Save Me A Seat On The Bandwagon

I thought I'd join in the year-end countdown fun. Here's my top 25 songs, and by "my top 25 songs" I mean the songs I listened to and enjoyed the most this past year. Some were not released this year, but I still liked them so they made the cut. I also put no more than 2 songs per artist on the list - otherwise the list would be compromised of mostly Hard-Fi and Tegan and Sara songs.

25. Living On The Outside - Cloud Cult
24. This Modern Love - Bloc Party
23. Shut Your Eyes - The Shout Out Louds
22. An Honest Mistake - The Bravery
21. Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt - We Are Scientists
20. Move On Now - Hard-Fi
19. Perfect Weapon - Communique
18. Everything I Once Had - The Honorary Title
17. Cold Hands (Warm Heart) - Brendan Benson
16. Reason Why - Rachael Yamagata
15. Hard To Beat - Hard-Fi
14. Be Gentle With Me - Boy Least Likely To
13. You Come and I Go - Hotel Lights
12. Gender Bombs - The Stills
11. Breathe Me - Sia
10. Tourist - Athlete

9. This Is Everything (live iTunes version) - Tegan and Sara


8. Fearless - The Bravery


7. Alive - VHS or Beta


6. Oh My God - Kaiser Chiefs


5. Wandering Away - The GoStation


4. Run - Snow Patrol


3. Mr. Brightside - The Killers


2. Banquet - Bloc Party


1. I Know I Know I Know - Tegan and Sara



Want some other opinions?

Said the Gramophone's Top 22 Songs of 2005
Stylus Magazine's Top 50 Singles
Between Thought and Expression's Top 20 Songs
Underrated Magazine's Top 28 Songs

Pitchfork's Top 50 albums
Stereogum's Top 20 albums
Thighs Wide Shut's Top 14 albums
CMJ's Top 30 albums
My Old Kentucky Blog's Top 25 albums
Amazon.com Editors pick the 100 best albums
Amazon.com Customers' Top 100
Music for Kids Who Can't Read Good's Top 25 albums

Largehearted Boy posts the year's best music dvds
Elbow posts the top tracks posted by bloggers

Theeeeeeeere goes Johnny

Johnny Damon has joined the ranks of traitors (Wade Boggs and Roger Clemens I'm talking to you) that have defected from Red Sox Nation to join the Yankees. It will be interesting to see how he gets along with Steinbrenner and his clean-shaven laws.

In the past 2 years Damon has really gone all Hollywood and it's hard for me to imagine him getting back to just playing ball. Steinbrenner has been outspoken in the past about his players off the field activities so Damon better watch his act. I don't think his new boss will appreciate him and his wife tossing water balloons out of their apartment like they did in Boston.

I suppose the only bright side of all this is that we'll get to see this again.

bonus:
Johnny Damon on peace “You know, I just think that if we could, like, sit down with these terrorists, and just chill, have a few pops, and tell them, ‘Dudes, just be cool, put away the bombs, and like don’t go killing hundreds of people,’ we could end all the hatred. I guess I’m just ahead of my time or something.”

I bet you can't guess who's on the cover of US this week?

Jessica Simpson is once again US Weekly's cover girl. This marks the 3rd out of 4 weeks that she's been [un]lucky enough to grab the spot. (It's possible that she's even been on it for 4 weeks in a row but the Dec 19th issue already found its way to my trash.) The Dec 12th issue dealt with initial aftermath of the breakup and included photos of their last days, photos of "the way they were," a rundown on their "issues" including cheating, Jessica's partying, Jessica's career, and Papa Joe, and also a rundown of what's at stake (their empire, friends, house, cars, and CaCee the assistant).

The Dec 26th issue focused mostly on Jessica and the support she was getting from Jennifer Anniston and also her maybe more than friend Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine.

This week's issue talks about how Jessica has filed for divorce.

Was there any situation 90210 didn't deal with?

With the upcoming transit strike just hours away, imagine my surprise when I turned on Soapnet and saw that on this afternoon's Beverly Hills 90210 was strike-themed. Tired of working at The Beverly Beat, Brandon goes to interview with a respectable newspaper. Within minutes he is hired. On the way out he meets a man who is walking out with all his belongings and informs Brandon that all the "real" reporters are going on strike.

Suddenly, Brandon has to make a choice - cross the picket line to have a chance to work at a place where Steve Sanders is not his boss or empathize with the plight of the picket-ers.

When Brandon shows up to work on his first day he is greeted by a picket line out front and makes the decision to walk away and not cross the line. Throughout the episode he flip-flops with his decision. Ultimately he does what we all expected, he stays with Steve and doesn't take the new job.

Now if only the transit workers and the government could fix all their problems in one hour we'd be good to go.

Introducing the next genre of music: Princess Hip-Hop

In this month's Blender magazine, the one with America's favorite lip-syncher on the cover there's a blurb about America's favorite amateur porn star and her upcoming album. Yes that's right, Paris Hilton is trying to go all J.Lo on us and become a triple threat. According to Paris, "I'm a brand; I do everything." She's already made it on the small screen with The Simple Life, on the big screen with House of Wax, and now she's going to try her hand at singing in a genre she calls "princess hip-hop." The blurb also revealed that Paris has a talent many of us didn't know about - she can play the violin. And even though the song "Are You Wit It" on her upcoming album includes the violin, don't look for Paris to be playing it "I'm not going to be onstage playing violin. That would be gay."

In addition to "Are You Wit It" there will be "Turn It Up" about "turning up your sexuality, knowing you're sexy, dancing on tables, popping Cristal." How does one "pop" Cristal exactly?

For the two of you who will buy this magnificent piece of music, it will be out early in 2006.

Stars They're Just Like US

Some more that could have been added this week, but weren't...






and BTW, US


when you have to put in parenthesis to explain who the person is, they're obviously not important enough to warrant a mention.

AND FINALLY, the missing caption...

My Future Husband

Sports Illustrated's "Sportsman of the Year" issue arrived in my mailbox today and this pretty face was staring back at me.

There's a well written piece by Charles P. Pierce inside about both Tom Brady the football player and Tom Brady the man. I think it's the first thing I've read about Brady in a long time that makes no mention of his girlfriend Bridget Moynhan (aka Mr. Big's wife, Natasha). Many people, most outside New England, are probably going to argue that Peyton Manning deserves the award, but while Manning was busy piling up statistics, Brady was piling up Super Bowl titles.

This announcement now makes it 2 Boston themed Sportsman in a row. Now maybe the Celtics or Bruinscould jump aboard. I won't be holding my breath.

The funnest girl ever award goes to...Jo (and who the hell is she?)

Hey Mtv,

I watched your 10 spot last night which included the opener of the Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Gauntlet II. Who's the genius that plucked Jo from 10 years of obscurity to participate? I mean not only had we not seen or heard from her in years, but apparently she gave you - Mtv- the same treatment. How else can you explain the sheer shock of disgust, terror, and suprise at the behaviors of such classy folk like Robyn and Aneesa? When Jo called her dad (they're allowed to do that?) from inside an SUV and complained to him she seemed genuinely horrified at the debaucherous behavior, like she had absolutely no idea that throwing 20 attention seeking, hedonistic, 20 and 30 somethings together with unlimited amounts of alcohol would produce nothing short of tantalizing results. Did she think she was going to participate in a real competition where being in shape would be valued more than binge drinking and streaking? Even self-righteous Jamie who left a Buddhist Monastery to participate knew what he was in for. You've got to be a lame ass European to freak out more than a student Monk and a Mormon.

Bravo Mtv Casting Director. Bravo.