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Brayden

I’m still on vacation (a vacation that involves revising and working on four different papers, but hey, I don’t have to teach!) and so I think it’s okay for me to blog about something fun – music. I’m an indie music fan. I spend way too much of my meager luxury item allowance on it, but it makes me happy. I pretty much stream music on my office computer all day long. My kids, as the result of my incessant music-playing, have developed some pretty unique musical preferences. When we’re driving somewhere, the kids love to rock out to Yo La Tengo and Beck or groove to the wheepy tunes of Camera Obscura. They’re hooked at a young age to good music and will hopefully never let peers pressure them to become FM radio zombies.

So here is a list of the top five albums that I can’t wait to buy in 2007.

• The Shins – Wincing the Night Away (Jan. 23); the single “Phantom Limb” is already released. At first I wasn’t sure if I was in love with the new sweeping sound, but it grew on me. It has a more mature sound than anything they’ve done so far.
• Of Montreal – Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer (Jan. 23); Of Montreal is a weird sounding group that mixes disco rhythms with bouncy Stereolab-like harmonies. One of the more innovative groups around.
• Wilco – untitled (pre-summer release); I wasn’t a huge fan of A Ghost is Born but Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is one of my all-time favorite albums. I’ve heard a couple of live recordings of songs from the new album and I’m optimistic.
• Radiohead – untitled (summer?); Radiohead is simply the best band in the world, no question. Thom Yorke describes the new album as “similar to OK Computer, but much more terrifying…We’ve always worked best when we aren’t bothered about making mistakes.” Stop Thom, you had me at terrifying. The album could be released as a download only album.
• The Cure – untitled (May); It’s the Cure, what’s not to love? How come the Cure is the only band from my youth (besides maybe U2, on a really good day) that can still make decent music?

Anything I should add to my list?