I started with a list of nearly fifty albums and after spending too much time trying to put it all in some order that ultimately won't mean all that much to most people, I settled on my top ten.

1. Jon Hopkins - Singularity
2. Pusha T - Daytona
3. Nils Frahm - All Melody
4. Parquet Courts - Wide Awake!
5. Earl Sweatshirt - Some Rap Songs
6. Tim Hecker - Konoyo
7. Aphex Twin - Collapse EP
8. Young Fathers - Cocoa Sugar
9. Daniel Avery - Song for Alpha
10. Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Sparkle Hard

What's a list without some music? I created a mix called Melody and Distortion. You can find it on Spotify and Apple Music. It is best enjoyed as it is sequenced.

The following was sent to subscribers of One Great Read, an email newsletter I send out periodically. Check out the archives and subscribe if you would like to receive them via email in the future.

Looking at the list of subscribers, I think I know most of you personally. I’m also pretty sure most of you are music nerds, or at least music lovers. In my mind, if you fall into either category, you are undoubtedly a David Byrne fan. I mean, really, how could you not be? Over the weekend we watched the Coachella stream on YouTube and thankfully caught David Byrne’s incredible performance. He’s not only timeless, he’s still extremely relevant, creative and infinitely talented. If you didn’t catch him last weekend, make it a point to watch him this weekend. In the mean time GQ posted a long read on him worth your attention.

​The tracks that changed Alessandro Cortini’s life

This post originally appeared on Medium.

I think a lot about process. I pay attention to all of the steps that make up the journey from Point A to Point B and I often stress about them. When it comes to getting things done on computing devices like laptops, tablets and mobile phones I have spent perhaps too much time reflecting on how I’m doing things, how many steps are required and how many apps it’s taking me to get to a desired result. I’ve started documenting these things more because what I find is doing so helps other people who are struggling with the same problem, but maybe don’t know how to optimize what they’re doing.

I recently got into a discussion with Sean and Tara about managing music. Honestly, I spend less and less time managing it. Over the course of a few years, I’ve gone from managing terabytes of digital music to streaming pretty much everything. The only exceptions have been live shows, needle drops and the occassional album pre-release which I still manage in a folder structure in the cloud. I’ve moved any music files I care about to the cloud, both for playing and as a backup. Since Sean and Tara asked me about how I do it, I figured maybe there are a few other people that would be interested in reading through my somewhat convoluted setup and workflow.

Tools

It’s been a long time since I’ve ripped a CD and frankly, even though I hate iTunes, it’s probably the easiest and fastest way to rip CDs if that’s what you’re looking to do. I haven’t connected a drive to my MacBook Pro for years at this point, but maybe you still have some CDs laying around. Storage costs are so low there’s little reason to not use a lossless codec and if you’re using iTunes, I recommend encoding using Apple Lossless (ALAC). It’s worth noting that while the codec was developed by Apple and was initially proprietary, the codec is open source, royalty-free and widely supported by devices I use every day. Depending on who you talk to FLAC might be more widely recognized as the go-to lossless audio format, but it is not as widely supported by devices and it’s for that reason that I convert FLAC files to ALAC.

I use XLC (don’t let the “retro” website throw you) for file conversion. There are some other tools out there, but I’ve been using XLC for so long, it’s just what I’m comfortable with. It can rip, convert and decode which means you probably won’t need anything more. If you like it, donate to the developer so he keeps developing it.

Organizing

Most of the digital music files I download are meticulously tagged already. If they aren’t, I probably just kind of live with it simply being organized into a simple artist / album folder structure. Before I got wise to lossless, like most people I was working with MP3s and used a utility called ID3 Editor. If I were going to endeavor on a quest to manually clean up the metadata on my digital music collection, I might use something like MusicBrainz Picard or Metadatics, which people seem to like and looks to be in active development. There’s also TuneUp, which people seem to have nice things to say about. I’ve never tried it so YMMV.

Playing

Everything gets played through Sonos speakers in the house. Full disclosure: I work for Sonos, but I’d still have their products in my house regardless. Aside from using various streaming services like Beats Music (RIP soon), Spotify, Tidal and Google Play, I interface with all those services via the Sonos app at home. This allows me to search and play my own digital music collection, which increasingly lives in Google Play, along side everything I stream, which isn’t easily achievable using any other method. When I say easy, I mean easy enough for my mom to use. When I’m in the car, on a plane or on the go I just use the apps on my iPhone.

Sometimes I just want to hunker down with my laptop and some headphones at my desk or on the sofa and plow through stuff. In that case, I’ll use a combination of the Spotify desktop app for streaming and Vox for my own collection in full lossless fidelity. Vox is beautifully simple and generally speaking all I want to do is play music. I have only ever used their desktop app, though they do have a mobile app and a cloud service. I can’t imagine uploading my digital music anywhere else except Google, Apple or Amazon. I’ll talk more about that in a minute though.

Aside from the complete lack of cultural sensitivity when it came to naming their app, Tomahawk is a pretty awesome piece of software. I might even go so far as to say it’s the single best music app out there. I just wish they would pick another name. The product lead of the open source project, J is a super-talented guy who I like a lot. Having spent a good part of my career in music tech, I can say there are few devs like him that have been thinking about solving the problems he’s trying to solve with Tomahawk. I like supporting friends and have given the app a try over the time it has been in development, but for my own purposes it was overkill. I do use it from time to time, but I find the simplicity of Vox satisfies my needs most of the time.

I’ve been uploading my entire digital music collection to Dropbox for archiving and to Google Play to stream everything. The only significant to me drawback (for me) is that my lossless files are converted to 320 MP3s. The only time I care a lot is when I want to listen to my needle drops at full fidelity, otherwise the convenience wins out. I would think for most people, this isn’t going to be much of an issue. I have looked around at other solutions, but for the money and piece of mind that the company isn’t likley to go anywhere anytime soon, it’s tough to beat Google.

A Little Bit of Automation

Getting my music to Dropbox and Google Play is all handled automatically. I use a handy and amazing utility on my Mac called Hazel, which does a lot more than just help me with uploading music to my Dropbox. Another article perhaps. Hazel monitors a folder on my harddrive for music files and when it sees them, it moves those files to a specific Dropbox folder. The Google Play app also monitors folders that I define and uploads the music in the background, which is then accessible via Google Play on my Sonos.

Let me know if you have questions and by all means share how you manage your music. Also, If you enjoyed reading this and found it at all useful, please click on the little heart to recommend it to others and/or share it with people on your social network of choice.

The Invisible Woman: A Conversation With Björk | Pitchfork

I feel like every year I hear talk that it was a bad year for music or there weren’t any good new artists or bands. Bullshit. I am literally overwhelmed by the amount of great music, so much of which I don’t even know about until I start reading over lists like this one that people put together. Ordering the list isn’t easy and I don’t generally try, but it’s pretty much in order. There was no hesitation on my favorite album of the year, much to my wife’s chagrin. And it’s not even that she didn’t like the record. It was seemingly on repeat until she couldn’t take it any more.

This is the first year I didn’t assemble a downloadable .zip file in all the years I’ve been doing this list. I did create a playlist on Beats Music. And since most people I know don’t use Beats Music, I put together a YouTube playlist with all the songs (painstakingly sequenced of course). If you are inclined to re-create the playlist (in order, of course) on another streaming service, please tweet it out or just drop me a note and let me know [Edit: Jeff created an Rdio playlist and David created a Spotify playlist]. And if I missed anything you loved, let me know about that too.

The War On Drugs - Lost In A Dream
Run The Jewels - Run The Jewels 2
Ryan Adams - Ryan Adams
Tycho - Awake
The Coral - The Curse of Love
The Horrors - Luminous
Eagulls - Eagulls
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Wig Out At Jagbags
Wild Beasts - Present Tense
Damon Albarn - Everyday Robots
Beck - Morning Phase
Dum Dum Girls - Too True
Mac DeMarco - Salad Days
Glass Animals - Zaba
TV On The Radio - Seeds
Alvvays - Alvvays
alt-J - This Is All Yours
Spoon - They Want My Soul
Cloud Nothings - Here and Nowhere Else
Real Estate - Atlas
Aphex Twin - Syro
The New Pornographers - Brill Bruisers
First Aid Kit - Stay Gold
Parquet Courts - Sunbathing Animal
East India Youth - Total Strife Forever

It’s probably obvious, but I don’t listen to MP3s anymore, almost ever. And CDs? Remember those? I just sold a quarter of my CD collection to Amoeba last week and by the end of the month I don’t plan to have much of a CD collection at all. Who cares. They’ve been in storage boxes for several years. Nearly everything I want (or could want) to listen to is available on streaming services and I just don’t care about owning most of it. Crazy how fast things change, right?

MOG was the first streaming music service I used and it stuck. MOG is now Beats Music (which will be called something else since Apple acquired it last year) and that’s what I use. A considerable amount of time has gone into creating collections and playlists which makes the cost of switching music services, at least for me, pretty high at this point. That said, I’ve been exploring TIDAL recently, which I really like due to the high fidelity, especially playing over Sonos. Fidelity isn’t important to the vast majority of people. Heck, streaming albums isn’t important to the vast majority of people (for now). I appreciate the curated approach Beats Music took and have no reason to believe that’s going away. It’s also what I like about TIDAL in addition to the fidelity. I’ve discovered great music on both services, though I still find myself at a loss when I simply want to put a good album on without thinking much about it. 

How do you find out about new music? Have you listening habits changed? 

Wanna get emails about good music every once in a while from me?

Chuck Klosterman interviews Jimmy Page

Let’s go crazy: Inside the making of Purple Rain | The Verge

Move over classic rock, make room for classic rap

Time Spent

U2’s Forgettable Fire - The New Yorker

FLAC music streaming on your Sonos device just got interesting

soundcloud:

BIG NEWS! We are excited to announce that we’re launching #OnSoundCloud, a brand new program for creators! Get the lowdown on our blog. 

Very cool. Excited for the entire SoundCloud team.

brb…Deleting SoundCloud.

Prindle Rock And Roll Record Review Site

The Full Story Behind Our ‘Chinese Democracy’ Leak @ Antiquiet

1. James Blake, Overgrown “Life Around Here” (feat. Chance The Rapper)
2. Toro Y Moi, Anything In Return “Anything In Return”
3. Bibio, Silver Wilkinson “A Tout a L’heure”
4. Run The Jewels, Run The Jewels “Banana Clipper feat. Big Boi”
5. Thundercat, Apocalypse “Heartbreaks + Setbacks”
6. Vampire Weekend, Modern Vampires of The City “Step”
7. Phosphorescent, Muchado “Song For Zula”
8. Jon Hopkins, Immunity “Open Eye Signal”
9. Jonathan Wilson, Fanfare “Dear Friend”
10. Kanye West, Yeezus “Black Skinhead”
11. Iceage, You’re Nothing
12. DJ Koze, Amygdala
13. The National, Trouble Will Find Me
14. Savages, Silence Yourself
15. Volcano Choir, Repave
16. Midlake, Antiphon
17. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Push The Sky Away
18. Dawn of Midi, Dynomia
19. Queens of The Stone Age, …Like Clockwork
20. Yo La Tengo, Fade
21. Washed Out, Paracosm
22. Kurt Vile, Wakin On A Pretty Daze
23. Quasimoto, Yessir Whatever
24. Boards of Canada, Tomorrow’s Harvest
25. White Denim, Corsicana Lemonade

“Whole Lotta Love” for Artists on Spotify

How Selling Out Saved Indie Rock

Use ArtistLink to Promote your Merch on Spotify

The Secret of that Capitol Studios Sound. | A Continuous Lean.

Album reviews | Haim - Days Are Gone (Columbia) | COLLAPSE BOARD

Topspin Tumblr: Topspin Joins BitTorrent in Launch of Bundle for Publishers

PIXIES | Four New Songs

Henry Rollins' 20 Favorite Punk Albums - Los Angeles - Music - West Coast Sound - Print Version

Topspin Tumblr: MTV, VH1, CMT, & Monster Pledge $100,000 To Artists By Matching Tips On July 4th.

Topspin Tumblr: New Music Recommondation Pilot Program at Topspin

Topspin Tumblr: Bloody’s & Brunch with Topspin, MTV, CMT & VH1

Nirvana’s Home Videos: An Intimate Look at the Band’s Life Away From the Spotlight (1988) | Open Culture

Brad Barrish’s Best of 2012 Mix

Brian Whitman @ variogr.am: How music recommendation works – and doesn’t work

This was the first year that I felt out of touch with music. I feel like I spent a lot less time discovering music that in many years previous. This was the year that my monthly music mixes died, which is a real bummer. I miss spending the time on them. I am working on one to accompany this list, but I didn’t want to hold out on publishing. I seem to always do these things late. In any case, these are the best albums of the year. Hopefully you’ll discover something you didn’t know about previously. 

Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music

Tame Impala - Lonerism

Frank Ocean - Channel Orange

Father John Misty - Fear Fun

Michael Kiwanuka - Home Again

Django Django - Django Django

Flying Lotus - Until The Quiet Comes

Sharon Van Etten - Tramp

Cloud Nothings - Attack On Memory

Metz - Metz

Bobby Womack - The Bravest Man In The Universe

First Aid Kit - The Lion’s Roar

Neil Young - Psychedelic Pill

Twin Shadow - Confess

Spiritualized - Sweet Heart Sweet Light

Death Grips - The Money Store

Jessie Ware - Devotion

Yeasayer - Fragrant World

The Walkmen – Heaven

Purity Ring – Shrines

School of Seven Bells - Ghostory

Norah Jones - Little Broken Hearts

Torche – Harmonicraft

Beach House - Bloom

Melody’s Echo Chamber - Melody’s Echo Chamber

Did I miss anything? 

Topspin Tumblr: Future Sound Presentation: Nov. 2012

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This promotion ends in October, so sign up now. Here’s how you get this special pricing:

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Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers talk Scape, iPad apps and generative music | Music | guardian.co.uk

Topspin Tumblr: Artist of the Day: Fatboy Slim - Big Beach Bootique 5

‘American Pie’ And The Box Of Records A Father Left Behind | NCPR News from NPR

Autosalvage: The Psychedelic Band That Vanished : NPR

A Long, Drawn Out Trip: The “lost” animated short that introduced Pink Floyd to Gerald Scarfe - Boing Boing

Neil Halstead - Full Moon Rising by Brushfire Records on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

Bob Egan, Detective Extraordinaire, Finds the Real Locations of Iconic Album Covers | Open Culture

I’m sure I’m not the first person who enjoys music to search of the best and least expensive earphones with which to run and use for talking with my iPhone. There are a lot of “sports earphones” out there, but they all sound like shit. I probably read reviews of at least a dozen inexpensive earphones on Amazon. and finally decided on a set of Ultimate Ear 350vi’s. Terrible choice. The volume mysteriously adjusted when I ran with them and one of the earphones shorted out pretty quickly. Needless to say, I sent them back.

I’d been hesitant to try a pair of less expensive earphones, especially since I hadn’t heard of most of the brands. I dropped $27 hard-earned dollars on some MEElectronics M6P-BK’s and absolutely love them. I’ve been running with them and use them as my daily work earphones for Skype calls. It was hardly a risky purchase and since I bought them on Amazon, I knew I could send them back if they had issues. So far, they have had none. They have memory wire so they tuck behind the ears and stay securely in my ears, even when I’m running, come with a great assortment of ear pieces and sound terrific, especially for the price. I would definitely recommend them.

As an aside, while I was doing some research, I also recently came upon an article about the Monoprice 8320 earphones, which cost, get this, $8(!!). Whoa is right. They don’t come with a microphone, but at $8, they might be worth a try as well. For now, I’m happy with my MEElectronics.

David Lowery Might Be Right About Some Things, But He’s Wrong About Streaming, Money, and Artists | Evolver.fm

Topspin Tumblr: Paul Buchanan enters ‘The Web Years’ with Mid Air

Hooktheory analyzed the chords of 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what they found.

Five Mistakes Band & Label Sites Make | 43 Folders

Odd Jobs: Turning Your Ashes Into a Vinyl Record - Businessweek

Top Ten Jazz Albums for People Who Don’t Know Shit About Jazz

Dangerous Minds | The Beastie Boys when they actually were boys (and a girl) on cable access TV, 1984

John Peel’s Record Shelf

These Robotic Drums Are Controlled by an iPad [video]

1. Flying Lotus - Los Angeles
2. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
3. Sigur Ros - Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust
4. Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
5. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
6. Department Of Eagles - In Ear Park
7. Kid Cudi - Plain Pat & Emile Presents a KiD named CuDi
8. Everest - Ghost Notes
9. Deastro - Keeper’s
10. Atlas Sound - Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel
11. Portishead - Third
12. Hot Chip - Made In The Dark
13. Imaad Wasif - Strange Hexes
14. Fink -Distance and Time
15. M83 - Saturdays = Youth
16. Kings Of Leon - Only By The Night
17. Frightened Rabbit - The MIdnight Organ Fight
18. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
19. Bonnie “Prince” Billy - Lie Down In The Light
20. R.E.M. - Accelerate
21. The Whigs - Mission Control
22. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
23. Jim Noir - Jim Noir
24. Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles
25. Deerhunter - Microcastle

I suppose this is somewhat of an endorsement, but there’s much more to why I shop at Amazon and Amoeba than the fact that they both offer great selections. And while most of my reasoning is different for each retailer, there is a common thread - I can find anything I want, whether it’s a top Billboard album or a rare, out-of-print album.

If you purchase music online, chances are you’re shopping iTunes or Amazon. I’ve never been a big fan of the iTunes store because I don’t like to be told how I can use my music. I continued to buy most of my music on CD until fairly recently, when unprotected MP3s were being offered at 256kbps from Amazon. Maybe you don’t care that you can only burn your iTunes downloads 5 times. Honestly, I rarely burn them, if ever. I do share a lot of music though. I’m not dumping the contents of my music library on other people’s machines or sharing music via BitTorrent, but I do like making mixes and sharing them. You can’t do that with an iTunes download, unless you opt for the unprotected MP3. That’s always been the deal breaker for me. As much as I like the overall experience of the iTunes store, I think Amazon’s user experience with their MP3 Music Store, is superior to Apple’s. When I shop at Amazon I feel like I’m among fellow music fanatics. The opinions are usually intelligent and substantive, recommendations are usually spot-on and the overall experience is just more pleasant. I’m about as big of an Apple fan boy as you can be, but I won’t be buying my music online from them.

Amoeba is one of the reasons that I love living in LA. Perhaps not surprisingly, it’s one of my top 5 reasons. Amoeba is as much a record store as it is heaven on Earth. You can find pretty much anything you want, there’s people that know A LOT about music working at the store and they buy and sell used CDs. Find me a comparable brick and mortar retailer. You can’t. Amoeba is that good. I’m lucky enough to work a few blocks from the Hollywood location (currently the only LA location) and I visit fairly often. Some may find the experience of shopping at Amoeba daunting, and it certainly can be, but if you don’t have a lot of time to shop around, I highly recommend their end caps. The staff picks are so spot on, that a lot of times I’ll just pick something up because it’s recommended. I’ve only regretted doing that once. The used section is remarkable. If you’re willing to hunt, you can find some great albums at awesome prices.

I realize I’m an extreme case when it comes to shopping for music. For somoene that gets pretty much anything for free from the labels, I still spend at least $100/month on music. I want a great experience when I spend that money. For that reason Amazon and Amoeba are the two greatest places to buy music online.

Over the weekend I slapped up a quick site to help Laura sell some of her awesome shirts. They got some good attention from people at Bumbershoot. Pick one up and help spread the word.

Two of the greatest musical minds finally come together again. It’s been about 30 years since David Byrne and Brian Eno collaborated on anything. Everything That Happens Will Happen Today is released today and you should go buy it.

I was reading the Fashion Rocks magazine insert that came with the latest issue of Wired. In it there’s an excerpt from Danny Goldberg’s new book, Bumping Into Geniuses, which got me thinking about the time that I met Danny.

I don’t think my parents were ever really happy with the choices I made once I left the house and went to college at the University of Kansas. My dad always encouraged me though. My hunch is that he didn’t share all of the details with my mom, who was either more disapproving or just quiet about her disapproval. Either way, I didn’t really talk to her about any of it. I always talked to my dad, particularly about the music business. My dad was pretty much responsible for getting me interested in music at a very early age. Instead of fairy tales, he would tell me stories about Barry Gordy starting Motown or Quincy Jones producing a hit record with Michael Jackson. I assume he read books about these people, but now that I’m thinking about it, I never saw any books on them in the house. But there were lots of records to listen to, and I listened to all of them over and over.

As I grew up, I became obsessed with music. Whether it was listening to Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 or buying punk rock records at Streetside Records in Overland Park, Kansas, I knew I wanted to be a part of music. Since I wasn’t a talented musician and couldn’t sing, I decided that I was going to work behind the scenes. It all culminated when I went off to college and Lawrence, Kansas was probably one of the best places to be in the 90s if you weren’t in Seattle or Athens. I started working at KJHK in the production department and eventually worked my way up to hosting “Plow The Fields,” which was the local music show. I was also a college marketing rep for Sony Music and started as an intern at Red House Recording Studio (now Black Lodge Recording), but what I really wanted to do was to start a label. I asked my dad if I could take some money from my life savings account and with that deposit and an amazing band called Action Man, I started Barber’s Itch Records.

In 1995, I went to New York for CMJ. My dad was always urging me to meet with people when I went to New York, but I didn’t have any connections. My dad was active in the ACLU and served as the President of the affiliate board. At some point, and I can’t remember when, he testified as a psychologist against the PMRC and if memory serves (and it may not), that’s where my dad met Danny Goldberg. I’m sure he talked his ear off too, but he also used this meeting as a way to get me a meeting with Danny in New York, which he did. I vaguely remember meeting with Danny, playing him some music and seeking his advice on how to get acquired by a major or get my artists signed to Mercury. I think the meeting lasted all of about 15 minutes, but I was anything but discouraged. He told me to work hard, get my music out to as many people as I could and only then might something happen, but chances weren’t good. And that small chance was what drove me to keep at my little label. I didn’t sell many records, but it was an experience that I will never forget and it helped me decided what I was going to do for the rest of my life.

I’ve always had trouble motivating myself to exercise. I know it’s good for me. I know I’m not getting any younger, but I’m not fat (though my cholesterol is high now) and through the miracle of genetics, I have a decent build for someone who hasn’t consistantly worked out in years. I want to exercise, but I don’t want to do the work. Apparently there’s a pill now, but I’m not into taking pills. A couple of weeks back I was reading my daily dose of RSS feeds and came upon a pushup workout. It required little time, worked all sorts of muscles and it sounds pretty badass to say you can do 100 pushups, which, if I followed the regimine, I would be able to do in 6 weeks. Sold.

I’m a week in to the workout and while it’s not easy, it’s pretty fun to do and is a great, energetic start to my day. I’m taking a photo of myself after each workout, and will do one of those fancy time-lapsed movies at the end of the 6 weeks. Hell, maybe I’ll go for 200, but I don’t wanna get to far ahead of myself. If you’re curious about what I do pushups to every morning, my choice:

The Black Angels - Directions To See A Ghost Download from Amazon

In addition to the pushups, I bought a new skateboard over the weekend and plan on skating around Hollywood a little during lunch and to blow off some steam during the day, when possible. It’s a Mark Gonzalez Krooked deck with Independent trucks, Bones Swiss bearings and Spitfire wheels. After years of not skateboarding following a nasty fall, I’m super rusty, but getting my confidence back little by little.

I may need to add another activity in there somewhere, but I’m totally determined to get in shape without stepping foot in a gym.

The good men of Everest will be hitting the road, covering the west coast, beginning later this month. They’ll be playing with some other incredible artists.

8/20 San Francisco, California - The Independent (w/ Two Gallants, Howlin Rain, we have a large guestlist so check in with me!) 8/23 San Francisco, California - Outside Lands Festival (w/ Tom Petty, Ben Harper, M. Ward, Devendra Banhart) San Francisco, California 8/24 Sacramento, California - Old Ironsides (w/ Parson Red Heads, An Angle)  Sacramento, California 8/26 Seattle, Washington - Tractor Tavern (w/ Parson Red Heads, Elder Mason) 8/27 Salem, Oregon - The Space (w/ Parson Red Heads, Easterly) 8/28 Portland, Oregon - The Artistery (w/ The Parson Red Heads & Oh Darling)

Related: Check out their photos from the recent European MMJ tour and pick up Ghost Notes at Amazon.com if you don’t have it.

I think about my music listening habits all the time. The music sometimes reflects my mood and I’m fickle as all hell. On to the next favorite band. It’s too easy to find a new band all the time with the amount of music I find online and get turned on to . I make my monthly mixes every month, which reflect my listening habits and sometimes a guilty pleasure or two. And then there’s the albums that I always seem to go back to, some of which you can see reflected in my last.fm profile. There have been a lot of great records so far this year and it’s never too early to start thinking about my year-end, best-of list, right?

Deastro Keeper’s I originally heard Deastro on the free and absolutely amazing Ghostly Swim compilation. The whole thing is pretty stunning and you can’t beat the price. The Deastro album is only available through eMusic for the time being.

Fleet Foxes Fleet Foxes If you haven’t heard of these guys yet, you probably will at some point this year. They get compared to Band of Horses and My Morning Jacket, but that’s only because of the lead singer’s voice. The similarities stop there. This band must be experienced live as well. They put on a Majestic show.

Jubilee In With the Out Crowd & Rebel Hiss Jubilee hasn’t released their debut album yet, but that didn’t stop me from giving them the best $20 I’ve spent this year. If the singles are any indication of what’s to come, this band could be on their way to greatness, which they deserve. Powered by Topspin, this is some of the best rock I’ve heard in a long time.

KiD CuDi A Kid Named Cudi One of the best hip-hop mixtapes I’ve heard all year and another free album that I would happily pay for. Save your money for his debut, which is due later this year. Everyone is gonna be talking about this dude.