15.  Iron & Wine – Walking Far From Home

This is definitely the most listened to song of the year so far, partly because I got it back in December.  I think I wore it out, or it might be higher on this list.

14. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues

One of the best songs yet from a band that is aiming to establish itself as an indie-folk mainstay with the release of their sophomore record of the same name.

13. Seryn – We Will All Be Changed

A slow-building and uplifting song for the season from yet another band from Denton, TX worth your attention.

12. Tennis – Marathon

I avoided listening to these guys based on the name and album cover. That was a mistake.

11. Voxhaul Broadcast – Rotten Apples

With some Dr. Dog-like vocals this song just makes me wanna tap my feet.

10. Lupe Fiasco – The Show Goes On

The clever and insightful lyrics of Lupe matched up with a killer Modest Mouse sample is the perfect recipe for my favorite hip-hop song of the year thus far.

09. Destroyer – Suicide Demo For Kara Walker

My wife referred to this album as elevator music, but I just can’t get enough of it. I especially love the little guitar riff that comes in and out of the background of this track. It complements the Kenny G-like sax quite well. You can join my wife and mock it if you like.  But that is an elevator I would love to stay on.

08. James Vincent McMorrow – If I Had A Boat

This is the standout track from what has been my Bon Iver substitute as I wait for the next full-length from Justin Vernon.

07. Other Lives – For 12

The instrumentation on this song  and the rest of this album is just phenomenal. I had the hardest time choosing a song off of this album to include on this list.  Any of a number of songs could be taking this spot. I can’t wait to see these guys open for The National next week at Cain’s Ballroom.

06. Rubik – Laws of Gravity
Rubik: Laws Of Gravity by Fullsteam

Absolutely can’t get enough of this song right now. Try to listen to this song and not get up and dance. I dare you.

Listen to #’s 25-16

matt pond PA

I really love this group a lot and in fact I find that almost their entire catalog fits that autumnal season very well, especially Several Arrows Later.  But instead of choosing a track from that album I thought I would kill two birds with one stone and include this excellent cover of another band that fits the fall season very well, Neutral Milk Hotel.

matt pond PA – In An Aeroplane Over the Sea (Neutral Milk Hotel)

Iron & Wine

Here is a guy I am sure you are all familiar with by now.  Someone who like Nick Drake also got his first big exposure through the “Garden State” soundtrack. Well I find his contemplative lo-fi folk music to be great company on a sunny fall afternoon.  One of my favorite things to do is to go for a drive in the fall while the leaves are in transition and this song I chose for you here is one of my favorite companions along the way.

Iron & Wine – The Trapeze Swinger

M83′s Saturdays = Youth

Saturdays was an album that I heard last year and it went in one ear and out the other without making much of an impact.  But this fall it has penetrated down to my very core and has become one of my favorite records.  And I attribute a lot of that to the season in which it was heard, both physically and in my personal life.

M83 – Graveyard Girl

Explosions in the Sky’s The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place

One of the best experimental quartets around.  They were the first instrumental band that I was able to really get into and I find myself consistently going back to this album each fall. You might recognize them from their work for the soundtrack to “Friday Night Lights,” the television show.

Explosions In the Sky – Your Hand In Mine

The Radio Dept.

Here is another group that I would say has an autumn feel to their entire catalog.  Something about their music just takes me back.  It just puts me in this very retrospective mood. It’s not uncommon for music from my past to take me back to the time when it first captured me. But I just discovered this band about a year ago. I don’t know how they do it.

The Radio Dept. – Pulling Our Weight

Here are a few more tracks to help round out the playlist.

TV on the Radio – Family Tree

Grand Archives – Torn Blue Foam Couch

Broken Social Scene – Guilty Cubicles

Conor Oberst + Gillian Welch – Lua

New Order – Love Vigilantes

Now for the really good news coming this May.  On the 19th Sub Pop is releasing a new album called Around the Well, a collection of rare or previously unreleased tracks spanning from some of his earliest sessions to material recorded for 2007′s The Shepherd’s Dog.  It will be a double-disc set with the first half filled with more raw and unedited recordings and more of a lo-fi feel.  The second will highlight a more full sound of Iron & Wine as he is surrounded by other friends and musicians.  The title comes from my favorite Iron & Wine track, “The Trapeze Singer”  which was written for and can be found on the soundtrack to the movie In Good Company.  The album not only closes with that song, but also includes three other songs that Beam wrote for that movie.  Around the Well also brings us some hard-to-find cover songs such as New Order’s “Love Vigilantes” or The Flaming Lips’ “Waitin’ for a Superman” as well as his infamous cover of The Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights.”

As if all that weren’t enough, we now have word that Beam is working on a follow-up to The Shepherd’s Dog that he hopes to release early 2010.  Until then, I hope your ears bleed.

Iron & Wine – Lion’s Mane

As soon as I picked the theme for this post I regretted it.  Seriously, I just chose to try and decide what my 3 favorite songs of all time.  The worst thing about this is that as soon as this is published I will look at what I chose and immediately think of another song that I like better.  So I suppose I should modify the title to read “Justin’s 3 Favorite Songs of All Time That He Can Think of at the Moment”, but that is just unreasonably long.  Much like this intro.

Favorite Song of All Time #1

“Stardust”-The Essential Dave Brubeck

Dave Brubeck is probably my favorite artist of all time.  I remember first being introduced to his music in middle school finding myself absolutely stunned by his non-conventional rhythms and abstract song structures.  His album “Time Out”, an incredible exploration of obscure time signatures (5/4, 7/5, 9/8), completely revolutionized the way I heard and thought about music.  Music became so much more than something to fill the silent air, but a form of art deeper than any other medium.

Stardust is by no means an obscure song.  Everyone (and I mean everyone) has heard a version of this song whether or not they listen to jazz.  If you watch enough romantic movies it is bound to show up in at least half of them, providing the perfect background for new found love.  Bing Crosby sang it.  Nat King Cole sang it.  Ella Fitzgerald sang it.  In the ITunes store I found almost 100 versions of the song.

So why does the Dave Brubeck song stick out to me?  Ironically, despite what I just said about loving the complex nature of his songs, I love this version (from the album “The Essential Dave Brubeck” featuring Bill Smith on clarinet) because of just how simple and stripped down it is; just a piano and clarinet.  I have listened to this song hundreds of times and it still never fails to take me away.

Favorite Song of All Time #2

“Colly Strings”- I’m Like a Virgin Losing a Child

No song has ever been as lyrically profound to me as Colly Strings.  It seems that no matter where I am at in a relationship (romantic, that is) the lyrics speak to that moment.  It goes through every stage of a relationship; every wonderful, painful, fearful, regretful, happy moment.  Three lines that stick out to me every time I hear the song:

Confessingly this is the first time I’ve loved you, and God I mean it, God I mean it, I hope that I mean it.

Cause like dying young, idols got the best of me.  Well don’t stop calling, you’re the reason I love losing sleep.

Besides, we can’t believe without bleeding.

I have no idea who or what Andy Hull wrote this song about, but his lyrics are so transcendent of his personal experience that they become this universal story of the journey through love.

Favorite Song of All Time #3

“Such Great Heights”- Garden State Soundtrack

I am going to make a really pathetic admission here.  For a long time after I first heard this song I thought it was first recorded by Iron & Wine and later covered by The Postal Service.  The song was just so beautiful that I could hardly fathom it starting as an upbeat electronica piece (don’t take this to mean I don’t like the Postal Service version; I love it, in fact).  But I was an idiot back then and learned the error of my assumption, which only led me to be further amazed by this stirring rendition.  Sam Beam completely transformed this song into a slow ballad, while managing to maintain the integrity of the original.  I hardly consider this song a cover.  It is more a reinterpretation of an already beautiful piece of art, both complimenting each other so well that both benefit in the end.

I hope your ears bleed.

10 Wilco – Sky Blue Sky

like most great albums this one took a little while to grow on me. but i am glad i gave it the time, because i have definitely found some great gems on this album. if you love wilco already just listen and enjoy. if not i suggest you see them live, it will surely help you to appreciate this album. at least it did for me.

wilco – hate it here (removed 2/13/09)

9 Beirut – Flying Club Cup

balkan music at its best. seriously. if you have never listened to this one man band you are missing out. each track has just gorgeous horn and string arrangements, and condon’s voice accompanies the music so well.

beirut – in the mausoleum (removed 2/13/09)

8 Derek Webb – The Ringing Bell

easily the best christian album of the year. webb continues to write enjoyable pop candy that is not only enjoyable to listen to, but challenges out way of thinking at the same time. i cannot tell you enough how much i love this guy. oh and did i mention he is giving this album away for free?

derek webb – can’t be without you (removed 2/13/09)

7 Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

spoon has outdone themselves. by far the best that they have put together thus far. lots of intricate but simple instrumentation if that makes any sense at all. they didn’t try to hard, they have just taken what they do and brought it to the next level

spoon – you got yr cherry bomb (mp3 lost during a site crash 7/23)

6 The National – Boxer

Be patient with this one. It took a while before the national had a regular spot on my playlist, but once it got there it hasn’t left. Most of the songs on this album have very complex but very addicting rhythmic pattern. Give it a chance to entrance, for it surely will.

the national – fake empire (removed 2/13/09)

5 Band of Horses – Cease to Begin

Despite the loss of their co-founder, Mat Brooke, this stellar band not only managed to avoid the sophomore slump, but with their song “No One’s Gonna Love You” they managed to put together what is, in my humble opinion, the greatest song of 2007.

band of horses – no one’s gonna love you (removed 2/13/09)

4 Iron & Wine – The Shephard’s Dog

This is definitely one of those cases where change isn’t so bad. straying from his lo-fi acoustic roots, sam beam churns out another batch of songs that will last us a lifetime. it’s very rhythmic and has a much fuller sound than we’re used to, but it works.

iron & wine – flightless bird, american mouth (removed 2/13/09)

3 Rilo Kiley – Under the Blacklight

These former child stars have never sounded better. Lewis’ voice is as gorgeous as ever and Sennet’s guitar sounds like it has been in the 70′s for a while and came to show us a thing or two. An incredibly catchy album. Anything but a disappointment.

rilo kiley – give a little love (removed 2/13/09)

2 The Once Soundtrack

This incredible soundtrack to one of the best films of the year is a must. Glen Hansard (The Frames) and Marketa Irglova star in and provide the soundtrack to this modern day musical that tells the story of two people whose lives collide just once. Watch the movie and you will surely have to buy the album.

glen hansard & marketa irglova – when your mind’s made up (removed 2/13/09)

1 Feist – The Reminder

Leslie Feist has yet to let me down. I have loved everything that she had done so far. Especially this incredibly catchy album. Easily the record that I listened to the most this past year. It is infectious, once you start you can’t stop. Trust me.

feist – past in present (removed 2/13/09)

Honorable Mention: The Shins – Wincing the Nigh Away, Josh Ritter – The Historical Conquests, Andrew Bird – Armchair Apocrypha, Arcade Fire – Neon Bible

well i hope you enjoyed my list. and just to help clarify this list was based on a combo of what i thought was the best musically and lyrically and then also what i simply enjoyed and listened to the most. but still feel free to let me know if there are any albums that you felt should have been on the list. i am sure there are still some great ones that i missed.

also the plan is for this to be the first of many. i am starting a project of creating a list like this for every year dating back to the year i was born (1985). should be fun. until next time…

iron & wine – innocent bones (removed 2/13/09)

i hope your ears just bled.