of late. A big part of the credit must go to Hammock guitarist Marc Byrd, who painted this canvas with glorious swaths of shimmering sound, but Choir mainstays Derri Daughtery and Steve Hindalong stepped up their game immeasurably, and bass god Tim Chandler and sax man Dan Michaels turned in some terrific work. It’s only 10 songs, but all 10 songs are marvelous, and pound for pound, this is the best (and best-sounding) Choir album since Circle Slide.

But it’s more than that to me. Mighty is an album that fills me with joy, and at times, unspeakable melancholy. Part of that is, undoubtedly, a by-product of my 20-year fandom. “Fine Fun Time” invites me to reminisce about my years listening to this band, and knowing that “Terrible Mystery” is about Daugherty’s painful divorce gives it an extra dimension. But most of it is just because the Choir, when they are on, can craft music that digs deep, that touches the soul.

Just listen to “How I Wish I Knew,” a sad lullaby about the confusion and longing of fatherhood, and try not to be moved. Then take in “Mercy Will Prevail,” this album’s dark epic (at only 3:38). As reverbed guitars crash about, Daugherty, his voice an innocent babe in these woods, expresses his doubt about a God of love. “I want to swear it’s true but it’s hard to believe it,” he sings, before explaining all the things that give him pause: “In the thrust of a bayonet, in the hour of deep regret, in a world gone insane, in the eye of a hurricane…”

It’s this dark spirituality that gives added weight to the closing track, “To Rescue Me.” Daugherty and Hindalong have tried their hand at hymns before, but this is the one they got absolutely right. It’s a simple declaration of broken desperation, performed with subtle grace. I know many people who are turned off by even the slightest mention of Christian beliefs in song, and most say they don’t like to be preached at. The Choir would never stoop so low. “To Rescue Me” is entirely about how they need saving, and how grateful they are for that salvation. It may be the prettiest song they’ve ever written.

O How the Mighty Have Fallen is an album only a few thousand people have ever heard. Arguing for its placement on this list as an important record is a difficult prospect, however I feel about it. But it is a great one, a pop album of transcendent beauty, and in my little world, it was perhaps the most important record of the last 10 years. It was the album that restored my faith in my favorite band, and five years later, it’s lost none of its magic.

And get this: the Choir’s making another one as we speak. Life is impossibly good.

If you’ve never heard the Choir, go here.

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I still haven’t seen the Lost premiere – I had to cover an election, and didn’t get home until midnight or so. I’ll probably have some thoughts (of the non-spoilery variety) next week. Also, BT returns with nearly two hours of glitchy goodness, featuring Rob Dickinson (of Catherine Wheel) on two tracks. Who says this isn’t the Marvel age of musical magnificence?

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.

Like a lot of people, I’ve been riveted to the Late Night Wars these past few weeks.

I’m not much of a late-night talk show kind of guy. I only ever think about it once a year, when I go back home to visit my mother. She thinks Jay Leno is hilarious, and she doesn’t like “that Conan.” If we were the kind of people who pledged allegiance to talk show hosts, she’d be Team Leno, and I’d be Team Conan. But I’d probably choose Team Letterman, more than anyone else.

Conan O’Brien premiered on Late Night when I was a freshman in college. I was taking a few media studies courses at the time, and the First Late Night Wars were a big topic. I watched Conan’s first three shows, and declared that he’d be off the air in six months, maximum. He was awkward and twitchy, his jokes were painfully obvious, and he seemed desperate for laughs. It was the general consensus of my school’s communications department that giving this guy Letterman’s old show would go on to be a huge black eye for NBC.

And then I stopped watching, except for the occasional look-in. “Oh, Conan’s still on? Wow,” I would say, and then promptly lose interest again. I saw the funny stuff – the masturbating bear, the Triumph spots, his classic interview with Louis C.K. – on the internet. Cut to 17 years later, and NBC actually made good on their threat to give Conan free rein over The Tonight Show, their most enduring franchise. I think Conan’s premiere Tonight Show episode was the first time I’d watched him with any real interest since college.

And man, what a difference. O’Brien has grown into a genuinely funny, very likeable host and comedian. His whole shtick is joyous mischief, like he can scarcely believe that he has a major network show all to himself. He’s found a way to use his awkwardness to his advantage, and his comedy bits are uproariously random. I found myself tuning in more and more over the last seven months (though not regularly by any stretch of the imagination – I’m a Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert addict, after all.)

In short, I’ve watched more late-night talk over the past two weeks than I have in years. There’s no question in my mind O’Brien’s getting screwed. And there’s also no question he’s come out of this scuffle in a much better position than anyone else. Leno’s a damaged brand – he didn’t retire like he promised he would, he didn’t stand up for Conan, he didn’t fight NBC’s ridiculous plans, and because of all this, his stock has fallen sharply. And NBC, well, I can’t imagine how they could look any worse here.

But Conan has seized this opportunity, and I’m not just talking about his $45 million settlement. Over the last two weeks, he has shown two things: first, he’s a very funny man, and second, he’s probably the classiest act in television, and that’s what’s helped garner him so much support. He was bankable before, but after these last two weeks, he’s like America’s sweetheart.

Sure, it’s a numbers game, and Conan just wasn’t pulling in the ratings for NBC. But Leno fared far worse at 10 p.m., and it took Conan a while to find his feet on Late Night, too. O’Brien’s ratings for the past two weeks have been astonishing, and he’s responded with some truly memorable shows. And think about this: Jay Leno hosted The Tonight Show for 17 years, and the country didn’t rally around his last weeks on the air the way they have Conan’s. I think he can write his own ticket.

I’m writing all this to talk about Conan’s final Tonight Show, which aired Friday, on which he more than proved his worth. He’s been taking (very funny) shots at NBC over the past two weeks, and he took a couple more on Friday, but in his emotional goodbye speech, he thanked the network for making his dreams possible for more than 20 years. He thanked his staff and crew, and saved his biggest thanks for the fans, who have gone all out for him in recent days. And then he said this.

“All I ask is one thing, and I’m asking this particularly of the young people that watch: Please do not be cynical. I hate cynicism. For the record, it’s my least favorite quality. It doesn’t lead anywhere. No one in life gets exactly what they thought they would get. But if you work hard, and you’re kind, amazing things will happen. I promise you, amazing things will happen. It’s just true.”

Honestly, it was a great speech, one of the classiest things I’ve ever seen on television. Here, watch for yourself.

As a quick side note, the cover art for End Times was drawn by Adrian Tomine, one of my favorite graphic novelists. Tomine’s irregularly-published series is called Optic Nerve, and you can’t go wrong with any of the three collections available. Go here.

Over the Rhine should have millions of fans, and maybe they’re working up to that, one at a time. If you haven’t heard them, you should be the next fan on their list. Go here.

* * * * *

Next week, the Magnetic Fields, and maybe Spoon. I always think of The Tick when I say that band’s name. Spooooooon! 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 hate when this happens.

I’ve been looking forward to hearing Vampire Weekend’s second album for months. I resisted their debut for as long as I could, and then bought it expecting some typically over-hyped indie rock nothing, but what I got was something extraordinary. Easily one of the five best debut albums of the last 10 years, Vampire Weekend immediately had me simultaneously excited and worried for their follow-up.

And now it’s here, and I’ve heard it about 12 times, and I’m still just as conflicted.

The one thing I will definitely say is that the VW boys deserve endless credit for not going over the same ground again. That would have been easy – their debut album was equal parts African pop and American indie-punk, performed with a winning innocence and an organic warmth. Had they delivered another 10 or 12 songs like “Oxford Comma” or “Bryn,” they would have had an immediate hit on their hands. But even though they’ve gone with a similar cover design and font, making the two records look like sequential issues of a magazine, the Vampire Weekenders have taken their sound to new places on their follow-up, called Contra.

Ordinarily, that would be an unqualified good thing, as far as I’m concerned. But in this case, the sound of the debut was so ingratiating, so immediately wonderful, that I can’t help wanting more of it. And instead, Vampire Weekend has given me something willfully odd. I’ve been trying to appreciate it on its own terms, and enjoy it, but I’m afraid that all the sonic exploration on this album is masking some pretty weak songs.

But let’s talk about the new sounds. Contra sticks with the African influences, and even ramps them up in places. But it also allows keyboardist/producer Rostam Batmanglij an even freer rein – a distressingly large chunk of Contra sounds programmed, with blipping synths and electronic drums where real African percussion ought to be. They don’t ease you in, either – the first two songs contain no guitars at all. It helps that they’re both very good, particularly “White Sky,” which soars on gossamer wings of percussion and Ezra Koenig’s untethered falsetto. It’s beautiful, and if they’d written a few more like it, I would have embraced the new material without question.

But no. Instead we have songs like “Taxi Cab,” which meanders aimlessly for four minutes atop Casio synths and handclaps. If you’re waiting for the chorus, don’t bother – it never comes. “Run” uses the same dippy keyboard sounds, but adds a mariachi horn section, which is interesting, but not particularly successful. The six-minute “Diplomat’s Son” is the weakest thing Vampire Weekend has yet given us – it samples M.I.A. while repeating three chords endlessly. Only Koenig’s high voice comes close to saving it, but then it devolves over a cheeseball ‘80s electronic beat, turning into bargain basement Fiery Furnaces. At this point it becomes pretty much unlistenable.

So far, it doesn’t sound like I’m conflicted, right? Well, there is magic and wonder on Contra, too. “Holiday,” at track three, is probably the closest in tone to the debut, and even that throws in a little rockabilly, just for spice. “California English” actually finds Koenig whipping out the Auto-Tune (or perhaps the “I Am T-Pain” iPhone app), but it’s got an awesome little chorus, and some sweet guitar lines. Single “Cousins” is fabulous, easily the most live-band energetic throwdown on the album. And closer “I Think Ur a Contra” is surprisingly moody and ambient, and for that, I can forgive its lack of melody.

Roughly half of this album grabbed me right away, and the other half has slowly diminished since that first listen. But the most surprising track is “Giving Up the Gun,” which ditches the otherwise ever-present Afrobeat entirely and gives us pulsing ‘80s synth bass under a pretty straightforward pop song. This is what Vampire Weekend might sound like if they gave up everything that makes them special, and even so, it’s not bad. Still, no song encapsulates my conflicting feelings over this album like this one does.

It’s hard to call Contra a sophomore slump, because the VW boys clearly tried hard to push at their own boundaries – even the ones that didn’t need to be pushed. It’s a strikingly confident record, even when it doesn’t work, and I can’t fault it for ambition. When it does work, as on the amazing “White Sky,” Contra feels like a natural next step. I hope next time out, the band takes a hard look at this spotty, messy second effort, figures out which paths led to dead ends, and keeps walking down the others. There’s much to like on this album, but much I hope never to hear on a Vampire Weekend record again.

* * * * *

Going into this week, I expected to love the Vampire Weekend, and give the new OK Go, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, only a cursory listen. Imagine my surprise, then, when Contra turned out to be inconsistent and shaky, and Colour instantly became an early front-runner for my favorite album of 2010.

I’ve never been a huge fan of OK Go, despite their Chicago origins. Their first two albums were catchy and fun, but not particularly memorable – the viral videos of the foursome on treadmills were more interesting than the songs they accompanied. But Colour is something else altogether, a defiant sideways step into something much stranger and more compelling.

For their third outing, OK Go hired Dave Fridmann to sit in the producer’s chair. Fridmann, a former member of Mercury Rev, is best known as the producer of just about every Flaming Lips album, and he adds a striking, psychedelic edge to the band’s sound. In turn, the band members have written some of their weirdest and strongest tunes, nimbly jumping over their power-pop past. The result sounds like what might happen if the Lips tried to make Prince’s 1999 – it’s a compelling blend of danceable funk and alien atmospherics.

Take the self-referential opener, “WTF?” It borrows liberally from the Purple One’s ‘80s output, incorporating the clean funk guitar, the falsetto vocals, and even a trademark Hendrix-with-epilepsy solo in the middle. But it’s in 5/4, which means it’s impossible to dance to, and the drums all sound like they were recorded with 50-year-old microphones shoved directly into them. As the album progresses, the band continuously plays to these two influences: “This Too Shall Pass” is more Lips, with its massive keyboard fanfares, while “White Knuckles” is 100% Prince, right down to the synth lines that sound ready-made for the Revolution – until the insane lead guitar lines start up.

The final third of the album is darker and deeper, starting with the extraordinary “Before the Earth Was Round” – the vocals are pure Wayne Coyne circa Yoshimi – and continuing with the sparse acoustic interlude “Last Leaf.” That song pivots on the nakedly romantic line “And if it takes forever, forever it’ll be,” and while the album never gets that emotional again, it’s a lovely moment. The last three tracks get bigger and bigger, until the six-minute “In the Glass” concludes with a massive repeated coda.

I have a major reservation about this album, and you’ve probably guessed it – OK Go is a band without a consistent identity. Their debut was cheeky power pop, complete with cheesy synths, stacked vocals and numerous Jellyfish moments. Then they hired Franz Ferdinand producer Tore Johansson to helm their second, Oh No, and (surprise!) it sounds like Franz, rawer and more angular. Now with Fridmann behind the boards, they’ve made a Flaming Lips record (albeit a better Lips record than that band’s own Embryonic, from last year). OK Go has spent so much time sounding like other artists that I have no real idea what kind of band they’re meant to be.

But in the absence of that, I’ll take an album like Colour, which surprised me from first song to last. The common denominator has always been frontman Damian Kulash, who never fails to write well-crafted songs, whatever style he’s aping. Colour is a thoroughly unexpected triumph from out of nowhere, a dark and dreamy record that should bring OK Go some well-deserved attention. Who knows how long it will remain on top of the (admittedly small) 2010 heap, but the fact that it’s there at all right now is pretty amazing to me, and you should definitely take that as a strong recommendation.

* * * * *

And now, the next installment in my Top 20 of the Decade. I swear, I didn’t plan it like this, it just happened. But it’s serendipity, because it gives me an opportunity to remember why I liked this band so much in the first place.

#19. Vampire Weekend (2008).

I can’t even tell you how much I didn’t want to hear Vampire Weekend’s debut album. It dropped in January of 2008, amid an ocean of hype, and after suffering through similar tsunamis of breathless excitement over similarly-named indie-rock shithole bands in 2007, I’d had enough. I decided I wasn’t even going to listen to a single song. Vampire Weekend and its inexorable hype machine just weren’t for me.

But I kept reading articles and reviews, and the album just kept sounding more interesting to me. I think my resolve lasted four weeks or so, and then I broke down. The whole time, I kept grumbling to myself. “Vampire Weekend. What an awful name. I bet it’s some goth bullshit.” “Ooh, look at the oh-so-artsy cover. Nice photo, Leibovitz.” “I’m going to regret paying for this, aren’t I?”

You all know what happened next. I listened to Vampire Weekend, and was suitably blown away by its delirious mixture of college rock and African pop. It was like these four New York kids had grown up listening to nothing but Paul Simon’s Graceland, and were stunned to find out that people their own age had never heard of it. So they decided to recreate it, but without traveling to Africa or importing African musicians. And also, they decided to do it with an energy you only have when you’re young. Ezra Koenig was only 24 when Vampire Weekend was released. Paul Simon was 45 when he made Graceland.

So what you have here is an album that combines a literate, global sensibility with an enthusiasm usually found only in bands just learning their instruments. It’s wide-eyed and wonderful, and flush with possibility. Just check out “A-Punk,” which could be this record’s mission statement. It opens with a terrific high-skipping guitar figure over a commanding beat, but then drops into a lovely pipes-and-percussion chorus, complete with “oh, oh” vocals. This shouldn’t work, but it does, marvelously.

Just about every song on Vampire Weekend is a highlight. “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” is a singular delight, but the baroque arrangement of “M79” is a treat, as is the brief yet brilliant “Bryn.” Only on “One (Blake’s Got a New Face)” do they hint at where they went next with Contra, all blipping keyboards. Everything else sounds like a group of fresh-faced music theory students having a great time bashing this stuff out in their dorm rooms. It’s one of the warmest albums you’re likely to hear.

In 2008, Vampire Weekend was a breath of fresh air. Here was a sound no one else was doing, a sound so fascinating and so fully-formed that it almost felt surreal. It’s simultaneously important-sounding, and tons of fun. There is still no other band like them, and with their second album, they’ve kind of left the debut as an island unto itself. But it’s an amazing island, and no amount of gasping hype can take that away.

It’s one of the best albums of the decade because its authors came up with something that sounded brand new, and did it with an uncomplicated shrug. The best music sounds effortless, like it was merely breathed into being, no matter how much sweat and toil went into it. Vampire Weekend is strikingly original, and whimsically playful – it’s a joy from front to back, which belies how precise and perfectly-formed it is. They are a band for the Internet age, not only building buzz online, but absorbing everything they hear on the World Wide Web. The world is getting smaller, and Vampire Weekend is the sound of cultural walls collapsing, with no fanfare whatsoever. It just sounds natural, and exactly right.

* * * * *

Next week, number 18, and new ones from Eels and Owen Pallett. 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.

Welcome back, everyone.

This column marks the start of Tuesday Morning 3 A.M., Year Ten. I’m just going to let that sink in for a minute, because I can hardly believe it myself. That doesn’t even count the two years I wrote this thing for Face Magazine, either. I started this column’s current incarnation in November of 2000 – my tenure with Face had come to an ignoble end, I’d moved to Tennessee, and after taking all of October off from writing (what I called my October Project, and I hope someone out there gets that), I tentatively strung a few sentences together about the then-new Everclear album and e-mailed them to my friends.

Then, the next week, I did it again, this time reviewing Marilyn Manson’s Holy Wood. And then I was in the habit – every week for the past 10 years (with a couple of vacation weeks), I’ve strung those sentences together. The musical selection has gotten a lot better since the early days. I’d like to think the writing has, too, but that’s your call, not mine. I still e-mail this column out to two dozen or so of my friends each week, but hundreds more of you check it out online.

And I’m so very grateful to all of you for that.

So! Let’s keep going, what do you say? I’ll keep writing them, if you keep reading them. I initially said I only wanted to do this thing for 10 years or so, but I have so much fun putting this together each week that I don’t expect I’ll want to stop come December. Plus, there’s always more music to talk about, and I doubt I’ll stop wanting to hear it all. That seems like a hard-wired part of my brain, at this point. Bad for the checkbook, good for fans of this column.

Quite a bit has changed in 10 years. I’m living outside Chicago now, writing for a living, and much more stable and secure than I was when I started this thing. But through all of that, music has remained an important – nay, essential – part of my life. I’m rarely happier than when I find music that moves me so much I want to share it with everyone I know. TM3AM is my ongoing attempt to do that, and to capture the strange excitement that goes with being an obsessive music fan. I may feel differently in December, but right now, I want to keep doing it as long as I can.

So, Year Ten. Strap in, here we go.

* * * * *

Ordinarily, the first few columns of the year are dead boring. I do my best to spice them up, but there usually isn’t much happening on the music front in January. Or February, for that matter. But 2010 is already shaping up to be a mold-breaker, on a few fronts.

As a side note, I’m saying “Twenty-Ten.” It just rolls off the tongue better, and fits with the pattern set by the last few centuries: Seventeen-Ten, Eighteen-Ten, Nineteen-Ten, Twenty-Ten. My inner grammar snob approves. As do the more openly snobby folks at NAGG, the National Association for Good Grammar, for whatever that’s worth.

Anyway, I’m usually scrambling for something to write about in the second week of January, but this year, we have an embarrassment of riches. Already out are new albums from OK Go, Freedy Johnston, Elvis Costello, Final Fantasy, and the one I’ll be reviewing next, Vampire Weekend’s Contra. Coming Tuesday are new things from Spoon, the Eels, and the Editors. One week later, we have the new Magnetic Fields album, Realism, and one week after that, an explosion of goodness from Midlake, BT, and the Album Leaf. (BT’s album has me the most excited – two hours, two discs, with Rob Dickinson of Catherine Wheel providing vocals on two tracks.)

But it’s not stopping there. February and March are bank-breakingly amazing this year. Take a gander:

February 9 will see the new one from Massive Attack, called Heligoland. That’s a good start, but February 16 brings the new Peter Gabriel (a covers album called Scratch My Back), a double album from Field Music, the zillionth solo album from Robert Pollard, a new Silver Mt. Zion concoction, and the stateside release of Jason Falkner’s 2007 elpee I’m OK You’re OK. (He’s made another, All Quiet on the Noise Floor, since then, and that one hasn’t hit these shores yet either. Grumble grumble.)

February 23. Oh, my, February 23. Here’s what’s coming: the new Shearwater, called The Golden Archipelago; a two-CD excursion by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim entitled Here Lies Love; Joanna Newsom’s third album, the just-announced Have One on Me; a new thing from The Rocket Summer; another glorious soundscape from Balmorhea; another kickass slab of stoner fuck-all from High on Fire; and most importantly, Johnny Cash’s final Rick Rubin session, American VI: Ain’t No Grave.

But wait! There’s March! Highlights of what we know so far include Liars’ fifth album, Frightened Rabbit’s third, the debut from Broken Bells (a nifty collaboration between Danger Mouse and James Mercer of the Shins), the new Ted Leo, a covers disc from Nada Surf, a live record and DVD from the White Stripes, and finally (FINALLY) the remastered, spiffed-up, super-awesome re-release of one of my favorite albums of all time, The Cure’s Disintegration. There’s more, of course, and there’s more on the way we don’t know about yet, but even if there weren’t, I’d be out-of-my-skin excited for 2010 already.

What else might we see? Well, there’s a new Arcade Fire rumored for May, and a new Shins on the boards for about the same time. The Beastie Boys came within weeks of releasing Hot Sauce Committee Part One last year, so we should see that, and maybe Part Two. Quiet Company will have a new EP sometime very soon. Radiohead’s in the studio, and both Soundgarden and Faith No More have reunited. Plus, on the spiritual pop front, we’re definitely getting a new Choir album in 2010, as well as the Lost Dogs’ album and movie project, Route 66.

And I will be broke. But I will be happy.

* * * * *

So apparently I disappointed a few people with my announcement that I wouldn’t be publishing a best-of-the-decade list. My reasons were various and sundry, and I guess you’ll know what’s coming when I say I can’t really remember why they were so compelling a couple of weeks ago.

Yes, Virginia, I’ve put together a best-of-the-Aughts list. But rather than dump it on you all at once, I think I’m going to stretch it out, and make it a recurring feature of the first half of this year. The list itself is something I’ve been agonizing over, and why make it easy on myself? Why not allow myself to lose countless hours of sleep deciding whether the #4 and #5 albums should swap places? What is a list like this, if not a way for me to demonstrate just how blindingly obsessed I really am?

When I first set out to compile this thing, I thought it would be simple. Really, I did. I thought I would just have to write down the #1 and #2 albums from each of the last 10 years, and then rank them. But I forgot, of course, that what ascends to the top of the heap in one year might not even rate an honorable mention in another. Already I’ve made some decisions on this list that have surprised me, and chosen some records that, in retrospect, should have been praised more in their respective years. I’ve also taken a pass on some albums that I initially rated very highly. It’s like getting a re-do on your decade, in a way.

Speaking of decisions that have surprised me, here’s one: you won’t see Brian Wilson’s SMiLE on this list. It is, unquestionably, one of my favorite albums of the last 10 years. But I bent the rules to declare it the best record of 2004, and in retrospect, I shouldn’t have. While it is absolutely the first presentation of SMiLE in its intended form, the meat of the record – the songs themselves – are all more than 40 years old at this point. As much as I love what Wilson’s done here, and as much as I think SMiLE is one of the finest pieces of pop music I’ve ever heard, I couldn’t justify ripping up my rules again.

Plus, including SMiLE makes it too easy. Of course it would be number one. Of course it would. Now, you’ll be guessing.

So let’s start this off. Once a week, for the next 20 weeks, I’ll be giving you a little essay on a record I love. Together, they’ll form my Top 20 List of the Decade. Hope you enjoy!

#20. Bruce Cockburn, You’ve Never Seen Everything (2003).

Bruce Cockburn, one of Canada’s finest songwriters, was 57 when he recorded You’ve Never Seen Everything in 2002. It was his 21st album, marking 33 years as a recording artist. This is not a young man’s album. It’s seeped in the grim wisdom that comes from living a long life, and experiencing the best and worst humanity has to offer. And on this by-turns heartbreaking and invigorating musical document, he pours out those years, those experiences, in riveting poetry.

Cockburn has long been one of the most globally cognizant artists around, and on You’ve Never Seen Everything, he takes you on a tour of some of the darkest places he’s been. The reactionary rage of 1984’s “If I Had a Rocket Launcher” is gone, replaced by a simmering disgust with man’s inhumanity to man. On “Postcards From Cambodia,” he calls what he sees there “too big for anger, too big for blame.” And on the positively mesmerizing title track, Cockburn tells vignettes that burn themselves into your brain: murder-suicides by pitchfork, bakers cutting their flour with pesticide to save money, a teenage girl setting fire to her home, killing herself and her family.

“You’ve never seen everything,” Cockburn intones, turning the title into a knowing retort.

Elsewhere, he takes aim at our corporate greed, our “trickle down” economics, our policies that leave half the world starving while we wage wars for oil. You’ve Never Seen Everything is a post-9/11 album that widens the lens, giving Cockburn’s audience the benefit of his global view. And if that’s all it had been, it still would be commendable, but this album (like all of Cockburn’s work) manages to find light amidst the darkness as well. “Open,” “Everywhere Dance,” “Put It In Your Heart” – these are lovely songs of joy and wonder, proving that despite all he has seen, Cockburn is nowhere near jaded or cynical.

The mission statement of the album, couched near the end at track 11, is “Don’t Forget About Delight.” It’s simple, but deceptively difficult: “Amid the post-ironic postulating and the poets’ filtered rhymes, meaning feels like it’s evaporating, out of sight and out of mind, don’t forget…”

Musically, Everything is a triumph, a culmination of Cockburn’s criminally overlooked catalog. On the darker pieces, he speaks rather than sings, over mantra-like guitar figures, and on the lighter ones, he gently finger-picks his acoustic, dropping lovely choruses. He makes jazz-rock sound convincingly angry on “Trickle Down,” and puts extra verve into the plucked gallop of “Wait No More.” It’s a full, rich sound he conjures up, and even when the writing gets repetitive, it’s hypnotic and immersive.

Bruce Cockburn has long been one of the smartest men to ever pick up a guitar, and You’ve Never Seen Everything – one of only two studio albums he released last decade – is a career highlight. It sports a shining intelligence, but wraps that in observation and emotion. This is an album that connects, viscerally and immediately, and its lessons are ones we could still stand to learn, seven years on. It is Cockburn’s late-career masterpiece, as brilliant and as unjustifiably ignored an album as he has ever made. If you’ve never heard Cockburn, this is a great place to start.

So that’s number 20. Guesses are welcome on numbers 19 through 1. If all goes well, we’ll wrap up this little experiment on May 26.

* * * * *

Next week, Vampire Weekend’s second album, and perhaps OK Go’s third. Year ten! I’m still wrapping my brain around it. 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.

This is Fifty Second Week, and what a year it’s been.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, here’s what Fifty Second Week is all about. I started this annual feature in 2005, as a way to clear my backlog at the end of a year. There’s just so much music that comes out in a given year – in 2009, for example, I bought close to 275 new albums, not counting reissues – that I simply can’t devote a full review to everything I hear, or even everything I like. That’s one of the reasons I started the blog this year. But even that hasn’t helped much.

So at the end of each year now, I make a list of the records I bought and didn’t review, and I run through them here, in the 52nd weekly column. But here’s the catch: I give myself 50 seconds to review each one. I have a timer set up to buzz me out when 50 seconds elapses, and even if I’m in the middle of a word, I stop writing. 50 seconds. That’s it. Theoretically, this column should take about an hour each year to complete. (Logistically, it takes a bit longer, but not much.)

Hopefully, the result is fun to read as well. I’ve received some nice feedback on Fifty Second Week through the years, enough to convince me that people enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it. As usual, we have 52 albums this year to burn through, none of which were granted a full review on the main site. (I did do first listen reviews of a few of them on the blog.) After this, my top shelf will be bare, and ready for 2010 to fill it up again.

Ready? In alphabetical order, then. This is Fifty Second Week.

The Airborne Toxic Event

I saw this band live at Lollapalooza this year, and they knocked me out. Their album is pretty weak, though, and the lyrics especially betray its origins as Mikel Jollett’s failed novel. This is standard Nickelback-style rock that thinks its clever.

Arctic Monkeys, At The Apollo

Live album and DVD from this frenetic British band shows off just how good they are. Not much more to say about this – if you like the Arctic Monkeys, this is those songs played louder and faster, and if you don’t, well, this won’t change your mind. The DVD is nice, though.

Arctic Monkeys, Humbug

This might, though. The Monkeys’ third album was produced by Queen of the Stone Age Josh Homme, and is slower and slinkier than their other stuff. None of the songs jump out and announce themselves, but some of them are among the best ones Alex Turner has written. They’re still a band to watch.

Assjack

Hell. Yes. This is Hank Williams III’s thrash metal band, and it just stomps. There’s no hint of the country-rock Hank is known for – he plays just about all the instruments on this album, and the style is hard, relentless, killer metal. Good shit, for what it is.

Dan Auerbach, Keep It Hid

Solo album from the guitar-vocal half of the Black Keys. This sticks largely to the blues-rock that band is known for, but some tracks are wildly diverse, showcasing the direction Auerbach may be leading the band in. This is nice, though.

The Bad Plus, For All I Care

On this album, the venerable jazz trio picks up a vocalist, Wendy Lewis, which turns out to be a tragic mistake. The BP’s instrumental covers of pop songs like “Tom Sawyer” are awesome, but here, Lewis sings “Comfortably Numb” and others, turning them into loungy jokes.

Bleu, A Watched Pot

Extremely disappointing third album from this Boston wunderkind. Bleu normally writes hooky, quirky pop songs, but here, he streamlines himself, sticking to slow, radio-ready ballads, all glossed up with strings. There’s just nothing here that shows what a good writer he is, though the voice is in fine form.

Brakes, Touchdown

Yeah, I’m just going to take a little nap here while you guys bang out your basic, boring three-chord rock. You don’t mind, right? Just wake me up when you’re done. Thanks.

Built to Spill, There Is No Enemy

You know, this is a decent enough little Built to Spill record, and probably deserved a full review. Although, I can’t think of anything remarkable to say about it. Doug Martsch once again writes some full-blooded indie rock songs, and performs them with tremendous skill on guitar. It’s good.

Camera Obscura, My Maudlin Career

Scottish twee-pop in that Belle and Sebastian vein, this time practically drowned in strings and horns. None of these songs stick in my head, although Tracyanne Campbell’s voice is quite nice. This is essentially pretty wallpaper, and I haven’t thought about it much since buying it.

Julian Casablancas, Phrazes for the Young

The singer for the Strokes goes solo, and picks up a bunch of synthesizers on the way to the studio. This sounds pretty much exactly as you’d expect, and no better. Some of these songs made me want to grind glass into my ears, but some had me head-bobbing along.

Cheap Trick, The Latest

Surprise! This is the long-running Illinois power-pop band’s best record in probably 20 years. That doesn’t mean it’s top-notch Cheap Trick, but it is pretty damn good, especially rave-up rockers like “Sick Man of Europe.” I hope they can keep this up.

Cheap Trick, Sgt. Pepper Live

For those who bought the Beatles box set and just can’t get enough of these songs, here are very, very faithful run-throughs of every song on the Fab Four’s best album. Plus you get a medley of other Beatles songs at the end. It’s nice, but not essential, and more like a cherry on Cheap Trick’s sweet year.

Collective Soul

Also known as Rabbit, because of the white chocolate rabbit on the cover. Why? Who knows. I could swear I listened to this, more than once. But I can’t remember a single song right now, which kind of illustrates my point: Collective Soul makes faceless, forgettable rock. And yet I keep buying.

Shawn Colvin, Live

It takes Shawn Colvin forever to make a new album. It’s been three years, so to fill the gap, we get this lovely acoustic live album. Just the woman and her guitar, singing her sweet and sad songs. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this, although some might consider it background music. I quite like it, but I wish she’d hurry up with that new studio LP.

The Drawing Room

This wonderful side project from one of the members of Thousand Foot Krutch flew under the radar, but it shouldn’t have. Mostly acoustic guitars and electronics, the songs on this record sparkle, and there’s even a very good, respectful cover of Sting’s “The Hounds of Winter.” Worth tracking down.

Jeremy Enigk, OK Bear

Enigk’s return to heavy, widescreen rock also went largely unnoticed this year, even by me, but this is his finest solo album. The amps are turned up, but so are the melodies, and Enigk’s unique, remarkable voice is always amazing.

Liam Finn and Eliza-Jane, Champagne in Seashells

Fine second effort (a five-song EP) from the son of Neil Finn, but it suffers from the same malady as his debut album, I’ll Be Lightning: the songs drag, stick to simple melodies, and never really take off. I hope he pulls out his dad’s records and gives them a thorough listen before his next effort.

Girls, Album

This is my “I don’t get it” album for 2009. Girls drew acclaim from virtually all corners this year, and all for an album I find amateur and boring in the extreme. I was expecting some good melodic pop from the reviews, but what I got is a guy who is just learning how to write songs. Give him three albums, maybe, but this is blah.

Girlyman, Everything’s Easy

The two girls and one man in Girlyman are slowly expanding their sonic palette – this is their most fully-produced effort. But the focus is still on the three intertwining voices, and the simple folk songs they write together. Worth it for the studio version of the great “Somewhere Different Now.”

Great White, Rising

Yes, this ‘80s blues-metal band is still going. No, they haven’t changed much at all. This is more power-blues, sung by Jack Russell, one of Robert Plant’s biggest acolytes. It’s nice, if you like Great White. I have a soft spot for them, and probably always will.

Guilt Machine, On This Perfect Day

Swedish musician Arjen Lucassen is the man behind Ayreon, the ridiculous space-opera project that seemingly came to an end last year. His new project is very different – slow, creeping metal soundscapes that build and build. If you like this style, this is really good.

Heaven and Hell, The Devil You Know

Oh wow. This is much better than I expected from the reunion of the Dio-era Black Sabbath. This is all slow, creepy, scary metal. It never quickens its pace, but the crawling menace just oozes out of every pore. This is terrific.

The Hold Steady, A Positive Rage

This live document emphasizes the rawk side of this band, as opposed to the epic Springsteen side, which is to its detriment, I think. The Hold Steady are very good when they are trying to be the new E Street Band. When they are trying to make amped-up noise, they are less successful. There’s a pretty fun DVD with it, though.

Bruce Hornsby and the Noisemakers, Levitate

Remember when people thought Hornsby would be making soft-rock hits for the rest of his life? He turned out to be a much more interesting musician than anyone could have guessed, and Levitate is another mix of jazz, pop and weird-ass show tunes that proves it.

Chris Isaak, Mr. Lucky

May Chris Isaak never change. This is another slab of ‘50s pop and surf-rock from a guy who should be more of a household name than he is. Of course, the down side of never changing is that this sounds exactly like his last album, and the one before that, and the one before that. Whether that’s a bad thing is up to you.

Jars of Clay, The Long Fall Back to Earth

I should have reviewed this one. This is Jars’ best and most consistent album… well, ever, I think. It’s more keyboard-driven, has some new wave influences, but is buoyed by some of the band’s best songs ever. And unlike every other album they’ve made, it doesn’t fall apart by the end. The last songs are the best.

Living Colour, The Chair in the Doorway

Damn! The always-inconsistent Living Colour finally pull it off. This is a really good rock-and-soul album, careening from one style to another, but held together tightly by the wailing guitar of Vernon Reid and the extraordinary voice of Corey Glover.

Manchester Orchestra, Mean Everything to Nothing

Andy Hull clearly Means Every Word of this record. It is big and earnest and widescreen and all those adjectives, but it’s also unfortunately a little boring. The guitars and vocals pump with big wide hearts, but the songs are lacking, and the sentiments a little too upfront.

mewithoutYou, It’s All Crazy! It’s All False! It’s all a dream! It’s alright

Man, I wanted to like this. Emo band mewithoutYou branch out into world-pop, but they do so while becoming repetitive, and the vocals just become screechy and irritating as the songs wind on and on behind them. Next time, guys. I’ll still be here listening.

Modest Mouse, No One’s First and You’re Next

An EP collecting b-sides and other things from the last few years. This is pretty good, although nothing has the zip and panache of the last couple of studio albums. I love the title of “History Sticks to Your Feet,” but the song is just average. This is a stopgap, though, so what do you want?

Nirvana, Live at Reading

You know what? Nirvana sucked. They sucked in the studio, and they really sucked live, which this messy, scrappy, loud document proves. It’s chock full of wrong notes and missed beats and sloppy playing and the Voice of a Generation sounding like the naked emperor.

Om, God is Good

This bass-and-drums duo writes long, long dirges, and plays them as if they have buzzing guitars in the mix. It’s an interesting stoner-metal minimalism sound, and they add several other instruments here to fill it out. It’s kind of awesome, in its way.

Our Lady Peace, Burn Burn

I really used to like this band. But on their seventh album, they surgically remove everything I liked, leaving nothing but bland, faceless, radio-ready rock. Only “Monkey Brains” rises above the static. This is pants.

Pain of Salvation, The Second Death of Pain of Salvation

I’m not sure what the title means either, but the album is two discs of live PoS goodness. This Swedish band plays in a dozen different styles, from prog-rock to disco, and they are excellent live. I can even forgive another version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” especially one this good.

Grant-Lee Phillips, Little Moon

This is a sweet little album from a man with a voice that should be everywhere. For the second time in a row, he’s turned in a full-sounding pop record, with good solid songs and some nice lyrics. If only that were enough anymore.

Q-Tip, Kamaal the Abstract

Wow, this is finally out. I first heard about the shelved Kamaal probably 10 years ago, and it was rumored to be a jazz-rap-fusion weird-o-rama. And guess what, it is. It steps into Miles Davis territory here and there, but always springs back to the jazz-fueled rap Tip is known for. Weird as its reputation…

Rain Machine

Kyp Malone from TV on the Radio branches out on his own. The result isn’t at all what you’d expect – it’s organic and acoustic, and very, very long. But it’s heartfelt, something I can’t say about much of TV on the Radio’s stuff. The first Malone album I’ve liked?

Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions, Through the Devil Softly

Remember Mazzy Star? They were wonderful. Singer Hope Sandoval has carried that sound on to her solo work with the Warm Inventions, and quite why it takes her so long to make these albums, I don’t know. The sound hasn’t significantly changed, and her voice still sends chills down the spine, in a good way.

Bryan Scary and the Shredding Tears, Mad Valentines

An EP from Mr. Scary, one that showcases his band’s phenomenal talent. Just listen to “Andromeda’s Eyes.” Yes, it really is that fast. This is Queen-inspired, Supertramp-on-Jolt-Cola, piano-pounding pop goodness.

Sepultura, A-Lex

One of the world’s best metal bands had some stiff competition this year, but came back strong with this tight, awesome record. It’s a concept album based on A Clockwork Orange, and that alone should make it suck, but it doesn’t, at all. The band is tight and fast and loud and terrific as always.

Superdrag, Industry Giants

The surprise reunion of the year sees newly-Christian John Davis putting the band back together after two faith-filled solo discs. Too bad he forgot to write any great songs. There are hardly any good ones, either, and Davis just sounds tired and worn out here. Too bad.

Tegan and Sara, Sainthood

If there’s anything on this list I wish had been given a full review, it’s this. Sainthood is one-end-to-the-other ass-kicking rock, and the melodies sparkle and shine. I love this album, particularly “Hell,” one of the year’s best little rock tunes. This deserved better from me.

They Might Be Giants, Here Comes Science

TMBG’s fourth children’s album is as wonderful as the other three. It starts with a sidelong glance at creationism, then moves on to photosynthesis, shooting stars, the scientific method, and a recasting of classic “Why Does the Sun Shine” with proper science. The tunes are awesome as always.

Volcano Choir, Unmap

A side project from Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, this odd little record spends much of its time setting mood and atmosphere, with acoustic guitars folded, spindled and mutilated electronically. There are a couple of songs here, but this is mainly instrumental soundscape music. Pretty good, though.

Rufus Wainwright, Milwaukee at Last!!!

Three exclamation points, and it earns every one. This is a live album and DVD from Wainwright, captured on his lavish Release the Stars tour. The so-so material from that album comes alive on stage, and the whole thing is drenched in wondrous excess. Now, where’s the new record, Rufus?

We Shot the Moon, A Silver Lining

Second album from these piano-playing pop-punkers sounds just like the first, although the songs are tighter here. There’s nothing here that’s going to set the world on fire, but these are nice little songs, played well. I’m not sure We Shot the Moon will ever give us anything else.

We Were Promised Jetpacks, These Four Walls

Great band name, mediocre album. These Scottish rockers write large songs with little melodies, and play them with lots of energy. But there’s little here that turned my head, and even less I remember, several months on.

White Lies, To Lose My Life

Man, that sounds emo. In reality, this band is new-wave-influenced rock, and fairly boring at that. They’re trying to be Joy Division, like every other band of this style, and falling far short. Like every other band of this style, as if that needed to be said.

White Rabbits, It’s Frightening

Britt Daniel of Spoon produced this, and you can tell. White Rabbits write really neat little pop songs, and here they perform them minimally, giving just enough to sketch the outline of each song. Opener “Percussion Gun” is amazing, though.

Robbie Williams, Reality Killed the Video Star

Trevor Horn produced this one, hence the title, but instead of the quirk-filled pop this British star often gives us, Reality is a maudlin and serious collection of ballads and sun-splashed epics. It’s okay, but nothing special, and sometimes really chessy.

Yim Yames, Tribute To

Yim Yames is Jim James of My Morning Jacket, and his little EP is the perfect grace note to end this column on. James plays sweet versions of six George Harrison songs, performing them with all the respect and reverence they deserve. This is beautiful, beautiful stuff.

And that’s it, I’m afraid. I have several more from 2009 that I shamefully haven’t listened to yet, but that (mostly) clears the decks of albums I’ve heard. And that also brings Year Nine to a close. As always, it’s a pleasure and a privilege to write this column for all of you, and I appreciate, deeply, all of the friends I’ve made through it, and all of the support I’ve been given from people I know, and people I don’t. You’re all reasons to keep going, every one of you.

And keep going I will. I’m taking next week off for vacation, but when I come back on January 11, it will be to kick off Year Ten. The 10th anniversary of my silly music column. Who’d have thunk it?

Thank you, again and again, from the bottom of my heart. This is me, signing off for another year.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Well, here we are.

2009 was a random and chaotic year for me, one that made me feel older and less accomplished than ever. My job nearly went down in flames, as the mighty Sun-Times almost collapsed under the weight of its own debt. I watched my father get re-married. I saw several of my close friends tie the knot themselves, while several others had kids. I wrote some amazing stories, made as many friends as I lost, and came out the other side hopefully a little wiser.

But honestly, I’m pretty glad this year is over. I spent a lot of 2009 just hanging on for the ride, and I hope to spend 2010 forging my own direction a little more. Even if there’s no outward evidence that I am different, I feel different than I did 12 months ago. It’s time to shake things up.

The music of 2009 was equally random and chaotic. I said this last week, in my honorable mentions column, but the music I’ve chosen for my top 10 list this year is almost relentlessly serious-minded. I did a lot of soul-searching and reconsidering in 2009, and I think the artists who did the same ended up resonating with me more than the goofy-fun pop I generally tend to like. There is no Click Five-style pop record on this year’s list. (Not even Tinted Windows, which came closest.)

Instead, there is an awful lot of death, and confusion, and loss of faith, and painful redefinition. One of my top albums this year is entirely about watching someone die, and dealing with guilt and shame. One of them is entirely about breaking up with the god you once held dear, and feeling the tectonic plates beneath your feet shift. Yet another is entirely about the ways in which love tears everyone apart, but in the end, as the waves come in and fill your lungs, it’s all worth it. The artists on this year’s list don’t just address topics like these, they wrestle with them, defining their own points of view before our ears.

Less dramatically, I think the album-as-complete-statement went through a rebirth this year. Consider this: a major multimillion-selling band, a highly respected indie outfit, and a brand-new group of songsmiths making their debut all decided this year to craft full-blown rock operas, all with tremendous results. (The multimillion-selling band even divided theirs into three acts.) The idea of the album as a complete thought, an unbroken thematic whole, extended to all corners this year. Hell, Beyonce even made a concept record of sorts.

This, of course, fills me with joy and hope. I’ve been an albums guy for as long as I’ve been listening to music, and the creeping death march of iTunes and the singles-driven download-only market has found me lamenting the loss of the album as an art form. But 2009 showed me that it’s still alive and well, and I felt it was important to celebrate that, to latch onto those conceptual album-length pieces and laud them whenever possible. It helps, of course, that many of them are excellent, and several are amazing. In addition to the three rock operas in my top five, this year’s list contains at least two other concept records, and depending on your definition, perhaps more.

And I love that records like these are coming out in the heart of the download storm.

The rules for my top 10 list are simple, yet constantly under scrutiny. I’m thinking about changing a couple for 2010, but for now, they remain straightforward: only new original full-length studio albums are considered, and only those released on CD this year. That means no greatest-hits albums, no live records, no covers albums, and no records that revisit old material, no matter how radical the reinterpretations. (Sorry, Marillion.) That also means no albums that were released for download only. I need to be able to hold it in my hand to consider it. (This is a rule I am thinking about changing, but happily, I don’t have to this year. Perhaps next year.)

Within that framework, though, I’ve found 10 records that move me, thrill me, and make me think. To my mind, this is one of the strongest lineups in years, although I know I’ll be out on a limb with some of them. But this year’s list is a celebration of good old-fashioned songwriting, and of the album as complete statement, and I couldn’t be happier to present it to you.

Here it is, the 2009 top 10 list.

#10. Harper Simon.

Paul Simon’s son waited until he was 37 to release his debut, and it sounds lived-in, and thoroughly considered. I was initially hesitant to sign on for Harper’s album, since these progeny projects never seem to hold up. But this one is remarkable. Harper Simon gets help from a lot of friends in high places (friends he probably would not have made had his last name not been Simon), including a crack Nashville band for the more country-fied numbers. And yes, his dad steps in to co-write a few tracks. But the core of this album is the songs, and they are wonderful. “Wishes and Stars,” “The Audit,” “The Shine,” “Shooting Star,” “Ha Ha” – these are all fully-formed things of beauty, and among the year’s best. This isn’t a case of famous band members propping up an offspring vanity project. This is the sound of a terrific songwriter and artist finding his voice.

#9. David Bazan, Curse Your Branches.

In which the former Pedro the Lion singer finally breaks up with God. Those of us following his career to this point saw Curse Your Branches coming. What we didn’t expect is that it would hurt so much, or would be so tremendous an album. Bazan spends the lion’s share (sorry) of Branches expressing the doubts that brought him to this crossroad, often calling out God to his face for hypocrisy. He spends the rest wallowing in his own self-abuse – imagining his daughter following in his alcoholic footsteps, detailing painful fights with his wife. Only on “Bearing Witness” does he embrace the life he lives. That the music here is so jaunty and memorable is a testament to Bazan’s skill. Curse Your Branches is a difficult, divisive, powerful piece of work from a man unafraid to lay himself and his struggles bare. It is his finest album, because it hurts so very much.

#8. Mutemath, Armistice.

It took me a while to warm up to Mutemath’s second album. For one thing, I am still rapturously enamored with their first, and this new one is very different. It’s a more streamlined, much glossier affair, with strings and horns and half a dozen radio-ready singles. And it contains “Burden,” a poorly-arranged epic I still haven’t connected with. But seeing the band play these new tunes live drove it home for me: the rest of the songs on this album are terrific. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had “Backfire,” or “Electrify,” or “Goodbye,” or even “Odds” stuck in my head this year, and for an album that went through such a difficult birth (see: every lyric about confusion and doubt), Armistice just zips right by in a blur. It’s a sleeker Mutemath, but no less a remarkable one.

#7. David Mead, Almost and Always.

2009’s prettiest album comes from this criminally overlooked songwriter – I only know who he is thanks to Dr. Tony Shore. In a way, Mead’s own artistic restlessness has worked against him. He’s never sounded the same from one album to the next, and this one’s as radical a departure as any. It’s a drumless record of lovely ballads and ageless-sounding pop, full of songs that would have inspired the young Paul McCartney, back when he was covering “Till There Was You.” Mead is at the absolute height of his powers here, penning beautiful gems like “Blackberry Winters” and “Sleeping In Saturday,” but it’s with “Last Train Home” that he taps into that deep well of song, and writes something timeless. This is one to put on while watching the snow fall – it’s the sound of a gifted songwriter marshalling all his forces to make something as beautiful as he can.

#6. Imogen Heap, Ellipse.

Before I talk about how great the songs are on Imogen Heap’s third album, let me just wax ecstatic about the production. Heap is responsible for nearly every note and every knob-twiddle here, and she’s crafted the year’s most sonically detailed pop record. I hear something new every time I listen, and given that I’ve been listening to this regularly since it was released in August, that’s saying something. But now, the songs – they are utterly marvelous. Heap can write charming pop tunes like “First Train Home,” widescreen epics like “Wait It Out,” and a cappella wonderamas like “Earth” with equal aplomb, and she sequences them next to each other as if everyone had her range. Her songs skip about, from tales of loneliness to environmental warnings to fun romps about body issues, but Ellipse is consistently excellent from first note to last.

#5. The Antlers, Hospice.

The first of our rock operas, although Hospice is more of a sonic novel than anything else. The Antlers came out of nowhere this year, and their first time out of the gate, they moved me so much I cried. Hospice is a unified work about losing someone close, and about the feelings of guilt and helplessness that rise up to crush the living. It builds slowly – the opening tracks are at times almost inaudible – and tells its story with gentle sounds and soaring melodies. But by the time you get to “Wake,” the emotional centerpiece, the album has taken on a cumulative force. I am amazed that this is leader Peter Silberman’s first album, so completely does he succeed in weaving his tale. It feels bigger than him, somehow, and bigger than the two main characters and their small story. Hospice is a grand ode to loss and shame, and while it will never be named the feel-good record of the year, it is certainly one of the best.

#4. Bat for Lashes, Two Suns.

Okay, it’s not really a concept album. But Natasha Khan’s full-length exploration of the two sides of her personality is riveting, dramatic, and stunning stuff. The conceit is that Khan plays her dark-haired self and light-haired Pearl throughout the album, switching up points of view. It’s an interesting idea, but it’s the music itself that will keep you coming back to Two Suns. Khan has fully immersed herself in her fascination with Kate Bush here, and the songs live and die by their swooping, immense melodies. Every single song works, and the whole thing sounds wonderfully otherworldly. Kate Bush isn’t making albums like this any more. Thankfully, Natasha Khan is.

#3. Green Day, 21st Century Breakdown.

Here’s something to try: listen to Dookie and 21st Century Breakdown back to back. I’m astounded that the same band who used to write songs about being too bored to masturbate have managed this extraordinary, wide-ranging concept album. It’s their second concept piece, after American Idiot, but 21st Century is everything its predecessor should have been, and wasn’t. The album is the story of two kids in love, and how they stay together while the world burns around them. It’s sharp, angry, political and incisive, but it keeps its romantic focus to the last, and that’s what makes the difference. That, and the wildly diverse and well-crafted music the band has written, leaping from rockabilly to klezmer to epic balladry to the band’s trademark three-chord stompers. This is Green Day’s attempt to write a punk rock opera for the ages, and from my vantage point, they’ve done it.

#2. Quiet Company, Everyone You Love Will Be Happy Soon.

Even with all of the tremendous songwriters on this list, an unknown from Texas named Taylor Muse has outdone virtually all of them. I don’t say this lightly: this is the best set of pop songs I heard this year. On his second Quiet Company album, Muse writes about faith, love, hope, his marriage, his family, and the certainty that the sun will always rise. It’s a massive, triumphant record, one that wrestles with God and life throughout, but comes out smiling, with hard-earned optimism. It’s also a record of indelible, incredible melodies, and songs that live and breathe and grow before your ears. Muse doesn’t put a foot wrong once, not once in 15 songs, and his joy and confidence are infectious. It’s a crime that only a handful of people have heard this record, but you can help put that right by going to their site and checking it out. You won’t be disappointed.

So what could top an album of the year’s best songs? How about our third and final rock opera, a brash and bold (and somewhat crazy) experiment unlike anything else out there right now? How about a single, hour-long, grand and eloquent piece of music that stands head and shoulders above what anyone else even tried this year?

#1. The Decemberists, The Hazards of Love.

I don’t know what kind of band the Decemberists are. Describing them seems futile. Leader Colin Meloy is obsessed with centuries-old folk songs, and he’s fashioned his band as a traveling minstrel show, a band of roving bards who spin tales and songs partially to keep the traditions alive. But they are also a powerhouse rock band, able to play with the force of any of their contemporaries. They’re unique – the closest analogue might be Jethro Tull, but they are oceans apart in sound and personality.

And yet, Meloy has been embracing his inner prog-rocker for some time now, an evolution that reaches its full flower on The Hazards of Love. It’s the story of a woman named Margaret who falls in love with a shape-changing faun named William. When she becomes pregnant, she ventures into the woods to find him, angering his mother the Queen, who then hires a man who killed his own children to kidnap Margaret. And then there is the magic river, and the ghostly return of the dead kids, all leading up to the tragic and beautiful ending.

Hazards is as much a sonic novel as Hospice, but it’s more like an epic folk tale, passed down from generation to generation. It is a single unified piece – the CD is divided into 17 tracks, but there are no breaks, and Hazards is meant to be heard all at once. And the music! Meloy has carefully crafted this thing, establishing themes to pay them off later, reprising moments (even just in the backing vocals) for thematic resonance, and tying everything up in the end with amazing grace.

If all of that makes it sound like work, then you should know this: Hazards rocks, thunderously, like no Decemberists album before it. Like most stories of this type, it starts softly and peacefully, but it picks up momentum, and by the end, the sheer force of the narrative carries you along like a river. The final few tracks are creepy, tragic and heartbreaking, as William and Margaret resign themselves to their fates, and by the time you get there, you’ll be captivated. This is musical storytelling at its finest.

Meloy plays several parts here, including William and the Rake, but his wisest move was hiring Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond and Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond to play the Queen and Margaret, respectively. I can’t overstate what they bring to this album, Stark with her high and lovely voice and Worden with her powerful, soulful pipes. It plays like an ensemble piece, rather than a narrated story, and that makes all the difference.

So why this very strange record about shapeshifters and wicked queens and undead children? Why put this piece of music on the top of the heap? A couple of reasons. First, it’s brilliant – nothing about it should work as well as it does. Second, it takes a mighty stand for the album as unified, conceptual statement. You can’t excerpt The Hazards of Love and get the full effect, and most of these songs are parts of a whole, unable to stand on their own. The band hammered home their intentions by performing the entire piece in sequence live this year, which was a wonder to behold.

But mostly, this record moves me and fills me with joy like no other this year. Every time through, I’m captivated anew with the wonder of this music. You can’t explain this album, and you couldn’t pitch it to a record company. You just have to hear it. And each time I hear it, I end up loving it more. I am caught up in the rushing waves of the story, a story that in the end is about the ways love tears us all apart. The Hazards of Love could have been written hundreds of years ago – it sounds out of time, its theme as old as the stars. That it also sounds fresh and new and unlike anything I’ve ever heard sets it atop this list. I can’t imagine naming anything else the best album of 2009.

And there you have it. Next week is Fifty Second Week, and then I’m taking seven days off, to put my feet up and relax. And then? Year Ten. Seriously. I feel like I’m just getting warmed up. Thanks for reading. 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 have never quite understood the Flaming Lips.

I’ve been a fan as long as I’ve been aware of them. I’ve liked some albums (The Soft Bulletin, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots) more than others (At War With the Mystics, the new Embryonic). I’ve liked, at least a little bit, everything I’ve heard from them, and I’ve long admired Wayne Coyne for sticking to his individual, nutball vision for his band. There is no other act like them.

But I’ve never really felt like I was quite on the train. Other people would talk about Lips music as a transformative experience, and I just wouldn’t get there. I had no idea how this strange group of freakish lads from Oklahoma had affected so many people so deeply. And now I realize that at least part of my bewilderment came from never having seen them live.

Friday night was my first Flaming Lips show. How can I describe the experience? I’ll start by saying it had very little to do with the actual music being played on stage. The band was in fine form, their soaring anthems clashing somewhat against the darker psychedelic tones of the new material, but the tight, swirling musicianship holding it all together. Absent everything but the music, it would have still been a good show.

But in a way, the music was just the backdrop. I’ve been reliably informed that the Lips do this rainbow-colored carnival act at every show, and I’d seen video footage of it, but nothing prepared me for the thrill of being part of it. The show kicked off with “Race for the Prize,” and Coyne began the evening inside a giant inflatable clear plastic ball. He edged it off the stage and into the waiting arms of the audience, and then tried to stay upright while being passed around, hand to hand. All the while, two massive cannons on either side of the stage fired confetti over everyone, and the band loosed roughly 40 enormous balloons into the crowd, urging us to keep them aloft.

There were people in costume – the giant catfish, whom Coyne referred to as “Mr. Giant Catfish,” was a highlight. There were streamers, and tiny sparkling fireworks. Before “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1,” stagehands carried a couch on stage, and Coyne invited several audience members to come on up, sit and sing with him. There was a massive LED screen showing flurries of images, most appearing and disappearing so quickly you couldn’t register them. It was sensory overload.

And in the end, there was a tremendous, joyous sense of community and love. I can’t explain it any better than that. There was a palpable sense of childlike, innocent wonder to the whole thing, like Coyne had somehow found a way to remain eternally ageless, and it involved confetti cannons and people dressed as caterpillars. The show ended with “Do You Realize,” a song that seems to tap into a deep well of inborn spiritual optimism – some audience members were nearly crying as they sang along. And the final encore was “White Christmas,” of all things, complete with sparkly fake snow, and it worked. We all left walking 10 feet off the ground.

Needless to say, seeing the Flaming Lips live has colored how I listen to them now, and I’m hearing these songs afresh. I still don’t think I fully understand this band, but I’m one step closer, and my heart is still singing.

* * * * *

Stick a fork in 2009, it’s all done.

The final few new releases have all trickled out, and I don’t expect anything major until mid-January. But those final few records have sent the year out with a bang. It’s always a pleasant surprise when decent music hits in December, and 2009 has certainly been a year of surprises.

Start with Blakroc, a project I honestly didn’t expect to like very much. I figured I’d just buy it because it’s the Black Keys – I have long been a fan of this Ohio blues-rock duo, and have followed them through their fascinating evolution. But Blakroc is the Keys’ hip-hop project, a record made with a veritable who’s-who of a music I generally don’t like very much. I can count the number of rap records I bought this year on one hand. (Kid Cudi, Eminem, Q-Tip and this.)

I tell you this so that you can put it in context when I say I really like the Blakroc album. Perhaps the most fascinating part of it is that Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney didn’t just write a Black Keys album and get some rappers to verbalize over it. They wrote a hip-hop album, which they then performed on real instruments. It’s like the Roots, in a way, with a few more wailing guitar parts. The grooves are deep and bluesy, but the sound is pure hip-hop, in a good way.

There’s an all-star cast on this thing, and the variety does it immeasurable good. Mos Def is dynamite on “On the Vista,” the RZA makes several appearances, and Q-Tip takes a verse on “Hope You’re Happy.” The Keys even uphold what is now apparently a rap tradition, including a verse from a dead guy: Ol’ Dirty Bastard duets with Ludacris from beyond the grave on opening sex romp “Coochie.” But the real star of this thing is Nicole Wray, whose soulful tones show up on three tracks. She takes golden gem “Why Can’t I Forget Him” solo, and it’s one of the record’s best tracks.

Behind all of that, Auerbach and Carney lay down one slinky groove after another. This sounds like it was a blast to record, and it’s a lot of fun to listen to. Credit to the Black Keys for doing the near-impossible: making a rap record I enjoy from start to finish.

The other new release is an EP from Animal Collective, called Fall Be Kind. It’s not quite the follow-up to this year’s extraordinary Merriweather Post Pavilion, since it spans only five songs and runs a scant 27 minutes. But it will do for now. Sometime in the last two years, Animal Collective stopped trying to make ugly noise and started aiming for ethereal, whacked-out gracefulness. And they’ve hit the bullseye again on this EP.

I won’t be able to adequately describe the odd going-over-the-cliff feeling of the first track, “Graze,” particularly the second half. It starts off as an ambient wash of sound and harmony, slowly building up, and then the beat starts, and you’re thinking the pulsing dancehall section of the song is about to start. And then, the pan flute sample starts. Yes, it’s Zamfir, master of the pan flute, and his appearance turns the song into a hoedown. It’s crazy, and it thoroughly breaks the mood, but it works wonderfully.

The best track is next, however. Grateful Dead fans will recognize the Phil Lesh sample from “Unbroken Chain” that provides the backbone of “What Would I Want? Sky,” a six-minute excursion through a strange and wondrous galaxy. The EP never leaps that high again, but the rest of it is of a piece with Merriweather, if not a bit more sedate, and the seven-minute “I Think I Can” picks up the pace somewhat to bring it home.

For years, the music of Animal Collective eluded me, and part of the problem was Avey Tare and Panda Bear’s tendency to slather everything with grating, formless noise. I couldn’t hear the melody, the otherworldly beauty submerged beneath the electro-slop. They’re still just as weird on Merriweather and Fall Be Kind, but they’ve allowed their music to breathe, to simply be, and it’s been a nearly miraculous change. This EP is less of a holding pattern and more of a further exploration of a sound that suits this band incredibly well.

* * * * *

Next week, I will unveil the 2009 top 10 list.

The 10 records I selected shouldn’t be any big surprise to those of you who have been following along. But I’ll tell you one thing that surprised me: the deadly serious nature of most of the list. Of the 129 songs represented, only a handful could be called genuinely fun. Three of the top five albums are sonic novels, concept albums that deal with love and death and the state of the world, with no room for lighter considerations. Most of the others follow suit, tackling weighty topics with weightier music.

It wasn’t intentional, of course. These are just the 10 albums that moved me most. But my stack of honorable mentions this year is a lot more fun than the actual top 10 list, and if you turn to music solely for entertainment and escape, well, this is where your favorites will be found. I was taken aback, too, and really considered moving one of my Number 11s up, but in the end, the 10 albums I picked are, I feel, the best ones I heard this year. And this from the guy who put Phantom Planet and the Click Five in previous lists.

So here are the honorable mentions for 2009. Before we get to those, a special note for the most worthy ineligible record of the year: Marillion’s Less is More. It was disqualified for being a collection of older material, but this album can stand proud alongside some of this long-running band’s best work. It’s easy to make a lousy, half-assed acoustic album, but Marillion decided instead to reinvent these songs, taking on some of their trickiest material and tackling it from new angles. It’s a mesmerizing set, and I wish I could put it among the 10 best of the year, where it belongs. Go to marillion.com and check it out.

Okay, the honorable mentions. First up is the aforementioned Animal Collective, whose Merriweather Post Pavilion staked its claim early – it was released on January 6, and instantly picked up Best of the Year accolades. Merriweather is just wonderful, a more streamlined (but no less odd) collection of off-kilter pop songs practically bursting with melody. Between this and Fall Be Kind, this band is on a roll, and I hope they can keep it up.

Duncan Sheik also released an early favorite on January 27 with Whisper House. The soundtrack to his second musical, these songs tell the story of a young boy and a haunted lighthouse, and they’re perfect little Sheik gems. He’s a highly underrated songwriter, and this is further proof. That same day, Greg Kurstin and Inara George released Ray Guns are Not Just the Future, their second album as The Bird and the Bee. This thing is simply gorgeous – imagine Portishead as a lounge act, and you have the idea – and it contains “Diamond Dave,” a lovely and hilarious tribute to David Lee Roth that stands as one of the year’s best tunes.

Muse took their Queen-inspired heavy prog-rock one giant leap further with The Resistance, a typically schizophrenic and musically mindblowing effort. The eight more standard songs that open the disc are great, but it’s the three-part, fully orchestrated “Exogenesis Symphony” that makes this an extraordinary album. Speaking of musically mindblowing, there’s The Great Misdirect, the fifth and finest album from Between the Buried and Me. This thing gallops from lightning-fast shredding to jazz interludes to pretty acoustic sections, never sitting still for a second. It eclipses Dream Theater’s superb Black Clouds and Silver Linings as the most frighteningly proficient piece of music this year.

On the exact other end of the spectrum, there is Owl City. Adam Young’s breakthrough album, Ocean Eyes, was unfairly compared to the Postal Service all year, critics apparently missing the childlike joy that emanates from every groove of this record. It’s the silliest great album of the year. Richard Swift made a more serious, but no less wonderful effort with The Atlantic Ocean, his finest work. This one combines Tin Pan Alley songwriting with bizarre synths, and it works beautifully.

I’ve never been the world’s biggest Jack White fan, but with the Dead Weather, he assembled what I think is his best band. Featuring members of the Kills, Queens of the Stone Age and the Greenhorns, the Dead Weather plays slinky and dirty, and their debut album, Horehound, is a thick and grimy slab of super-fun blues rock. I’ve also never been a huge fan of British Sea Power, but with their Man of Aran project, they surprised me. Man of Aran is a 1934 film depicting life on one of the rocky islands off the coast of Ireland, and the band created a new score for the movie that sharpens and deepens it. The music is pretty great on its own as well.

And now for the silly pop portion of our program. I remember first reading the lineup of Tinted Windows, the supergroup featuring Taylor Hanson, Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne, James Iha of the Smashing Pumpkins, and Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick. I could scarcely believe this band was real, but their self-titled debut is wall-to-wall power pop goodness. And the Yeah You’s nearly made me rethink my top 10 list – I discovered their debut, Looking Through You, just last month. This insanely catchy record is sometimes too cheesy for its own good, but those harmonies, stacked impossibly high on every track, carry the day.

Which brings us to my Number 11 this year, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. I’m appalled that I never gave this record a full review on this site, so I hope I can make up for that now. French band Phoenix’ fourth album was their breakthrough, led by a pair of singles so tight and so dazzling they all but demanded the attention they got. I first heard “Lisztomania” when I stumbled on the unofficial ‘80s movie video, and fell in love. But “1901” may be even better, its “falling, falling, falling” refrain sounding indelible to these ears.

Phoenix plays dance-pop, yes, but it’s awesome dance-pop, and even though Wolfgang never rises to the dizzying heights of its opening one-two punch again, it’s all good stuff. I’ve even grown to like “Love Like a Sunset,” the seven-minute near-instrumental that divides the album, although I still think they should have sequenced it at the end. The more I listen to Wolfgang, the more I like it.

And there’s another reason Phoenix is on my mind this week – I saw them live, kind of, on Friday, just before the Flaming Lips took the stage. Phoenix was scheduled as the second headliner, but their drummer had a family emergency and had to fly back to France. Rather than cancel, though, the other members of Phoenix performed a short acoustic set, graciously thanking and apologizing to their audience. And you know what? It was a treat to hear these songs in this form. “1901” especially worked well on acoustic guitars, and the band’s graceful gesture, playing what they could instead of packing it in, made me respect them even more. I hope we hear more from them in the coming years, because if the fun-fun-fun Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is anything to go by, their future is so bright I gotta wear shades.

That’s it for the honorables. Next week, the 2009 top 10 list. See you in seven. 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.

So I’m not going to do a Best of the Decade list.

I know, I know. I’m no fun. I’ve had a lot of people ask me about it, and it’s really tempting, but it’s also an awful lot of work. You’d figure it would be something as simple as ranking my 10 number one albums of the year, but not really. A top album in a bad year (say, The Marshall Mathers LP) might not even rate an honorable mention in a good year, so it’s more a matter of ranking my top 100 albums of the decade, and even then, I’d be adding in things I missed, and agonizing over the order for weeks, and… yeah. It’s a lot of pressure.

So I won’t be doing one. Probably. Maybe.

Although next year is also the 10th anniversary of Tuesday Morning 3 A.M., in its current form. (I wrote it for about two years at Face Magazine before launching this site.) So that makes it even more tempting, honestly. But do I really think I’ve heard enough of the music of the Aughts to definitively say which is the best? It’s a different proposition than a year-end top 10 list. I only have 12 months to hear as much as I can each year, and the deadline is the last column in December. But for a Best of the Decade list, I’ve had 10 years to explore the forgotten nooks and crannies, to try to hear everything I can.

Still, it would be nice to counterpoint some of the bizarre choices I’ve seen on these lists lately. Pitchfork led the way by naming Radiohead’s Kid A the best of the 2000s. Longtime readers will already know what I think about that. It’s an album I’ve grown to appreciate over the years, but I will never love its mechanical, tuneless, icy landscapes. An important record? Yeah, probably. A good one? Not really. Then the Onion A.V. Club, ordinarily a bastion of good taste, picked the White Stripes’ White Blood Cells. I mean, holy crap. That’s not even the best White Stripes album, to my mind. That felt like the resurgence of the same people who called Nevermind the best album of the ‘90s. I simply don’t understand that.

So yeah, it would be nice to send a different message out there, I suppose. But no, I’m not doing such a list. Really, I’m not. And you won’t be able to talk me into it. So there.

Probably.

* * * * *

As I said before, 2010 is the 10th anniversary of Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. I’m grateful I’ve been able to do this for as long as I have, and doubly grateful that people are still reading it. Thank you, one and all.

Next year’s release schedule is actually starting off pretty well. There’s the requisite four Tuesdays without anything interesting, of course, starting on December 15. (This week at least had an Animal Collective EP, which I’ll review in the next column.) But on January 12, things start getting interesting. We’ve got the second album from Vampire Weekend, called Contra, and I don’t think I’ve been as interested in the sound and direction of a follow-up since Keane’s Under the Iron Sea.

We’ve also got the third album from OK Go, this one a collaboration with Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann. It comes with the decidedly un-OK Go title Of the Blue Colour of the Sky. We will also see new ones from Freedy Johnston and Final Fantasy, who is Owen Pallett, violinist for the Arcade Fire. The week after that will bring us new ones from Spoon (Transference) and Eels (End Times). Chances are they will both sound exactly like you think they will, but hell. New Spoon! New Eels!

January 26 is the most fascinating new release Tuesday of the month, however. First, we get the new Magnetic Fields album, called Realism. It’s reportedly the sparse, chamber-folk twin of 2008’s great Distortion. Stephin Merritt’s never let me down, and I don’t expect he will here.

But the other release is really interesting: it’s called Scratch My Back, and it’s a covers album from Peter Gabriel. As if providing me with a segue, he covers the Magnetic Fields, but he also delivers versions of songs by Radiohead, Randy Newman, Paul Simon, Elbow, Arcade Fire, the Kinks, David Bowie and Bon Iver, to name a few. I like that the list includes legends and contemporaries, as well as young punks. If I were Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, I’d be over the moon that someone like Gabriel had covered one of my songs.

February and March will bring us new things from Massive Attack, Frightened Rabbit, Liars, Jonsi of Sigur Ros, Hammock, Shearwater, and probably a bunch of things I don’t know about yet. Also, on February 16, we finally get the stateside release of Jason Falkner’s I’m OK, You’re OK. That probably won’t mean much to most of you, but I can name four people off the top of my head who just punched the air and shouted, “Yes!”

* * * * *

I like live albums.

I haven’t counted, but I would bet a full 25 percent of my collection is made up of live records. As committed as I am to the idea of the studio album as a complete and lasting statement, I think there is no greater test of your band’s mettle than a live performance. If you can work your magic without a net, in front of a live and discerning audience, well, that’s a special class of skill all by itself, and one worth praising.

And there are some bands, like Phish and Dream Theater, who take their music someplace entirely different on stage. The Dave Matthews Band has rarely thrilled me in the studio, but live, they’re a remarkably adventurous and dazzling outfit, and it’s no wonder they release so many concert documents. They’ve yet to capture that energy in the studio – Before These Crowded Streets came closest, I think. If you really want to hear DMB in all their glory, you’ve got to hear them live.

I know people who can’t stand live albums, and I get where they’re coming from. Most of them are pretty inconsequential. I own probably 50 Marillion live discs, and while I like them all, I wouldn’t call most of them essential. You likely only need one or two of them to get the point: Marillion is amazing live. And even those would sound, to the casual listener, like the studio versions with crowd noise.

When do you absolutely need a live album? That’s a difficult question to answer. To me, every gig is different, and while I didn’t go out and buy every one of those Pearl Jam live discs from 10 years or so ago, I did buy every entry in the LivePhish series so far, and I’ve liked them all. It doesn’t take much to get me to shell out for a live record. But for the less avid listener? Tough one.

You could always go with historical relevance. Many live documents are released to commemorate special occasions, concerts that either have or will go down in history. There’s a certain you-were-there element to these packages that I usually can’t resist.

Take, for example, the recently-released Good Evening New York City, by Sir Paul McCartney. These two CDs and one DVD capture the Cute Beatle’s three-night stand inaugurating Citi Field in New York this summer. It’s a historical two-fer, in fact: it was the first concert in the new field, which sits next to the site of the former Shea Stadium, where the Beatles set attendance records in 1965. (This time, McCartney has quipped, the musicians could hear themselves over the roar of the crowd.) So this is kind of a Big Deal.

But how is it? Well, it’s okay. First, I wouldn’t call this a sterling example of live recording technology. The mix is distant and indistinct – not quite bootleg quality, but close. The set list is practically unimpeachable – more than half of it is made up of Beatles songs, and the solo and Wings selections are also very good. The performances, however, are just average.

Top that off with the fact that McCartney has neglected to bring any horn and string players along with him, leaving that to his trusty keyboardist, Paul “Wix” Wickens. So we get godawful synth horns on “Got to Get You Into My Life,” and an atrocious plastic saxophone solo on “Lady Madonna,” and an absolutely terrible fall-on-the-keyboard approximation of the orchestra in “A Day in the Life.” These are, without a doubt, the worst moments of the entire thing.

Blessedly, the songs carry the day. How could they not, really? When it comes to the Beatles material, Paul largely stays on the McCartney side of the Lennon/McCartney axis: “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” “I’ve Got a Feeling,” “Hey Jude,” “Get Back,” “Let It Be,” “Yesterday,” everything you’d expect. He offers a fine version of “Something” in tribute to George Harrison, and segues from “A Day in the Life” into a tender take on Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance,” but otherwise, it’s all Paul. And that’s just fine – in the ‘60s, he was one of the best pop songwriters who ever lived.

Sadly, that didn’t carry onward into the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s or ‘00s, but he’s still done some good stuff, as he demonstrates on the album’s first disc. “Only Mama Knows,” from 2007’s Memory Almost Full, is as fine a rock song as he’s given us in 30 years, and solo gems like “Calico Skies” and “Flaming Pie” come off well. He even whips out a Fireman song, “Highway,” from last year’s Electric Arguments. In many ways, the band sounds better and more confident on these tracks than on the Fab Four tunes.

And maybe that’s how it should be. Good Evening New York City is a decent document of an important show, but it’s one you won’t pull out very often. The accompanying DVD is also quite nice, if only to highlight Billy Joel’s guest spot on “I Saw Her Standing There,” but again, you won’t watch this more than once or twice. For collectors like me, it’s the kind of thing that’s worthwhile to have, but isn’t revelatory.

On the other hand, Tom Waits’ new live record Glitter and Doom isn’t at all important. It showcases the gravel-voiced singer/songwriter’s 2008 tour, backed by a crackerjack band, playing mid-sized venues in 10 different cities. It was a tour seen by few, and this live record will probably sell to even fewer. But you know what? It stomps all over McCartney’s live album for sheer energy and repeat-play value.

If you’ve never heard Waits, I don’t think anything I can say will properly warn you. Waits writes earthy blues and ballads, but he sings them in a voice that sounds kind of like a hoarse gorilla. It’s a low, sick rumble, which often switches to more of a feral growl, and it’s definitely an acquired taste. I’ve acquired it, mainly because Waits’ songs are so damn good. And you get a bunch of very good ones on Glitter and Doom.

And the band! Man, these guys are good. “Get Behind the Mule” is suitably abrasive, all thumps and gut-shots, but one song later, “Fannin Street” will break your heart. Waits remembered to bring his top people – saxophonists, clarinet players, pianists, mandolin pluckers, and drums to die for. Atop all this perfectly played beauty and clamor, Waits feels free to go even deeper into his grizzled hobo image, snarling and grunting his way through the stompers, and singing his little heart out on the weepers.

The track listing sticks to his more recent material, as it should – he’s made remarkable strides as an idiosyncratic songwriter recently. One of the absolute highlights is “Trampled Rose,” from his most recent studio album, 2004’s Real Gone. It’s a percussion-fueled Mellotron excursion, quite unlike anything else you’re bound to hear, and performed with real grit and fire. Another bright spot is “Dirt in the Ground,” from 1992’s amazing Bone Machine. The smoky atmosphere is heightened live, and Waits makes the song’s world-weary fatalism something of a joy.

So the album proper is awesome, but there’s a value-added as well: a second disc called Tom Tales. This is, believe it or not, 36 minutes of Waits’ between-song patter, and it’s amazing. He spins stories, tells shaggy-dog jokes, and mumbles non-sequiturs, and it’s all delightfully entertaining. I don’t want to ruin any of this by excerpting it, so I won’t. Suffice it to say that Tom Tales is worth the price of admission all by itself. That you get an exceptional live album to boot is just gravy.

But if you want value for your money, and a truly revelatory live album experience, you can’t do any better than The Live Anthology, by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. For 20 bucks, you get nearly four hours of music on four CDs, all designed to drive home one message: the Heartbreakers are, and always have been, a great live band.

The Anthology takes liberally from every era of Petty’s career, and the sound is remarkably consistent throughout. Even when he was flirting with synthesizers in the ‘80s, or giving his sound over to Jeff Lynne in the ‘90s, the Heartbreakers still played every song on stage like a raucous American rock band. Hits like “Breakdown” and “Refugee” and “Here Comes My Girl” are all here, given new life. And if that’s all this was, a Greatest Hits Played Faster kind of thing, it wouldn’t be anything special.

But Petty and the band do a couple of things very right here. For one, they take on some surprises from deep in the catalog, like the lovely and underrated “Straight Into Darkness.” And for another, nearly half of this anthology is made up of cover tunes, and they’re all awesome. Just the first disc contains Bobby Womack’s “I’m In Love,” Koko Taylor’s “I’m a Man,” Thunderclap Newman’s “Something in the Air,” and Willie Dixon’s “I Just Want to Make Love to You.” These are all very different songs, with very different vibes, but the Heartbreakers make them all their own. (They do an even better job with the Grateful Dead’s “Friend of the Devil” on the second disc. And you really should hear their rip-snorting take on Fleetwood Mac’s “Oh Well” on disc four. But I digress.)

Petty has a thin, high voice, but this sampling of his work over three decades shows he can turn the Bob Dylan on and off like a switch. He’s in full Zimmerman mode on opener “Nightwatchman,” but by “Breakdown,” recorded two days later, he’s hitting all the notes strong and clear. But it’s the band that really makes this thing. They’re never flashy, those Heartbreakers, but all of them, especially mainstays Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench, are tight and fiery players.

Like most good live albums, there isn’t a lot more to say about The Live Anthology. It’s a strong and sterling overview of a band that has rarely taken center stage in the musical world, but deserves this lavish spotlight. The final disc ends perfectly: after a superb version of deep cut “Century City,” it gently washes away with “Alright for Now,” a song from Full Moon Fever that still stands as one of Petty’s prettiest melodies. It’s not often you’ll get to the end of four hours of music and want to start again, but you will here.

And like the best live albums, this one does its job admirably – it shows that in front of an audience, with no escape hatch in sight, these musicians can pull magic out of the air. I like this more than I like most of Petty’s often-stilted studio discs. It makes the live album argument for me by showing a different side of a long-running band, one you wouldn’t get under any other circumstances. This is why I love live albums, right here.

* * * * *

Next week, Animal Collective, Blakroc, and a look at the honorable mentions of 2009. 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’ve been worried that 2009 would end without giving us a British pop masterpiece.

My top 10 list this year is decidedly American. With no new records from Keane, the Feeling, Coldplay or virtually any other melodic Britpop band I love, there’s been a severe deficiency this year in the kind of dramatic-yet-sweet cheeky-cheeseball pop the Brits do so well. I’d all but resigned myself to a full 12 months without that sound, but then I got an email from a reader named Nick Martin.

And Nick turned me on to a band called The Yeah You’s.

Yes, the misplaced apostrophe drives me nuts. But I’m dealing with it, because this London duo’s debut album, Looking Through You, is pretty great. The Yeah You’s take their cues from the bands I listed above, particularly Keane and the Feeling, but they add even more dollops of sugar in the form of glorious, five-mile-high harmonies. Every song on Looking Through You has them, and even when the musical backdrop is silly and synthetic, those light-through-the-clouds harmonies carry the day.

And there are some terrific silly pop songs on here. Opener “15 Minutes” is big and dramatic, and its musings on fame are a sweet and ballsy way to open a debut album. “I’ll be back in 15 minutes when they’ve made me a superstar,” Nick Ingram sings, then adding, “When I’m back in 15 minutes, I won’t forget who you are…” Second track “Getting Up With You” is even better. It could be a lost Keane song, apart from the giddy hopefulness of the whole thing. It’s full of little touches – the protagonist loses his house keys, and his significant other knows right where they are – that come together to paint a picture of a relationship worth getting out of bed for.

While I like the rest of Looking Through You, it never hits those dizzy heights again. Ingram and Mike Kintish start weaving in dancehall influences with the next track, the insanely catchy “If I Could,” and play the reggae card with “Won’t Be Long.” Both of these songs are well-written enough to rise above the seas of cheese, but tracks like “Ready to Love Again” and “Clifftop” (which opens with a keyboard line reminiscent of early Genesis) aren’t quite so lucky.

I don’t dislike anything on Looking Through You, but I haven’t fallen in love with anything past the first four tracks. The good news is that every single song here is produced with a vibrant, life-loving joy, and even the weakest tracks are carried along by that feeling. Even a slow lament like “If I’d Only Said Hello” is full of hope – you get the sense that Ingram will seize his chance next time it comes around. Whatever else it is, Looking Through You is the feelgood album of the year, and each listen leaves me with that giddy grin on my face. I haven’t grown tired of singing along to these songs, and I don’t think I will.

I forwarded this recommendation on to Dr. Tony Shore, and he’s ready to call Looking Through You the album of the year. I don’t like it quite as much as he does – it’s a little too plastic in places for me – but if you’ve been missing the big, glorious British pop sound as much as I have this year, then this will be just the ticket. A hundred thanks to Nick Martin for tipping me off to this band. You can check them out here.

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And now, another installment of People I Know.

Ten years ago, meeting musicians was my job. I worked for Face Magazine, a local music rag based in Portland, Maine. Every day, the staff of Face got free CDs in the mail from local artists looking to make a connection. And every week, I got to go to local rock shows for free. In the course of four years, I met a lot of very good songwriters and players – more than you’d think would call a place like Portland home, honestly. The music scene up there is surprisingly diverse and amazing.

I’ve only kept in touch with a few of them through the years, but one of them is Shane Kinney. Drummer extraordinaire, stand-up comedian, business owner and renaissance man, Kinney is one of the funniest and nicest people you’re likely to meet. He was the skin-beater with a hysterical band called Broken Clown when I met him, and I still remember sitting in the Great Lost Bear late one night with him and guitarist/singer Mark Belanger, watching in amazement as the two of them performed an a cappella rendition of Iron Maiden’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” I still have that on tape somewhere, I think.

A few years ago, Kinney joined up with Walt Craven, one of the mainstays of the Portland rock scene. Craven’s come close to the big time twice before, with Gouds Thumb and 6gig. But it’s his collaboration with Kinney (and guitarist Ted Warner and bassist Dan Walsh) that, to these ears, has the greatest chance of putting them and Portland on the map.

The band is called Lost on Liftoff. Their new album is called The Brightside, and it’s a quick burst of tightly-controlled modern rock, explosive and melodic and well-crafted and fun. It’s the follow-up to their full-length debut, Mixtape Blackouts, and while I found their consistency of style somewhat tiring over 13 tracks, it’s perfect over eight. The Brightside runs a trim 30:59, and every song is a winner. It’s like a midnight bombing run – blow some shit up, get out quickly.

In my world, the second track, “All That Love,” is a hit. Craven has never sounded better than he does here – I’ve always been a fan of his tough yet emotional voice, and it’s made for songs like this. The chorus is huge and wonderful, the kind of thing I would go hoarse singing along with at shows. As good as that song is, my favorite here is “The Day the Sun Forgot to Rise.” That one’s a rocket ride, opening with a killer riff and segueing into a powerhouse chorus. Just listen to Kinney on this one – he’s a superb drummer, but he’s always delivering exactly what the song needs, and no more. A lesser drummer would have cluttered up this song, but Kinney’s just the right level of awesome here.

I have two complaints, and they’re the same ones I had last time. First, the mix is flatter and quieter than I would like – this record should pop from the speakers, but it kind of sits there, and the wall-of-sound guitars all start to sound the same after a while. Second, while I love what Lost on Liftoff does, I’d like to hear them try a few other things. The Brightside is eight well-written rockers with melodic choruses, and only the bridge section of closer “Total Wreck” goes somewhere else. What’s here is great, but a little more experimentation, and a better mix, and Lost on Liftoff could soon be worldwide.

Check them out here. You can buy The Brightside from Maine’s greatest music store, Bull Moose, here.

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I left Face Magazine in 2000, and I transitioned into news reporting. That means I meet many more politicians these days than I do musicians, but I still like to keep my finger somewhere near the pulse. Thankfully, I met Benjie Hughes, whose Back Third Audio is essentially the center of the Aurora music scene.

Through Benjie, I met Andrea Dawn and her husband, Zach Goforth, both terrific musicians. Andrea plays piano and sings like an angel, and Zach seems to play everything well. One of the most interesting and fun stories I got to write this year tracked the two of them as they waited for most of an entire day to audition for American Idol. I couldn’t say this in the story, but I’ll say it here: they’re too good for that show. They’re actual, you know, musicians.

I’ve owed Andrea this review as long as I’ve known her, and I feel pretty bad about putting it off for so long. Last year, she teamed up with fellow songwriter Jeremy Junkin to write and record First Try at Goodbye, an eight-song document that serves as her second full-length. Ironically, Dawn and Junkin said goodbye shortly after the album came out – he moved on to another state. (She’s come up with a nasty-awesome song about it, which just goes to show you shouldn’t piss off a songwriter.)

I say ironically, because First Try is a series of songs about leaving and being left. It starts with Dawn’s piano-led march “Over It,” which showcases her husky, soulful voice. The lyrics are about a bad breakup, and consist of a litany of things the singer won’t miss: “I’m over your stupid trendy sense of style, your condescending sideways smile, your super sappy emotional world…” Elsewhere, Dawn’s “Better Be Good” seemingly catches that same relationship a month or two earlier: “I’m losing sight of what I’m doing here by your side,” she sings over a liquid piano line, before the song erupts, the Hammond organ and electric guitar adding color and shade.

I tend to like Dawn’s songs better than Junkin’s – his are more rooted in Americana (and a bit more typical), and his voice isn’t as striking as Dawn’s is. The title track wears out its welcome, the spare melody leaving more spaces than it should, but Junkin’s closing song, “Say Goodbye,” is nice, stripped down to acoustic guitar and two voices. I find I’m drawn more to off-kilter pieces like Dawn’s “Clarinet Suite,” the most propulsive thing here – yes, there are clarinets, and saxophones and trumpets, all in service of a pumping piano and a skipping beat.

But it’s “Ask Me” that stands out to me. This one’s just Andrea Dawn and her piano, and it’s the album’s one song of reconciliation – it’s a list of things the singer has given up, and at the end she admits, “I’ve been doing it to do right by you, and be right by you…” The melody is simple, but she digs into it, finding soulful nuances and wonderfully graceful moments. It’s this song that makes me excited for what Andrea Dawn will do next, now that she’s back on her own, playing with Zach. (Who is all over this record as well, and also co-produced it.) For now, First Try at Goodbye is a sweet and sad little album that ably demonstrates just how good she is.

Check her out here. Jeremy Junkin is here.

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Next week, some end-of-the-year live albums and surprises. 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.