1. The Go-Betweens "Oceans Apart": I don't know the whole story about the Go-Betweens, and I don't care. But they remind me of what the Australian pyschedelic band the church could have evolved into. The chord changes are always interesting, the lyrics are mysterious but not total nonsense. There's a CD included of a live concert of some of their oldies which is basically garbage. The best tunes are "Darlinghurst Nights" and "This Nights for You".
2. Sufjan Stevens "Illinois"- I like this album because it pretends to be very deep, but it could be very shallow. The album cover is a folk art imitation of a Slick Rick album, the historical lyrics basically sound like they were gleened from google, the horns solos stick note for note to the melody, and the upbeat tunes sound like Gap commercials. But that's the way people from Illinois are, unsentimental.
3. Our New Orleans 2005- Benefit for the Gulf Coast: I used to play at the Maple Leaf Piano nights on Mondays when I was at LSU. Basically the only way you could learn to swing like those cats was to either go to New Orleans or to Berklee. It's something that I just could never ignore, throughout grunge, indy rock, whatever's next. Allen Touissant has a great minor-key version of Tipitina, and even the studied vaudevillianism of the Preservation Hall guys is kind of neat, the way they change up the lyrics so deftly.
