6. The Stage Names by Okkervil River – Should Okkervil River stop right now? The “band” has crafted a career out of constantly trying to create the perfect concept album, and on the Stage Names, they succeed in conceptualizing concept. It’s an album full of quirky and clever wordplay, so it’s oddly fitting that my favorite line on the disc is all melody. “By the second verse, dear friends, my head will burst and my life will end, so I'd like to start this one off by saying ’live and love!’” The opening verse on the Beach Boys lifting, “John Allyn Smith Sails” utilizes a beautiful, see-sawing that is downright ironical when you consider that Will Sheff’s Achilles heel has long been his singing voice. But as the case with many of other beloved song writers (Dylan, Darnielle, Mangun, Bjork all come to mind), the accompaniment of a traditionally great singing voice would manage only to detract from the impact of the songs. Sheff’s transgression into accessibility is thankfully temporary, turning focus back to the real star of the show: the songwriting about songwriting.

5. Good Bad Not Evil by the Black Lips – The problem with the garage rock revival sound of the early oughts is that bands like the Strokes and the Hives didn’t sound a damn thing like actual garage rock. On the other hand, it’s as though the Atlanta-based Lips grew up listening exclusively to Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs. And that’s a good thing! “Veni, Vidi, Vici” and “Navajo” are catchy yet cheesy enough that they could have charted alongside Sham’s Nuggets-era hits “Wooly Bully” and “Little Red Riding Hood”. But it’s on the shouting/bass call-and-response section of “Bad Kids” where you get gems like, “They’ll try/to give us pills/Oh wait/Give us all the pills!”

4. Sound of Silver by LCD Soundsystem – I love the show Scrubs because of its remarkably authentic portrayal of what it’s like to be married and a parent when in your 20’s. For reasons that probably don’t make any sense at all, Sound of Silver makes me feel the same exact way. However, on this record, each episode does not end with a predictable happy ending, a notion definitively summed up in “All My Friends”: “It comes apart/The way it does in bad films/Except the part/Where the moral kicks in.”

3. Friend and Foe by Menomena – Blankets, the autobiographical graphic novel created by Craig Thompson, the one who designed the intricate and interactive cover art of Menomena’s second proper full-length, succeeds in part because it creates a contradictory duality between the wintery weather of the story and the interpersonal warmth of the characters. In a similar fashion, Friend & Foe is an album that is all at once cold, uninviting and strangely humane. And it was written by robots or something.

2. Curses by Future of the Left – Must be something in the water of Cardiff, Wales, because musicians from that lightly populated capitol seem to have a firm grasp on the difference between being funny and being a joke. It’s commitment, stupid, and FotL are flat-out dedicated to their comedic craft. How else can you get away with a rococo segment that ends in, well, I don’t want to spoil it for you. The self-proclaimed “super group” rising from the ashes of McLusky keeps the previous band’s Ricklesesque charisma but adds in heavy doses of keys, synths and enough metal riffs to create indie’s answer to lifting music.

1. Boxer by The National – From the intoxicating piano melody that opens “Fake Empire”, all the way to a completely different intoxicating piano melody in the closing-track “Gospel”, Boxer melts with a drowsy, pastoral influence. This is an album of America the way Main Street is a book of America: sure, it’s nostalgic, but more than that it is cautious and self-aware, exposing the nation’s soft underbelly without overtly criticizing it – that’s the reader/listener’s job. I won’t pretend that pathos isn’t plying a large role here: Boxer soundtracked a large portion of my cross country drive this past summer. That’s not exactly a strong pitch for its artistic relevance, but at least the National seems to know they aren’t making any grand claims, keeping their braggadocio modest with lines like, “I glide and swan because I’m the best slow dancer in the universe” (from “Green Gloves”).

Other Favorites:

A couple of great comebacks: American Gangster by Jay-Z and Beyond by Dinosaur Jr.

One career-maker: Hissing Fauna, are You the Destroyer? by Of Montreal

Best Album/Worst Lyrics: Kala by M.I.A. She’s the Sri Lankan Run D.M.C.

Favorite album with the worst name: Cease to Begin by Band of Horses. Had they gone with Pastor of Muppets, the alleged original title, it would been “favorite album with the best name”.

Best classical recording: Bruckner’s 7th by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. I find it difficult to really appreciate Bruckner and Wagner, but on the other hand I don’t think you can really blame them for their most notorious shared fan, can you? (Ed. Fixed)

Out too late: 8 Diagrams by Wu-Tang Clan. I haven’t actually listened to it in its entirety, but from what I’ve heard so far, this is psych-hop at its best. Or is it first?

My wife’s choice: Insomniac by Enrique Iglesias. Paraphrasing her sentiment here: “Even though he’s undoubtedly made much more money because of the Anglo-switch, Enrique’s better versions are always in his native Spanish.” Wait. What’s the opposite of paraphrasing?

Vicky’s choice: Infinity on High by Fall Out Boy. Of all the dudes making money by singing lyrics found in an 8th grade girl's diary, FOB is the most likely to be played on the oldies station in the year 2050.

Eva’s choice: Sound of Silver by LCD Soundsystem. This album had the antidote. Song starts: asleep and quiet. Song ends: awake and crying. Repeat with next song.