TK # 2 - The Avett Brothers - I And Love And You (2009)

Gorgeous, cynicism-free pop that wears its heart on its sleeve, on its pant leg, on every Avett-specked beard, it's even there on the cello and the banjo. Vocals that waver and quiver and hang too long on certain notes evoke sadness and euphoria in equal doses. Sure, the banjo is overshadowed by the piano, and the spazz-outs are kept to a minimum, but every note just seems perfect and, at the end of the day, do you really care who produced it? For the record, Rick Rubin comes up aces here, with each song garnished with an equal mix of punch and shine.

The songs here are so good they should have been spread across three albums. I am totally inside this record - beautiful, sentimental, soul-baring lyrics paired with unforgettable melodies. Ten years from now, I'm guessing this album will sound even better... and move up a spot in the rankings.

I And Love And You - The Avett...

TK #3: The Hold Steady – Separation Sunday (2005)

The first time I heard “Hornets! Hornets!” (the first song on this monster) was the first time I heard The Hold Steady. I had read a favorable and intriguing review of an unknown band and ordered the disc sound-unheard. When it came in the mail, I ripped off the plastic and tossed it in the player, and my first reaction was to laugh. They came on like an aging metal bar band, with the pick scraping up the neck (zoom!) and the double-voiced Thin Lizzy guitars. Is this a joke? No, I think they’re serious. Still, I’ll confess, it didn’t make sense at first. But over time, things started to rise to the fore: “Do you want to me to tell it like it’s boy meets girl and the rest is history?/Or do you want it like a murder mystery?/I’m gonna tell it like a comeback story.” OK, so that’s pretty brilliant, and the scuzzy riffing groove is irresistible. By year’s end (the album really hit me in December, I recall vividly), the words and music were coming in an avalanche, Craig Finn’s words and Tad Kubler’s riffs catching me like left hooks out of nowhere. And what galvanized the whole thing was the pure rock and roll rage and swaggering street poetry of “Your Little Hoodrat Friend”: “Your little hoodrat friend has been calling me again/And I can’t stand all those things she sticks into her skin/Like sharpened ballpoint pens and steel guitar strings/She says it hurts but it’s worth it/Tiny little text etched into her neck/It says Jesus Lived and Died for All Your Sins/She’s got blue-black ink and it’s scratched into her lower back/Says Damn Right He’ll Rise Again!”

At that point I knew I loved this band like no band since The Replacements. And it was just the beginning.

Separation Sunday - The Hold S...

TK # 4 - Ike Reilly Assassination - We Belong To The Staggering Evening (2007)

Wedding image-a-minute profane, cocky street poetry to firecracker riffs with a big ol’ heap of punk attitude, Ike Reilly recalls an unholy alliance of Bob Dylan fronting The Plimsouls. Any disc that features the boys gone wild rave-up of “When Irish Eyes Are Burning”, the anti-war lament “Broken Parakeet Blues” or the stimulant-cataloguing, brain coagulating sing-a-long “Valentine’s Day in Jaurez” just seems too good to go unheard.

We Belong To The Staggering Ev...

TK # 5 - Bruce Springsteen - The Rising (2002)

Yes, The Rising suffers from some gloopy production and probably could have left four of five songs on the cutting room floor, but the sheer humanity exhibited by Springsteen here as he tries to explore our post 9-11 grief elevates this to classic status. There are few collections that give us a batch of songs that can match the poignancy of the title track, "My City of Ruins", "Into The Fire", "Empty Sky" and the heart-stopping "You're Missing". But's it's not all downbeat, and Springsteen never lets us fail to see the light at the edge of town, as hope springs eternal through the sadness on "Waitin' On A Sunny Day" and "Mary's Place" is call-to-arms to let the healing begin. This was the right record, by the right guy, at the right time.

The Rising - Bruce Springsteen

TK #6: Spoon – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (2007)

By the beating of the drums, something wicked this way comes. One of the decade’s most restlessly original bands made their play for the brass ring here, and grabbed it firmly with two hands. With drummer Jim Eno manipulating rhythm like soft clay, singer/songwriter/resident genius Britt Daniel shows his full arsenal, from wryly sinister (“Don’t Make Me a Target”) to enticingly obscure (“The Ghost of You Lingers”) to full-bore radio ecstasy (“The Underdog”) with horns! It plays out like the most spectacular highwire act, but what the audience doesn’t know is that this cat can fly.

Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga - Spoon

TK # 7 - The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound (2008)

The ’59 Sound kicks off with the exhilarating 1-2 adrenaline blast of “Great Expectations” (complete with an opening needle drop on an old soul record) and “The 59 Sound” that doesn’t let up until the wistful valentine regrets to old lovers of “Here’s Looking at You, Kid” . The Springsteen comparisons are inevitable and many lyrics are outright homage, but that should induce you to seek this out because these guys masterfully crib Springsteen’s passion and exuberance in a joyful punk soul package. This is a record that seems to have ignored most of the pop culture of the last 40 years, but yet feels so fresh and invigorating, it sounds like a timeless intersection of Sam Cooke and The Clash on the radio.

The '59 Sound - The Gaslight A...

TK # 8 - The Felice Brothers - The Felice Brothers (2008)

Sounding like hopeless hobos after a three week bender, The Felice Brothers mine a Basement Tapes freewheelin’ approach with a lead singer with an uncanny resemblance to Dylan (prime Dylan, not the current wounded bluesman dog version). These songs are full of murderers, thugs, pimps and whiskey in their whiskey (novel concept!), all undercut with equal parts menace and celebration. Ian Felice as a songwriter is the real deal, and lyrics like these from the shambolic, small town hood’s tale “Frankie’s Gun” don’t come much better:

“Spit makes a fender shine
Frankie you're a friend of mine
Got me off a bender after long legged Brenda died
I thought we might be on a roll this time Frankie
I could have swore the box said Hollywood blanks”

The Felice Brothers - The Feli...

Video from the Mean Eyed Cat, SXSW 2008 (me and Vinnie!)

TK #9: Roman Candle – Oh Tall Tree in the Ear (2009)

Here’s why modern radio isn’t A-OK with me: This band isn’t on it. And here’s evidence that we’re in a new world where consensus is laid to rest and what’s classic lies solely in the ears of the listener: It would be just the mildest hyperbole to say that no one has heard this album. But around here, these three North Carolinians are titans, sitting comfortably with the artists resting at spots 10 and 11. They have everything – sturdy songs, tight arrangements, wit, soul, smarts, and a keening tenor that transforms songs about small subjects into low-key anthems. You can hear the echo of the history of rural American music in these songs, but mostly what you hear is as fine an indie rock and roll band imaginable at the decade’s end.

Oh Tall Tree In The Ear - Roma...

TK #10: The White Stripes – Elephant (2003)

No one has ever maximized the minimal the way that Jack and Meg did on this monster, which proves that the only limitation on a two-man band is imagination. It opens with a classic anthem (“Seven Nation Army”), touches on gentle acoustic pop (“You’ve Got Her in Your Pocket”), sizzles with slow-burn blues (“Ball and Biscuit”) and rages through some howling proto-garage rock (“Girl You Have No Faith in Medicine”) that few other bands could hope to touch. This isn’t just an Elephant; it’s a Mammoth.

Elephant - The White Stripes

TK #11: Bruce Springsteen – Magic (2007)

Bruce Springsteen has always been a perfecter, not an innovator. From his earliest records, discussion of his influences has gone hand-in-hand with discussion of his music, be it Dylan (the debut), Van Morrison (The Wild, the Innocent . . .) or Phil Spector and Roy Orbison (Born to Run). In 2007, he came back hard with a lush, gorgeous disc that conjures memories of 1960s California pop, with the grand Spectorian density it demands. True to the album’s name, Bruce sets up his audience with some sleight-of-hand. The hard-driving opener “Radio Nowhere” bears little resemblance to the rest of the affair, and no Springsteen title track has ever seemed less essential to an album than the quiet, minimal “Magic.” But the songs that form the disc’s emotional core – ones like “You’ll Be Coming Down,” “Girls in Their Summer Clothes,” and “Long Walk Home” – give Magic cohesion in their rich melodicism, overt romanticism and unrelenting realism. The music swells and swoons, the Boss bites and croons, and the audience gets one of the finest efforts of a legendary career.

Magic - Bruce Springsteen

TK # 12: Rilo Kiley - More Adventurous (2004)

Straddling the line between indie cred and big deal mainstream hacks, More Adventurous was destined to be Rilo Kiley's piece de resistance. This is meticulously crafted pop, the title track sweetened with gorgeous pedal steel, the indie conscience of "It's A Hit" propelled with buoyant horns and a bit of "Ventura Highway" strum kicks off the luminous "Absence of God". The master class in classic songwriting lures you in, but it's Jenny Lewis' magnificent supple ache of a voice (check the torchy tour de force "I Never") that'll bring you back.

More Adventurous - Rilo Kiley

TK #13: New Pornographers – Twin Cinema (2005)

The apotheosis of power pop in the new century, this (predominantly) Canadian collective marries a twitchy indie sensibility to the classic verities of ELO and Cheap Trick to create songs that crackle and hiss with melodies that navigate hairpin turns at breakneck speeds. They have aching, arching balladry down cold (check Neko Case’s vocal on “These Are the Fables”), but their trademark is the three- or four-minute sonic boom, and few songs this decade have detonated as successfully as “Sing Me Spanish Techno.”

Twin Cinema - The New Pornogra...

TK # 14 - Steve Earle - Transcendental Blues (2000)

With Guitar Town, Steve Earle altered my music listening forever. With Transcendental Blues, Earle capped a remarkable five album run with his best record since that debut. The crackling buzz that slowly ushers in the title track’s existential meditation is right at home with the Gaelic affair exuberantly brought to life in “Galway Girl”. And nothing trumps the desperate but knowing plea from the oft-married Earle on the album’s best track “I Don’t Want to Lose You Yet”.

Trancendental Blues - Steve Ea...

TK # 15 - The Duke And The King - Nothing Gold Can Stay (2009)

Leaving behind the ramshackle Americana of self proclaimed “dirtbags” The Felice Brothers, Simone Felice’s new band The Duke and The King’s soulful, brittle Nothing Gold Can Stay has a gentle intensity that combines 60’s soul (Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke) and 70’s earnest, sensitive singer-songwriters (Cat Stevens, James Taylor) in an intoxicating debut that marks Felice as one to watch for the next decade. You can read more here.

Nothing Gold Can Stay - The Du...

TK # 16 - Lucero - 1372 Overton Park (2009)

Certain bands bleed rock and roll through bursting veins and arteries in dangerous blasts of desperation and recklessness. Lucero epitomizes that type of band and their white hot, sweaty mess of a rock show has been their main calling card. Until now… 1372 Overton Park is their bid for the brass ring (or least a little wider audience) and while the scorched-earth vocals of Ben Nichols remain gloriously intact, there’s the slow burn of opener “Smoke”, the Hold Steady-isms of the keyboard-driven party anthem “Sounds of the City”, as well as the addition of horns (!!) on several tracks, most notably “The Devil and Maggie Chascarillo”, a rave-up that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Pleased to Meet Me.

1372 Overton Park - Lucero

TK #17: Okkervil River – The Stage Names (2007)

This one is a quiet stunner, a grower, an album that seems good at first but turns great over time as the melodies stick and churn in your head. By turns rollicking (“Unless It’s Kicks,” “You Can’t Hold the Hand of a Rock and Roll Man”) and heart-stoppingly lovely (“Savannah Smiles,” “A Girl in Port”), The Stage Names is the work of a band that understands dynamics, the tension created by moving from a whisper to a scream. There is real power in a quiet moment, and this album is full of them. And as I listened for the first time in a long time while preparing to write this, it struck me that the record is even better than I remembered. Bump this up ten or fifteen spots, and I wouldn’t quibble a bit.

The Stage Names - Okkervil Riv...

TK #18: The Fratellis – Costello Music (2007)

I had been waiting much of my life for a band that perfectly melded the DNA of T. Rex and the Undertones, and this thunderously melodic trio of Scots delivered in spades. With fuzzed-out guitars and a fuzz-tone vocal burr, this isn’t an album as much as a series of three-minute concertos for buzzsaw and dynamite. Gems abound here, but none is quite as gemmy as “Chelsea Dagger,” as big a blast in the pants as this decade offered. No other list will rank this album so high. Suffice it to say that all those other lists are stupid.

Costello Music - The Fratellis

TK #19: Nick Lowe – At My Age (2007)

Few punk-era icons have emerged with even half the grace of Nick Lowe, and fewer still have made music in their dotage that compares favorably with that of their raging youth. On this set, Lowe continues down a path he’s been strolling for fifteen years, transporting himself to the Memphis and Muscle Shoals of the late 1960s and conjuring the most delightful cross-section of deep southern soul and classic country. Wiser than before (“A Better Man”) but meaner than ever (“I Trained Her to Love Me”), he reels off one shoulda-been-a-classic after another, none better than “Hope For Us All,” a wistful reverie by a man of a certain age who finds love when he least expects it. An exquisite album.

At My Age - Nick Lowe

TK #20: Jason Collett – Idols of Exile (2005)

In early 2006, I was minding my own business, enjoying the hell out this release by the young Canadian troubadour – the smartass swagger of “Hangover Days,” the regal chime of “We All Lose One Another,” the jaunty kick of “I’ll Bring the Sun” – and I was also starting to trade e-mails with some like-minded music lover in Philadelphia. Having gotten a handle on his tastes, I said “I think you’d dig this Jason Collett disc.” He listened, he loved it, and Teenage Kicks was born. Sorry, I’m getting a little misty here. Just listen to the songs while I compose myself.

Idols of Exile - Jason Collett

TK # 21 - Loretta Lynn - Van Lear Rose (2004)

Featuring the most unlikely, intriguing May-December relationship since Harold and Maude, Jack White helps provide Loretta Lynn with the perfect career capstone in Van Lear Rose. Her ferocious talent undimmed at 70, Loretta Lynn unleashes an album full of poignant, self-penned songs that sound like nothing less than the best country record of the decade. From the heartbreakingly autobiographical “Miss Being Mrs.” to the rousing, boozy duet “Portland, Oregon”, Van Lear Rose is a complete triumph.

Van Lear Rose - Loretta Lynn