Sound Fix | Music

Music

1. Sufjan Stevens: Greetings from Michigan
This is the album that got Stevens his first taste of fame (as far as anyone can taste fame in indie rock these days), and justifiably so. It’s a gorgeous epic and musical homage to his nativ...read more
2. Sufjan Stevens: Seven Swans
In between his American epics (Michigan and Illinois) Sufjan Stevens released this touching folk record.read more
3. The Mountain Goats: Get Lonely
The Mountain Goats have become so popular in recent years that many don’t realize that John Darnielle, the band’s leader (and often its lone member), has been at this for quite some tim...read more
4. Neil Young: After The Goldrush
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5. Antony and the Johnsons: I Am a Bird Now
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6. Antony and the Johnsons: Antony and the Johnsons
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7. Devendra Banhart: Oh Me Oh My
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8. Devendra Banhart: Cripple Crow
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9. Devendra Banhart: Nino Rojo
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10. Devendra Banhart: Rejoicing in the Hands
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11. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy: I See A Darkness
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12. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy / Matt Sweeney: Superwolf
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13. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy: Master and Everyone
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14. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy: Ease Down the Road
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15. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy: Summer in the Southeast [live]
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16. Bright Eyes: I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
Bright Eyes' undisputed best album. OK, a few may dispute that. It's superb. read more
17. Bright Eyes: Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground
"When Bright Eyes brainchild Conor Oberst issued Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground in August 2002, he was 22 years old. Critics were already calling him the "indie ...read more
18. Bright Eyes: Digital Ash in a Digital Urn
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19. Cat Power: You Are Free
You Are Free arrives nearly five years from her last album of original material, and everything, yet nothing, has changed about Chan Marshall's music. Initially, the album seems more diffuse ...read more
20. Cat Power: The Covers Record
On the The Covers Record, Chan Marshall continues her evolution into a remarkably expressive interpreter of songs; her earlier covers of Pavement's "We Dance" and Smog's "Bathysphere" are among her...read more
21. Cat Power: Moon Pix
Cat Power's 1998 album Moon Pix continues Chan Marshall's transformation from an indie rock Cassandra into a reflective, accomplished singer/songwriter. Where her previous works were an urgent, ...read more
22. Cat Power: What Would the Community Think
What Would the Community Think was the second album Chan Marshall released in 1996, but its richness suggests a longer period of evolution. From the first warm notes of "In this Hole," it's clear...read more
23. Cat Power: Dear Sir
Cat Power's first full-length album, Dear Sir, spotlights Chan Marshall's demanding but rewarding songwriting. Her distinctive blend of blues, country, folk and punk creates songs like the dark, ...read more
24. Cat Power: Myra Lee
The 1996 album Myra Lee presents a more diverse and fully developed version of Cat Power's music, ranging from the winding, acoustic menace of "Enough" to the sinewy rock of "We All Die." Introsp...read more
25. Cat Power: Speaking for Trees a film by Mark Borthwick
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26. Regina Spektor: Begin to Hope
The Russian-born, Bronx-bred Spektor’s second album is another fine batch of tunes, led by her fiery, passionate voice and stellar songwriting. Once again Spektor reveals an uncanny knack for...read more
27. Nick Drake: Pink Moon
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28. Nick Drake: Bryter Layter
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29. Nick Drake: Five Leaves Left
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30. Nick Drake: Made to Love Magic
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31. Bonnie Prince Billy: The Letting Go
After getting rowdy for two albums, Bonnie “Prince” Billy returns to the melancholic moan that made him famous. This time, though, the backing’s a little fancier, with a string quartet ...read more
32. Elliot Smith: Either/Or
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33. A.C. Newman: The Slow Wonder
"A.C. Newman is Carl Newman. You may know him as the main dude in underrated pop heroes Zumpano; you may know him as the leader of the justly-rated New Pornographers; you may even remember him a...read more
34. Elliot Smith: Elliot Smith
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35. Elliot Smith: XO
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36. Fred Neil: Fred Neil
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37. Joanna Newsom: Ys
This might just be the most ambitious record I’ve heard all year. I could go on in great detail about the metaphorically loaded packaging and the heavily referential lyrical excursions on Joa...read more
38. Connie Converse: How Sad, How Lovely
You gotta love how some things just gather steam on their own and become—well, “hyped” seems the wrong word to apply to this music, such are its humble charms and origins. Connie ...read more
39. PJ Harvey & John Parish: A Woman a Man Walked By
Polly Jean Harvey is one of an increasingly rare breed: a genuine artist and a bona fide rock star, someone who commands attention in any room, someone whose every move is worth watching. A Woman a...read more
40. Bill Callahan: Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle
Like his labelmate Will Oldham, Bill Callahan has spent his long career honing, altering, adding to and subtracting from an identity that has acted as a conduit for a now staggering amount of excep...read more
41. St. Vincent: Actor
St. Vincent (Annie to her family, the Clarks) returned this year to prove her debut was no fluke. On Actor, Clark leads with her cute, pointy chin, updating the ambitiously composed songs that made...read more
42. Iron and Wine: Around the Well
Iron and Wine’s new two-CD/three-LP set compiles B-sides, rarities, and outtakes from one of the best songwriters and most charismatically intimate performers of the decade. Sam Beam’s soft, ...read more
43. Regina Spektor: Far
The follow-up to Regina Spektor‘s 2006 breakthrough, Begin to Hope, is every bit as gorgeous and whimsical as you’d expect. It’s no secret that she can work magic with a piano and...read more
44. Cass McCombs: Catacombs
One of Gertrude Stein‘s keenest quotes: “For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts.” This year is when things pivoted for Cas...read more
45. v/a: Wayfaring Strangers: Lonesome Heroes
This is the third release in Numero’s Wayfaring Strangers series of folk compilations, this one focusing on obscure ’70s male American singer-songwriters (though the release dates among the 1...read more
46. Elysian Fields: The Afterlife
Those of you outside of our fair city may not have reason to know it, but as real New York bands go — the ones who sound like they could only be from New York, who ooze sultry (and mythical) ...read more
47. Charlotte Gainsbourg: IRM
Ah, la belle Charlotte. Given everything we know about her — the impeccable pedigree, the great films, the outright personification of roughly 50 years of cool French culture, all contained i...read more
48. Windsor for the Derby: Against Love
After years of being lumped into the "post-rock" ghetto (whatever and wherever that is), the roving band known as Windsor for the Derby reveals its true genre on Against Love: What this now Austin-...read more
49. Matthew Dear: Black City
The age-old border between techno chill and pop-analog warmth has been breached once and for all on Matthew Dear's new opus, Black City. Granted, Dear is hardly new to this; he's been edging toward...read more
50. The Corin Tucker Band: 1,000 Years
This blessed record is everything you'd want and more from the former (and probably, once again) Sleater-Kinney principal. On her first sort-of solo album, Corin Tucker shows that even the most acc...read more